Aaron Yun (A00621421)

1. You are reading a literature review written by a novice researcher in your field. You notice that the researcher seems to have relied heavily on the World Wide Web in preparing the literature review. Your hunch is supported when you glance at the reference page and find a long list of Internet addresses. What goes through your mind regarding the quality and adequacy of the literature review in this situation? - Anybody can publish a blog on the Internet. This poses an obvious problem with using internet as a research source, as there is no way to know the credentials of many bloggers or to get an understanding of the writers level of expertise. Many people create Web pages to give themselves a forum to express their views and opinions. Web pages are created by the public, so we have to be very careful when choosing them as sources. It's sometimes difficult to determine which web sites are created by experts and professionals on a given topic. Wiki web sites can be very informative, but they can also be untrustworthy. Wiki sites allow groups of people to add and edit the information contained on the pages. We can imagine how a wiki source could contain unreliable information. - An effective literature review should include the following features: Systematically analyze and summarize qualitative literature Provide a critical and unbiased research topic Provide an explicit and critical research methodology Demonstrate that the valid and reliable references contribute to research. 2. Your instructor wants to know more about the mental process students go through as they learn about research methods. He also wants to know which instructional methods are most effective for teaching research methods to his students. Assume that the instructor has decided to take a qualitative approach to studying these questions. State a specific research question related to his general research problem that lends itself well to a qualitative research approach. Then explain why your question is better addressed using a qualitative, rather than a quantitative, methodology. What challenges do students face with those instructional methods? How does those instructional methods style influence students? Those questions are better addressed using a qualitative rather than a quantitative because those questions are to provide a complete, detailed description of the research problem. Quantitative methodology on the other hand focuses more in counting and classifying features and constructing statistical models and figures to explain what is observed. Researchers tend to remain objectively separated from the subject matter. This is because Quantitative methodology is objective in approach in the sense that it only seeks precise measurements and analysis of target concepts to answer this inquiry.

3. Quite often students believe that taking the time to prepare a complete and carefully designed research proposal is something to be preached, but not really practiced. Identify at least two different problems related to research design that are commonly encountered when doing research. For each problem, explain how a complete and detailed research proposal would help the researcher avoid the problem. There are several problems related to research design. It is not clear what the researcher wishes to accomplish and why the purpose is important enough. Students mistake that they have a complete misjudgment of the importance of the topic that they want to study.

Another problem is about methodology that they plan to use. It is not suitable for the type of research that is available. This is because they dont understand the importance of the methodology, nor do they grasp the need to fully demonstrate how they plan to test the hypothesis that they have declared within the proposal. Finally, research proposal is intended to convince the reader that you have a worthwhile research project and you have the competence and work-plan to complete it. 4. Read the article titled Why are CASE Tools Not Used? a. Define and illustrate the following terms with an example from the reading: i. Construct validity refers to whether a scale measures or correlates with the theorized psychological scientific construct (e.g., "fluid intelligence") that it purports to measure. In other words, it is the extent to which what was to be measured was actually measured. Example: "Perceived compatibility. There are several alternatives for measuring perceived compatibility. Moore and Benbasat propose a measure that interprets compatibility in very individualistic terms. Because CASE tools are organizational innovations, the measure for compatibility proposed in was not deemed appropriate in the present context. To support the practical relevance of the concept of compatibility, the measure applied in this article is adapted from prior CASE research. The respondents were asked to rate the compatibility of the tools with the needs of the adopting organization using 23 items. The measurement of each item ranged from 'very poor' to 'very good' on a 5-point scale. The 23 items were subjected to factor analysis using principal component analysis with varimax rotation." Perceived compatibility in this case is the characteristic that cannot be directly observed but is assumed to exist. ii. Face validity is a property of a test intended to measure something. It is the validity of a test at face value. In other words, a test can be said to have face validity if it "looks like" it is going to measure what it is supposed to measure. Example: Most of the empirical studies on CASE impacts are based on subjective, perceptual data. Moore and Benbasat contend that subjective perceptions provide a sounder basis for theory development than more objective data. Based on retrospective, perceptual data obtained from 105 respondents, the study reported in this article seeks to shed light on factors affecting CASE usage. Compared with earlier CASE research, it pays special attention to the reliability and validity of the measures used. The factors include participation in the CASE selection and implementation planning, management support, training, realism of expectations, perceived complexity, compatibility and relative advantage of the CASE tool, and voluntariness of the CASE use. This article also analyzes the relationship between CASE usage and CASE impacts. The selection of factors is partly influenced by the fact that they are reasonably controllable during the CASE adoption process. This example is quite self-explanatory about the instrument looks like it's measuring a particular characteristic. iii. Conceptual density refers to the degree to which the test of a particular research hypothesis promises to make a valuable addition to existing knowledge about the behavior in question. If the preceding interpretation is accepted, the conceptual overlap between perceived relative advantage as a predictor of CASE usage and perceived CASE effectiveness as the consequence of

