Monday, September 29, 2014

Theme 3 Research and Theory Reflection

I’d like to start with correcting myself from last week’s theme 3 pre where I missed saying, that the representation of the problematic online game scale theory is a table, to describe it further he uses a figure of the POGU-model as well. This scale is just a suggestion, “an initial step”, towards finding a path and a way to develop a scale for POGU further. With that said, after reading some more literature, I now think that the POGU-scale is mainly a design theory in that it tells how to continue on this path of developing a scale and also it tells how to measure POGU, with the help of the relationship of 20 items and 5 factors.  Last week I said that the theory type was analysis and a tiny bit explanation, which it also kind of is in my opinion since it both says what it is, and a little bit about why and how. But the main purpose, I think, was to develop a scale that could be used as an instrument on how to refine and design further on the scale, and not just find what is or how to measure. As the text said that we read: theories could include components from multiple types of theory. 

During the week I’ve learnt that theory can be influenced by the discipline, for example theory within the area of information systems might not be the same kind of theory in another discipline like mathematics. I’ve learnt about 5 types of theories in the area of information systems. Further on these contain a degree of generalizability, degree of explanation and/or prediction, and a degree of causality. The text I read was a suggestion tested in Korea, so regarding the generalizability or scope it’s hard to say until further tests have been done, which he states in the text. But one clear boundary is that it only concerns online games in the form of MMO and as he defines it.  The causality could be the items in the scale, for example item 1 statement, which is related to the factor “Euphoria” : “I feel unrestricted when playing online games”, it’s also a little bit of explanation in this, at least to why you have/haven’t POGU but it says nothing about the effects from having it.


So with that said I’ve learnt about different types of theories which can have a mean of representations, constructs, scope, casual explanation, testable propositions, and prescriptive statements. This regarding theories in information systems. As I missed the lecture, due to the fact that I had another lecture that I couldn’t afford to miss at the same time in another course, I had to read the literature carefully again. Except reading the literature I’ve tried to find explanations online in order to get a hang of everything. Then I attended the seminar where we discussed our texts, different kinds of theory, hypothesis and knowledge. It’d be interesting to read about other disciplines view on theory in order to compare and find differences. It’s also interesting to reflect around how a paper like the one I read, are based on other theories, which has its own type of theory, of different reliability. Even the methods used in the papers are motivated and used with the help of theories from other areas.  The theories helps building the papers structure, and finding its purpose, which makes the theories type, reliability, and style reflect on the paper itself. 

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