HI Class,
Welcome back from our week long hiatus. I hope you had some time to rest
and recuperate and are ready to make a big push for the finish.
This opening blog calls you to think critically about some gaps you have noticed in the literature you have read thus far. If you think back to the student work we have read thus far, a major part of an inquiry based research project involves locating gaps in the conversation. For example, in the piece we read about Facebook disclosure, the author noticed a gap in the literature in recognizing there weren't any considerations for the Myers Brigs Type Indicator in research involving social behavior. The researcher noticed that the Five Factor Model was used exclusively, and she set out to occupy this gap by conducting her own study to see how the MBTI might add something interesting to help further understand Facebook disclosure.
At this point, you should be pretty well intrenched in your work, and it is now time to think critically about what might be missing from the conversation.
Your task for this blog is to deliver a very concise rendition of the research conversation, and then indicate some gaps in the current conversation. I'm sure there is a different angle you can look into that has yet to be explored. Think of this blog posting as a prequel to your literature review.
This blog is due before 11:59pm on Monday, March 11th.
If you should have any questions, please send me an email.
Jake Rosenberg
ReplyDelete3/11/13
Longhany
Week 10 blog
In the research on the topic of fan identification with different sports teams there is definitely a linked conversation that started all the way back in the 1970’s and has been going on until now. Starting with Cialdini, the topic of research was born. Through the years many different researchers have spun off of Cialdini’s initial findings in order to grow the topic into what it is today. There is definitely an ongoing discussion between researchers, even those who are separated by many years, and within the discussion it can be noted that there are more doors to open in order to greater explore the topic.
Cialdini started the conversation by researching the actions of students at different colleges around the United States in order to figure out how fan identification works. He found out that students enjoy identifying and flaunting their identification with victorious teams because it provides a sense of joy and glory, although they never actually participated in the team’s victory. Cialdini therefore coined the theory of BIRGing or basking in reflected glory. From this statement, Cialdini started to think about the other side of fan identification, ultimately the opposite of BIRGing. CORFing, or cutting off reflected failure, was then discovered in order to accompany BIRGing. Created by Snyder, Higgins, and Stucky, CORFing was deemed true because of different gaps left behind by Cialdini. Snyder then decided to carry the conversation to another level by researching BIRGing and CORFing together with fellow researchers Lassegard and Ford. Citing Cialdini’s initial experiments, these three researchers decided to fill in the gap of self-image. Because Cialdini only researched whether or not BIRGing existed, Snyder felt many gaps were needed to be filled in order to expand the topic. From there Wann and Branscombe entered the discussion in order to find out whether or not there is a correlation between die-hard fans and fair-weather fans. This idea of how different fans play into BIRGing and CORFing had never been thought about until Wann and Branscombe in the 1990’s. It was discovered that the severity to which one is a fan does in fact affect Cialdini and Snyder’s theories. Ultimately every researcher looks back to Cialdini in order to decide what to research. Because this topic is so new there are many different gaps to explore in order to evolve this topic. Wann and Branscombe also conducted research on the gap about fan behaviors and team identification. Ultimately this topic has grown into the field of consumer marketing as well as psychology. There are still many gaps to examine in this field of research.
In my inquiry based research I am aiming to see if there is a difference in a fan’s use of different pronouns in their verbal speech versus their written language. I am trying to lean on Cialdini’s initial experiment about BIRGing when he conducted phone interviews with colligate students. He hypothesized that student would use the pronoun “we” when trying to identify with a victorious team and “they” when they were trying to disassociate themselves with a failing team. His hypotheses were found to be true in his research. I want to explore the difference between written and verbal communication in regards to the BIRGing phenomenon by conducting both written surveys and face-to-face interviews with the same people. I believe this study fulfills a gap in Cialdini’s research that has not yet been explored.
In conclusion, there has been a long drawn out conversation over approximately 40 years on the topic of fan identification with both victorious and failing sports teams. I, like almost all of the researchers in the field, have or are looking at different gaps to explore. In hope to create new research I am looking forward to “twisting” a previously completed experiment by Cialdini.
Blake Anderson
ReplyDeleteIn the subject field of college majors there are dozens of potential influences that cause students to choose a major, change one, decide to go back to school, or even leave school. Because of the fact that these influences can be described in just a few words, there isn’t much room for differencing opinions in this topic. However, there is room for conversation, differences, and questioning of a true answer.
Researcher Ross and researcher Casazza are discussing the scholarly article, Influence of sex, college major, and chronic study stress on psychophysiological reactivity and behavior: Results of ambulatory monitoring in students, written by Myrtek, Hilgenberg, Brügner, and Müller. Ross and Casazza are interested in the correlation of stress and hard or soft majors in college just like these researchers.
Ross: Have you noticed the flaws in this study?
Casazza: Not quite. However, I am getting a little confused on what exactly these hard and soft majors are that they keep referencing.
Ross: You have a strong point as well but, I was speaking of their biased research method. They used one way to measure ones stress and it left out many factors that should have been considered.
Casazza: Now that you mention it, I do notice the flaws in their research.
Ross and Casazza decide to conduct their own research on the topic of stress influences on hard and soft majors. They leave their gap as how influential the stress, instead of if it is a factor at all. They also design their experiment to correlate other personal attributes that their subjects hold. In a sense, their hypotheses and research experiment field came directly from the indirect and misleading gap of another experiment.
Ross: If we are to conduct a similar study, we must improve it by finding new methods of stress level acquisition and a more descriptive elaboration on the types of majors being examined.
Cassaza: Yes, I agree. We should lead our studies around the undiscovered topic and frame the experiments and results from the study done by Myrtek, Hilgenber, Brugner, and Muller.
