Jeffrey Parsons (University of Newfoundland): "Validity of Knowledge Claims in Design Science Research"

In this talk Jeffrey Parons will give a presentation (45 minutes). The other 45 minutes are for your questions and discussion. The talk addresses especially doctoral students but all other interested faculty members are also cordially invited.

Abstract:
Researchers in design science have long recognized the importance of evaluating the outcomes produced in a study. This includes ensuring that claims about the features or impact of the artifacts developed are valid; that is, backed by evidence and a line of reasoning describing why the reader should believe the evidence supports the claim. Validity is important to the design science research (DSR) community because it can support a needed shared understanding of, and commitment to, the processes that evaluate knowledge claims. However, validity argumentation in current DSR publications is often presented idiosyncratically. As a result, it is often difficult to recognize validity argumentation in DSR papers. We argue that it is possible to simplify validity communication by developing community agreements for describing and labelling similar validity argumentation structures. We, therefore, propose a DSR Validity Framework with three high-level types of validity: criterion efficacy, causal efficacy, and characteristic, each having additional subtypes. We evaluate the framework by demonstrating how it encompasses existing and previously unexplored validity concepts and conducting an applicability check with design science research scholars that provides evidence of the framework’s utility, accessibility, and suitability. The results indicate that the DSR Validity Framework can be effective in guiding the incorporation of validity as an essential component of design science research.

Registration:  
To register send an e-mail to Dr. Jeannette Stark:  
The registration deadline is September 30, 2022.