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This article was downloaded by: [Northeastern University]On: 15 November 2014, At: 14:34Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
International Journal of SocialResearch MethodologyPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tsrm20
Becoming a behavioral scienceresearcher. A guide to producingresearch that mattersKatrin Prager a , Marco Razzi b , Lia Blaj-Ward c & Jeremy J.Schmidt da Macaulay Land Use Research Institute , Aberdeen, Scotlandb Facoltà di Scienze della Formazione University of Genova , Italyc Nottingham Trent International College , UKd Trudeau Scholar, Department of Geography University ofWestern Ontario , CanadaPublished online: 27 Jul 2011.
To cite this article: Katrin Prager , Marco Razzi , Lia Blaj-Ward & Jeremy J. Schmidt(2011) Becoming a behavioral science researcher. A guide to producing research thatmatters, International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 14:4, 327-335, DOI:10.1080/13645579.2011.597123
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2011.597123
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BOOK REVIEWS
Becoming a behavioral science researcher. A guide to producing research thatmatters, by Rex B. Kline, New York, The Guilford Press, 2009, 367 pp., £24.00(paperback), ISBN 9781593858377, £37.50 (hardback), ISBN10: 1593858388,ISBN13: 9781593858384
Although the subtitle ‘A guide to producing research that matters’ seems very ambi-tious, this book has the potential to make a valuable tool to achieve this aim. Thebook is aimed at students conducting a research project who already have basicknowledge of research methods and statistics but who are in some ways lacking‘the bigger picture’. This wider view relates to an understanding of the wholeresearch process, from designing research to answer a particular question, gatheringdata, analysing and interpreting results, to finally presenting and critically reflectingon their implications. With exercises and suggested answers, further references andillustrative examples from psychology, education and health, this book is an excel-lent resource for both behavioural science students and their instructors.
Although written for the behavioural sciences, much of what is said in the firstpart of the book (1 Promise and Problems) and in the last part (III. 9 Writing and10. Presentations) is applicable to other areas as well. I particularly appreciate theclear and open way that Kline points out the potential and possible limitations ofresearch. Even advanced researchers should spend some time thinking about thereasons for wasted resources in research, the gaps between research and policy/prac-tice, and the ‘economy of publish or perish’, as well as considering what implica-tions this has for their own work. Knowing about these aspects of research willenable a student to make a more conscious choice about whether he or she wantsto become a researcher.
In text book style, Kline deals in a well-structured manner with three main com-ponents of research, i.e. designing research, analysing data, and measurement. Thisstructure, along with the introduction to each chapter explaining its scope and par-ticularities, makes the density of the material less daunting. However, for a readerwithout prior experience in statistics this main part of the book could be toodemanding, despite selected exercises and the inclusion of a ‘Review of StatisticsFundamentals’ as an annexe to Chapter 5. This is partly due to the complexity ofconcepts and methods that are explained, and partly due to the use of acronyms thatare only spelt out once. A list of acronyms would have helped here.
Kline is a strong advocate of statistics reform, and his arguments are logical andwell-reasoned. To a mixed methods researcher, this does not sound completely new,but it will provide substantial arguments in discussions with very statistics-focussedcolleagues. There is a place for statistical significance tests, but, as Kline shows,they are not always an indicator of quality or importance of results, and do not
International Journal of Social Research MethodologyVol. 14, No. 4, July 2011, 327–335
ISSN 1364-5579 print/ISSN 1464-5300 onlineDOI: 10.1080/13645579.2011.597123http://www.informaworld.com
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prove any hypothesis (128). I fully agree with the author’s suggestion to place moreemphasis on reporting effect sizes and confidence intervals (detailed 153ff) and theimportance of replication.
The book is most useful for students who have previously carried out one orseveral research projects. With prior research experience it will be easier to relate tosome of the problems discussed in this book and to critically reflect on their ownassumptions or mistakes. I hope this book encourages students to question and readup on what they hear in lectures and to enter a constructive discourse with their lec-turers and fellow students.
Most examples in the book are taken from research in psychology, education andhealth, although what is said is just as valid for areas such a natural resource manage-ment, policy making, adoption and diffusion of innovations, environmental behaviouror decision making of individuals and groups. This requires students and researchersin other behavioural research areas to translate the concepts to their own fields.
