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Madhukar Kunam 
Week11.pptxCOIT20270 Application Development for Mobile Platforms Week 11: Researching Mobile Systems
Dr. R. Balsys, CQU, 2018.
Week 11 – Research vs. Scholarship
Scholarship consists of collecting books and articles with view to study or interpret the data, e.g. going to the library to study information for an essay
Research is a process of inquiry that involves the purposeful, systematic and rigorous collection, analysis and interpretation of data to gain new knowledge
Research needs to be differentiated from scholarship
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Why study (a bit of) research in Mobile systems?
As with any new technology we must learn the pro’s and con’s of the technology. To realistically determine these requires application of the scientific method
To be able to critique a technology means we need to understand philosophy so we can get to the meaning of things
It is common to use surveys or other instruments to gain feedback or in usability studies, and mobile devices represent an opportunity for this
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What is Science?
The Oxford dictionary defines science as:
The state of fact or knowing
Knowledge obtained by study
A particular branch of knowledge
There are two main ways of knowing:
Empiricism - which is through trust in the information gained through the use of the senses
Rationalism – which is the use of the mind to infer relationships and understanding
We need to introduce and define a group of words to help us discuss the philosophy of the sciences
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Important terms- Philosophy
According to Bertrand Russel (1946) “Philosophy, as I understand the word is something intermediate between theology and science. Like theology, it consists of speculation on matters as to which definite knowledge has, so far, been unobtainable; but like science, it appeals to human reason rather than authority. All definite knowledge – so I would contend – belongs to science; all dogma belongs to theology. But between science and theology lies a No Man’s Land, … this No Man’s Land is philosophy”
Philosophy has three main branches; logic, metaphysics and ethics
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Important terms- Metaphysics
Metaphysics is concerned with being and knowing, it can explore the supra-sensible, it concerns itself with 1st principles, concepts such as being, substance, essence, time, space, causation etc.
Metaphysics has two main branches;
Ontology – the differentiation between the real and the appearance, the assumptions underlying theories or systems of ideas
Epistemology – is the theory of methods or grounds for knowledge
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Important terms- Ethics and paradigm
Ethics is concerned with moral principles, what is right or wrong, what ought to be done and what must not be done
According to Kuhn, 1970, “a paradigm can be considered a set of ontological and epistemological assumptions, theories and methods which a group of researchers accept and share as the best way to develop knowledge”
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Research Paradigms
Three research paradigms can be identified:
Logico-empirical paradigm – the traditional scientific method as practiced in the natural sciences
Interpretive paradigm as practiced by some psychologists, nurses and anthropologists
Critical paradigm which is research with the intent of political empowerment and human emancipation
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Historical Overview - Empiricism
The Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle where the best known philosophers from antiquity.
Copernicus, Galileo and Newton founded empiricism. Empiricists believe that all knowledge is based on experience and denies idealism that posits that the mind already has pre-existing ideas and concepts
Famous empiricists include Newton (1642-1727), John Locke (1632-1704) and David Hume (1711-1776). In the 19th century Auguste Comte (1798-1857) and Charles Darwin (1855-1882) where major proponents of empiricism
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Historical Overview - Rationalism
In the 18th century Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz developed the rationalist tradition
Rationalism includes a belief that
By reason alone the nature of existence can be found
That knowledge forms a single system
That this system is deductible in character
That everything is understandable within this single system
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…Historical Overview
Kant’s philosophy is recognised as a turning point for philosophy. His position is that we construct knowledge by the interaction of sense perceptions and judgment which makes sense of the sense data
Hegel developed this to say that knowledge is discovered by the contemplative faculty of the mind, the universe exists as a complex whole (holism) and he rejects reductionism
Husserl founded phenomenology which involves suspending assumed knowledge so that one is able to observe in an ideal, disinterested scientific fashion and can questions ones own beliefs and interpretations
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Historical Overview – logico-empiricism
By the 1930’s a group called the Vienna Circle published a manifesto that was later modified by Carl Popper and others
The central tenants are that there is a single reality out there; science depends upon repeatable experiments; that theory and empirical observations are separate entities; that causality is linear in that event E can be deduced from initial conditions and general laws; that reliable knowledge of a field or phenomena reduces to particular instances or patterns of sensation; the goal of positivist science is prediction and control of the physical or social world and finally there is a need to demonstrate reliability and repeatability of measurements
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Logico-empiricism - Criticisms
A number of criticisms of logico-epiricism have been made particularly the application of a single scientific method, that facts and theories can be separated, and “facts” can prove our theories
This lead to the development of post-positivism which takes into account these criticisms, it no longer attempts to find cause/effect relationships, but that rather truth is imperfect and probabilistic
Post-positivists say there are no context free universal facts, and whilst acknowledging that people cannot be totally objective, they can be as objective as humanely possible
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Interpretive/Constructivist & Critical Theory
Interpretive/Constructivist paradigm seeks answers about meaning, about uncommon elements, it seeks to interpret the observations
Critical theory provides guidelines to bring about change, applies to humans and not things, and so is not predicable. Theory is about a critique of power and relationships, about determining the way forward by changing ideologies and power relationships
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A Model of the Research Process
Generally the research process follows a number of steps
Development of a theory
Develop testable ideas from the theory
Work out how to test the theory and devise a set of task to be carried out to do this
Collection of the data
Interpret the results and reflect back on how these support or otherwise the theory
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Research Types
Two broad approaches to research can be identified in the literature – these are qualitative and quantitative research
Quantitative research implies quantitative data can be collected and statistical relationships can be found
Qualitative research attempts to measure things where interpretation is required, are usually qualified by words, not numbers, and provide insights into possibilities
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