OVERVIEW
The British Computer Society acts as an umbrella and provides basic support for groups of individuals sharing a common interest in specific technical subjects within Information Systems. These are the BCS Specialist Groups, over 50 in number, and they offer a unique insight into the broad range of topics and activities available to today’s computer professional. In most cases, membership of a Group is open to non-BCS Members, although those Groups which charge for membership often have a discounted membership rate and reduced event attendance fees for Society members. Through this openness, the Society benefits both from getting its message over to professionals that otherwise might not join, and by having even greater access to practitioners at the cutting edges of IT development.
RATIONALE
The rationale behind this empirical research focuses on the appropriate research design to be applied in the process that will help possibly in understanding the underlying issues present in BCS integrating to its membership process within the BCS specialist groups. The study is crucial to the situation of BCS in terms of providing technical subjects to computer professionals and other related points to consider as the empirical design for this study is to be evaluated critically and the application of case study analysis as well as survey interviews is important to realize the reason for having this research as these designs should be combined for its clear and effective function for the computer society that will be able to combine the need for the implementation of the design chosen.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1. Do the BCS members lack the interest in participating BCS programs and activities?
2. What are the possible ways to keep and maintain the level of membership among its specialist groups?
3. Do BCS need to re-group and re-invent their qualifying criteria in accepting an on-going member in promoting better IT development?
4. Is case study analysis and survey interview design suitable to change the situation positively that will help in group membership?
OBJECTIVES
PROBLEM STATEMENT
The problem could be lack of empirical research in connection to the BCS situation and there could be insufficient research evidences on the part of research context. Thus, there can be a failure on the part of BCS in reaching out properly to their members by means of providing them suitable and useful membership programs that would act them as a group and later be a part of the specialist groups in providing relevant support to members for the information systems and that one major problem could be the presence of lack of interest due to the locations of meetings, style of meetings, competing attractions from other societies, a feeling amongst younger members that these things are for older members, and that events are not very exciting.
RESEARCH DESIGN
The case study analysis and survey interviews plan of research design are reliable enough to realize the objectives for this study and in answering the research questions and are valid tools that lead to valid outcomes because it is one of the effective design and is commonly used tool in verifying research findings and evidences for research processes. (2000) The design will help in giving ample implication for further research that relates to IT development within BCS and will emphasize key points that clarifies to the content measures of specialist groups for BCS membership. Moreover, the empirical research requires an organized data gathering in order to pinpoint theories included in the research, the methodology of the research and the instruments of data interpretation. (2000) The case study analysis and survey interviews design incorporates a direct respondent observation as it is possible that the study would be inexpensive and time efficient as the chosen method gathers information about the existing BCS condition and in employing this method is to describe the nature of a situation, as it exists at the time of the study and to explore the reasons and causes for the arising issues involved and being investigated by the researcher within a specific structure and context. (1995)
The researcher opted to use this design considering the desire of the researcher to obtain first hand information data from the respondents so as to formulate simple and direct conclusion and recommendations for the research study. ( 1995) The empirical study will employ a matter of quantitative and quantitative research design as the study intends to find substantial real evidence in the process as BCS specialist groups can easily adopt as these designs may have standard measures needed to be executed in accomplishing the tasks for conducting researches as needed for the completion of the empirical research. This research uses a qualitative research approach and it is interpretive according to (1999 p.69) terms. This study started with initial definitions of research questions in broad terms. It is important to make the research domain as focused as possible, as otherwise the researcher can be overwhelmed with impertinent data and needless work. Also a priori specified constructs are in place to help the design of theory-building research. But the research questions and the constructs should be considered only as tentative because they must not obstruct the findings and analysis of the empirical data. The questions and constructs only help in the research work and they should be defined in a way to allow for modifications and enhancements as appropriate. (1995)
THE CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
The case study analysis design will be applied in this research; the analysis will focus in finding out relevant cases points of view from 25 BCS specialist group members and 25 non-BCS members, although those Groups which charge for membership often have a discounted membership rate and reduced event attendance fees for Society members. (1988) The subject involves the BCS information analysis study for specialist groups and non BCS members as the purpose is to expose theoretical framework of case analysis approach stated and the steps used for finding results directed to the BCS and its IT systems even though most of these methods are not handled from the operational aspect. (1988) The other purpose is to explain the problems encountered in the implementation of the design and share the experience gained by the study and thereby contribute to debates concerning methodology related to case analysis in BCS membership and to establish the main points that should be kept for accumulating research evidences and information to be reflected through the interpretation of cases of BCS specialist groups and BCS non members.
