INST 352 Lecture 16: INST352 Lecture 16: Choosing Examples of Studies
10 Feb 2019
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Despite talja"s reasonable skepticism, there is some value in striving for well-evidenced quantitative generalizations or qualitative transferable findings about individuals or groups; otherwise, there would be little point in ever investigating information practices. Talja"s comments serve to emphasize the importance of attending to elements of context , particularly those social roles, tasks and identities, and are a reminder about the dangers of making sweeping claims regarding large, diverse populations of subjects. This is particularly important when practitioners implement changes (e. g. , new systems designs, changes in reference services) based on study results. Martzoukou (2005) makes similar points in a critique of web-based information seeking studies. Context has the potential to be virtually anything that is not defined as the phenomenon of interest. Dervin provides a few examples that help, at least, to narrow the definition a bit. She quotes dewey (1960, p: as saying that context is a selective interest or bias which conditions the subject matter of thinking.
