Things I'm thinking about

This was originally posted in the SOAN 3000: Research Methods blog on Blackboard on February 3, 2016

Still haven't found time to actually read...

Did you know UFOs come from under water in addition to outer space?

(I discovered that there was an entire series on-line on the History channel that was allegedly from the files of MUFON, which is another potential research topic of mine...)

Okay, seriously.  Given the project I'm talking about, on neo-Pagan religious transmission, it probably falls in line with Inductive theorizing.  I don't know of any existing theory that could be used to explain things, and I don't really know what kinds of things I'll find.  I have a guide from some of the things I've read, but they seem, in retrospect, fairly atheoretical.  Meaning, there's a lot of "here's what's happening" but a lack of "here is why it is happening."

It's possible this means that what I'll actually be doing is something called "grounded theory." It's a sub-set of inductive reasoning where, instead of making observations and seeing if there's an existing theory to explain them, you use the observations and relationships to create a new theory.  I think ideally then, others test that theory (deductively)... but, to be honest, I don't know if that actually happens.  Maybe it does?  One thing we'll talk about is that while replication is one of the goals of scientific research, we are only human, and like to do something new.

I'm a little nervous about the whole thing, because it's been a while since I've done ANYthing like qualitative research, and it was on a much smaller scale.  But, it's fun to learn new things.