Practical Research Reviewer

Re - to do again

Search - to find, seek, look

Research - to look for a topic or an idea again

The Nature of Research

• Sensory Experience

• Agreement with others

• Expert Opinions Ways to know things

• Logic

• Scientific Method

What Research is not?

1. It is not mere information gathering

2. It is not merely rummaging for information
3. It is not a catchword used to get attention

What Research is?

1. Finding out something and making it public

2. Advancing knowledge and understanding
3. About contributing to the society

Tools in Research

• Library
• Computer
• Measurement Techniques
• Statistics
• Language
• Human Mind

Elements in Research

1. Topic - problem to be elaborate

2. Purpose - reason why you are conducting research

• Chapter 1 - the problem and its background

• Chapter 2 - review of the related literature
• Chapter 3 - research design and methodology
• Chapter 4 - data presentation and interpretation
• Chapter 5 - summary, conclusion, and recommendation

3. Participants - the people who are and will be involved in the research

• Qualitative - Participants
• Quantitative - Respondents

4. Setting - the research locale

5. Time Scale - duration of the research (3 - 5 months)

Characteristics of Research
1. Empirical - based on direct experience and observation of the researcher

2. Logical - based on valid procedures and principles

3. Cyclical - starts and ends with another problem

4. Analytical - identifies the problem by breaking them into parts and units

5. Critical – exhibits careful and precise judgement

6. Methodical – conducted in an organized manner

7. Replicable – research designs and procedures must be repeated to enable to arise at precise
conclusions

Distinctive Characteristics of Qualitative Research

1. Natural Setting – collect data where participants experience the issue under the study

2. Emergent Design – initial research plan can’t be tightly described, flexibility is important

3. Participant Meaning – focus is on the learning meaning that the participants hold about the research
topic

4. Holistic – develop a complex picture of the issue under the study

5. Reflexivity – the study is partly a reflection of the researcher’s biases, values, and experience

6. Multiple Methods – multiple approaches

7. Interpretative – making sense of data while setting aside personal experiences

8. Researcher as the Key Instrument

- Collects data
- Personal experience and engagement
- Commitment to extensive time in the field

9. Inductive Data Analysis

- Participants to analysis
- Patterns, categories, themes are built from the ground up

Qualitative

- Why?
- How?
- Small scale

Quantitative

- How many?
- Large scale
- Correlation
- Experimental
- Survey

Saturation – stop getting the data when you meet saturation as you can’t get/ generate new
information.

SESS – app for statistics

Research Process and Ethics

Aims and Functions of the Research
Aims

1. Verification of existing knowledge

2. Acquisition of new knowledge
3. Application of new knowledge

Functions

1. Exploration – more info and broader

2. Description – fills the details and gaps
3. Explanation – clarifying relationships

Research Process

• Define the problem (variables, hypothesis, etc.)

• Review the literature
 • Design research
• Collect data
• Analyze data
• Interpret and report

Ethics

• Integrity
• Objectivity
• Honesty
• Carefulness
• Openness
• Confidentiality
• Competence
• Regality
• Animal Care

Research Ethics

- Provides guidelines the responsible conduct of a research

- Process of applying moral standards and principles
- Methodology for making sound and correct decisions about actions to be taken and analyzing
intricate problems and issues

Ethical Issues in Research

1. Animal rights and welfare in Research

- Philippine Republic Act No. 8485/ Animal Welfare Act of 1998
• Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee
2. Human Rights
- Right to voluntary participation
- Right to informed consent
- Right to protected from harm
- Right to confidentiality
- Right to anonymity
3. Scientific Misconduct
- Fabrication and Falsification of Data – producing data without actual experimentation
- Plagiarism - claiming another person's ideas, works, or publication
- Non-publication of data - choosing not to include the data
- Faulty-data gathering - us of invalid research instruments or methods
-

Different Research Approaches

1. Deductive - tests the validity of assumptions

• Theory - Hypothesis - observation/ tests - confirmation
2. Inductive - emergence of new theories and generalizations
 • Observation/ Tests - Pattern - Theory
3. Abductive - explaining surprising facts

Research Designs

A. Qualitative
- relies on the views of the participants
- asks broad and general questions
- collects data consisting largely words (text) from participants
- describes and analyzes the words for commonalities/ themes/ patterns
- conducts the inquiry in a subjective, biased manner
- creating theory/ hypothesis
B. Quantitative
- asks specific, narrow questions
- collects quantifiable data from respondents
- analyzes these numbers using statistics/ tools
- controlled conditions
- testing theory/ hypothesis

