Thursday, 8 November 2012

Bazinga! | Reflections - Theme 2


This week’s seminar was to discuss our understanding of theory and from the previous post it is possible to see that I was very confused in defining what a theory is or is not. 

As we started the small group discussions I realized that a theory doesn't necessary need to come up with a brilliant new idea. And this was really something new to me. Instead a theory might be as simple as making a point by analyzing previous studies and connecting some dots so you prove your idea to be reasonable enough. 

There are lots of different ways to define a theory and I liked when Stefan Hrastinski (Teacher) said that the concept of theory is like the concept of knowledge we discussed last week: very broad and with different definitions that somehow complement each other. So in my opinion it can be interpreted in the way that suits you the most. 

Although I agree with the article What theory is not that sometimes a paper we read doesn't show that the author really put some effort in constructing a strong theory and making a point to prove it.  But again this might be just a perspective in judging a paper and questioning it in a philosophical way, what would be a strong or a weak theory? What would be relevant and irrelevant? The answers are totally subjective and would depend on the interest of the reader. 

To me the best concepts of theory posted on the course wiki were:


Theory is an abstract entity that aims to describe, explain, and enhance understanding of the world and, in some cases, to provide predictions of what will happen in the future and to give a basis for intervention and action. Theory is something we construct, it does not exist by itself.

Theory is about the connections between phenomena, and explaining WHY and HOW acts, events, structure, and thoughts occur. Theory attempt to explain the causal logic between cause and event.


Something I thought of in the seminar was also that while looking for a theory paper, instead of typing a concept I should have typed the word “theory” in a high impact factor journal in the field of communication, for example. I am pretty much sure I would have found some interesting results, similar to the ones other students found.

To close theme 2 a funny video from the The Big Bang Theory in which Sheldon tries to test his theory of how to make new friends (Episode 13, 2nd season). He comes up with an idea, draws a research to test his hypothesis. Then based on the results and on a book (reference on previous researches) he draw an algorithm, tries it and check if his idea can be supported. In the end he proves his theory to be plausible. 
Bazinga! 


3 comments:

  1. Hehe) love ur example with TBBT ;-)
    Do u use any of the theories we were looking at the seminar in your master thesis?)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Fernanda, I also like your example from TBBT =) How do you think what type of theory Sheldon has developed and tested (by Gregor's classification)?

    ReplyDelete
  3. I like how you pointed out what theory is not. Maybe I would add the sentence that theories are built on (different kind of) information, but information without context is not a theory. I would also add to your theory definition that we have to accept that theories are not set in stone. Further developments replace old theory with new theory. What do you think about that?

    ReplyDelete