Theme 2

1.              Briefly explain to a first year student what theory is, and what theory is not.

Theory can be defined in a lot of ways. According to the dictionary it could mean “a mental view” or “contemplation”, a “ conception or mental scheme of something to be done”, for “the method of doing something”. A normal view of theory is to see it as a way of providing explanations and predictions but also to be testable.  Theories can also be viewed as universal statements, where the statements are tested against observations of what happens in the real world. However theory itself is not to be confused or mixed with results, references or data of research. The word theory is often overused in a way that it’s sometimes almost becomes meaningless in its context. Since the description is so diverse there is a lack of consensus what theory really is and therefor how to use theory in a right and “strong” way. To have a strong theory it’s important to ask why curtain data occurred or why particular findings were important for the result.

As an example of showing where strong theory is needed I want you to look at this “Fanta commercial”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF5rMBvuJMM

Here is a great example of where the data collected would show that there is correlation between people drinking Fanta and having bad haircuts. However the data itself would not say anything about what is causing the other, therefor only using the data would possible come to the wrong conclusions. One conclusion could for example be that drinking Fanta leads to your hair falling off. Here there should be different kinds of theories applied. One theory could be that there are enzymes in Fanta that makes your hair fall off. Theories that are looking into more specifics of where the data came from and why, is in this case essential. In this case the explanation turns out to be dependent on a third part. There is a middle link connecting the two phenomena, which is an almost blind hairdresser who gives out free Fanta to everyone getting a haircut. Only collecting the data that “people with bad hair drink Fanta” would never in itself reveal the real reason for why this is true. Strong theory is grounded on underlying processes so as to understand systematic reasons for a particular occurrence or nonoccurrence.

2.              Describe the major theory or theories that are used in your selected paper. Which theory type (see Table 2 in Gregor) can the theory or theories be characterized as?

I chose the article “Visual Methods for Analyzing Time-Oriented Data”. The article uses a design and action theory type according to Gregor’s definition of this theory type. The article analyzes different visual methods that have been used to previously visualize data but argues that the time aspect hasn’t been fully looked at and that this parameter has to be taken in account when developing new frameworks and methods. I found that the ground for their theory was well discussed and also why this was important to look at. The theory is also close connected to the EP theory which goes deeper into the understanding of when, why, how, where and what will be.

3.              Which are the benefits and limitations of using the selected theory or theories

Dealing with a lot of theories, which I found was the case in my paper, it can become almost a bit to much theory based. A lot of the theories used are also based on previous research and their theories and this makes it even harder to distinguish what theories lead to other theories, especially for the design theory method which rely on “what is to become” more than “why something is becoming”.