Qualitative
Researcher Part of the process
Scientific Method Exploratory
Nature of Reality Subjective
Research Questions What? Why?
Research Objectives Explore, Discover, Construct,
Describe
Nature of Observation Study behavior in natural
environment
View of Human Behavior Unpredictable, fluid, dynamic,
social, situational, contextual
Literature Review May be done as the study
progress
Theory Develops theory
Reality and Focus Multiple, complex, and broad
Nature of Data Words, (images and categories)
Form of Data Collected In-depth interviews, participant
observation, field-notes, and
open-minded questions
Data Analysis Meanings, discoveries, and
search for patterns and themes
Form of Final Report Direct quotations from
participants, narrative report
with contextual description
Quantitative
Separate
Confirmatory
Objective
How many? Strength of
associations?
Describe, Explain, Predict
Regular, Predictable
Must be done early in the study
Tests theory
One, concise and narrow
Variables (measurable)
Establishes statistical analysis
and causation
Statistical Report (correlations
and comparisons of data)
Research Approaches
Phenomenological Research Approach
- "The Lived Experience"
- Edmund Husserl - father or Phenomenology
- describing events, situations, experiences, concepts if they are experienced by people
- raises awareness and increases insight as to how different phenomena are experienced by
different people

3 Elements

1. Lived experiences with in a specific group

2. Experience is a conscious process
3. Development of interpretation of the essences of this experiences

Goals

1. To describe - what and how it is to experienced?

2. To examine
• Colaizzi's Method

Types

1. Hermeneutic Phenomenology (uses Colaizzi's Method)

i. Researcher as interpreter

- reflecting on lived experiences with interpretation of the researcher

ii. Empirical Research

- conducted through empirical (collection of experiences) and reflective (analysis of their

meanings) activities

iii. Understanding

- basic themes of hermeneutic phenomenology are "interpretation," "textual meaning," "dialogue,"

"preunderstanding," and "tradition"

2. Transcendental Phenomenology
- focus less on researchers’ interpretation and more on describing experiences of participants
- largely developed by Husserl, is a philosophical approach to qualitative research methodology
seeking to understand human experience

Phenomenological Questions

Key Terms:

• What is the lived experience (of a group) around (specific phenomenon)

• What it is like to experience this phenomenon or events?
 • What are the meanings, structures, and essence of the lived experience of (a specific
phenomenon) by individuals experiencing the phenomenon?

Ethnographical Research Approach

i. Participant Observation- interacting/ mingling with participants

A. Overt participation - participants are aware of your identity as a researcher

B. Covert participation - identity of the researcher is not known by the participants

ii. Non-participant Observation - researcher purely observes participants

Ethnographical Research Approach

A. popularized by anthropology but is used across various general sciences

B. aims not to arrive at an explanation but understand the process human beings engage in as they
construct meaning from experiences
C. researcher observes and takes notes of language in the community, exposure of the researcher,
ideology of the community and cultural sharing is a must
- not just identifying a certain group's perspective also as individuals
- macrocosm

Advantages:

- further understand participants' situations

- mitigate risks because issues become directly apparent to the researcher

Disadvantages:

- takes time
- participant researchers may change due to immersion
- money and resources

How to know when to use Ethnographical Research?

- conducted in a definite environment, formal structures and organizations

- aims of study includes cultural patterns

Types:

1. Realist
- individuals
- 3rd person POV
- objective
 - boundary is very well observed
- no exposition of the researcher's biases, political ideologies, and prejudice
2. Critical
- marginalized group
- macrocosm
- equality among barriers

Challenges:

- expensive
- open for biases
- may become an exposition of narratives rather than presentation of "cultural and societal
patterns"

Steps:

1. Determine the feasibility of having ethnographic work

2. Identification of the location of the study
3. Review and find evidence of critical sociological principles in the community

Case Study
- in-depth analysis
- detailed info using variety of procedures over a sustained period
- phenomena affecting a certain individual
- studies holistically
- cannot be a representation of an entire population
- observations, interview, oral recording, document
- conduct diagnostic test

Strengths:

- ability to explore and describe, in depth, an in issue or event

- give researchers the chance to collect info on rare/ unusual cases
- develop an understanding on health, illness, and health care in context
- single case can be used to develop or disprove a theory

Limitations:

- labor intensive

Types:

1. Collective Case Study

2. Exploratory
3. Descriptive
4. Explanatory
5. Intrinsic
 6. Instrumental

Notable Case Studies:

- Genie Wiley
- Phineas Gage
- Anna O.