Ample references are provided for further reading, and Kline’s outline of whateach reference is about in one sentence facilitates an informed choice. An additionalstrength of the book is the coverage of writing and presenting research results(chapters 9 and 10) because being able to effectively communicate findings to arange of audiences is an essential professional activity, without which researchefforts would be wasted. Again, there are some ideas, observations and findings inthese sections that are not only relevant to students but should be taken seriouslyby senior researchers as well. There are still too many badly written papers andoverloaded Powerpoint presentations around. Overall, Kline has therefore produceda valuable book that keeps to the promise of its title.
Katrin PragerMacaulay Land Use Research Institute, Aberdeen, Scotland
[email protected]� 2011, Katrin Prager
International handbook of survey methodology by Joop Hox, Edith Desiree deLeeuw, Don Dillman, Mahwah, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc., 2008, 560pp., illustrated edition, £75(hardback), ISBN10: 0805857524, ISBN13: 9780805857528; £24.95(paperback), ISBN 0805857532, ISBN13: 9780805857535
This international handbook, edited and partly written by Edith de Leeuw, JoopHox and Don Dillman, arose after the participation of two of the editors (as teach-ers) at a training course on survey design, during a meeting organized at the Inter-national Statistical Institute in Berlin in 2004. They noted especially the manydifferences between countries with reference to data collection and analysis prob-lems, but also the existence of common approaches and elements, e.g. about sampledesign, writing questions, data processes and analysis of results.
So in this handbook, the authors tackle various methodological topics and alsoconsider, from an international perspective, many problems related to typology ofresearchers’ training, variable response, usable techniques and methods, standardsfor data collection, structure and contents of official registers, etc. The handbook iscomposed of 26 chapters, that in summary are further classified into 5 macro-topics:this allows an agreeable and clear reading, also due to the step-by-step developmentof all arguments.
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The first macro-topic (Foundations) introduces readers to some basic argumentsand related problems. Despite the fact that they are all very interesting, I consideredthree chapters particularly stimulating: ‘Psychology of Asking Questions’, in whichfour authors discuss the importance of this theme, that is related to many aspects, e.g. the form of questions, terms used, but also the final typology of respondents.
The chapter about ‘Non-response’ is also interesting, because of its potentialeffects on research, especially in terms of sampling failure, but also of lack ofanswers, as underlined in other parts of the same handbook. Last, but not least, Iparticularly appreciated the chapter on ‘Comparative Survey research: goals andchallenges’. During recent years the need for comparative information hasincreased considerably, stimulating improvements in this area. An example is repre-sented by two famous international research projects: TIMSS, that tests the diffu-sion of mathematical and science knowledge in involved educational systems, andOCSE PISA, aimed at testing the achieved level in lecture, mathematics, scienceand other skills of involved students from 67 different countries (see also 62, textand note 1).
The second macro-topic (Design) aims to increase knowledge about all argu-ments related to survey design: from international organizations’ ethical codes, withspecial reference to privacy problems, to sample and data analysis, to questionnairestructure. Probability sampling represents, as is well known, the basis of statisticalinference of the achieved results, if its procedures are well developed and con-ducted. At the same time the construction of a questionnaire is a fundamental partof the research process, because of its implications: question significance for allactors involved, their univocal comprehension, i.e. absence of conceptual and lexi-cal ambiguities, with special respect to respondents who are the final informationholders and who may hold it in different way. In his chapter ‘The logic and psy-chology of constructing questionnaires’ Don Dillman also underlines the attentionrequired to obtain good responses from the questionnaire with respect to the chosenmode of interviewing: face-to-face, by telephone, with Interactive Voice Response(IVR) technique, self-administered (e.g. by mail) and by Web. This macro-topicends with a contribution about the importance of pretesting, due to information thatcan be achieved by related pretest results: in particular the author illustrates six newmethods to test questions (see 183–97).
