Application Exercises

Chapter specific application exercises will help you think about research design in practice or have you explore a relevant resource.

Exercise 1: Identifying Your Interests

In practice, research is often an intersection of topic interest and the appropriate method(s) for that topic. Use the following checklist to identify your broad topic interests and the types of research that most appeal to you.

Context

(a) Mass media and social media

(b) Organizations

(c) Groups

(d) Interpersonal

(e) Other (name it)

Data Collection

(a) Count behaviors or media content.

(b) Observe behaviors.

(c) Interview and listen.

(d) survey

Reason for Research

(a) Get practical results that can be used.

(b) Get results that test ideas and theories.

(c) Get results that explain power structures in society

Relationship to Research Participants

(a) Observe objectively from a distance.

(b) Engage closely with people.

Focus of Research

(a) Study large numbers of people or media.

(b) Study a few people or media in depth.

Level of Research

(a) Study messages at “face value.”

(b) “Unpack” hidden meanings behind messages.

 

 

Exercise 2: Finding Your Worldview

As discussed in this chapter, all researchers bring to their research a worldview or basic assumptions about human communication and therefore how best to study and report it.

This exercise is an opportunity for you to explore and identify your own basic worldview. Following are a number of statements about human behavior and ways of understanding it formatted as polar opposites. Think through each pair of statements and put a check mark on the line next to the statement with which you most agree. If you cannot decide, put a check mark in the middle column (B).

When finished, total the number of check marks for each column. If you have the most check marks in column A, you have a Worldview I perspective; if most marks are in column C, you have a Worldview II perspective. Having the most marks in column B suggests that you see advantages to both perspectives or have yet to take a position. In this case, you might try the exercise again, this time forcing yourself to select from either column A or column C. Review this chapter for a discussion of each worldview and its implications for research.

Worldview I

A

B

C

Worldview II

People are basically alike.

 

 

 

Each person is unique.

People are predictable.

 

 

 

People are not predictable.

It is possible to make generalizations about human behavior.

 

 

 

It is not possible to make generalizations about human behavior.

People’s behavior is determined by events and circumstances.

 

 

 

People’s behavior is determined by the choices and decisions they make.

People live in an objective world that makes sense to any observer.

 

 

 

People live in an objective world that makes sense only to the individual.

Human communication is best understood by examining one aspect at a time, in depth.

 

 

 

Human communication is best understood by examining all aspects simultaneously, or holistically.

The best understanding of human communication comes from keeping an objective distance from participants.

 

 

 

The best understanding of human communication comes from getting as close as possible to participants.

The most accurate reports of human communication come from quantitative methods such as surveys and experiments.

 

 

 

The most accurate reports of human communication come from qualitative methods such as interviews and observations.

The best understanding of human communication comes from reports written in the scholarly language of research.

 

 

 

The best understanding of human communication comes from reports written in the language of the research participants.

Totals

 

 

 

 

Exercise 3: Fine-Tuning Your Worldview

In Exercise 2 you located yourself relative to two fundamentally different assumptions about human behavior—World View I and World View II. You are now in a position to fine tune your perspectives on human communication and how it might be studied. Revisit Creswells’ four worldviews and Craig’s seven communication research traditions outlined previously. Based on your consideration of worldviews and research traditions, decide which one of the Creswell worldviews you most align with. Then rank Craig’s seven research traditions according to their relevance to your own view of human communication. These exercises will help you narrow down the communication research literature to something aligned with your own view of human communication and how it might best be studied.

Hint: A starting point would be to review Craig (1999) referenced at the end of this chapter. You might also use the tradition and worldview names as search terms to see examples of research based on each tradition or worldview.