KRGMusings from the Chair

What is research?• Accumulation of information?• Developing theories?• Creating new knowledge?• Proving something is true or false?• Stuff your grandmother already knows?

Research: The Scientific Method• The systematic pursuit of knowledge with a view: • To describe

• Facts, observations, data• Validity, reliability, objectivity

• To explain• Laws

• Stable dependency between variables

• To predict• Theories and models

• Constructs, hypotheses, postulates

Scientific method• Process versus product

• Cumulative & iterative (new ideas build on the old)• Public (ideas are open to discussion and inspection)• Parsimonious (describe, explain, predict)• Objective (‘unbiased’)

• Misconceptions about science• Science is always correct (informed opinion)• Science is always conducted via an idealized method (try and try again)• Science is always objective (confirmation bias; beliefs; preconceptions)• Power/abuse of numbers (“Misunderstanding of probability may be the greatest

impediment to scientific literacy.” Stephen Jay Gould)

• Limits to a shared understanding because of race, culture, gender, social history• Values and beliefs inextricably linked to what is viewed as legitimate science

• Informed consumers of knowledge• Given a thimble of facts we make a bathtub of generalizations

Misunderstandings arising from ignoring the condition• Many research studies involving people study a fairly

restricted group. Thus they result in conditional probabilities with a fairly restricted condition. Unfortunately, all too often this restriction is not emphasized enough. For example, a study of a cholesterol-lowering medication might be restricted to men between the ages of 45 and 65 who have previously had a heart attack. If a physician decides, on the basis of this study, to prescribe the medication to a woman who is 70 years old and has no previous record of heart attacks, the physician is extrapolating; the applicability of the study to this quite different group of people is questionable.

The ‘Hard’ Sciences• In at least one sense the social sciences are truly the “hard”

sciences. A problem unique to these sciences is that the subjects can read. Because of this, developing a theory to understand and predict an election outcome or a stock market crash is fundamentally more difficult than predicting a chemical reaction or an earthquake. In the latter cases, the publication of the theory will not effect the prediction. However, for an election or stock market crash, if the prediction is made public, and the theory is convincing, individuals have incentives to take advantage of this information and alter their behaviour. They made decide to sell off their stocks if they believe a crash is imminent which may precipitate the crash earlier than predicted thus making the theory wrong. Any good theory must work even when the participants know the theory, that is, the theory must survive its own publication.

Big Data

Big Data

Big Data

The age of big data• D3M or DDDM (data driven decision making)• DIDM (data informed decision making)

• Data includes numbers, images, text, video, data streams

• Predict will need 1.5 million data literate managers and 200,000 individuals with ‘deep analytic skills’

• Needs from economics to politics to sport• No area will be untouched

• Moneyball• Use of data in sports like tennis and soccer• Public health policy• Mapping sporting events onto crime hot spots

• Double edged sword• Bigger the data the bigger the potential bias errors

Big Data

Managing Big Data• Understand the underlying question• Formulate hypotheses• Collect data• Gather insights• Make recommendations• Question driven research process

Writing your abstract

Question

Literature

Purpose

Hypotheses

Method

Analysis

Discussion

Deductive (Quantitative)

Start with a theory that has specific hypotheses that are then tested

Inductive (Qualitative)

Start with observations and develop hypotheses and a theory

Process of Analysis