FENGTTO001 Research Methods

8/13/2019 FENGTTO001 Research Methods

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Research methodology and methods

MSC. PROJECT MANAGEMENT



Introduction

Research andProjects

Interviews

Observations

Data Analysis

Research Design

Literature Review

Questionnaires

Reports

Further Readings



INTRODUCTION

WhyResearch?

AcademicResearch

andPractice

StumblingBlocks

Road mapto success



WhyResearch?

• New ideas to share

• Validate new ideas• Validate current ideas

• Reconcile differentideologies in the same field



MSc. DegreeResearchProjects

• Original piece of research

• A stepping stone to youracademic goals or

professional practice

• High level of practical

application, or a matureunderstanding of the targetarea as a whole



Stumbling/Road Blocksto Success

• Minimum amount of work

• One right answer

• The limited experience of thestudent

• The professional experience ofthe practicioner



Stumbling/Road Blocksto Success

• Research only by the internet

• Failing to align project schedule

with academic department andstaff schedule

• Last minute preparations andactions



Steps

toSuccess

•

Plan for success• Risk management

• Research concentration: aspecific research question

in a specific and narrowpart of the field.

• Choose an interesting

topic or a researchmethod.



Steps

toSuccess

• Select a strong researchmethodology

• Use robust research

methods• Execute the plan –schedule and human

factors



RESEARCH DESIGN

Research

Methodologyvs. Research

Methods

Qualitative vs.QuantitativeResearch



Research Methodology Research Methods

Philosophy or thegeneral principlewhich will guide

your research

Overall

approach(systematicapproach)

Constraints,dilemmas, andethical choices

within yourresearch

Tools youuse to

gather andanalyse

data

Followsspecific

guidelines



Explores attitudes,behaviour andexperiences

Generates statisticsthrough the use oflarge-scale surveyresearch

Qualitative Research Quantitative Research



Qualitative Research

Methodology

Action Research

• The researcher

works in closecollaboration witha group of peopleto improve asituation in a

particular setting.

Ethnography

• The researcher

participates in agroup’s activitieswhilst observingits behaviour,taking notes,

conductinginterviews,analysing,reflecting andwriting.

Grounded Theory

• The generation of

theory which isgrounded in thedata – this meansthat it hasemerged from the

data.



Quantitative Research

Methodology

Research questions has counting/numerical words

• e.g. ‘how many’, ‘test’, ‘verify’, ‘how often’ or ‘how satisfied’



RESEARCH DESIGN ANDPROJECT EXECUTION

Research Design

and You

Research Designand ProjectExecution

RecruitingResearchSubjects

BookingSpaces/MakingReservations

Location and KitHandlingSubjects



Research Design and You

Choose aninterestingtopic or a

researchmethod

Avoid boring,pointless

research

Personalcharacteristics –

socialising,mathematical

analysis or datamining

Professionalexperience

Academicexperience



Research Design and

Project Execution

What is your research?

Why are your researching the topic?

Who will be your participants?

Where are you going to conduct your research?

When are you going to do your research?



Recruiting Research Subjects

Get suitable subjects

Use a subset of the population over a sample ofthe population

Use professional and/or social networks

Volunteers may not represent the entirepopulation

Choose your research subjects carefully



Booking Sessions/

Making Reservations

Counterbalancing differences

Anonymity of subjects



Location and Kit

Space

Permission to use the space

Security

Permission to record

Recording equipment



Handling Subjects

Practice before the real interview – pilot

Use a list to remind you

Refreshments

Time keeping

Clear Instructions and non-influencingdemonstrations

Appear pleasant, professional and interested

Thank them for participating



SECONDARY RESEARCH | LITERATUREREVIEW

Why you search? What you search?What you search it

for?

How you search?What happens at

the end of thesearch?



Why

yousearch?

• Explaining to the reader whatthe problem is that you’re

tackling.• Explaining which approaches

have been tried before.

• Explaining why they failed

(otherwise it would be solvedand no longer a problem).

• Explaining what yourapproach will be.

•Explaining the background toyour approach (previous work,etc.).



Whatyou

search?

