Front Cover -- Research Methods -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- List of contributors -- Acknowledgements -- About the editors -- About the authors -- Foreword -- What will you find in this book? -- Chapter overviews -- References -- I: Foundations and Framing -- 1 Research concepts -- Introduction -- Research paradigms -- Reasoning styles -- Positivism -- Post-positivism -- Interpretivism: Its paradigms and research designs -- Interpretivist paradigms -- Constructivism -- Phenomenology -- Interpretivist research designs -- Critical theory -- Other conceptual approaches -- Qualitative research -- Mixed methods research -- Matching research questions to appropriate designs -- Conclusion -- References -- 2 The fundamentals of research planning -- Introduction -- Choosing a topic -- Hypothesis development and an example of hypothesis use -- Hypotheses: Definitions and types -- An example of hypothesis use from the literature -- Formulating research questions and matching them to methodologies -- Questions and methodology for a positivist/quantitative study -- Borgman, Hirsh, Walter and Gallagher (1995) -- Methodology -- Findings and conclusions -- Possible alternative approaches -- Questions and methodologies for interpretivist/qualitative studies -- (1) Bruce, Stoodley and Pham’s (2009) phenomenographic study -- Methodology -- Findings and conclusions -- Possible alternative approaches -- (2) Williamson’s and Williamson and Kingsford Smith’s mixed methods -- Methodology -- The quantitative component -- The qualitative component -- Findings and conclusions -- Possible alternative approaches -- Questions and methodology for a critical ethnography (based on critical theory) -- Methodology -- Possible alternative approaches -- The literature review -- Undertaking a literature search -- Basic steps for writing a literature review -- Theoretical frameworks -- Theory development -- An example of theory development -- An example of concept mapping -- Conclusion -- References -- 3 Information research: Patterns and practice -- Introduction -- Information research dimensions -- What is information research? -- Academic and professional research -- Issues of research quantity and quality -- Other methods of identifying research strengths and approaches -- Constants and fashions in research topic choices -- Human information behaviour research -- Theories of information behaviour -- Information management research in organisations -- Research sharing across disciplines and collaboration -- The role of research in professional practice -- Importance of research to professional practice -- Evidence-based library and information practice (EBLIP) -- The axiomatic relationship between research and professional practice -- Research dissemination -- Research dissemination practices -- Scholarly communication and open access: The role of researchers -- Impacts of information technology -- Technological opportunities -- Transformations resulting from IT -- Resisting te.
chnological determinism -- Conclusion -- References -- 4 Archival and recordkeeping research: Past, present and future -- Introduction -- Historical developments, current trends, future directions -- Growing diversity of research themes -- Expanding research front -- Archival theory and model building -- Research programs and research infrastructure -- Research education -- Targeted research agendas and funding programs -- Scholarly venues -- Evolving research ethos and culture -- Philosophical and theoretical frameworks for research -- Positivism, interpretivism and critical theory -- Double hermeneutics -- Research methodologies, design, methods and techniques -- Methodologies -- Methods and techniques -- Designing research -- Conclusion -- References -- 5 The methodological landscape: Information systems and knowledge management -- Introduction -- Methodological landscape -- The three major research paradigms -- Positivist, interpretive and critical research paradigms: Examples from the literature -- Developing research question/s -- From research questions to selection of methods -- Conclusion -- Acknowledgement -- References -- II: Research Methods -- 6 Survey designs -- Introduction -- Survey research challenges and issues -- Sampling and the ability to generalise in survey research -- Creating valid and reliable survey research instruments -- Dealing with four potential sources of bias and error -- Coverage error -- Sampling error -- Non-response error -- Measurement error -- Typical stages in survey research -- Broad types of survey -- Descriptive (or status) surveys -- Advantages and limitations of descriptive surveys -- Explanatory (or analytical) surveys -- The use of surveys to formally validate, test and build theory -- Some particular designs used for explanatory surveys -- Static group comparison design -- Longitudinal/panel study -- Cross-sectional/pseudo-panel design -- Advantages and limitations of explanatory surveys -- Survey modes -- Postal (or mail) surveys -- Issues with the administration of postal surveys -- Offering incentives to participate -- Correspondence associated with a postal survey -- Personal interview-based surveys -- Issues with the administration of personal interview-based surveys -- The recruitment, selection and training of interviewers -- Resources required -- Undertaking the interviews -- Telephone surveys -- Issues with the administration of telephone surveys -- Issues of sampling and non-response bias -- Selection and training of telephone interviewers -- Facilities and resources required -- Undertaking the telephone interviews -- Online surveys -- Issues with the administration of online surveys -- Sampling issues -- Options for developing and hosting an online survey -- Online survey design, construction and implementation -- Data analysis and reporting -- Mixed-mode survey designs -- Conclusion -- References -- 7 Case study research in information systems -- Introduction -- What is case study resea.
rch? -- Types of case study research -- Research case studies -- Positivist case study research -- Interpretivist case study research -- Critical case study research -- Teaching case studies -- Designing case study research -- Research problem suited to case study research -- Designing and scoping case study research -- Unit of analysis -- Single and multiple case studies -- The use of theory -- Data collection and analysis -- Conducting case study research -- Gaining access to organisations -- Efficient and effective collection of data -- Writing rigorous case study research reports -- Conclusion -- References -- 8 Action research: Theory and practice -- Introduction -- Defining and positioning action research -- The paradigm question -- The role of theory -- The action research spiral -- Designing, undertaking and evaluating action research -- Smart Information Use project -- Information Literacy (IL) Development in the Electronic Age project -- Action research to investigate cognitive processes underlying strategy development -- Conclusion -- References -- 9 Constructivist grounded theory: A 21st century research methodology -- Introduction -- The development of grounded theory -- Aims and areas of exploration -- The process of constructivist grounded theory -- Data gathering -- Memo writing -- Coding -- Developing categories -- Theoretical sampling -- Developing theory -- Evaluation -- Conclusion -- References -- 10 Bibliometric research -- Introduction -- Background and terminology -- Terminology -- Eugene Garfield -- The role of scholarly communication patterns and disciplinary differences -- Bibliometric laws and indicators -- Bibliometric laws -- Lotka’s law of scientific productivity (1926) -- Bradford’s law of scattering (1934) -- Zipf’s law of word frequency in long texts (1935) -- Bibliometric indicators: Measures of productivity and influence -- The impact factor -- The h-index -- SCImago Journal Rank, CiteScore and SNIP -- The Eigenfactor™ and Article Influence -- Citation analysis, authorship and content analysis: Study design -- Sampling for bibliometric research -- Data analysis in bibliometric research -- Citation analysis -- Citation data -- Authorship and affiliation -- Author and affiliation data -- Content analysis -- Content data -- Challenges in bibliometric research -- Assumptions and limitations of bibliometric research -- Conclusion -- References -- 11 Design-science research -- Introduction -- Goals of design-science research -- Undertaking high-quality design-science research -- Guidelines approach -- Design-theory approach -- Design-science research methodology approach -- An alternative approach to evaluating design-science research -- Evaluating a design-science research process -- Evaluating the problem specification -- Evaluating the likely contribution to knowledge -- Evaluating how the solution was derived -- Evaluating design-science research outcomes -- Evaluating constructs -- Evaluating models -- Evaluating.
