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rESEARCJ REVIEWR
rESEARCJ REVIEWR
rESEARCJ REVIEWR
Meaning of Research
Resulting from internal aspects, people cannot measure worldviews but can
know them through numbers. Obtaining world knowledge in this manner
directs you to do a research called Qualitative Research. This is a research
type that puts premium or high value on peoples thinking or point of view
conditioned by their personal traits.
As such, it usually takes place in soft sciences like social sciences, politics,
economics, humanities, education, psychology, nursing, and all businessrelated subjects.
Just like in other subjects under soft sciences such as marketing, mans
thoughts and feelings still take center stage in any research studies.
The importance of any researches in any of these two areas in business are to
increase mans understanding of the truths in line with markets and
marketing activities, making him more intelligent in arriving at decisions
about these aspects of his life. Research types that are useful for these areas
are the basic and applied research. (Feinberg 2013)
6. Systematic
It must take place in an organized or orderly manner.
Process or Approach to Research
1. Scientific or Positive approach
You discover and measure information as well as observe and control
variables in an impersonal manner.
It allows control of variables. Therefore, the data gathering techniques
appropriate for this approach are structured interviews, questionnaires, and
observational checklists.
Data given by these techniques are expressed through numbers, which
means that this method is suitable for quantitative research.
2. Naturalistic approach
3. The naturalistic approach uses words.
4. It directs you to deal with qualitative data that speak of how people behave
toward their surroundings.
5. These are non-numerical data that express truths about the way people
perceive or understand the world. Since people look at their world in a
subjective or personal basis in an uncontrolled or unstructured manner, a
naturalistic approach happens in a natural setting.
3. Triangulation Approach
In this case, you are free to gather and analyze data using multiple methods,
allowing you to combine or mix up research approaches, research types, data
gathering, and data analysis techniques.
Triangulation approach gives you the opportunity to view every angle of the
research from different perspectives. (Badke 2012; Silverman 2013)
Ethics of Research
Honesty
Strive for honesty in all scientific communications.
Honestly report data, results, methods and procedures, and publication
status.
Do not fabricate, falsify, or misrepresent data.
Voluntary participation
Informed consent
anonymity
Even when clear ethical standards and principles exist, there will be times
when the need to do accurate research runs up against the rights of potential
participants.
There needs to be a procedure that assures that researchers will consider all
relevant ethical issues in formulating research plans.
Quantitative Research
It is used to quantify the
problem by way of generating
numerical data or data that can
be transformed into useable
statistics.
It is used to quantify attitudes,
opinions, behaviors, and other
defined variables and
generalize results from a larger
sample population.
It uses measurable data to
formulate facts and uncover
patterns in research.
Quantitative Research
Quantitative data collection
methods are much more
structured than Qualitative data
collection methods.
Quantitative data collection
methods include various forms
of surveys online surveys,
paper surveys, mobile and kiosk
surveys, face-to-face interviews,
telephone interviews,
longitudinal studies, website
interceptors, online polls, and
systematic observations.
Standards
Qualitative Research
Quantitative Research
Cause-effect relationships
Explained by peoples
objective desires
Revealed by automatic
descriptions of
circumstances or
conditions
Researchers involvement
with the object/subject of
the study
Subjective; sometimes
personally engaged
Objective; least
involvement by the
researcher
Numerals, statistics
Research plan
Control or manipulation of
research conditions by the
researcher
Purpose
Sampling technique
Obtaining knowledge
Multiple methods
Scientific method
Here, you examine the data yielded by the internal traits of the subject
individuals (i.e., emotional, mental, spiritual characteristics).
You study peoples perception or views about your topic, not the effects of
their physical existence on your study.
In case of objects (e.g., books and artworks) that are subjected to a
qualitative research, the investigation centers on underlying theories or
principles that govern these materials and their usefulness to people.
Kinds of Qualitative Research
1. Case Study
Usually takes place in the field of social care, nursing, psychology,
rehabilitation centers, education, etc.
This involves a long-time study of a person, group, organization, or situation.
It seeks to find answers to why such thing occurs to the subject.
Varieties of data collection methods such as interviews, questionnaires,
observations, and documentary analysis are used in a case study.
2. Ethnography
Falling in the field of anthropology, ethnography is the study of a particular
cultural group to get a clear understanding of its organizational set-up,
internal operation, and lifestyle.
A particular group reveals the nature or characteristics of their own culture
through the world perceptions of the cultural groups members.
3. Phenomenology
The ultimate goal of the research is not only to propose ways of studying
things, people, places, and events, but also to discover and introduce new
practices, strategies, or techniques in solving a problem.
The word problem makes you worry and pushes you to exert considerable
effort in finding a solution for it.
You consider research as the remedy for getting over any problem.
When you decide to do research, you begin with a problem that will lead you
to a specific topic to focus on.
For instance, you are beset by a problem of year-by-year flash floods in your
community. This problem drives you to think of one topic you can investigate
or focus on for the solution to your communitys flood problem. Perhaps, you
can research only one aspect of the flood problem, like examining only the
neighborhood lifestyle in relation to floods in the area, the need to construct
anti-flood structures, or the practicability of more footbridges in the area.
(Gray 2013)
First, spend time getting background knowledge about the problem that
triggered off your research topic to discover its relation to what the world,
particularly the experts, professionals, and learned people know about your
topic.
Also, reading for rich background ideas about the problem is also another
way to discover some theories or principles to support your study. (Braun
2014; Woodwell 2014)
Research Questions
To get a good idea of the problem, you must have a rich background
knowledge about the topic through the RRL (Review of Related Literature),
which requires intensive reading about your topic.
Apart from having a clearer picture of the topic, it will also help you in
adopting an appropriate research method and have a thorough
understanding of the knowledge area of your research.
To give your study a clear direction, you have to break this big, general
question into several smaller or specific research questions.
The specific questions, also called sub-problems, identify or direct you to the
exact aspect of the problem that your study has to focus on.
Though deduced from the general or mother question, one specific question
may lead to another sub-problem or sub-question, requiring a different datagathering technique and directing the research to a triangulation or mixed
method approach.
Through sub-questions, you can precisely determine the type of data and the
method of collecting, analyzing, and presenting data.
Hence, in doing the RRL, you deal with both formal or direct and informal or
indirect expressions of mans knowledge.
There are three basic types of literature sources: general references that will
direct you to the location of other sources; primary sources that directly
report or present a persons own experiences; and secondary sources that
report or describe other peoples experiences or worldviews.
You may find these reading materials valuable because of their timeliness,
diversified knowledge or information, varied presentation formats (texts,
sounds, animation) and 24-hour availability. But they are not as dependable
as the other sources of knowledge. It is susceptible to anybodys penchant for
editing.
You can have an access to these various sources of data in two methods:
manually, or getting hold of the printed form of the material, and
electronically or having a computer or online reading of the sources of
knowledge.
Regardless of which method you use, all throughout your literature search,
your mind must be focused on the essence and purposes of the library
because most of the data you want to obtain are in this important section of
your school.
Having familiarity with the nature of your library will facilitate your
literature search.
Pointers in Selecting Related Literature
1. Choose previous research findings that are closely related to your research.
2. Give more weight to studies done by people possessing expertise or
authority in the field of knowledge to which the research studies belong.
3. Consider sources of knowledge that refer more to primary data than to
secondary data.
4. Prefer getting information from peer-reviewed materials than from general
reading materials.