A57. Perry,
C. & Rice, R.E. (1997). Scholarly communication in developmental
dyslexia:
Influence of network structure on change in a hybrid problem area. Journal
of the American Society for Information Science, 49(2), 151-168.
Based on Mulkay’s and Kuhn’s models of change in scientific structure,
a scientific communicational model of the emergence of a hybrid
research
area was developed and tested in the field of developmental dyslexia.
Data
included co-citation data on 74 dyslexia researchers at three points in
time, who-to-whom communication network data, survey responses,
resumes,
association and biographical sources, online reference and citation
databases,
publications, grant databases, and telephone interviews. Researchers
were
partitioned into "blocks" of similar scientists on the basis of
co-citation
and communication relations, compared on selected network-level and
individual-level
characteristics in order to validate block labels, and situated
historically
in the politics and advances surrounding the problem area. Results show
support for Mulkay’s model of branching instead of Kuhn’s model of
scientific
revolution. Evidence points to divergence rather than convergence among
the related research areas, but suggests the need for longitudinal
follow-up
in order to rule out the impact of the inertia of aggregate co-citation
data. Implications for theory methodology, and research are discussed.