• Books, the internet,journals, conference

proceedings,

• Bibliographic databases

• Trustworthy sources ofinformation

• Most accurate,comprehensive and

sophisticated descriptionsof previous approaches



What yousearch it for?

• Get a quick, trustworthyoverview of a field: review

articles, introductionsection of recent journalarticle.



How

yousearch?

•

Keyword• Boolean algebra/search



Whathappens

at the endof thesearch?

• What is the problem that you aretackling?

• Why is it an academically significantquestion worth doing a project on?

• What are the main things that havebeen tried before? (And what hasbeen tried that not many peopleknow about?)

•

Who tried them?



Whathappens at

the end ofthe search?

•Why didn’t those approaches work?

• What are you going to try that’sdifferent?

• Where did you get that idea from?

• What evidence is there to suggestthat this might work better?

• If it doesn’t work, will that findingbe a useful, significant absence, or

will you just look like an idiot?



INTERVIEWS

InterviewTypes

Why interviewat all?

BetterTechniques



Interview?

• two or more people are interacting with each other

Interactive

• the interaction happens live

Real time

Occurs in the natural language

Do the requisite background reading, training andpiloting



Interview Types

Unstructuredinterviews:

Go in without anypredetermined

structure and usingyour judgement todecide what to do

next.

Semi-structuredinterviews:

Some predeterminedtopics and questions

But leave some spacefor following up

interesting topicswhen they arise

Structuredinterviews:

A list of topics or a listof questions



Why Interview At All?

Advantage •No restrictions on the type and the format of questions

Advantage •Can poke around in a versatile manner.

Advantage

•Can give some useful insights into what’s out there, and alsointo what appears not to be out there.

Disadvantage

• Low-level skills

Disadvantage •Better techniques available



Better Techniques

Collect data about the past or the future events:

• Critical incident technique

• Scenarios

Reference to the appropriate literatures about memory

Collect data about the present:

• Think-aloud technique

•Observation



QUESTIONNAIRES

Questionnaires?

BetterTechniques



Another Questionnaire?

List ofquestionswhich wasprepared

beforehand.

The rightquestions to

get to

requiredinformation

The rightphrasing of

the questions

How did youidentify andvalidate the

appropriateresponses tooffer for each

question?

Is the onlychoice for

datacollection?

Read specificbooks on

questionnaire

design



Why Do A Questionnaire At All?

Advantage

• good for using to find out how widespreadsomething is.

Advantage

• useful for is ancillary data collection.

Disadvantage

• Very low response rates

Disadvantage

• Unhelpful Responses



Better Techniques

Which questions?•What will this question give me?

•What literature or evidence can I use to justify the inclusion of this question?

What phrasing?

•Clear and unambiguous

•Have someone check the questions before distribution

What structure?

•Length

•Layout

What response?

•Predetermined classes >>> Not always neat

•Text > Select Option > Number> Analogue Likert-style scale



OBSERVATIONS

ObservationTypes



Observation Types

DirectObservation

IndirectObservation

Ethicalquestions

(Risks)



Disclosed participant observation

The researchsubjects

know thatyou are

collecting

data

Advantage |

You cangather dataopenly

Advantage |You know

what isnormal

behaviour ifyou are a

member of

the group

Disadvantag

e | Gettingacceptanceby the groupif you are nota member of

the group

Disadvantage | Presented

with asanitised

version

Disadvantag

e | Emotionalattachmentto the

subjectsbeing studied



Undisclosed participant observationThe research subjects

does not know that youare collecting data

Advantage | You cangather data without the

sanitised version

Disadvantage | Ethics

and Risks

Disadvantage |Emotional attachment to

the subjects beingstudied

Avoid this technique forM-level Students unless

you are undercoversecurity/field

intelligence officer!



REPORTS

ReportTypes

Advantages

Risks and

Ways AroundThem

FutureReadings



Report Types

Person Involved Past Activities PresentActivities

Future Activities

Oneself Critical incidenttechnique oroffline self-report

Online self-report (think-aloudtechnique/concurrentverbalisation

Scenario

Someone else Critical incidenttechnique

Online report ofothers

Scenario



Advantages

Explain how something happens in their own words.