In the third macro-topic (Implementations) the contributions of various authorsallow the reader to deepen the content of techniques or methods, e.g. face-to-faceinterviews, telephone survey, self administrated questionnaires, Internet surveys,IVR, and all situations in which researchers could choose a logical and fruitful mixof them. With reference to the ‘face-to-face interview’ chapter, the author thinksabout the interaction between interviewer and respondent, in particular the (positiveand negative) effects of the researcher’s personal presence. From this basic conceptderives the analysis of other arguments, for example, the best way to explain theresearch goals to different respondents, the presentation of the research centre andthe same interviewer rule, the best way to illustrate questions and to obtain answers,with the aim of achieving the most reliable and valid information. In the ‘Telephonesurvey’ chapter, the author notes all the advantages of this technique but also thedisadvantages ‘inducted’ by new information technologies, especially the abandon-ment of land-line phones, the diffusion of mobile phones and the absence of amobile numbers list, the enormous diffusion of Skype, based on email address, etc.(see also the related part in the above-mentioned contribution by Dillman). All these
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aspects suggest that it may be preferable to use a telephone survey as an integrativeand not exclusive mode to contact respondents and/or collect data.
The chapter on ‘Self-administered Questionnaires’ (written by Edith de Leeuwand Joop Hox) presents the mail survey (in my opinion the ‘Total Design Method’paragraph is very interesting: see 245), the self-administered survey on groups(especially stimulating the contents of ‘Surveying school’), all forms of Web survey,with particular attention, as illustrated in the chapter ‘Internet surveys’, as means ofinvitation and interaction, incentives for respondents, but also on line instrumentediting, that could be an important reason for failure of a research project, ifresearchers do not take the right care. This macro-topic ends with the chapter‘When and Why’, in which de Leeuw, Dillman and Hox discuss mixed-mode sur-veys (see examples 303–4) and also on their ‘strengths and weaknesses’ (see para-graph on implications, 310 ss.).
The fourth macro-topic (Data analysis) is focused on data analysis and statisti-cal treatments. In my opinion, this is a most complex argument for people notexpert in statistical reasoning, due to the need for specific skills, and this is true forall four chapters that comprise this section. I recommend in particular the descrip-tion of statistical packages like SPSS, but also the introduction to other programs ofwhich the author of this chapter gives links for free temporary downloads (e.g.WESVAR). The section ‘Effects on measurement errors’ (by Joop Hox) is alsostimulating, so important because of ‘strong effects on the results of the analysisthat does not account for these errors’ (401). In particular he considers that ‘A pow-erful approach to measurement is to frame the analysis as a Structural EquationModel (SEM), . . . a general data analysis model, which include as special casesmultiple regression analysis (mra), analysis of covariance (ancova) and multivariateancova (mancova)’ (391).
The fifth (and last) macro-topic (Special Issues) includes various areas: ‘SurveyDocumentation’, that ameliorates and implements the traditional concept of a code-book; ‘Survey Quality’, split into ‘Product’, ‘Process’ and ‘Organization’ levels,main stakeholders, instrument control and related indicators (see 427, Figure 22.2);‘Interviewer training’, a basic topic to achieve the best ability of interviewersinvolved in cooperation with respondents and in data collection phases (seeTable 23.1, 455); ‘Sensitive Topics’, that need particular attention because theycould produce many problems, for example, in sample phase or during the samequestionnaire administering. In my opinion the ‘Panel Survey’ chapter is also veryinteresting, in which the authors tell us that, on the one hand, this kind of techniqueis complicated to manage, but on the other hand it is sometimes the only way toobtain data in different moments on the same topics from the same respondent sam-ple. The last chapter is dedicated to ‘Surveys without questions’, i.e. the opportunityto use secondary data official registers rather than to collect data from the field. Irecognize too all the advantages of these registers and I also recommend their use,but I suggest researchers should do it with care, because in many countries they areoften not constructed for research goals, but chiefly for administrative needs andusage. And this is so evident when a researcher looks for data in his/her countryand finds them not in the best format for his/her aims. Probably, this is only a realproblem for some countries in Europe or in other States, not for USA, but I never-theless note this issue.
The International Handbook of Survey Methodology is, in my opinion, an excel-lent support for university undergraduate and masters students: in fact, the editors
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are able to present and analyse all their themes very clearly, also in the case ofcomplex ones, e.g. the macro-topic of data analysis, as I have already noted. More-over, they use an exhaustive approach and they demonstrate their highest scientificcompetence to tackle all the arguments they have introduced.
