Critical evaluation of research information Laura Jeffrey Researcher Training

Course outline Importance of evaluation Forms of value – Subjective Cognitive bias – Objective – Intersubjective Relationship between the forms of value

The need to evaluate information Much training is about directing you to the right information = searching and retrieval One of the distinctive elements of postgraduate research is that you have to be critical and reflect on what you find What defines your evaluative criteria?

Ecology of resources Term developed by Rosemary Luckin Resources are interconnected and they evolve e.g. natural resources Information resources are transformed into knowledge Knowledge becomes a resource Therefore prior knowledge shapes what we go on to create

Role of the researcher In theory we can select almost any information to complete a task In practice we filter it by selecting resources we think most appropriate Motivation - affected by the learning we have already done

Other factors But, filtering is done for us BEFORE we get the chance to make a judgement People Technologies Cost Skills Copyright, IP

Value Filtering process = value judgement – By researcher – Made on their behalf What forms of value are there and how do they work together to create information literate researcher?

Subjective form of value Decisions we make – Is this what I want, do I need this, is it relevant? Privileges you as the researcher in the decision making process If we omit it we get groupthink (Janis, 1972) or battery cognition (Blaug, 2007) Importance therefore of asserting individual criticality

Cognitive bias SO… subjectivity is vulnerable to bias and hunches Concept of cognitive bias was developed in 1970s by Tversky and Kahneman Four main groups – Social – Memory – Probability/belief – Decision making

Social biases Ascribe positive or negative traits to self, individuals or groups Loading values or anticipating action based on prior experience or a bias against self, individuals or groups Academic impact: need to verify information and not rely on own views; important to remember when analysing human subjects

Memory biases How you perceive past events False memory, positive memory, imbalanced memory E.g. A Photo, a Suggestion, a False Memory Academic impact: importance of accurate record keeping and note taking

Probability and belief To disregard or to pay too much attention to probability Academic impact: need to treat each research finding as distinct and to judge it in its own right

Decision making biases Influences on your decisions by own biases or those of a group Academic impact: need to be objective and consider all possible routes of enquiry and treat all research findings as valid until proved otherwise e.g. Semmelweis reflex

Cognitive biases On your table, group the forty cards into four piles of ten – Social – Memory – Probability – Decision

Objective form of value Scientific measures of validity or reliability Exists so that subjective values don’t unduly influence work Omit this scheme of value and we risk information (and knowledge formed from it) becoming counterknowledge (Thompson, 2008).

Intersubjective form of value Based on the shared values of a community e.g. morals, ethics, laws, economics Allows for discussion of scientific method as it can’t explain everything Acceptance in a community If we omit this then values are relativist

Three forms of value Subjective Inter- subjective Objective

Summary of relationship of values Awareness of benefits of all three values Awareness of drawbacks of each individual value Experience variation in your engagement with information Understand when different forms of value should be prioritised or used in conjunction Application to the research process