Research serves as a guide by which to study, describe, and quantify an array of social and physical phenomenon. Theory, which is best described as a set of propositions or hypotheses that specify the relationship among a subset of variables, serves as a way of offering an intellectualized general commentary on that which is observed. Using material found in Chapter 3 of this week’s required reading, describe how theory is applicable to a research study. Answer the questions:
How does theory inform a research study?
How can a generalized theory remain timely enough to be applicable to new or innovative studies?
There is a qualitative difference between theory and practice. This article first examines the terminology used in discussions of theory-practice and discovers that the word ‘understanding’ is a major source of trouble. It then reviews eight different ways in which people have tried to reconcile theory and practice. It is then argued that theory and practice can be partly reconciled if living forward is differentiated into ready-to-hand living and unready-to-hand living, a distinction first proposed by Heidegger. If theorists and practitioners alike focus on the interruptions of unready-to-hand, then the theorist is forced to sense more of the world as it is experienced by the practitioner and the practitioner is forced to detach from the flow of events,
nt is most commonly known as the Rosenhan Experiment or the Thud Experiment with the aim of challenging the reliability and validity of psychiatric diagnosis. There were a total of eight subjects who attempted to gain admittance into the psychiatric ward of a hospital. The participants called the hospital for diagnosis appointments and worked together to find a way to explain their condition in a way to ensure each of the 8 participants gained admittance into the hospital. They claimed they were hearing voices, an existential symptom that arises due to a meaningless life; all of the subjects were admitted as there was no mention of existential psychosis in literature. Through this, they were able to use shared knowledge as information was contributed by a group of people. After entering the ward, they stopped showing pseudo symptoms and acted as ordinary people. Even while in the psychiatric ward, the participants collaborated in order to maintain consistency between their ‘conditions.’ Each participant began to take notes about their lives in the ward. They originally took notes secretly due to their fear of the warden, but after realizing that nobody cared, they began to do this publicly, allowing public communication and collaboration. To complete the study, they continuously questioned the staff about ideas such as them being discharged to test their obdurate behavior towards the participants. The psychiatrists were not able to reliably distinguish normal people from those with an illness. A diagnostic method that makes any such errors cannot be considered valid or reliable. Collaboration was used greatly in this study as all eight participants worked together throughout the experiment. Without collaboration, this experiment would not have been completed accurately and properly as each and every step requires meticulous thinking. Also, the group was needed to gain proper admittance into the psychiatric ward for this rare situation. The production of knowledge in this study in the human sciences was a collaborative task and not solely the product of an individual.
The natural sciences is another area of knowledge in which production of knowledge can be seen as a collaborative task. The natural sciences is a branch of science that relates directly to the physical world including subjects such as physics, biology, chemistry, geology, and more. Research studies that show collaboration with production of knowledge are also conducted in this field. A biological study was conducted at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine about colorectal cancer. Dr. Subroto B. Chatterjee worked with colleagues to identify a protein, beta-1,4-galactosyltransferase-V, involved in the proliferation, rapid increase, of cells and development of new blood vessels could serve as biomarkers for early detection of colorectal cancer. The protein increased greatly in colorectal cancer tumor cells in comparison to normal human tissue. For further collaboration, he assigned groups of researchers to the same area of study to have multiple trials and perspectives on results. After observation of growth and an increase in activity, Dr. Chatterjee and other sci