The structure of the chapters is also clear: in fact, they all contain: (a) introduc-tions, aimed to perfectly clarify all the following contents; (b) boxes that add clarifi-cations and synthesis where necessary and convenient; (c) summaries that thereaders could also consult before true ‘immersion’ in the details and (d) essentialglossaries. The handbook is also supported by an in-depth bibliography, with partic-ular reference to recent books, but also to some more traditional ones.
Marco RazziFacoltà di Scienze della Formazione
University of Genova, [email protected]
� 2011, Marco Razzi
Action research in teaching and learning: a practical guide to conducting peda-gogical research in universities, by Lin S. Norton, London, Routledge, 2008, 266pp., £23.99 (paperback), ISBN 978-0-415-43794-3 (paperback), 978-0-415-46846-6(hardback), 978-0-203-87043-3 (electronic)
The book provides comprehensive, context-aware guidance to UK-based highereducation (HE) practitioners wishing to carry out research with a view to improvingacademic aspects of the student experience in their own institutions. The author dis-cusses and exemplifies methodological assumptions and procedural issues related toaction research in higher education in a reader-friendly manner, without sacrificingscholarly rigour. While acknowledging the range of schools of action research andtheir different theoretical allegiances, Norton proposes her own definition as fol-lows: ‘the fundamental purpose of pedagogical action research is to systematicallyinvestigate one’s own teaching/learning facilitation practice with the dual aim ofmodifying practice and contributing to theoretical knowledge’ (xvi).
The discussion of action research is informed by Fanghanel’s (2007) distributionof influences on academic practice into three main categories – the macro (or insti-tutional) level, the meso level (the department or discipline) and the micro level(individual beliefs on teaching held by a lecturer). Fanghanel’s framework invites acomplex treatment of the contextual parameters for higher education actionresearch. It is the focus on the UK HE context that lends originality to Norton’s textand differentiates it from similar methodological guides on action research in educa-tion. Norton achieves a seamless synthesis of methodology and HE pedagogy inher proposed version of pedagogic action research.
Norton reverses the macro–meso–micro framework to focus first on individualfactors (the micro level) and puts forward, in the opening chapter, a number ofreflective questions about higher education practitioners’ conceptions of teachingand the place of teaching within academic practice. As well as reflective questions,the opening chapter contains a number of vignettes of pedagogical issues thathigher education practitioners may attempt to change. These vignettes are thenrevisited in subsequent chapters, where the author exemplifies their development
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into full-fledged research projects. HE practitioners are offered, throughout thebook, tools and resources to explore their practice and make the transition to reflec-tive practitioner and pedagogical action researcher.
Chapter 2 links reflective practice to pedagogical action research, emphasizesthe benefits of reflection on new academics’ development and shows how pedagogi-cal action research offers a structured framework for reflection and mitigates againstthe inevitable limitations of self-analysis or insufficiently insightful student or peerfeedback. Chapter 3 offers an introduction to the scholarship of teaching and learn-ing (SoTL), drawing primarily on Kreber (2002), Kreber (2005) to show how thisUS-generated approach (www.issotl.org), which favoured rewarding teaching devel-opment in addition to discipline-specific research, was recontextualized in UKhigher education. The same chapter then contrasts the views on SoTL held byexpert and novice academics and makes a case for engaging with knowledge gener-ated within the SoTL framework to improve students’ learning experience not onlyin specific local contexts but also at the level of higher education systems.
Chapter 4 makes the case for pedagogical action research. It presents a historyand typology of action research and discusses its core characteristics (e.g. cyclicaland participative nature, systematicity). It puts forward an extensive list of purposesof pedagogical action research (e.g. improved effectiveness and quality of teachingand learning, greater understanding on the part of university academics of beliefs,concepts, theories, own practice and expertise), addresses criticisms levelled ataction research and emphasizes that, in order for such research to be successful, itneeds to emerge from the grassroots up rather than be imposed in a top-down fash-ion.