Give perception and organisation of thoughts of the author

Understand the rationale for actions and behaviours



Risks Ways Around Them

Sanitised accounts

Interferenceeffects because

the reportinggets in the way

of the task

Partiality ofcoding results

Ask to report onanother’s behaviour.

Compare theperformance of

people doing thetask while

reporting vs. people

doing the task but not reporting.

One independentjudge to do thecoding for you.



Further Readings

For methodological underpinnings, read literature in psychologyon short-term memory and working memory.

Reports dealing with past events, it’s advisable to read theliterature on shortcomings of human memory.

For reports of current activities, the best starting place is thepsychology literature.

Reports of future activities, read the literature on scenarios.



DATA ANALYSIS

Contentanalysis

Discourseanalysis

Knowledgerepresentation

Statistics

Descriptivestatistics

Measurementtheory

Inferentialstatistics



What types?

• what is said in a text, how it issaid, and how often it’s said.

Content analysis:

•

who says what, about what, towhom, in what format.Discourseanalysis:

• formats, structures and concepts

for making sense of knowledge.

Knowledge

representation:

• describing things with numbers,and assessing the odds.`

Statistics:



What types?

• giving a systematic description ofthe numbers you’ve found

Descriptivestatistics:

• types of measurement and theirimplications

Measurementtheory:

• what are the odds against yourfindings being due to randomchance?

Inferentialstatistics:



ETHICS

Participants

Disclosure

Plagiarism

Code ofethics



Ethics and Research

Treatparticipants

withrespect

Disclosedand

undisclosedresearch

Plagiarism -Code ofethics

l h l l

http://www.plagiarism.org/plagiarism-101/overview/




Plagiarism: http://www.plagiarism.org/plagiarism-

101/overview/

•An act of submitting another’s work,word-for-word, as one’s own.1. CLONE:

•A written piece that containssignificant portions of text from asingle source without alterations.

2. CTRL-C:

•The act of changing key words andphrases but retaining the essentialcontent of the source in a paper.

3. FIND–REPLACE:







Plagiarism

•An act of paraphrasing from other sources andmaking the content fit together seamlessly. fromother sources and making the content fit togetherseamlessly.

4. REMIX:

•The act of borrowing generously from one’s ownprevious work without citation; To self plagiarize.

5.RECYCLE:

•The act of combining perfectly cited sources withcopied passages—without citation—in one paper.6. HYBRID:



Plagiarism

• A paper that represents a mix of copied material fromseveral different sources without proper citation.7. MASHUP:

• A written piece that includes citations to non-existent orinaccurate information about sources8. 404 ERROR:

• The “Aggregator” includes proper citation, but the papercontains almost no original work.

9.AGGREGATOR:

• This paper includes proper citation, but relies tooclosely on the text’s original wording and/or structure.10. RE-TWEET:



Further Resources

• https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/619/1/

Purdue OnlineWriting Lab

(OWL)

• http://www.plagiarism.org/citing-sources/overview/ Citations:

• http://www.turnitin.com/en_us/resources/webcasts

TurnitinWebcasts:

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/619/1/


http://www.plagiarism.org/citing-sources/overview/


http://www.turnitin.com/en_us/resources/webcasts











Code of Ethics

PersonalMorals

Shared

Morals

School

Policy



Further Reading

Research Methods for Postgraduates. Tony Greenfield. (Ed.) 2ndEdition. London : Arnold, 2002, 12.

Dawson, Dr Catherine. 2002. Practical Research Methods. Oxford :How To Books, 2002.

Kumar, Ranjit. 2005. Research Methodology: A Step-by-Step Guidefor Beginners. 2nd Edition. London : SAGE Publications Ltd, 2005.11291194X.



Further Reading

Maimon, Elaine P. and Peritz, Janice H. 2003. A Writer's Resource: A Handbook for Writing and Research. 1st Edition. New York City :McGraw-Hill, 2003. 0-07-294404-8.

Rugg, Gordon and Petre, Marian. 2007. A Gentle Guide toResearch Methods. Maidenhead : Open University Press,McGraw-Hill Education, 2007. 978 0 335 21927 8.



QUESTIONS ANSWERS



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FENGTTO001 Research Methods