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RESEARCH & ITS APPROACHES. Research. Research is an endavour to discover answers to intellectual and practical problems through the application of scientific method.
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Research • Research is an endavour to discover answers to intellectual and practical problems through the application of scientific method. • Research is a quest for knowledge through diligent search or investigation or experimentation aimed at the discovery and interpretation of new knowledge. (WHO)
Contd…. • Research is a systematized effort to gain new knowledge”. - Redman and Mory. • Research is the systematic process of collecting and analyzing information or data in order to increase our understanding of the phenomenon about which we are concerned or interested.
Objectives of Research • To discover new facts. • To verify and test important facts. • To analyze an event or process or phenomenon. • To identify the cause and effect relationship. • To develop new scientific tools, concepts and theories. • To solve and understand scientific and nonscientific problems.
Research Approaches • Qualitative Approach • Quantitative Approach
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH ‘Qualitative Research…involves finding out what people think, and how they feel - or at any rate, what they say they think and how they say they feel. This kind of information is subjective. It involves feelings and impressions, rather than numbers’
. Qualitative Researchers study “things” (people and their thoughts) in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them.
Qualitative research involves the studied use and collection of a variety of empirical materials - case study, personal experience, introspective, life story, interview, observational, historical, interactional, and visual texts-that describe routine and problematic moments and meanings in individuals lives.
Advantages and Limitations • Advantages • Greater data accuracy than direct questioning, in natural settings people behave naturally, • Problems of refusal, not at home, false response, non-cooperation etc. are absent, • No recall error, • In some situations, only way • Number of customers visiting a store • Studying children’s behavior • Limitations • Time consuming, -- too many things to observe, • may not be representative, • difficulty in determining root cause of the behavior.
QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH Quantitative research is all about quantifying relationships between variables. Variables are things like weight, performance, time, and treatment. You measure variables on a sample of subjects, which can be tissues, cells, animals, or humans.
You express the relationship between variable using effect statistics, such as correlations, relative frequencies, or differences between means. I deal with these statistics and other aspects of analysis elsewhere at this site. In this article I focus on the design of quantitative research.
First I describe the types of study you can use. Next I discuss how the nature of the sample affects your ability to make statements about the relationship in the population. I then deal with various ways to work out the size of the sample. Finally I give advice about the kinds of variable you need to measure.
Advantages Quantitative research design is an excellent way of finalizing results and proving or disproving a hypothesis The structure has not changed for centuries Quantitative experiments also filter out external factors, if properly designed, and so the results gained can be seen as real and unbiased.
Disadvantages Quantitative experiments can be difficult and expensive and require a lot of time to perform They must be carefully planned to ensure that there is complete randomization and correct designation of control groups. Quantitative studies usually require extensive statistical analysis, which can be difficult, due to most scientists not being statisticians.
