A temporally dynamic examination of research method usage in the Chinese library and information science community

• DOI: 10.1016/j.ipm.2021.102686
• Publication Date: 2021-07-10T09:24:04Z
• Authors: Wen Lou; Zilong Su; Jiangen He; Kai Li
• Keywords: 05 social sciences; 0509 other social sciences

Abstract In this paper, we discuss how research methods are used in the Chinese library and information science (LIS) community, a fundamental question in the pursuit of a global overview of this interdisciplinary research domain. We used manual coding to identify research methods mentioned in 2,421 Chinese-language papers written by 53 prestigious Chinese LIS researchers across different generations. For all selected publications, we manually identified and classified methods using a modified version of an established classification scheme for LIS research methods. Moreover, we examined how research methods are used by researchers belonging to different age groups over time. We identified a significant shift in the use of methods among examined publications: quantitative methods are increasingly used over time, driven both by the emergence of newer generations of researchers and by senior researchers gradually adopting newer methods. These findings reflect a major, and heretofore undiscussed, shift in research style in the LIS community in China. Our approach facilitates a new, more dynamic discussion of how research methods are adopted in a research community and will greatly contribute to future studies on this topic.