Last week we were supposed to find research journals
and research articles to read. I looked at the earlier year’s articles and
found a very interesting article about how social networking sites (SNS) affect
the users’ reported sense of loneliness and number of acquaintances.
During this week I attended both the seminars, in
which I got the opportunity to discuss my article and have a look at what the
others had read. During the first seminar my small group had some good
discussions, and we all thought my article was quite interesting so we decided
that we should present my article to the whole group. When I presented the
article it appeared that another person in the group had read the same article.
We both had kind of the same view of the article and we discussed if it is
reliable to use the method of reported
sense of loneliness (as opposed to a standardized/exact measurement). We came
to the conclusion that in the case of loneliness (which is very relative and
personal), having participants rate themselves is a better method than using a
standardized test simply because such a test could be interpreted very
differently amongst participants.
In the second seminar we discussed what theory is and
what theory is not. Because of a clash in my schedule I could not attend my
ordinary seminar group; instead I had to go to group D. We were divided into
groups of three and were told to discuss the theories that were used in our research
articles. We mainly discussed the theory of social capital, which describes how
people gain benefits from social networks. I think one of the main drawbacks of
the theory of social capital is that there does not seem to be a consensus
about what social capital actually is. We briefly discussed this in the class
and it seemed as if there were at least three different views of what constitutes
social capital.
Another important conclusion of the seminar was that
there is a major difference between theories of natural sciences and theories
from social sciences. The former are more “exact” and should stand to be repeatedly
tested with the same results as an outcome. Theories of social sciences on the
other hand are more “soft”, and they do not have the same requirement of repeatability.
Hrastinski told us that it is uncommon for theories of social sciences to be
completely rejected; instead they are just slightly updated. I think this suggests
that there is a weakness in such theories, because “ad hoc” adjustments does
not seem very scientific to me. When we look at theories of natural sciences we
see that they are rarely changed or updated. Whenever there is a new, “better”
theory, the old theory is rejected and forgotten.
Lastly, we discussed the common meaning of the word
theory versus the scientific meaning. This is something that a lot of people
get mixed up about, since the common use of the word theory suggests that it is
something “unfinished” or a guess. I have heard some people dismiss the theory
of evolution simply because “it is just a theory”. However, in science a theory
is a explanation (usually widely accepted) that is based on empirical evidence
and research studies. At theory should be able to stand to be tested and be falsifiable.
Thus, the theory of evolution is as much of a guess as the theory of gravity
(which I do not think many people doubt).
I would like to finish off by saying that this week’s
seminar was the best so far in this course. However, in retrospect I regret
that we did discuss how or if theories are used in the field of mathematics. On
the course wiki the definition of a theory reads “Theory is something we
construct, it does not exist by itself”. I am not sure if the concept of
theories is used in mathematics, but it would be interesting to discuss that
during a seminar. I kind of believe that there could be something more to
mathematics than just a human construction. Math might not be constructed,
instead it might be “discovered”…
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