Search results

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of qualitative research in causality, with particular emphasis on process causality. In one paper, it is not possible to discuss all the issues of causality, but the aim is to provide useful ways of thinking about causality and qualitative research. Specifically, a brief overview of the regularity theory of causation is provided, qualitative research characteristics and ontological and epistemological views that serve as a potential conceptual frame to resolve some tensions between quantitative and qualitative work are discussed and causal processes are explored. This paper offers a definition and a model of process causality and then presents findings from an exploratory study that advanced the discussion beyond the conceptual frame.

This paper first conceptually frames process causality within qualitative research and then discusses results from an exploratory study that involved reviewing literature and interviewing expert researchers. The exploratory study conducted involved analyzing multiple years of literature in two top human resource development (HRD) journals and also exploratory expert interviews. The study was guided by the research question: How might qualitative research inform causal inferences in HRD? This study used a basic qualitative approach that sought insight through inductive analysis within the focus of this study.

The exploratory study found that triangulation, context, thick description and process research questions are important elements of qualitative studies that can improve research that involves causal relationships. Specifically, qualitative studies provide both depth of data collection and descriptive write-up that provide clues to cause-and-effect relationships that support or refute theory.

A major conclusion of this study is that qualitative research plays a critical role in causal inference, albeit an understated one, when one takes an enlarged philosophical view of causality. Equating causality solely with variance theory associated with quantitative research leaves causal processes locked in a metaphoric black box between cause and effect, whereas qualitative research opens up the processes and mechanisms contained within the box.

This paper reframed the discussion about causality to include both the logic of quantitative studies and qualitative studies to demonstrate a more holistic view of causality and to demonstrate the value of qualitative research for causal inference. Process causality in qualitative research is added to the mix of techniques and theories found in the larger discussion of causality in HRD.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how everyday cross-cultural interactions affected the adjustment of undergraduate international students attending a private university in the northeastern United States of America.

Data were collected primarily through interviews with nine international students and observations at “Eastern University”. Students were purposively selected to balance gender and world regions. Analysis used constant comparison until findings emerged, which were member-checked with study participants (Merriam, 2009).

Findings show that the impact of university diversity initiatives for promoting everyday cross-cultural interactions is described as creating an us/them divide, promoting solidarity and establishing a cultural presence. It is concluded that formal university events foster recognition of the campus diversity international students help provide, but their impact on everyday cross-cultural interactions is both positive and negative. Additionally, the mode by which undergraduate international students are introduced to their US campus affects their integration and future interaction patterns.

Further research is needed to explore higher education institutions (HEIs)’ connection to human resource development (HRD) for shaping the future global arena. Studies that address the continuum from higher education to the workforce are needed to prepare the next generation of professionals for a global world. This study is limited due to small sample size. Findings are not generalizable in a statistical sense, but HRD professionals in HEIs may compare the details in this study with their own institutions.

This study contributes to the discussion of national HRD by addressing international students and their insights into how diversity programs impact adjustment in an American setting. Additionally, organizational and faculty development initiatives in academic institutions can be improved by understanding the insights found in this study.

The purpose of this article is to present an overview of the history and development of transaction log analysis (TLA) in library and information science research. Organizing a literature review of the first twenty‐five years of TLA poses some challenges and requires some decisions. The primary organizing principle could be a strict chronology of the published research, the research questions addressed, the automated information retrieval (IR) systems that generated the data, the results gained, or even the researchers themselves. The group of active transaction log analyzers remains fairly small in number, and researchers who use transaction logs tend to use this method more than once, so tracing the development and refinement of individuals' uses of the methodology could provide insight into the progress of the method as a whole. For example, if we examine how researchers like W. David Penniman, John Tolle, Christine Borgman, Ray Larson, and Micheline Hancock‐Beaulieu have modified their own understandings and applications of the method over time, we may get an accurate sense of the development of all applications.

In 1969, the psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross wrote On Death and Dying. In this influential essay, she presented her now-famous 5-stage model of approaching death, which can be modelled into a downward trajectory (1. shock and denial, 2. anger, 3. bargaining, 4. depression) followed by a symmetrical psychological rise (5. acceptance).

