It’s great to see other librarians advocating for the same causes I harp on in this blog. I’m referring to Sarah Robbins, Debra Engel, and Christina Kulp of the University of Oklahoma, whose article appears in the current issue of College & Research Libraries. The article, entitled “How Unique Are Our Users?”1 warns against the folly of using convenience samples. It implores library researchers to honestly explain the limitations of their studies. And the authors are resolute about the importance of understanding the generalizability of survey findings, a topic which also happens to be the main focus of their study.
I bring up their article for a different reason, however. It is an example of how difficult and nuanced certain aspects of research and statistics can be. Despite the best of intentions, it’s amazingly easy to get tripped up by one or another detail. Robbins and her colleagues got caught in the briar patch that is statistics and research methods. I say so because the main conclusions reached in their study are not actually borne out by their survey results. [Read more...]
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1 Robbins, S., Engel, D. and Kulp, C., 2011, How unique are our users? Comparing responses regarding the information-seeking habits of engineering faculty, College & Research Libraries, 72:6, pp. 515-532.
