Methods in Empirical Music Research


DAY 1 PROGRAM


  1. Welcome & Introduction
  2. Generals Aims & Preview
    • Learning objectives
  3. Empirical Research
    • Types of knowledge
    • Seven big ideas
    • A line in the sand
    • Refutation versus confirmation
    • Operationalizing terms and concepts
    • Comparison & counterfactuals
    • The rhetoric of science (video - 8 minutes)
    • Review the first 9 slogans: Quiz #1
    • Group Task #1: What’s worth knowing?
    • Questions, conjectures, hypotheses and theories
    • Group Task #2: Question, theory or hypothesis?
    • Grandmother research
    • The quantitative/measurement obsession
    • Group Task #3: Obvious theories; Group task debriefing Hindsight bias; Grandmother research revisited
    • Two forms of reductionism
    • Epistephobia; Types of failure
    • Review (first 12) slogans
  4. Types of Empirical Studies
    • Types of empirical studies
    • Group Task #4: Types of studies
    • Generalizing versus universalizing (video - 10 minutes)
    • Exploratory studies
    • Measurement studies
    • Hypothesislessness
    • Group Task #5: Operationalize the following hypotheses
    • Syncopation: From question to hypothesis
    • Opinions as operationalizations
    • Double use data; post hoc theories
    • Exploratory & Confirmatory: Contexts of discovery & legitimation (lecture)
    • Explore-then-test approach; An example
    • From question to theory to conjecture to hypothesis to protocol
    • Review (first 16) slogans
    • Feedback Day 1
  5. Homework
    • Homework 1: Reading: An Arts and Humanities Approach to Empirical Methodology
    • Homework 2: Reading Guide #1: Lancashire & Hirst (2009)
    • Homework 3: Individual Task #6: From question to theory