Photo Margit Mannila
Source: Salkind (2012, 11).
The contents is based on Dr. Catherine Dawson's (2009) book Research Methods. A practical quide for anyone undertaking a research project. (Fourth edition). (Google Books).
It says that Dawson's book is a very practical down- to- earth guide anyone who needs to put together research projects. The book contains everything from developing your research idea into a proposal, thorugh to analysing data and report results.
I use Dawson’s table of contents here as the course framework. I try to find a wide range of source material under each heading to get a comprehensive package of information related to doing the research. According Dawson (2009, 5-8) , when you start to think about your research project the important questions to ask are:
- What? - is your research
- Why? - do you want to do the research? Purpose!
- Who? - will be your participants?
- Where? - are you going to conduct your research? (Think also your reseruces: budget and time).
- When? - you are going to do your research?
They do list some questions on the Study Space as following:
What kind of research methods are you going to use? Are they mostly:
- Quantitative, or qualitative, or a mixture of both?
- What do you think your methods will enable you to discover?
- What might they prevent you from discovering?
- What kinds of research methods would be best suited to the kind of research you are undertaking and the research questions you are pursuing?
- What sort of problems do you envisage in setting up these methods?
- What are their benefits?
- What will you need to do to ensure they gather useful data?
The trap wich many beginning (and also experienced) researcers do is to fall into the trap, that quantitative research is better than qualitative research. Neither is better than the other. It depends your topic, skills, training and experiences of the researcher underline Dawson (2009,16). She highlightes ability to understand the topic.
RJC EdD Research Methods 2002. Types of Research Design. (13.9.2021).
Source Qualitative Research: Definition, Methodology, Limitation, Examples. (13.9.2021).
Source Qualitative and Quantitative Data. (13.9.2021).
One more example:
Source: Research Methods and Theory. https://pin.it/181CB7w. (13.9.2021).
How to Define Your Research Project?
Definition of Research Project and specificationsfor fullfilling the requirement. (6.9.2021)
Research Plan. (6.9.2021).
How to Decide Upon a Methodology?
Thattamparambil, N. (2020). How to choose the research methodology best suited for your study.
Research Methodology vs Research Method (7.9.2021).
"The philosophy or the general principle which will guide your research. It is the overall approach to studying your topic and includes issues you need to think about such as the constraints, dilemmas and ethical choices within your research. Research Method Your research methodology is different to your research methods – these are the tools you use to gather data, such as questionnaires or interviews..."
So Qualitative vs. Quantitative are Methodology and you choose your research methods inside theese.
Qualitative research, as Dawson (2009, 14-15) highlightes, explores attitudes, behavior and experiences through such methods as interviews or focus grups. Quantitative research instead generates statistics through the use of large scale survey research. Methotds that are used are such as questionnaires or structured interviews.
Dawson (2009, 23) sums up that:
- "The research methodology is the philosophy or general principle which guides the research.
- Research methods are tools you use to gather your data.
- Qualitative research explores attitudes, behaviour and experiences.
- Examples of qualitative methodologies include action reserach, ethnography, fminist research and grounded theory.
- Quantitative research generates statistics through the use of large-scale survey research.
- Neither qualitative or quantitative research is better - they are just different. Both have their strengths and waknessess.
- Your own intuition and the words you use will give pointers to whether qualitative or quantitative research is more appropriate foe your chosen project.
- The term 'triangulation' is used when acombination of quantitative and qualitative forms of inquiry are used."
How to Choose Your Research Methods?
"Research methodology simply refers to the practical “how” of any given piece of research. More specifically, it’s about how a researcher systematically designs a study to ensure valid and reliable results that address the research aims and objectives. " What (Exactly) Is Research Methodology? (6.9.2021).
Dawson (2009, 27) emphasizes that research methods are the tools you use to collect your data. Example there are many types of interviews in social reserch. The most common of these are unstructured (in-depth interviews), semi-structured and structured interviews. And note that unstructured and semi-structured interviews are qualitative reseach methods. Take a look into McLeod's (2014) article. The Interview Research Method. (Simply Psychology, 9.9.2021).
The Study Space. Choosing appropriate research methodologies. (7.9.2021).
Source: Hayat, M.S., Kazmi, S.I., Hasan, R. & Bhatti, A.H. (2016). An architecture of future wireless network for smart cities by improving 4G LTE wireless network (7.9.2021).
Lerche, I. Basin Analysis Quantitative Methods. Academic Press. Inc. (Google Books, 9.9.2021.)
Osborne, J. W. (Edited). Best Practices in Quantitative Methods. (Google Books, 9.9.2021.)
How to Conduct Bacground Research?
Source O'Leary, p. 94
Source O'Leary p. 95
How to Choose Your Participants?
How to Prepare a Research Proposal?
O'Leary p.80
Updated in 2014 by Christine Black. Originally produced by Don Thackrey. The Proposal Writer's Guide: Overview . (13.9.2021).
How to Conduct Interviews?
How to Conduct Focus Groups?
How to Construct Questionnaires?
Dawson (2009 100-101) writes about obtaining a high response rate.
- "Is the questioinnaire relevant to the lives, attitudes and beliefs of the respondents?
- Can the respondents read if they are to be given a self-administered questionnaire?
- Are there any langue issues? Do you need to traslate the questioinnaire into another language?
- Are you intended respondents likely to co-operate? For example, illegal immigrants may be less likely to fill in a questionnaire than legal immigrants?
- Is the questioinnaire well constructed and well laid out?
- It is clear, concise and uncluttered?
- Are the instruvtions sraightforward and realistic about how long it will take to complete?
- Has the respondent been told who the research is for and what will happen to the results.
- Has the respondent been ressured that you understand and will comply with the Data Protection Act?
- Has the quiestionnaire been piloted to iron out any problems?
- Can you respondents see some personal benefit to be gained by completing the questioinnaire?
- Is return postage icluded? (A good queston is that, if this is relevant issue nowadays. Mainly questionnaires are send online, I suppose.)
- Has a follow-up letter and duplicate questionnaire been sent in cases of none response?"
Questionnaire design checklist according, to Dawson (2009, 101-102), looks like this:
- "Make your questionnaire as short as possible.
- Make sure people will be able answer your questions.
- Don't assume knowledge or make it seem that you expert a certain level of knowledge or make it seem that you expect a certain level of knowledge by the way your questions are worded.
- Start with easy to answer questions. Keep complex questions for the end.
- Ask for personal information at the end.
- Use a mix of question formats.
- Don't cause offence, fustration, sadness or anger.
- Avoid double-barreled questions.
- Avoid words with emotional connotations.
- Avoid negative questions.
- Avoid jargon and technical words.
- Avoid words with multiple meanings.
- Avoid leadig questions.
- Avoid vague words such as 'often' and 'sometimes'.
- Provide all possible responses in aclosed question.
- Use specific place frames, e.g. 'In wich country were you born?' "
Hermanus Johannes Adèr. Advising on Research Methods: A Consultant's Companion. (Google Books 14.9.2021).
Nemoto, T., & Beglar, D. (2014). Developing Likert-scale questionnaires. In N. Sonda & A. Krause (Eds.). (14.9.2021).
How to Carry Out Participant Observation?
How to Analyse Your Data?
How to Report Your Findings?
How to be an Ethical Researcher?
ESRC Ethics flowchart
O'Leary, p. 73
A book; Source
Help me keep the site updated, please. If you find someone's a site worth linking to or find that a link isn't working, put a message in the comments field. Your post will not be published if you refuse to publish it.
Comments