The lack of operational details in the application of analyzing methods makes it necessary to help inexperienced analysts studying the problem. The case study is explained in two steps, first the outline of the method is stated in general; and in the second step the details of the study are given. (1994)
Phases to be followed for the BCS Case Analysis Study
Phase 1: Securing information about BCS specialist groups and exploring the problem and extent of the study as seen in the situation
Phase 2: Preparation of the interpretation of analysis plan
Phase 3: Presentation and approval of the design plan
Phase 4: Preparation of the case realization program
Phase 5: case analysis realization phase
Phase 6: Compiling, organizing and transforming the documents provided and the information obtained
Phase 7: Determining the problems and information needs and the principles, rules and recommendations towards designing the case
Process of building theory from case study research (1989)
Step
Activity
Reason
Getting started
Definition of research question
Focuses efforts
Possibly a priori constructs
Provides better grounding of construct measures
Neither theory nor hypothesis
Retains theoretical flexibility
Selecting cases
Specific population
Constrains extraneous variation and sharpens external validity
Theoretical, not random, sampling
Focuses efforts on theoretically useful cases – i.e., those that replicate or extend theory by filling conceptual categories
Crafting instruments and protocols
Multiple data collection methods
Strengthens grounding of theory by triangulation of evidence.
Qualitative and quantitative data combined
Synergistic view of evidence
Multiple investigators
Fosters divergent perspectives and strengthens grounding
Entering the field
Overlap data collection and analysis, including field notes
Speeds analyses and reveals helpful adjustments to data collection
Flexible and opportunistic data collection methods
Allows investigators to take advantage of emergent themes and unique case features
Analyzing data
Within-case analysis
Gains familiarity with data and preliminary theory generation
Cross-case pattern search using divergent techniques
Forces investigators to look beyond initial impressions and see evidence thru multiple lenses
Shaping hypotheses
Iterative tabulation of evidence for each construct
Sharpens construct definition, validity, and measurability
Replication, not sampling, logic across cases
Confirms, extends, and sharpens theory
Search evidence for “why” behind relationships
Builds internal validity
Enfolding literature
Comparison with conflicting literature
Builds internal validity, raises theoretical level, and sharpens construct definitions
Comparison with similar literature
Sharpens generalizability, improves construct definition, and raises theoretical level
Reaching closure
Theoretical saturation when possible
Ends process when marginal improvement becomes small
This study can be seen as a combination of grounded theory study and a multiple case study where the cases are put together with interviews and other relevant materials. In this study Eisenhardt’s sequence is used.
THE SURVEY INTERVIEWS
The data collection methods will include survey interviews of the BCS respondents within the interview protocols and field notes were written up where the situation and other non-verbal ideas and observations were put down to prepare for subsequent case analysis. ( 1998) Two interviewers carried out the interviews. Only in one case did they do an interview together and this was at the beginning of the project in order to standardize the following interview sessions and learn interview techniques from each other. The interviews are to be completed using the semi-structured interview approach where the interview themes and questions were prepared beforehand The semi-structured approach was selected in order to have an adequate focus for the discussions. However, space was given to follow new leads and other interesting topics emerging from the conversations. (1998)
Figure One: Processing of interview data from analysis (Hirsjärvi & Hurme, 2000 p. 144)
One form of validation is the method of triangulation where comparison of data from different sources and by different methods is done (1993) where the interviews and interpretations based on them are presented to the interviewees in order to correct errors or to add issues not found in the texts and their interpretations (2000).
For the empirical material of this study an effort was made for member checking but the expected results could be not enough for the survey interviews and cases as not all respondents may respond to the enquiries with more information. To further generalize the findings and the design to reflect the BCS membership process within the specialist groups and non members as more research on the subject is needed. ( 1996)
ESTIMATED COSTS
Travel
Subsistence
Stationery
Other materials
Total _____________ $ 95
CHRONOLOGICAL PLAN
task to be completed
JULY
AUGUST
SEPTEMBER
OCTOBER
NOVEMBER
DEC
Meet with supervisor and finalize proposal
Academic literature review
Professional literature review
Case Analysis/Survey Interview design
Other fieldwork and data collection
Data analysis and writing reports
Complete temporary draft
Prepare final draft
APPENDICES
CRITERIA FOR EMPIRICAL RESEARCH ( 1997)
Randomization: Ideally, subjects should be randomly selected from the target population and then randomly assigned to treatment conditions. Control: Extraneous factors associated with variation in an outcome can be controlled by techniques such as selection, stratification and possibly statistical can be randomized.
Reliability: It is preferred that outcomes be assessed with relatively little measurement error. Other things being equal, unreliability increases unexplained variation within groups and reduces the power of the analysis.
Validity: In selecting a relevant measure for an outcome variable, it is critical that logical inferences can be made from the operations upon which the measure was based to the theoretical constructs relevant to the study.
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
0 comments:
Post a Comment