The pervasiveness and implications of statistical misconceptions among academics with a special interest in business research methods

Statistics play a very important role in business research, particularly in studies that choose to use quantitative or mixed methods. Alongside statistical analysis, aspects related to research design (such as sampling, reliability and validity issues) require a good grounding in statistical concepts reinforced by careful practice to avoid potential mistakes arising from statistical misconceptions. Although quite a considerable number of published studies have focused on students’ faulty thinking regarding statistical concepts, little research explores the extent to which these are also held by academics who are their instructors. This empirical study addresses this by answering the following questions: First, are statistical misconceptions pervasive among academics with a special interest in business research methods? If so, second, is there an association between the pervasiveness of statistical misconceptions and the preferred research tradition (qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods)? Data were collected via a web questionnaire from a purposive sample of academics with an expressed interest in business research methods. The questionnaire comprised 30 categorical statements (agree, disagree, don’t know) focusing on statistical misconceptions (and conceptions) relating to descriptive statistics, design strategies, inferential statistics and regression, and five demographic questions. We targeted a critical case purposive sample of 679 potential respondents. Although 166 consented to take part, only 80 completed the questionnaire and their responses form the basis of the statistical analysis, a response rate of 11.8 %. The study provides empirical evidence of both an absence of knowledge and a high pervasiveness of faulty notions that have infected the thinking of academics relating to both research design and the use of statistics. This is particularly so for academics who prefer quantitative methods, those preferring qualitative methods being more likely to admit that they do not know. The study argues that such lack of knowledge and misconceptions reduce the true utility of statistics in research. Recommendations are offered regarding the teaching of statistics within business research methods

On the experience of conducting a Systematic Review in Industrial, Work and Organizational Psychology: Yes it is Worthwhile

Systematic Review methodology (SRm) is an increasingly popular choice for literature reviews in the Social Sciences. While compared to traditional narrative reviews SRm appears time-consuming and laborious, transparency and replicability of the methodology is argued to facilitate greater clarity of review. Nevertheless, researchers in Industrial, Work, and Organizational (IWO) Psychology have yet to embrace this methodology. Drawing on experience from conducting a Systematic Review (SR) of individual workplace performance we explore the premise: The advantages of SRm to IWO Psychology researchers outweigh the disadvantages. We offer observations, insights, and potential solutions to challenges faced during the reviewing process, concluding that SRm is worthwhile for IWO Psychology researcher

A conceptual model for action and design research

Organizational research has a pattern of special characteristics which make a clear distinction from other research paradigms. When using these approaches – based on Action and Design – the Interpretivist, Constructivist, and Participatory perspectives dominate. They have already proven to have strong foundations, which turn these paradigmatic approaches into effective ways for getting knowledge, doing things, and promoting change within organizational settings. It combines the traditional scientific, engineering, and organization development approaches, depicting how an organization can, simultaneously, solve multidimensional problems and produce actionable knowledge, effective change and useful artifacts. It has been developed using a Design Science Research approach, tested in a major organizational change program (Henriques, 2015; Henriques & ONeill, 2014), and successfully used to teach research methods essentials to Master and DBA students.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

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Choosing research participants

Within qualitative research choice of research participants is, invariably, constrained by what is practicable. Whilst in an ideal world we may wish to collect data from participants in a particular organization or a number of organizations, our abilities to do this are dependent upon gaining access to these organizations and our intended participants, as well as being granted permission to collect the data we require. Once physical access has been granted and permission obtained (Gummesson, 2000), whilst occasionally it may be possible to collect data from the total population, for example all an organization’s employees; for most research projects this will be impossible. As a condition of our access, our potential population of research participants may be constrained to a smaller sub group. The resources we have available to support our research may also constrain the amount of data we can collect and analyse, almost invariably resulting in it only being practicable to collect data from a sample of our population of research participants (Fink, 2003; Saunders et al., 2009a). Consequently for virtually all qualitative research it will be necessary to consider carefully how we will choose those research participants, our sample, from whom we will collect data to answer our research question and meet our research aim. This chapter takes as its starting premise that there is a clear connection between our research aim and our research design (Kvale and Brinkmann, 2009). Our choice of research participants should be determined by the focus of our research, thereby enabling us to meet of our research aim and answer our research question. Choosing research participants is likely to be difficult until we are clear regarding the focus of our research. The chapter commences with a discussion of the main concerns and debates associated with choosing participants for qualitative organisational research. Within this I consider the importance of gaining access, the need for the sample to enable collection of appropriate data, the use of different non-probability sample selection techniques and the number of participants needed. These are illustrated subsequently by two examples drawn from my own and colleagues’ research experiences. The first focuses on selection of a single case study, issues of access and purposive sampling techniques. The second explores the use of a self-selection sample to choose participants drawn from a variety of organizations, and issues associated with sample size. The chapter closes with guidelines for new qualitative researchers when choosing participants and suggestions for further reading