How to write a Case Study

1. Prospective Case Study - to determine outcomes

2. Retrospective Case Study - looking at historical information

When to use Case Study?

a. "how" and "why"

b. you cannot manipulate the behavior
c. cover contextual conditions - consider experiences
d. boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clear

Content Analysis
- provides a systematic and objective means to make valid inferences.
- you don't need to have interactions with your participants
- you base on existing documents.
- can be both qualitative & quantitative

Steps:

1. Read through or examine the data, becoming familiar with it

2. Identity coding units
3. The data is analyzed by applying the coding units
4. Summarize the data in a frequency table include a tally of the number of times that a coding
unit appears

• Code - label to identify connections between meaning units

• Categories - groups of related codes

Types:

1. Conceptual Analysis
- involves quantifying and counting its presence
 - examines the occurrence of selected term in the data
2. Relational
- involves exploring the relationships between concepts

Uses:

- identify the intentions, focus of communication trends of individual group, institutions

- reveal international differences and in communication content
- determine psychological or emotional state of persons or groups

Advantages:

- looks directly at communication via texts/ transcripts, and hence get the central aspect of social
interaction
- allows for both qualitative and quantitative analysis
- provides valuable historical and cultural insights over time
- allows a closeness to data
- an unobtrusive means of analyzing interactions
• ways of gathering data without intruding into the lives of people being studied
- provides insight into complex models of human thought and language use

Disadvantages:

- time consuming
- subject to increased error

Grounded Theory
- look for explanation for phenomena as experienced.
- method where a theory emerges from data collected rather than taken from a related literature
- puts emphasis on the perceptions of the researchers in the research process
- the researcher attempts to derive a general, abstract theory of process, action or interaction
grounded in the views of participants in a study
- operates inductively (bottom to top)

experience actions and processes interactions

categories categories

theory

Research Approach Focus Output Unit of Analysis

 Phenomenology Phenomenon, essence Themes, clusters/codes Several individuals who
of the experience share the same
experiences
Ethnography Cultural lifestyle, Understand culture, Individual, group,
patterns influences, lifestyle, organization, event,
behavior locality
Case Study In-depth investigation Concepts Individual, group,
of a person, group, organization, event,
event, location locality
Grounded Theory Developing a new Theory Process/ output that
theory from a goes with an
phenomenon, case, organization or
experience, way of life individual
Content Analysis Determining the Themes, clusters/ Themes of concepts
presence of certain codes within some secondary
word, themes, qualitative data
concepts, within
qualitative data

Research Design & Methodology

Data Collection Strategies

1. Observation
- research questions can be answered through observing the actions of the participants
- exhibits initial data collection from the actual setting

4 Different Types of Observation

A. Participant - joins the group they study (covert and covert)

B. Nonparticipant - does not participate
C. Naturalistic - observes the subject under study in their natural setting
D. Simulation - researcher simulates/ recreates a situation
- the participants may portray a role

2. Interview - done to validate your observation Ina

4 Types of Interviews:

A. Structured - specific set of questions designed

- you cannot ask other questions
- validated
B. Semi-structured - open - ended questions
C. Informal - casual conversation
D. Retrospective - recalling/ reconstructing something that happened in the past
3. Focus Group Discussion - 8 to 12 research participants in every group

4. Documentary Analysis - analyzing documents

The Research Methodology

• Research Design - Quantitative & Qualitative.

• Approaches - Ethnography, Phenomenology, Case Study, Content Analysis, and Grounded
Theory
• Research Locale - describes the setting/ location of the study
• Sample Participants - describes the participants
- profiles (age, educational background)
• Research Instruments (should be validated) - outline of things you will use - interview questions,
protocols, observation guides, survey form, other
• Data Collection Procedure - step-by-step you will undergo in order to collect data
• Data Analysis Procedure - describes how you analyze data you gathered

Types of interview Questions:

1. Background Questions - education, age, previous work, etc. of participants

2. Knowledge Questions - refers to Participants' information
3. Experience Questions - focused on what the participant is doing presently or in the past.
4. Opinion Questions - elicit how participants think on certain topics or issues
- aims to get the participants' values, beliefs, and attitude
5. Feeling Questions - pertain to emotional responses of the participants on their experiences
6. Sensory Questions - focused on what the participants has seen, tasted, heard, touched, or
smelled