Related papers: Five Misunderstandings About Case-Study Research
In an era where learning is considered a problem, we decided to go for problems for the sake of learning! The purpose of this study was to throw light on the issues involved in two forms of PBL viz., Case Study Based PBL and Research Based…
Statistics is one of the most valuable of disciplines. Science is based on proof and it alone produces results, other approaches are not, and do not. Statistics is the only acceptable language of proof in science. Yet statistics is…
This is a report about the use and misuse of citation data in the assessment of scientific research. The idea that research assessment must be done using ``simple and objective'' methods is increasingly prevalent today. The ``simple and…
Textbooks on statistics emphasize care and precision, via concepts such as reliability and validity in measurement, random sampling and treatment assignment in data collection, and causal identification and bias in estimation. But how do…
It is widely believed that theory is useful in physics because it describes simple systems and that strictly empirical phenomenological approaches are necessary for complex biological and social systems. Here we prove based upon an analysis…
Case studies are typically used to teach 'ethics', but in quantitative courses it can seem distracting, for both instructor and learner, to introduce a case analysis. Moreover, case analyses are typically focused on issues relating to…
The tension between qualitative theorizing and quantitative methods is pervasive in the social sciences, and poses a constant challenge to empirical research. But in science studies as an interdisciplinary specialty, there are additional…
The process of diagnosis involves learning about the state of a system from various observations of symptoms or findings about the system. Sophisticated Bayesian (and other) algorithms have been developed to revise and maintain beliefs…
In this position paper we discuss three main shortcomings of existing approaches to counterfactual causality from the computer science perspective, and sketch lines of work to try and overcome these issues: (1) causality definitions should…
What would you do if you were asked to "add" knowledge? Would you say that "one plus one knowledge" is two "knowledges"? Less than that? More? Or something in between? Adding knowledge sounds strange, but it brings to the forefront…
Comparison studies in methodological research are intended to compare methods in an evidence-based manner to help data analysts select a suitable method for their application. To provide trustworthy evidence, they must be carefully…
Simple assumptions represent a decisive reason to prefer one theory to another in everyday scientific praxis. But this praxis has little philosophical justification, since there exist many notions of simplicity, and those that can be…
Most work on scholarly document processing assumes that the information processed is trustworthy and factually correct. However, this is not always the case. There are two core challenges, which should be addressed: 1) ensuring that…
The search for a scientific theory of consciousness should result in theories that are falsifiable. However, here we show that falsification is especially problematic for theories of consciousness. We formally describe the standard…
Collectively, machine learning (ML) researchers are engaged in the creation and dissemination of knowledge about data-driven algorithms. In a given paper, researchers might aspire to any subset of the following goals, among others: to…
Theory and empirical science should be in constant dialogue, but often find it hard to understand one another. Here we describe a graduate-level university course we developed to improve matters. The course was designed to help…
There are various approaches to the problem of how one is supposed to conduct a statistical analysis. Different analyses can lead to contradictory conclusions in some problems so this is not a satisfactory state of affairs. It seems that…
Study designs classified as quasi- or natural experiments are typically accorded more face validity than observational study designs more broadly. However, there is ambiguity in the literature about what qualifies as a quasi-experiment.…
Every scientific endeavour consists of (at least) two components: A hypothesis on the one hand and data on the other. There is always a more or less abstract level - some theory, a set of concepts, certain relations of ideas - and a…
Meta-analysis is routinely performed in many scientific disciplines. This analysis is attractive since discoveries are possible even when all the individual studies are underpowered. However, the meta-analytic discoveries may be entirely…