The remainder of the book follows the logical stages of the research process.The treatment of each stage is thorough and detailed, without sacrificing readability.Lists of additional resources accompany chapters 5–11 and the appendices containpractical examples of relevant documents, useful for readers coming from a disci-pline background outside the social sciences.
Norton argues convincingly in favour of pedagogical action research. True tothe spirit of the research tradition which forms the focus of her book, she hopes tobuild research capacity within individual practitioners and encourage the creation oflocal support networks. She also aims to initiate change on a larger scale andenhance the profile of pedagogical research within the higher education landscape.The latter, however, appears to be a projected outcome of individual capacity devel-opment, as the volume does not discuss in detail parameters for large-scale change.
As an HE researcher and practitioner currently working towards developing edu-cational research capacity within a team of dedicated practitioners, I have been ableto rely on the vignettes to give substance to abstract methodological issues and toillustrate the logical progression of a research process, perils and pitfalls included.The SoTL grounding of the book helped guide the team towards a more complexframing of research questions. Readers based outside the UK might find the volumesomewhat less accessible due to its high level of context specificity. Nevertheless,SoTL’s international recognition mitigates against this and Norton’s volume is avaluable addition to the plethora of methodological guidebooks available on actionresearch. Education-based practitioners who wish to acquire more in-depth knowl-edge of the epistemological underpinnings of action research and the debates sur-rounding this methodology may wish to supplement their reading with Noffke andSomekh’s (2009) Sage Handbook. Alternatively, HE lecturers engaged in exploring
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educational practice as part of a professional doctorate may find this volume a valu-able companion to Drake and Heath (2010).
Lia Blaj-WardNottingham Trent International College, UK
� 2011, Lia Blaj-Ward
References
Drake, P., & Heath, L. (2010). Practitioner research at doctoral level: Developing coherentresearch methodologies. London: Routledge.
Fanghanel, J. (2007). Investigating university lecturer’s pedagogical constructs in the workingcontext. York: Higher Education Academy. Retrieved 25 March, 2011, from http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/York/documents/ourwork/research/fanghanel.pdf.
Kreber, C. (2002). Controversy and consensus on the scholarship of teaching. Studies in HigherEducation, 27(2), 151–167.
Kreber, C. (2005). Charting a critical course on the scholarship of university teaching movement.Studies in Higher Education, 30(4), 389–406.
Noffke, S.E., & Somekh, B. (2009). The SAGE handbook of educational action research.London: Sage.
Globalizing the research imagination, edited by Jane Kenway and JohannaFahey, London, Routledge, 2009, 144 pp., US$37.95, £21.99 (paperback), ISBN0415412226, ISBN13: 9780415412223
Few works on methodology manage to be examples of the arguments they present.Jane Kenway and Johanna Fahey’s Globalizing the Research Imagination is an excep-tion. Structured as an introductory essay and six interviews, Kenway and Faheyprompt attention toward, and seek to address problems associated with, globalization,research and the role of imagination. To do so, they present the transcripts of theirconversations with a cross section of experts from anthropology, geography, globalstudies, philosophy and sociology. These transcripts cover issues of conceptual, meth-odological and pedagogical techniques (the latter mainly for graduate supervision)and are contextualized by an interpretive essay, which is where this review begins.
Without preface, Kenway and Fahey open this work by arguing that the imagi-nation is the site at which epistemic and ontological pressure may disrupt cognitive,disciplinary and research dogmas regarding what is commonly referred to as ‘glob-alization’. They contrast the philosophy of Cornelius Castoriadis with Kantian andother modern[ist] ideas wherein the imagination is an inventive and creative cogni-tive capacity of the subject. Castoriadis, on the editor’s reading, recovers an Aristo-telian view of the ‘prime’ or ‘radical’ imagination that is operant prior toontological distinctions between reality and fiction. This primacy implies a spacewhere the construction of meaning, taxonomy and episteme are not ontologicallydetermined but are vitally and intractably linked to how the imagination construc-tively constitutes socio-historical worlds. The editors employ this philosophy of theimagination to unsettle traditional research categories by arguing that our imagina-tion is actively engaged in the generation of ontic categories and should therefore
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be given an active place in knowledge production. The upshot, argue Kenway andFahey, is that the imagination can articulate with research agendas that seek to dis-rupt intellectual programs that suppose reason and rationality are the guiding forceof knowledge and the primary criteria for legitimacy. Hence, the imagination is botha constitutive and creative site for theorizing about the construction of ‘worlds’ andof the types of research conducive to understanding ‘global’ processes. To this end,the intellectuals they interview – Arjun Appaduari, Raewyn Connell, Doreen Mas-sey, Aihwa Ong, Fazal Rizvi and Saskia Sassen – are introduced as thinkers whoemploy a research imagination that actively confronts the ontological categoriesthrough which processes of globalization are researched and understood.
