LCS 312

• Ontology


  The study of what exists, and how things that exist are understood and categorized
• Epistemology


  How we come to have legitimate knowledge of the world; rules for knowing
• Realism


  The view that the external world exists independently of perception
• Empiricism


  The view that all knowledge is limited to what can be observed through the senses
• Positivism


  The view that all true knowledge is scientific and is best pursued by scientific method
• Relativism


  The view that there are no universals, and that things like truth, morals and culture can only be understood in relation to their own socio-historic context
• Social constructionism


  Theories of knowledge that emphasize that the world is constructed by human beings as they interact and engage in interpretation
• Subjectivism


  Emphasizes the subjective elements in experience and accepts that personal experiences are the foundation for factual knowledge
• Literature review


  A written overview of major writings and other sources on a selected topic
• Theoretical framework


  The structure that can hold or support a theory of a research study
• Qualitative approach


  An approach to research highly reliant on qualitative data (words, images, experiences and observations that are not quantified)
• Quantitative approach


  An approach to research highly reliant on quantified data (numerical data as well as concepts we code with numbers)
• Mixed approach


  An approach to research that utilizes both qualitative and quantitative data
• Methodology


  Overarching, macro-level frameworks that offer principles of reasoning associated with particular paradigmatic assumptions that legitimate various schools of research
• Methods


  The actual micro-level techniques used to collect and analyse data
• Tools


  The devices used in the collection of research data
• Methodological design


  The plan for conducting your research project
• Hypothesis


  Logical conjecture (hunch or educated guess) about the nature of a relationship between two or more variables expressed in the form of a testable statement
• Credibility


  The quality, capability or power to elicit belief
• Experiment


  A rigorous and controlled search for cause and effect
• Ethnography


  The study of cultural groups in a bid to understand, describe and interpret a way of life from the point of view of its participants
• Phenomenology


  Study of phenomena as they present themselves in individuals' direct awareness and experience
• Ethnomethodology


  The study of the methods that individuals use to accomplish their daily actions and make sense of their social world
• Indexicality


  The contextual nature of behaviour and talk, in particular the cues that conform to a recognizable pattern that we use to make meaning
• Mixed methodology


  Incorporating quantitative and qualitative paradigms, approaches, concepts, methods and/or techniques in a single study
• Basic research


  Research driven by a desire to expand knowledge rather than a desire for situation improvement
• Applied research


  Research that has an express goal of going beyond knowledge production towards situation improvement
• Emancipatory research


  Research that exposes underlying ideologies in order to liberate those oppressed by them
• Evaluative research


  Research that attempts to determine the value of some initiative
• Programme logic


  A planning, communication and evaluation model/tool that articulates the details of an initiative, its objectives and how success will be measured
• Action research


  Research strategies that tackle real-world problems in participatory and collaborative ways in order to produce action and knowledge in an integrated fashion through a cyclical process
• Criticality


  Challenging taken-for-granted ways of knowing
• Radical views


  Advocating fundamental or revolutionary changes in current practices, conditions, institutions or ideologies
• Emancipatory goals


  To work towards transformative change
• Population


  The total membership of a defined class of people, objects or events
• Census


  A survey that does not rely on a sample
• Sample


  A subset of a population
• Sampling


  The process of selecting elements of a population for inclusion in a research study
• Random sampling


  Process by which each element in a population has an equal chance of being selected for inclusion in a sample
• Central limit theorem


  A random sample of observations for any distribution with a finite mean and finite variance will have a mean that follows a normal distribution