[Air-L] Public/ Private

Lois Ann Scheidt lscheidt at indiana.edu
Tue Aug 14 07:14:34 PDT 2007


>> I don't
>> really think that research w/o those characteristics can even be
>> considered, in principle, reproducible .
>
> ohhhhh, well there's the thing... most research on human behaviour is
> only reproducible in the abstract and then likely only in statistical
> relations.   reproducibility as such is not what makes something
> science or scientific, or even worthwhile.  in fact, i'd argue that
> finding a reproducible thing... most of the time has nothing to do
> with science per se, but quite alot more to do with organizational
> theory, but that's a whole other set of arguments.

If you are working in quantitative methods, reproducibility likely 
means reproducing the outcome - particularly lab sciences.  It has 
always been my understanding that reproducibility in qualitative 
methods means reproducing the study...which may have differencing 
outcomes since different subjects would be involved.  Of course the 
differing outcomes would have to be discussed and accounted for in the 
publication.




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