CASE usage emphasize the self-reinforcing cycle of CASE usage. Positive perceptions of CASE effectiveness increase perceptions of relative advantage. Positive perceptions of relative advantage tend to intensify CASE usage. If the positive perceptions of CASE effectiveness are reinforced by further CASE usage, this adds the perception of relative advantage, and so the cycle continues. This example explains on the abstract concept that is being measured and its relationships to other concepts. b. Discuss how well this article (cite examples) uses the following concepts: i. Primary versus Secondary data Primary data example: "The profiles of the 35 organizations and 105 respondents are depicted in Tables 1-2. Table 1 shows that 43% of the organizations in the sample were software houses. The organizations were relatively large by Finnish standards, but the majority of the average IS and software development projects were relatively small, comprising only 3-5 persons. Not surprisingly, CASE experience of the organizations had increased when compared with the earlier study in Finland [1], but the adoption rate was still found to be low: in 57% of the organizations less than 25% of the developers used CASE tools. " The researcher uses secondary data to explain the intro. For the conclusion, he uses primary data from his own survey. Secondary data example: Kemerer reports that one year after introduction, 70% of the CASE tools are never used, 25% are used by only one group, and 5% are widely used, but not to capacity. Aaen reports that less than 20% of the organizations were close to routine users of CASE tools, even though 24% had used them more than three years. The researcher uses Kemerer and Aaens data and analyzes it. Furthermore, the secondary data are revealed by Table 4 and Table 5 in the article. Both Table 4 and Table 5 are the result of the regression analysis. It is from the dependent variable to predict particular individual purpose. ii. Validity and Reliability of measurement instruments The researcher pays special attention to the reliability and validity of the measures used. The factors include participation in the CASE selection and implementation planning, management support, training, realism of expectations, perceived complexity, compatibility and relative advantage of the CASE tool, and voluntariness of the CASE use. Example: The survey was carried out during the spring of 1993. Based on customer information of CASE tool vendors operating in Finland and the previous Finnish studies on CASE adoption, a list of organizations was identified. After telephone contacts, 52 cooperative organizations were found. Questionnaires were mailed to the contact persons who distributed them within the organization. The reliability of the measures is assessed using Cronbach's alpha values. There is no exact threshold for the required reliability but proposes the threshold 0.5-0.6 for exploratory research. In view of the minimal earlier research on the CASE adoption, this article applies the upper value 0.6. c. What type(s) of hypotheses did the authors use in this study? The author used deductive hypotheses.

d. Comment on the strength of this hypothesis. Deductive reasoning happens when a researcher works from the more general information to the more specific. This ultimately leads the researcher to be able to test the hypotheses with specific data, leading to a confirmation of the original theory and arriving at a conclusion. In this article, the conclusion follows from the premise of the argument, so the argument is strong, and the conclusion can be valid. 5. Read the article titled IT Departments and Data Breech Prevention? a. Define and illustrate the following terms with an example from the reading: i. Content validity refers to the extent to which a measure represents all facets of a given social construct. "In September 2007, market research firm Research Concepts surveyed 185 IT professionals from Network World Magazines Technology Opinion Panel about the state of computer and data security in their organizations. The survey probed attitudes toward the prevention of data breach, current prevention measures employed by IT departments and the perceived effectiveness of those methods." In this survey, by utilizing "185 IT professionals from Network World Magazines Technology Opinion Panel", it has a higher rational validity and fully represented every element of the construct. ii. Criterion validity is a measure of how well one variable or set of variables predicts an outcome based on information from other variables "Survey respondents also appear to see a direct correlation between laptop theft and the possibility of data breach. In the event of a laptop theft, more than 75% of respondents said they were very concerned about the possibility that confidential information would be exposed and potentially misused. A further 60% were very concerned that the theft of a laptop computer would result in identity theft and nearly 25% said they would be willing to pay between $10,000 and $50,000 to have a stolen executives laptop returned to their organization." The researchers calibrate the laptop theft against the possibility of data breach. This validity is to compare it to a known standard. b. Discuss how well this article (cite examples) uses the following concepts: i. Primary versus Secondary data This article uses a lot of Primary data to enhance the key point; however, it doesn't use many of secondary data. For example, According to IT professionals surveyed, less than one in 100 employees consistently follow company data and computer security policy. More worrying is the fact that 72% of respondents felt that employees were responsible for the majority of data breaches.", and the researcher uses his own data from the survey. Secondary data : A recent Ponemon Institute report estimates that a breach costs a company $197 per missing record.* In many breach situations, the number of records affected is in the hundreds of thousands, with the most extreme case involving 27 million current and former U.S. military personnel. In such cases, the cost to manage the breach can reach into the tens of millions providing strong motivation for organizations to protect their data and themselves. ii. Validity and Reliability of measurement instruments The researcher uses a survey, comparisons. The researcher chose survey respondents in IT management or executive leadership positions at organizations with an average of 5,806 employees.

However, this article tends to have a lack of reliability because there are not enough tests for reliability. We can suggest that two or more different characteristics are each measured using two or more different approaches. c. What type(s) of hypotheses did the authors use in this study? The author used inductive hypotheses. d. Comment on the strength of this hypothesis. Inductive reasoning is like moving from specific observations to broader generalizations and theories. In this article, the researcher begins with specific observations and measures, begins to then detect patterns and regularities, formulate some tentative hypotheses to explore, and finally ends up developing some general conclusions or theories. (In this case, like an advertisement)