Research Methods for Library and Information Science Professionals

The book explains and discusses its topics at an introductory college graduate level, and is suitable as a text for a one semester graduate course.

Sections in the book include:

Introduction

� the History of Inquiry,
� Research in Library and Information Science,
� the Philosophy of Science,
� Kuhn�s Notion of Paradigms.

Method

� Scientific Method in Social Science (including Theories, Hypotheses, Concepts, Constructs, Variables, Evidence, Reliability and Validity),
� Types of Research and Ethics,
� Measurement, Scales of Measurement, and Validity and Reliability of Instruments,
� Experimental, or Research, Design Issues,
� Sampling,
� The Research Proposal and the Research Report,
� Evaluating Research Reports or Papers.

Statistics

� Basic Descriptive Statistics (of Measures of Variability, the Normal curve, Normalization and z, and Correlation)
� Inferential Statistics (of Estimation Hypothesis Testing, Chi square, t and ANOVA).

Typical Research in Library and Information Science

� Evaluation Research,
� Qualitative Research,
� Surveys and Questionnaires,
� Bibliometrics and Scientometrics.

There are two sections given to �Reflections�. These concern the proper understanding of conditional probabilities (and the base rate fallacy), problems with reliability in social science, and problems with the lack of repeatability in social science.

The book contains about 100 images and has links to around 12 explanatory videos.

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Research Methods for Library and Information Science Professionals