by The Open University
Available in 48 free installments
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Method is about the way in which a piece of information is produced. This is quite a complex area as different types of information are produced in different ways. These are a few suggestions to look out for:
Opinions ? A lot of information is based on the opinion of individuals. They may or not be experts in their field (see P for Provenance) but the key message is to be clear that it is just an opinion and must be valued as such.
Research ? You don?t have to be an expert on research methods to ask some basic questions about research information. You need to develop a critical approach to reports of research, particularly when these are summarised in the popular media.
For example, here is a news story:
A study by researchers at an American University reveals that 8 out of 10 people dislike music being played while they are shopping.
What questions might you want to ask about the methods used to carry out this research?
We thought we would want to know:
How many people did they ask?
Did they ask both men and women and, if so, in what proportion?
What ages were the people they asked?
How did they ask people? (did they stop them in the street? Was it a postal questionnaire?)
All these questions (and more) are important because they could affect how much you are likely to trust the results. For example, a group of 20 year old women are likely to give a very different response from a group of middle aged men.
Reviews of Research ? Many articles and books contain reviews of research. We use reviews as a shortcut to looking for all the primary research ourselves. But reviews vary. Some merely bring together the reviewer's selection of research on a topic, others, sometimes called 'systematic reviews' or 'overviews', try to collect and review all the research on the topic in question. It may be important to your work to ascertain which kind of review you are looking at.
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