Metodix materials
Most important materials are summaries of Metodix articles and other contents. Also documents in accordance with users' wishes will be attached to this spot.
Benchmarking as an Action Research Process
Paula Kyrö
Benchmarking as an Action Research Process is one of Metodix' two articles about benchmarking. An overview to benchmarking will be found in the article The Roots and the Content of Benchmarking. In her article, Paula Kyrö elaborates the method of benchmarking as a special form of action research, and places it in the spiral of action research, introduced by Ulla Suojanen. With the help of Haberman's knowledge interests, Kyrö places benchmarking into critical and emancipated knowledge interest, which aims at the best possible outcome. In benchmarking, it is possible to combine the knowledge and the practise. Kyrö uses Ulla Suojanen's Metodix article Action research as a framework of her article.
More information about the article and its content !
Case Study as a Methodical Approach
Iiris Aaltio-Marjosola
Case study is a part of qualitative research tradition. Iiris Aaltio-Marjosola elaborates case study in the methodical point of view, as a special research approach. In her article, she approaches case study from the frame of business economics, but she emphasizes, that case study is applicable to many different disciplines. In case study, cases under a research are unique, and they are interpreted in their own environment and time. More information about the article and its content !
Conjoint Method
Jarmo Heinonen
The article was based on Jarmo Heinonen's licenciate thesis A Cap Analysis of Customers and Workers from 1998. Conjoint analysis is a broad term for analytic techniques, which can open coaptated decomposition models in decision making situations. It is a composition model calculated from partial profit values or a model calculated from individual ratings or from discrete alternatives of selection alternatives, in which values are chosen from multiple-choises. More information about the article an its content !
Delfoi Method
Osmo Kuusi
Delfoi method is also known as delfi or delphi technique. Osmo Kuusi approaches the Delfoi method through its three essential aspects, which are anonymity, iteration of arguments, and feedback. In Delfoi method, experts of different branches gathered by the manager, argument about a prespecified subject. The aim is not to find a consensus. Nowadays there are many different versions about the method, all of which Kuusi calls as scenario methods. More information about the article andits content !
Three Traditions of Discurse Analysis
Liisa Remes
Human reality can be structured in a lingual (British tradition), cultural (French tradition), or changing the human activity's (German tradition) point of view. In every perspective, the subject of the study is a social reality produced by people. Liisa Remes emphasizes in her article, that everyone using the discurse analysis should know all three traditions. More information about the article andits content !
Discurse Analysis in a Empiric Research's Point of View
Anna-Maija Lämsä
Anna-Maija Lämsä approaches basic principles of discurse analytical empiric research with examples from business economics. In her article, Lämsä also describes the concept of discurse, its different levels, and materials applicable for discurse analysis. More information about the article and its content !
Dynamic Concept Analysis
Jyri Manninen
Dynamic Concept Analysis (DCA) is an analyzing method for complicated phenomena and materials, in which reality is described through concepts and relationships between them. The method can be used as a complete analyzing method, or for example to deepen a factor analysis. Jyri Manninen describes in his article the use of DCA to analyze different kinds of complicated qualitative and/or quantitative materials. Manninen clarifies the method with examples from pedagogics. More information about the article and its content !
Weak Signals of Future
Osmo Kuusi
Elina Hiltunen
Hannu Linturi
There are two kinds of weak signals: on the one hand signals indicating a rise of a new trend, and on the other hand signals indicating a fall of an old trend. A propability for weak signals to come true is low, but if they do happen, consequences will be radical. In the article, the Futures term "a weak signal of future" is defined as it is shaped on ground of the Delfoi study organized by the Futures Research Society in the beginning of 2000. In the article, an expert synthesis about what weak signals are, is presented. More information about the article and its contents !
A Concept Map as a Research Method
Mauri Ålhberg
In his article, Mauri Ålhberg compares the concept map of Joseph D. Novak with his own, improved version. Concept maps, unlike mind-maps, are completely unambiguous. With a help of concept maps, one can get rich and specific material about the thinking and learning of those under a research. The improved version of the concept map of Mauri Ålhberg is based on his intergrative theory. More information about the article and its content !
Constructive Clasp to Research
Kari Lukka
In his article, Kari Lukka introduces the nature of constructive clasp to research, a research process applicable to it, and estimates profits and possible problems of the clasp. At the same time, the constructive clasp to research is placed in the field of methodology and possible outcomes of constructive research are discussed. The constructive clasp to research is a method, which produces innovative constructions, aiming to solve real world problems and in that way to produce contributions to a discipline applying it. Solid dialogue between the practice and the theory and the use of interventions performed by the researcher as a research method, are characteristic to a constructive clasp to research. The constructive clasp to research is one form of case study. More information about the article and its content !
Women History
Kirsi Vainio-Korhonen
In her article, Kirsi Vainio-Korhonen elaborates trends of women history from 1970's to 21st century. Vainio-Korhonen also mirrors changes in woman history to a Finnish women history research. In the end of the article, she describes study methods of women history, and problems associated to them. Vainio-Korhonen uses Pertti Haapala's words when saying, that the aim of women history is not to produce new, diverging study methods, but its importance lies in a new way of understanding history. More information about the article and its content !