In 1888–1894, in response to Hans von Bülow's death, Gustav Mahler composed his Symphony No. 2 (subtitled ‘Resurrection’), in which the idea of death is omnipresent: it opens with a funeral march based on a symphonic poem called Totenfeier (‘Remembrance Ceremony’) containing a Dies Irae motive and closes with a very long finale inspired by Klopstock's Die Auferstehung (The Resurrection). The structure of the finale itself is quite similar to the symmetrical mechanism described by Kübler-Ross, which can be summarised in the symphony by this verse sung by the choir: ‘Sterben werd’ ich, um zu leben!’ (‘I shall die, to live!’). With this ‘death and transfiguration’ movement, the orchestra and the choir embodying the psychological process of a dying subject covers every single step of the model: from a ‘cry of despair’ in the first bar (1. shock) to a horn call without response (2. denial), to the depiction of a rivalry between the Dies Irae motive (‘death’) and what will be the Resurrection theme (3. bargaining), to a grieving section (4. depression) and to a long rising towards an optimistic climax at the end (5. acceptance).

Even though the death acceptance process was far from being formalised in Mahler's days, this symphony shows that more than 75 years before Kübler-Ross, the composer, who had many opportunities to grieve since his youth (facing his brothers' and sisters' deaths), intuitively converted these experiences into an in-depth knowledge of the psychological processes of dying. In other words, after having dealt with the loss of loved ones, Mahler turns out to know how to deal with his own.

AT the time of writing (Autumn 1966), those who are concerned with technical college libraries stand at a very interesting stage in the development of those services. I was reminded of this fact the other day when I was lunching with one of the College Principals who had been concerned with the ATI Memorandum on College Libraries in 1937. (That, as you may know, was a very forward‐looking document and outlined objectives, not all of which have yet been attained.)

The purpose of this paper is to investigate what con`sequences the digitisation of public libraries’ knowledge dissemination and the transition to online services has, for library staff members’ perception of their skills. This discussion is interesting because library staff members, by politicians, stakeholders, and other opinion makers, have been appointed as key facilitators of citizens’ continued attachment to civil society and the labour market.

This study is based on interviews with library staff members at Danish public libraries. Empirical data were collected through semi-structured e-mail interviews, based on an interview formula, and via follow-up telephone conversations. Library professional rapports and research literature were identified and applied as a theoretical framework in the creation of the analytical apparatus.

There were several different explanatory models available when respondents had to articulate their current challenges. The first model regarded the library staff members’ lack of skills as a political-organisational issue, occurring because of a lack of invest in their continuing education. Continuing education had therefore become a personal matter. The second model highlighted the library staff members’ lack of skills as an individual, library professional problem, where the responsibility for solving the problem lay with the individual employee.

Several studies have been conducted on library staff members’ skills and how they change, due to the transition to digital forms of dissemination. The present study strives to give employees a voice, which is why the respondents’ experiences are the starting point for the analytical work. Such studies are essential to understanding the extent and nature of the problem.

The purpose of this chapter is to bring three recent and innovative feminist science and technology studies paradigms into dialogue on the topics of subjectivity and knowledge.

Each of the three frameworks – feminist postcolonial science and technology studies, queer ecologies, and new feminist materialisms – reconceptualizes and expands our understanding of subjectivity and knowledge. As projects invested in identifying and challenging the strategic conferral of subjectivity, they move from subjectivity located in all human life, to subjectivity as indivisible from nature, to a broader notion of subjectivity as both material and discursive. Despite some methodological differences, the three frameworks all broaden feminist conceptions of knowledge production and validation, advocating for increased consideration of scientific practices and material conditions in feminist scholarship.

This chapter examines three feminist science and technology studies paradigms by comparing and contrasting how each addresses notions of subjectivity and knowledge in ways that push us to rethink key epistemological issues.

This chapter identifies similarities and differences in the three frameworks’ discussions of subjectivity and knowledge production. By putting these frameworks into conversation, we identify methodological crossover, capture the coevolution of subjectivity and knowledge production in feminist theory, and emphasize the importance of matter in sociocultural explorations.