Dimensions of Theory Notes PDF

Dimensions of Theory 1. Philosophical Assumptions. These are frameworks in qualitative research that provide the proper context of a study based on a researcher’s own view of the world shaping the direction of the research. 1.1 Ontological (The nature of reality): Relates...

Dimensions of Theory 1. Philosophical Assumptions. These are frameworks in qualitative research that provide the proper context of a study based on a researcher’s own view of the world shaping the direction of the research. 1.1 Ontological (The nature of reality): Relates to the nature of reality and its characteristics. Researchers embrace the idea of multiple realities and report on these multiple realities by exploring multiple forms of evidence from different individuals’ perspectives and experiences. 1.2 Epistemological (How researchers know what they know): Researchers try to get as close as possible to participants being studied. Subjective evidence is assembled based on individual views from research conducted in the field. 1.3 Axiological (The role of values in research): Researchers make their values known in the study and actively reports their values and biases as well as the value-laden nature of information gathered from the field. 1.4 Methodology (The methods used in the process of research): inductive, emerging, and shaped by the researcher’s experience in collecting and analyzing the data. Sources: Cresswell, J. Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design Lifted from https://www.carnaghan.com/philosophical-assumptions-for-qualitative-research/ Concepts in Theory Concepts are building blocks of thoughts/theories. They are mental representations, abstract objects, and abilities that have a structure and natural language. Concepts as Mental Representations- The first of these views maintains that concepts are psychological entities, taking as its starting point the representational theory of the mind (RTM). According to RTM, thinking occurs in an internal system of representation. Beliefs and desires and other propositional attitudes enter into mental processes as internal symbols. For example, Jenny might believe that Dion is taller than Cathy, and also believes that Cathy is taller than Ram, and together these may cause Jenny to believe that Dion is taller than Ram. Her beliefs would be constituted by mental representations that are about Dion, Cathy and Ram and their relative heights. What makes these beliefs, as opposed to desires or other psychological states, is that the symbols have the characteristic causal-functional role of beliefs. (RTM is usually presented as taking beliefs and other propositional attitudes to be relations between an agent and a mental representation (e.g., Fodor 1987). Source: Lifted from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/concepts/ Concepts as Abilities- Mental representations bear an explanation. This means that concepts are peculiar to cognitive agents. For example, if one wants to learn a new language, it is natural to translate language word for word. However, the ability to learn a language may not be exclusive to mental representation of images; instead, learning language is based on abilities with the underlying mental representations and processes. Concepts as Abstract Objects- The idea behind this view is that concepts are the meanings (or “contents”) of words and phrases as opposed to mental objects or mental states. Here concepts, as meanings, mediate between thought and language. Source: Lifted from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/concepts/ Explanations in Theory Explanations are causes that lead to a decision. There are types of intelligibility questions that make up the inference mechanism: 1.What 2. Why/Why not 3. How to 4. What if Source: Lifted from https://xai4se.github.io/xai/theory-of-explanations.html Principles in Theory A principle expresses the relationship between two or more concepts or constructs. In the process of theory development, one derives principles based on one’s questioning of how concepts are related. Concepts and Principles have two (2) functions: 1. They help us to understand or explain what is going on around us. 2. They help us predict future events (causal or correlational) Therefore, a theory is a related set of concepts and principles about a phenomenon and the purpose of which is to explain or predict the phenomenon. Source: Lifted from https://faculty.jou.ufl.edu/mleslie/spring96/theory.html