Theme 1: Post-reflections

The paper I read for Theme 1, I believe, was negatively affected by general and not concrete hypotheses. While reading for Theme 2 I saw the quote “prior findings cannot by themselves motivate hypotheses” in What Theory Is Not by Robert Sutton and Barry Staw. This is what the authors did in the paper I read for theme 1, as they based their hypotheses on previous research. The quote could explain and confirm my thoughts about them and might be a possible reason to why, as I believe, they affected the whole paper in a negative way. More individual thought to the hypotheses by the authors, and not relying as much on previous studies, may have improved the paper.

During the seminar I heard of the paper On Social Websites by Kim, Jeong and Lee. Because of my interest in social media I found the topic very interesting. I later read the paper and it presents the use of social websites and potential issues regarding them. The paper was interesting, but mostly an introduction to social media websites. They didn’t focus on any specific type of social media and the use and issues presented seemed to not be applicable on all of the social media. Some of the conclusions became common because of its use of unspecific data.

I noticed that the paper hadn’t been cited as much as others, and, for example, the one I chose. Though I believe it was a good paper, I think that because of its generality it isn´t really applicable and useful for deep research. Thus, it is natural that it hasn’t been cited a lot.

Theory of knowledge is an interesting and confusing subject. One part I found especially fascinating is the theory of what it takes to say that you know something, as mentioned both in the book by Russell and in Dahlberg’s lecture.

A possible, but not certain, definition of what could be called  knowledge is:

“(1) S believes p, (2) p is true and (3) S has justified belief of p”

It might not be enough that we are certain that something will happen for it to be called knowledge. If I believe that, as Dahlberg mentioned, the sun will rise tomorrow, I have a justified belief. It has happened every day since I was born, but theoretically that might not ensure it will happen again. It’s interesting to think about what we can say that we know and what are only justified “guesses” that often or always come true.

Theme 1: Research publications/Theory of science

Research Journal/Paper

I chose the journal Computers & Education. It contains papers about the educational use of computers and concerning subjects. The 2011 impact factor of the journal is 2,621.

From the same journal, I chose the paper What drives a successful e-Learning? An empirical investigation of the critical factors influencing learner satisfaction. Its goal is to identify critical factors ensuring successful design of E-learning. The authors use 13 hypotheses which cover learner, instructor, course, technology, design and environmental factors. These provide a basis throughout the paper.

I think that the 13 hypotheses they used were too general and were not very concrete. Due to the hypotheses, the conclusions were also a bit too general and not concrete enough. The 13 hypotheses were answered with “yes” or “no” in a final table regarding if it was significant for E-learning. For example, they concluded that course quality was significant. I think that this is pretty obvious and maybe not such a vital hypotheses to have in your paper in the first place. A great use of methods were somewhat wasted due to the lack of useful hypotheses. Despite the discussion part in the paper I believe that there weren’t much deep knowledge being presented. The paper serves best as a comparison between the 13 general hypotheses and not so much a presenter of innovative critical factors for E-learning, as was told. Improved, and not so obvious, hypotheses would have made the paper much better, since I feel that they made the whole paper too general and not very applicable.

Russell's book

1.

Russell explains that what our senses acknowledge as objects actually are our minds receiving sense-data of them. We are not acquainted with the physical object, but merely the sense-data of it. These sense-data are different for every person and depend on how we experience an object. All our different senses are affected by where, how and under which conditions we are experiencing an object. I believe Russell introduces this term because it is important to know that it is in our minds that we create an understanding of an object, where we (after receiving sense-data) take physical laws and pre-known knowledge into account.

2.

Propositions are known to us by knowledge by description. That means that we are not acquainted with the object in the proposition and therefore do not really know the truth (facts) about it. What we do know (have facts about) is things regarding the object in the proposition, since we might be acquainted with these. Propositions with “a priori” knowledge can be true without us having experience of it. A statement of fact is something experienced and acquainted with, which has led to a belief. If the belief corresponds to some fact, that believe is true.

3.

Russell defines “definite descriptions” as words or sentences describing a specific person or object (“the so-and-so”, as he mentions). Sentences like “the president of USA” or words like “London” are examples of definite descriptions, as they represent specific things. Definite descriptions are things that you have no knowledge of by direct acquaintance. The knowledge comes from acquaintance with things regarding the object, which could be acquaintance by sense-data, memory, or texts read about it.

4.

The philosophic and scientific views of knowledge do agree in many cases. One example where they did not is where philosophers primarily thought that nothing was infinite, until science proved that time and space could be looked upon as endless and infinitely dividable. Philosophic knowledge isn’t exact. Russell mentions that one opinion alone doesn’t make something true knowledge, but that many matching opinions make knowledge more probable.

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