Lay out the key features of the research interest that calls out your name. Given that, how would a canonical sociologist (a traditional, quantitative-minded social scientist) design or “set up” this research question? What kind of data would be sampled or gathered? How would the hypotheses be tested? What kind of steps would be taken to guard against bias, and to make sure that the data were generalizable?

I would like to study the learning and information-seeking behaviour of individuals who are trying to learn a musical instrument, using guitar as an example. “How do guitar students learn how to play the guitar by using Information Communication Technologies (ICTs)?”

In order to achieve a ‘random’ sample, controls for variables need to be considered by collecting a wide range of data about age (young prodigies to mature hobbyists), literacy or education level (ability to read or follow instructions, experience with music education), physical or mental capacity (small hands, visually impaired, etc.), physical location (city, suburb, small town), comfort level with ICTs (information addict, technology luddite), Data, data, more data…

(As part of my research methods class, there is a weekly reflection assignment based on the textbook with the same title as this blog post. I will be posting them here to document my process.)

What question concerning the social world would you like to investigate if you were absolutely guaranteed you would not fail? Be as ambitious and wide-ranging in your thinking as you want.

I want to investigate the way music intersects the different dimensions of human experiences. This is an old rant and sounds perhaps a bit frivolous; more like a day dream than a research or investigative agenda. Yet, the musical dimension of our existence — history, culture, philosophy, art, sciences, engineering — gives me an entry point in exploring just about anything in this world. In the context of the social science, and perhaps more specifically in the tradition of information science and related fields, I want to investigate the nature musical knowledge. What do I mean by that?