These two researchers fill this indicated gap of improvement with more stable results of a, now, less complex topic. A gap not like many others, but still leaves an empty piece of knowledge to be filled for two different studies.
3/11/13
ReplyDeleteLonghany
Week 10 blog
Just like any other community, the SCUBA community has many conversations of their own. Everything from what equipment to use, where to dive, how to teach and even what you are doing under the water is debated daily. Even for myself, SCUBA diving presents a vast range of possibilities and leaves me to question what suits me best.
For my project, however, the debate is one of little controversy; How can one improve their Surface Air Consumption Rate? This is because divers generally agree on the factors that affect one’s SAC Rate. I also believe in what the community believes are contributing factors, but I also believe that there are more factors that also affect one’s SAC Rate and that certain factors have a larger affect than many of the others.
As I have begun accepting surveys from individuals in the field, I have also much negative feedback from the community about challenging these generally accepted ideas. For many of the reasons that I have been criticized about, there have not been extensive studies done on SAC Rates; so this one of the first few, and probably largest study done on SAC Rates.
While SAC Rates are very important and practical to many divers and professionals in other fields, there is also another way of measuring air consumption. This measurement is called a VO2 Rate, or how much oxygen your body uses from the air you breathe. For many reasons, I will not be studying this rate in my project. But after doing some research, I found that this rate is even more useful than SAC Rates are, and has even more benefits.
Because the SCUBA community, for the most part, uses compressed air that is contained in a finite volume, VO2 Rates are not thought about in the community. So this is a big part that is missing from the SCUBA community and its conversations. In the future, I would like to see a similar study to mine done on VO2 Rates and applied to this community.
Kahfi Sims
ReplyDeleteWeek 10 Blog
Broadening my research topic was a smart choice. Initially, I wanted to research the emphasis Americans put on the American flag, and its role in our everyday lives, and how the symbol of the flag could drive us to do things, either good or bad. But now I have realized that there are symbols, people, and events that cause nationalism in America. The sources I am analyzing all contribute to the final conclusion that there are things that fuel people in times of peril. I wouldn’t name pieces of my research gaps, but pieces of the research question.
With regards to food choice motives there is a lot to be said of the various influences that affect ones choices, some psychological, others physiological. Noticeably beginning in the 1960s, in America and many other developed nations around the world, we saw an emergence of obesity, and now it is ever so present. In order to better understand how we can begin making progress towards healthier eating habits, it is important to gain a grasp on the greatest determinants of our food choices. When discussing food choice motives, specific factors reoccur throughout the conversation amongst researchers, these include; socioeconomic status, health, mood, ethical concern, social context, familiarity, convenience, media effects, retailer sovereignty, and sensory appeal. The gap in the conversation of this topic is that there is no precise way to measure which factor is the most affluent, making it difficult to narrow it down to a prominent influence. The best measure established to determine food choice motives in place is the food choice questionnaire (FCQ). The FCQ measures the importance of nine factors relating to food choice on a scale of 1-4. This issue with the FCQ is that the empirical data does not support the “robustness” (a statistical technique that performs effectively even if its assumptions are violated by the true model from which the data were generated) of its in depth design.
ReplyDeleteAlexis Dickison
ReplyDelete3/11/13
Longhany
Weekly Blog 10
I have found that the main gap I have in my research topic is finding a biracial person that claims that they are just white. Throughout my research, I have found that there is a vast majority of biracial individuals that identify with being black. When thinking on why that is the case, if you look back on the days of slavery, if you had any bit of “black blood” in you, you were black. I just wonder if and why this has carried on over such a long period of time. The only instance I have came across that a biracial person identified themselves as white was when I saw an episode of the “Tyra Show”. The teenager looked like she was black, but then you find out that she is mixed with black and white. Later in the show, you find out that she hates her black side and she was even photographed wearing a KKK hood. I thought this was absolutely crazy. She also has a huge confederate flag hanging up in her room. The reason I find that this is a gap in my research is because I feel as though this is an extreme case of identification. But this may link into any other research and results that I find. So I’m hoping that it will play a role in my paper. I wish I could interview the girl myself to find out why she thinks the way she does. I would like to know what transpired in her identification process.
I believe that when it comes to this topic, I really need to pick at the brains of others. I need to dig deep to see what makes them think the way they do. That’s not something I had thought of before this point. Other than this small gap, my research is coming along well because a lot of the authors I’ve come across agree with other authors. It’s also easy to loop the conversation between the authors and myself because I can also bring historic events into the conversation. I’m looking forward to continuing bouncing thoughts off of other authors as well as my own thoughts.
Nick Borimonoff
ReplyDeleteWeek 10
In the articles that I have been researching, I have noticed that not much tests have gone into much of the question of “why people choose to make certain films?” Many of the articles are from an expert in the film industry, like a filmmaker or critic. They have an in-depth understanding of what goes on in the industry and the technology advancing in film. I looked into the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory and I thought it would be interesting to use that test for my research. I’m not sure what the ZTPI would prove about filmmakers, but I think it would be interesting to use this test for my research.
Katelyn Lechner
ReplyDeleteWeek 10 Blog
My research is dealing with how parenting styles have evolved over the last few generations. I am not completely sure as to how I would like to go in reference to a gap. The obvious answer would be why these changed have occurred, but I feel like this is too broad of a topic and not one that I could really go in depth with, as there are so many possible solutions. Another option would be to ask the question "How has the changing the increase in women in the workforce changed parenting styles?". More and more women are working, meaning they do not have the same amount of time to spend with their children, and the fathers a lot of times have to take on the role as the housewife.