THEME 3 - Afterreflection

This week’s theme, research and theory, was a bit different from previous weeks.

I attended the first seminar of this week but unfortunately I had to leave earlier because I had to go to work so I missed the last 30 minutes, which was a shame, since the discussions were very interesting. We begun by discussing the papers and journals that we had read in small groups and it was fun to hear about the others papers. We also discussed a bit about what criterias there are for a paper, since their disposition varied a lot. I wondered if there are any mandatory headings that have to be in a paper, for example the paper that I read this week was not self-critical and there was a lack of discussions about choice of method, in my opinion.

This world of journals and papers are almost completely new for me, I have never been confronted with it before. Therefore it was interesting to discover this because it feels pretty relevant for a student at KTH, as me. Of course I have heard a bit about it and I have read papers before, in the search for information for my bachelor thesis, but I have never understood the importance of the papers and all journals.

Unfortunately I missed the second seminar of this week, due to I have gotten sick and felt that I had to stay home and try to cure myself and not infect other people as well. I suppose, by guessing and reading the other students after-reflections of this theme, that they discussed more about different theories in the second seminar. It sucks that I missed it because I felt like it was something that I wanted to discuss after reading the texts about what theories are and not are.

The texts confused me a bit even though I really tried to understand what they meant it was difficult. That is probably explained by my lack of knowledge in this subject, I have never before reflected over that a theory is and what it is not. I have only learnt a lot of theories that has been presented to me during my years in school. I was chocked and a bit confused when I read the text by Sutton and Staw where they states that theories are not data, diagrams or hypotheses, because initially I thought that was exactly theories.  The other text, by Gregor, categorized theories into different categories and that was interesting to read and also new to me.  By knowing the differences between theories it is easier to analyse and question them, because not all types of theories can be generalized and used to, for example, predict the future. It all depends on what type of theory it is and what study or research that has been made.

The lessons that I have learned from theme 3 are many and among them are that there are journals that publish very interesting and high quality papers that present studies and research. I have also learned about how theories are defined, and by knowing that it is easier for me to question theories that are presented to me in the future and also to categorize them into different types of theories.