Narrative Way of Knowing
Anders Johansson
In his article, Anders Johansson goes through the filosophy of narrative knowledge, using examples from the Ricour's hermaneutic clasp to research, the Labov's sociolinguistic perspective, and the Riessman's biographic clasp to research. Johansson classifies different narrative perspectives to a realistic, poststructural and retrospective reflection. In the end of the article, an organizational narrative, which Matti Laitinen elaborates more specific in the Metodix article Describing Organizational Change Process, is shortly discussed. More information about the article and its content !
Describing Organizational Change Process
Matti Laitinen
The organizational change narrative means a narration about what an organization has been through for instance during some specific development project. It doesn't just tell about how things went on, but also contains a description about how people working in the organization have constructed their own history, and what they have learned from their previous experience. The article is based on the Matti Laitinen's dissertation Invention and Change in Setup Work. Movement to Selfpiloting Groups in an Industrial Company. More information about the article and its content !
Soft System Method as a Research Method
Anita Rubin
With a help of Soft System Method (SSM), among others organizations and broad social environments, to whose development dynamics one wants to interfere, can be studied. The method is a kind of variation of action research, with a created tension between desired state of future and current state as a functionary basis. In her article, Anita Rubin concentrates to introduce the Peter Checkland's SSM and the KADS-method developed in the University of Amsterdam, both of which, as the method in general, can be described as a cultural evolutionary approach. More information about the article and its content !
Phenomenological Methodology
Paul J. Ilsney
Keith W. Krasemann
Phenomenology is actually a trend of philosophy of science, but it can also be used as a study method. Methodologically it emphasizes going straight to the point, and it doesn't allow predestinationed theories. Phenomenology requires researcher's own experience. Awareness and action are intentional. The existence of a real object isn't denied, but it is placed as if in paranthesis. In their article, Paul J. Ilsney and Keith W. Kraseman approach phenomenology distinctly as a study method, and they discuss about the usefulness of "aboutness" and "everydayness" in all research work and teaching. In the end of the article they introduce the metaphor theory of Ricoeur and Speigelberg's methodology. More information about the article and its content !
Protocol Analysis
Pirita Seitamaa-Hakkarainen
The protocol analysis or the thinking aloud method helps to study background knowledge elaborating processes of individual's thinking and problem solving. In her article, Pirita Seitamaa-Hakkarainen describes essential charasteristics, aptitude fields, realization and reliability of thinking aloud method. Seitamaa-Hakkarainen clarifies the method with examples. More information about the article and its content !
The Use of Fuzzy Logic in Modelling
Vesa A. Niskanen
There are a lot of inexact matters existing in reality, which can not be described or modelled according to a conventional binary logic either-or or yes-no principle. By means of fuzzy logic, we can imitate real human reasoning and model the reality, which is left outside both traditional quantitative and qualitative models. In his article, Vesa A. Niskanen studies principles and basis of fuzzy logic in modelling. More information about the article and its content !
Systematic Text Analysis
Kari E. Nurmi
Kari E. Nurmi's article is intended to a reader, who is interested in the qualitative analysis of contents of textes, or concepts, filosophies, or theories they consist. In his text, Nurmi introduces a method, which is called as immanent reconstruction, emphasizing at the same time common aspects of different textual analysis. Systematic text analysis means a group of methods that are used to study the content and the form of a text, aiming to catch parts of the conceptual network, essential principles, or a total view of a text. More information about the article and its content !
The Roots and the Content of Benchmarking
Paula Kyrö & Juhani Kulmala
The Roots and the Content of Benchmarking is other one of Metodix articles discussing about benchmarking. The article gives a general look at the history of benchmarking and its meaning. In the other article, Paula Kyrö introduces benchmarking as a form of action research. Kyrö and Kulmala introduce the progression of benchmarking from direct inversive benchmarking through competitive, process-like and strategic benchmarking to global, learning and network benchmarking. Besides a general introduction, Kulmala and Kyrö open in the end of their article a discussion about the usefulness of benchmarking to scientific research.
Action Research
Ulla Suojanen
Two essential purposes of action research are improving the action and affecting to a problematic action situation. In action research, a solid interdependency between practice and theory, and at the same time between thinking and action, is emphasized. In her article, Ulla Suojanen discusses about backgrounds and trends of action research, as well as gives instructions to accomplish action research in practice. More information about the article andits content !
Interpretive concept research
Anna-Maija Lämsä &
Tuomo Takala
The article descripes the new research method developed for the field of concept research. The method is interested in concepts and interpretation of their definition, especially in the field of research of organization managing. In the article, the method is defined and its application clarified. More information about the article and its content !
Network analysis
Antti Teittinen
A network analysis can either be a methodical tool or a theoretical approach. Antti Teittinen introduces in his article the scientific tradition of network analysis, its basic concepts and some general materials/ways to collect material. Along with these themes Teittinen carries examples of tangible researches, which have used network analysis as a method. More information about the article and its content !