Methodologically, the six chapters of interview transcripts are informally struc-tured as a progression through how globalization is conceptualized, a considerationof different disciplinary perspectives (idiographic to each interviewee’s self-position-ing within the academy and their interests) and suggestions for how graduate studentsupervision may encourage a global research imagination. There are several recurrentand/or overlapping themes. One is the nation-state and the impacts of imaginingresearch itself, and research on globalization in specific, through this lens. Withregard to the former, Connell notes how the role of national interests in researchfunding bears directly on the history of disciplinary boundaries and theoretical con-cerns. The long-standing history of geography and the military comes to mind. Oth-ers highlight how research that takes the nation-state as given tacitly assents tonormative categories for explaining experiences of citizenship and ethics (Ong, Sas-sen, Massey). With regard to the latter, Rizvi and several other interviewees (i.e.Appadurai) identify the union of modernity and the nation-state as a site for contest-ing homogenous conceptions of globalization that are explained, for instance,through narratives of colonial and post-colonial scholarship. Several other themesthat work in tandem with problems of the nation-state are also addressed. Theseinclude those of territory, history, space, commodity/labour and international law.
Not all of the interviewees have entirely compatible conceptions of how weshould imagine the global. For instance, Rizvi views mobility as a key feature whileSassen objects to ‘. . .the notion that globalization entails necessarily mobility andcrossing borders’ (116). The editors do not resolve these tensions and this leavessome nice loose ends upon which further discussion and critical investigation maytake place. Here, I am thinking predominantly in terms of how this book may servea pedagogical function since the editor’s introductory essay makes (but does notexplain) various judgments regarding what aspects of the interview transcripts arerelevant for framing issues of the imagination vis-à-vis globalization. In this sense,the editor’s laudable research ethic leaves bare issues regarding transparency in dataanalysis and opens room for critiques that may sharpen understanding regarding theauthorial role in theorizing.
Globalizing the Research Imagination is a valuable resource for four audiences.Those interested in the growing literature on the imagination and its intersectionswith various disciplinary perspectives will find an informed, enlightened dialogue.Academics in the humanities and social sciences may gain insight from thinkers onglobalization in a format that crosses disciplinary boundaries and which also providesmaterial for opening discussions of the relationship between supervisors and graduatestudents. Researchers and practitioners working on global problems will find chal-lenging and often provocative arguments regarding the role of the imagination onissues of theory, epistemic rigour and on how research agendas create and populate
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ontological categories. Finally, the format of the book will provide a pedagogicalentry point for issues of framing and interpreting semi-structured interviews and fortheorizing from qualitative data more generally. The broad catchment for this bookreveals that Kenway and Fahey have provided a thoughtful, engaging and innovativeapproach to the world of research programs tasked with (re)imagining the global.
Jeremy J. SchmidtTrudeau Scholar, Department of Geography
University of Western Ontario, [email protected]
� 2011, Jeremy J. Schmidt
Katrin PragerMacaulay Land Use Research Institute, Aberdeen, Scotland
E-mail: [email protected]� 2011, Katrin Prager
Marco RazziFacoltà di Scienze della Formazione University of Genova, Italy
E-mail: [email protected]� 2011, Marco Razzi
Lia Blaj-WardNottingham Trent International College, UK
E-mail: [email protected]� 2011, Lia Blaj-Ward
Jeremy J. SchmidtTrudeau Scholar, Department of Geography University of Western Ontario, Canada
E-mail: [email protected]� 2011, Jeremy J. Schmidt
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