Andragogy reflection - contemporary specifics of the discipline

2020 ◽  
Vol XI (2(31)) ◽  
pp. 169-188
Author(s):  
Zofia Szarota ◽  
Krzysztof Pierścieniak
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Document Analysis ◽  
Reactive Method

Andragogy, as a young discipline, is faced with a number of theories of theory and methodology. The aim of the study was to identify the dominant threads in andragogists' publications and to determine what complexes of problems and thematic issues determine today's specificity of the sub-discipline. In the process of analyzing the content of articles from the area of social sciences published in the pages of andragogical journals, a non-reactive method of document analysis was used. Five analytical andragogical categories were identified and included in the typology developed for the purposes of the study.

Information behaviors of elite scholars in the context of academic practice

2017 ◽  
Vol 73 (5) ◽  
pp. 953-973 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy Falciani-White
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Document Analysis ◽  
Specific Information ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Academic Practice ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Information Behaviors ◽  
Data Collection And Analysis

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe the information behaviors in which scholars regularly engage, in participants’ own words wherever possible, and discuss how those behaviors function in the broader landscape of scholars’ academic practice. Design/methodology/approach Scholars’ information behaviors were investigated using semi-structured interviews, along with document analysis. Three scholars recognized for significant contributions to their fields were identified from each of the three major divisions of academia (humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences) using intensity sampling, for a total of nine participants. Interviews asked each participant to describe a recent research project from conceptualization to completion, focusing on how scholars engaged with ideas, information resources, tools, and processes. Findings Information behaviors were found to permeate scholars’ work from conceptualization through publication, and included behaviors such as skimming, reading, data collection and analysis, and writing. Of particular interest are the specific information behaviors that fall into the broader category of information use. Originality/value This study uses established definitions of information behaviors to broaden the information behaviors conversation to include the entirety of academic practice. The study shows how scholars from across the academy engage with information throughout the course of their academic work, not just when they are engaged in more traditional information seeking activities.

What Can We Learn From Factorial Surveys About Human Behavior?

Methodology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Knut Petzold ◽  
Tobias Wolbring
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Behavioral Intentions ◽  
Actual Behavior ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Factorial Survey ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Intended Behavior ◽  
The Social ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
High Level

Abstract. Factorial survey experiments are increasingly used in the social sciences to investigate behavioral intentions. The measurement of self-reported behavioral intentions with factorial survey experiments frequently assumes that the determinants of intended behavior affect actual behavior in a similar way. We critically investigate this fundamental assumption using the misdirected email technique. Student participants of a survey were randomly assigned to a field experiment or a survey experiment. The email informs the recipient about the reception of a scholarship with varying stakes (full-time vs. book) and recipient’s names (German vs. Arabic). In the survey experiment, respondents saw an image of the same email. This validation design ensured a high level of correspondence between units, settings, and treatments across both studies. Results reveal that while the frequencies of self-reported intentions and actual behavior deviate, treatments show similar relative effects. Hence, although further research on this topic is needed, this study suggests that determinants of behavior might be inferred from behavioral intentions measured with survey experiments.

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