This week's topic has honestly not taught me as much as the two previous weeks. Already during my bachelor's degree, I have had multiple seminars and lectures on research methods and theory.
However, the lecture provided a slightly new angle on it, because we mainly discussed on a rather abstract level about what theory is. The distinction between different types of theory - scientific and philosophical theory, for example - made me think about the meanings "theory" can have in different contexts. Nonetheless, I find it quite hard to clearly distinguish these two types of theory, as they still include features which are attributed to the other. Also scientific theories can have their origin in philosophical thinking and reasoning.
The discussion in the seminar was unfortunately a bit unstructured this week. Because everybody had read different scientific papers, it was hard to discuss the questions we had answered in our pre-topic blog posts. Still, it was quite interesting to hear what topics the others in my group had picked and how their research had been conducted. We later on discussed with the whole seminar group, which was much more interesting for me and helped me understand the definition of theory better - even though we also discussed that "theory" can probably never really be defined in one way that everybody agrees with. We agreed that "theory" always needs to be defined in a context, but as I mentioned above about scientific/philosophical theory, even there it is hard to only look at one context. In the big group, we also discussed the difference between theory and hypothesis and what stuck with me there was the answer of one fellow student who said that "a hypothesis is the first puzzle piece for building a theory". For me personally, the seminar was helpful to understand the idea of theory and why a hypothesis is not a theory.
I agree with you and your remarks on this week's topic. Since I generally always put more focus on the practical sides on media, it made it hard for me to get into the texts about theory. However, our group discussion proved to be very interesting – although it is quite hard to pinpoint the term theory that everybody would agree with. Your quote is indeed chosen quite well, since it reflects the meaning of hypothesis in a very crisp way and nevertheless leaves room for reverberation.
SvaraRaderaI feel very much the same about last weeks topic as you do. The lecture gave good insights on how different theory can be and how hard it is to find an absolute definition for it. In my opinion it is so unsatisfactory to realize that we could probably discuss what theory is for our whole life and even though we would not find the one definition. The seminar reinforced this feeling when we discussed how important it is to put a definition of theory always in context with the subject/discipline/etc. I also liked the metaphor of the puzzle piece, which helps a lot to understand the relation of hypothesis and theory.
SvaraRaderaHi! I like you mention that hypothesis is the first puzzle piece for building theory. Also I've read on one student's blog that theory is always based on data analyses and not necessary relies on hypothesis. In our seminar we also discuss scientific and philosophic theories. We agreed that scientific theories based on empirical data while philosophical theories based on ideas. I like the research paper that you've selected. I was thinking about it also. Nowadays modern society is overwhelmed by information especially in social networks, definitely users tend to perceive information better from certain sources or opinion leaders. I find this survey very interesting and actual.
SvaraRaderaHi!
SvaraRaderaNice reflection on your thoughts of this theme. I wish you would have explained more about your thoughts on the difference between scientific and philosophical theory. What was it that you didn't understand and which attributes do you feel are the same in both types of theories?
I understand theory in another way, it's not really that we can't define it so that everybody agrees but more that we can not prove it be "true". There are so many things that can affect a research and the theory and it can never be said that a theory is "true". I still believe a hole group can believe in it but it doesn't necessarily make it "true" due to other factors.
Keep up the good job.
I guess I agree with you in some way, especially that part about us being done with our B-thesis already. However I do feel that this course let you stop and think about things, concepts and words you though you already knew and test your interpretation of these objects. For me it hasn't changed my way of see on these objects, or maybe theory, in general but I do think it is a good thing to constantly be aware that other point of views other than your own exists.
SvaraRaderaI agree with most of the points you mentioned about the definition of theory. Nevertheless, I think it is critical to come up with the categories of philosophical and scientific theory. How can you distinguish both? And how do they differ from each other? Maybe different methods are used in philosophical and scientific research. But I do not think that you can argue like this in general. Furthermore, scientific theories have their roots in philosophy, so are they not also philosophical theories?
SvaraRaderaHi Malina
SvaraRaderaI agree with everything you say. The difference from these two last themes with the previous is that the subjects are familiar and fewer and therefore easier. I liked how you got closer to the definition of theory and understood that it is hard to define. I’ve seen that, in many of the blog posts, students have tried to define theory as engineers solves problems. I think that you've made a good attempt at describing the ambiguities in trying to define it. Thank you