Theme 2

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

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?

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

Theory, according to the paper ” The Nature of Theory in Information Systems”, is epistemology about phenomena on ranging from natural world to artificial world stated by analyzing, explaining, predicting or designing and acting. Precisely, It concluded four kinds of question: Description on the phenomena itself; Statement of the main question of one paper; Methods and process in stating the theory and the way the theory applied in practice.

Theories own various degrees of generalization. There are substantive-theories that are concentrated on just one area, meta-theories that are guidance of other theories and the mid-range one. The relationship between cause and effect, which is called causality, is the central component of a theory and can identify whether one paper is a true theory or not. One theory is supported by explanations, which is the author’s understanding towards preposition of the theory. At last, people can give out reasonable prediction basing on causality as well as the explanation.

On the other hand, people should be critical to distinguish between theories and normal statement. First of all, references themselves are not theory. The simple listings of other people’s opinions do not contain authors’ logical thinking process and only the reference with personal analysis can be treated like theory. Secondly, data themselves  are not Theory. Just as Mintzberg said data do not generate theory-only researchers do that. Thirdly, lists of variables or constructs themselves  are not theory. Theory also needs the explanation on why they come about or why they are connected. Fourthly, diagrams themselves are not theory. Theory can be represented in diagram but the information inside should be corresponded to what constructs theory. Fifthly, hypotheses themselves are not theory. Hypothetical theory should be the one practiced theory on prediction.

I choose one paper named Cyborg ontologies and the lecturer’s voice: a post-human reading of the ‘face-to-face’ in journal Learning, Media and Technology with impact factor 1.0 to check whether it provides a theory and the benefit as well as the limitation.

This paper is an good explanation theory and described a new conception on how digital technologies practiced in material university especially in the face-to-face class. To begin with, the definition of the theory are given out and the author use fact in face-to-face university, online educational resources, networked mobile devices and VLEs and the lecture to make audients realized that post-human reading of the ‘face-to-face’ is somehow happening to arouse their sense of familiar. Then, the author deeply explained the relationship between machine and human and analyze the casualty between main points of many great anthropologists’ to arouse people’s think on the necessity of the appearance of his theory. Finally he predicted the future model way of a post-human reading of the ‘face-to-face’ to give out reasonable prediction depending on the theory he created.

The theory is of high benefit for educational field. This new face-to-face model may “provide an opportunity for students to creatively engage with ambiguity in terms of their own embodiment and the strange and troubling nature of online engagement” as Bayne said. However, it just a theoretical model that cannot be put into practice broadly.