Análisis de la relación entre captura de Tephritidae y las variables consideradas

A theory is an organized body of interrelated concepts, assumptions, and generalizations that systematically explains regularities in behavior. Thus, a sociological theory may attempt to explain the relationship between home conditions and child-abuse behavior of a parent. A psychological theory may identify factors affecting antisocial behavior. An educational theory may propose how teachers’ collective efficacy in a school may affect students’ academic achievement in that school. Theory can provide a framework to generate hypotheses or research questions. In turn, they guide significant parts of the research design, including the data collection, data analysis, and presentation and interpretation of the findings.

Your task is to find a theoretical framework within which to pursue your study. One way to select an appropriate theoretical framework for your study is to review the related literature. As you review the literature, ask yourself: Is there a theory, or a variation of some theory to which my study has reference? You may find theories, which you will test empiri-cally, revise, extend, or create. Make a note of these. You may not find a specific theory in the literature; rather, the comprehensive review of the lit-erature may need to serve as the theoretical framework.

If you are seeking direct answers to certain questions, it may not be necessary to state hypotheses and design your study to test them. If you believe, however, that relationships may exist between variables, based on theory, or if it appears that one variable may be the cause of another, a

hypothesis may be the best way to state what you are attempting to find.

We encourage you to consult with your dissertation or master’s thesis chair whether a given research problem might be better approached through formulating hypotheses or by posing research questions.

Many quantitative studies are designed to test a theory that has been developed to explain regularities in behavior. Such theory-driven studies will use hypotheses as the starting point for designing the research methodology. Qualitative research studies might be informed by a theo-retical or epistemological framework, but formal hypotheses are not typi-cally used to frame the study (Gall et al., 2007). An exception is a type of qualitative research that is framed within grounded theory methodology.

In this qualitative research tradition, studies can be designed so that data are collected first, and then a theory is derived from those data. The result-ing theory is called grounded theory, because it is grounded in a set of real-world data (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005; Glaser, 1978).

MODELS

When you are concerned with a larger picture than the relationship between two variables in a quantitative study, and you begin to look at interrelation-ships among a set of variables, you are involved in the construction of mod-els. Thus, in an effort to synthesize separate pieces of a larger picture, you construct a representation of how each variable influences and/or is influ-enced by other variables. Usually this results in the construction of a model with arrows indicating direction of influence. Your task in a quantitative dis-sertation (or thesis) is to provide evidence of relationships, direction, and size. Most such dissertation models are quite simple; confirming complex relationships requires large-scale studies unlikely to be undertaken by doc-toral or master’s students (Krathwohl & Smith, 2005).

An example of theoretical framework from Vickie Basham’s (1988) dis-sertation follows. (See Example 6.6.)

Example 6.6

Theoretical Framework

With the emphasis on accountability in education today, school administrators are faced with the challenge of developing and imple-menting educational systems that are effective and efficient. Local, state, and federal mandates are requiring increased justification and documen-tation of program results. Communities are questioning school district programs, policies, and procedures. Parents and other constituencies are demanding grater participation in school programs. Educational admin-istrators must respond by devising more effective methods of administra-tive management. Strategic planning is considered to be important to

effective administrative management (Ivancevich et al., 1980, p. 52;

Huntsman, 1986, pp. 11–12).

For planning to be effective, it needs to eventually affect students in some way. In describing the first step in providing instructional leadership, Wallace (1985) asserted that “one must begin with an analysis of standardized tests results” (p. 7). No planning process in education is complete unless a direct attempt is made, through goal setting, to improve student academic learning (Lewis, 1983, p. 68). William Bennett (1988), former Secretary of Education, proclaimed the importance of student achievement when he said, “And the entire project of American education—at every level—remains insufficiently accountable for the result that matters most: student learning” (p. 2).

While business has devoted a great deal of attention to strategic plan-ning (Camilus, 1986; Gardner et al., 1986; Pfeiffer, 1986; Bryce, 1987; Below et al., 1987; Morrissey et al., 1988), it is only recently that any emphasis has been placed on the study of strategic planning in school settings. And the investigation of the relationship between strategic planning and student achievement has been neglected. The research reported here seeks, on a modest scale, to begin to remedy that situation. More specifically, this study examined relationships among three broad sets of variables: (1) strategic planning in school districts; (2) school district achievement in reading, lan-guage arts, and mathematics; and (3) ten school district financial and demo-graphic factors including (a) current expenses, (b) pupil-teacher ratio, (c) cost of instruction, (d) dropout rate, (e) percent Local Education Agency (LEA) supplement for instructional salaries, (f) percent economically deprived, (g) local financial index, (h) attendance rate, (i) assessed property value per child, and (j) percent revenue from local sources.

No other study shows a direct tie-in between strategic planning in school districts and school district performance on standardized achieve-ment tests (or results manageachieve-ment), which constitutes what might be referred to as an Interrelated Planning Process. A strategic planning model was devised to guide the research. (See [Figure 6.1].) The strategic planning model incorporates the three broad sets of variables, which were examined in this study. As shown in the model, strategic planning begins with a mis-sion statement consisting of beliefs and goals of the school district’s per-sonnel, which provide guidelines for conducting a critical analysis of the internal and external environments, preparing planning assumptions, selecting action goals, developing objectives and evaluation procedures, designing an action plan, and monitoring and reporting results.

As shown in [Figure 6.1], I have placed student achievement and the other ten selected demographic and financial school district factors in the context of a macroenvironment. Within that context these variables repre-sent an important consideration of the strategic planning process and actions initiated to effect school district plans by analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating this environment. (Basham, 1988, pp. 11–13)

Basham’s dissertation is an example of the use of a model to synthesize the interrelationships among a large set of variables. You do not necessar-ily have to use a model when describing your theoretical framework.

Figure 6.1 Strategic Planning Model from Basham (1988) Theoretical Framework

However, a model is useful if your study involves a number of interrelated variables.