Demonstrate understanding of quantitative and qualitative research methods and of the evaluation and synthesis of research literature.
Introduction
Research can be a difficult concept to truly understand, especially in a time when handheld devices such as phones and tablets are both inexpensive and always connected to the Internet. It may seem as if the information we need is always literally at our fingertips. But what kind of information is this? One of the phrases I hear often that makes me cringe is, “just do a five minute Google search and you’ll see…” as if it is possible to learn everything you need to know with one or two quick searches. In addition, there are numerous books that claim to make you an expert at one thing or another in a day, an hour, or even a minute. Situations like these serve to almost cheapen the idea of what research is, and can devalue the work of researchers.
Quality research does not come from just one source; you cannot claim that a topic is well-researched even if you spend hours on Wikipedia. There are two methods which, when combined, result in a richer, well-rounded product. The first of these methods, qualitative research, focuses on information which cannot be measured. In my undergraduate work in art history, much of the research I did was qualitative. Methods, media, and styles were the main focus, and these topics were not necessarily counted.
The second method, quantitative research, deals in numbers as the name would suggest. Art historical research did not completely discount using a quantitative approach; it is useful, for example, to know how many Dutch still life paintings were made in a given period, or how many commissions an artist received before the age of 25. Using both of these lends more weight to a statement or an argument. If I were to make a statement such as “there was a proliferation of Dutch still life paintings in the 17th century” it merely states a fact, but saying “there were 100,000 Dutch still life paintings made between the years of 1709 and 1720, and of those 80,000 came from this particular region, which shows us that it may have been the epicenter for that particular style” (these numbers are an example only) shows not only that I have used qualitative and quantitative methods together to make a stronger statement, but that I have synthesized them and begun to extrapolate trends where there were none explicitly stated.
In addition to using qualitative and quantitative research methods, it is important to know the differences in the quality and types of acceptable sources. In my own research, my goal is to seek out a mix of primary and secondary sources in the form of documents or records, books, journals, letters, analyses or anything that might have been made by someone involved with the subject in question or was the result of it. A book about Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address would be a secondary source, while the address itself is a primary source. Working from source material ensures that there is no commentary or extraneous information that might sway my opinions one way or another. By using this material, as the researcher I am free to do this myself.
Evidence
Identifying Current Issues in Archives and Archival Appraisal
My first piece of evidence is a project in which I participated in a weekly exercise to identify current issues in archives and archival appraisal. Each week I, along with a group of others, searched news outlets to find interesting articles about anything related to archives. These were then saved to the bookmarking site delicious.com and assigned a minimum of four tags of our own choosing. We could choose or make up any tag we wanted, as long as it was descriptive and not too general. For this project, a tag such as “archives” was seen as less useful than one called “digital preservation.” At the end of the fifteen-week project, the number of tags and instances of their use were counted and the articles they were attached to were briefly analyzed and summarized in order to find any trends.
In my own analysis, I found that of the more than 1,400 tags used in the project, those relating to digitization, preservation, and special collections were the most popular. I came to the conclusion that these three topics were closely aligned with the core values of archivists, whose primary mission is to ensure access, while pointing the profession toward a digital future, one that changes the traditional definition of what an archives actually is.
My second piece of evidence is a literature review I created as part of a larger research proposal on ephemeral events. There has not been much work done on this topic from an art historical perspective, and this literature review is meant to be an overview of what has been done with regard to previous research. Work on this project was mainly qualitative; I sought out primary and secondary sources to lay the foundation for my proposal, evaluated and compared sources to determine which biases existed so that I could balance my sources, and identified gaps and areas for future research.
Though the topic of my literature review is something that greatly interests me, the bigger theme was the analysis of sources and exhaustive search to find any unusual sources, gaps, and potential conflict. For example, there are a surprising number of primary sources on this topic, as festivals and banquets are often held in honor of a visiting monarch or other dignitary and the festivities would be documented by a member of the court, whose job was to make his boss look good at all costs. Primary sources might be ideal, but in a case like this, they are not without bias. Writing this literature review showed me that research is about much more than gathering information, which is only the beginning of a process that involves using analysis, good judgment, and tenacity in order to evaluate and synthesize the gathered sources.
Professional Development
For many, research ends with graduation. As a librarian, I believe that I will continue to be involved with research throughout my career. Knowing how to differentiate between qualitative and quantitative research methods and knowing how to evaluate whether sources are scholarly and reliable or not are skills that I can use to teach and help others in their research. Beyond this, research will be useful to me as I write grant applications, programming proposals, and other professional communication. Having well-researched data and evidence will be crucial in writing strong, convincing arguments for these documents.