week 8 dq post

How to property identify and assess a variable. The word quality is the foundation word for qualitative. Quality, as in how accurate and solid is this identified variable.

The two would be what is the variable and how does that variable work. Based on the scientific method determining how the variable works could be a definition for qualitative study. Its validity depends on how accurate the focus through the questions and the presentation of the project is.

Every scientific study which involves audience participation there will of course be an element of dissociation. Some peoples perspectives on various and assorted aspects of their life and the lives of others are set in stone but those perspectives are inherently go from slightly incorrect up to and through violently delusional.

Example most people have no idea that Ab Lincoln as a teenage was sold into slavery by his father for a length of time. It was technically speaking “indentured servant” which had an end date, and killing the servant was for white folks was against the law. Black folks did not have that luxury.

Lincoln had a very personal stake in his decisions regarding the slaves in America. Most people have less than no idea. There are even critics of his who make claims about him and this subject which have zero foundation in reality. However, since the events happened 150 years ago, the facts have been replaced with loyalty to party and or loyalty to some idea or other.

Qualitative studies ethically have to take into account first and foremost that as a matter of absolute fact some people have a skewed perspective of realty. Ethically this creates a large number of issues and problems when trying to find the truths of any given situation. When more than a few aspects of any given study have a flawed foundation, this

My two criteria for evaluating a study.

First I compare the information coming at me with the database of studies and more than 4 decades of scientific exploration of my own. As a researcher you have to build your own database of information. You have to have done your own experiment's which have to follow the scientific method. Everything has to be based on evidence, everything has to be tested down the line. Every variable itself has to be tested.

Example Ted Bundy in a solid and consistnat examination of his life close to everyone who has studied him has started from a perspective of “here are the established facts”. After a lot of time studying him, I can tell you definitively as a matter of absolute fact, most of those assumed facts are assumpttions which different groups have simply accepted those fictions and facts and refused to test them. Refused to perform due diligence on them to separate facts from fictions. Ted Bundy’s first experience with murder came at least once if not 3 times during his 4-18 years. His step father was a proud Son of the Confederacy. Large chunks of his family were still in the south, in some association with the plantations they either owned and or worked for/with. There is documentation evidence of no less than 1 Lynching within a reasonable distance from where ted was as a child and an event his step fathers family would have been involved with said lynching. No one has done the due diligence to find out the actual dates, times, locations, etc. of said lynching when young ted was a child. Fact he was in the area as a child when at least one lynching occurred. Fact his family spent huge amounts of time in area which the SOC had in effect large communities and at the time he was involved both legal and illegal militias. Seattle, Lynden, and the South all reported incidence of inappropriate behavior towards established communities during the time Ted was a minor. All sentences are simply a more acceptable form of mathematics. Every “person, place, thing” is a variable. Those variables need to be compared with the database in yoru head regarding validity.

I can think of dozens and dozens of other variables which have accepted definitions which have between very little to absolutely no foundation in reality. Check the work in the study to what you already know to be facts and scientifically sound variables. However this is actually the most difficult part because there are cultural fictions most humans have accepted as facts which have various levels of fictions built in.

The first was of course check the scientific consistency of the variables

Second check the foundation assumptions the ethics the epistemological foundation of the study. This part is hwere things become difficult. In any given study you by default have to start with some given filters which have built in bias. First the head researcher has built in prejudices, second the institution (usually a department) they work for has their own rules and regulations regarding proper actions. Example my father back in his grad school days after passing with a b+ one of his math classes he had an advisory meeting with the head of the math department. During that meeting the dept head asked my father questions about mathematics. My father was a very large man in many ways, but he was in fact a born coward. He had a mastery of algebra, but his understanding of upper mathematics did not exist. He was asked to leave the math dept, my father had a chip on his shoulder for the rest of his life about that failure. Any and all research my father did in academics had a flawed academic foundation. His epistemological understanding of how stats works was invalid. He was too proud to admit that, and his academic record proved that beyond any measure. When computer science came along he was pretty good at it, because he could program using algebra. However he could not program when the equations required upper end algorithms. you have to be aware of your own illusions and limitations.

next the school board have their own rules and regulations regarding what is a good study and what is a feel-good study which has little validity to it. Then the ethical review board; some are great, some are ok, and some review boards are so bias do not hand them any study that is not simply a copy of the studies they have already approved with minor changes. Then of course there are the participants in the study who have their own issues with clarity of reality.

Ontologically the above factors have to be taken into account. The nature of what data is, the nature of how it can be collected (ethically), and the filtering process through the various review boards