Most off-the-shelf basic methodological tools currently used in pastoral development (e.g. technical definitions and conventional scales of observation) retain underlying assumptions about stability and uniformity being the norm (i.e. 'equilibrium thinking'). Such assumptions reflect a theoretical framework which had been questioned since the 1970s and was openly disproved in scientific circles...

Trust highlights as an important factor in helping citizens to overcome the perceived risks. Accordingly, the in-depth investigation of citizen’s trust has become a necessity for researchers and practitioners to understand citizens' acceptance of e-government in developed countries in general, and developing countries in particular. This research paper proposes a theoretical model to achieve th...

Until recently, there has been very little naturalistic study of what gaming experiences are like, and how gaming fits into people's lives. Using a recently developed structural characteristic taxonomy of video games, this study examined the psycho-structural elements of computer games that motivate gamers to play them. Using Q-Sort methodology, 40 gamers participated in an online Q-sort task. ...

own. CONCLUSIONS: Four different preference profiles were uncovered. Caregivers recognize these profiles in daily practice. Because the goal of Q-methodology is to establish different patterns but not their prevalence, the distribution of profiles will be explored in a large follow-up survey. Additional use of these profiles in daily practice will be also explored, because rank-ordering the sta...

In this paper, we review and discuss ten common methodological mistakes found in retrospective chart reviews. The retrospective chart review is a widely applicable research methodology that can be used by healthcare disciplines as a means to direct subsequent prospective investigations. In many cases in this review, we have also provided suggestions or accessible resources that researchers can ...

Q-methodology was introduced more than 80 years ago to study subjective topics such as attitudes, perceptions, preferences, and feelings and there has not been much change in its statistical components since then. In Q-methodology, subjective topics are studied using a combination of qualitative and quantitative techniques. It involves development of a sample of statements and rank-ordering the...

Scientific reasoning includes deciding whether information is relevant to explaining an event. In some cases, seeing information as relevant requires having a background theory or explanation that can make sense of the information. College students were shown a possible explanation for an event, along with two pieces of possibly relevant information (Info1 and Info2), and one of two possible al...

Geographical Information (GI) which was until the beginning of the Eighties a primarily administrative activity is becoming today an economic sector in full evolution. An information is called "geographical" if it refers to the description of objects, events, phenomena located on the earth’s surface. If a spatial localization is associated with information of different nature, these become pote...

A human endeavor can be seen as leveraging certain ‘means’ in order to accomplish a given purpose. The means could be several, but inevitably knowledge underlies all of them. The proposed paper attempts to present various perspectives that can aid in order to arrive at the ‘means‘ of a knowledge structure. As per systems methodology, it is the structure and the associated process that when brou...