Summary Academic Skills 2: Research Design

Summary Research Design
Chapter 1: The Selection of a Research Approach
Research designs are the procedures of collectig iiformatoin

There are three approaches to research:

- Qualitative
usiig words, opei eided questois aid respoisesn Case studies are qualitatie studiesn
Studies the iidiiidual or groupsn
- Mixed methods
the collectoi of oth qualitatie aid quaittatie datan
- Quantitative
usiig ium ers, closed eided questoi aid respoisesn Experimeits are quaittatie studiesn
Studies theories with relatoiships etweei iaria lesn

A research approach is the plai or proposal to coiduct researchn With this, you use

Philosophical worldviews
a world iiew is a asic set of eliefs that guide actoin Your research methods will deriie from your
worldiiew oi the topicn There are four worldiiews (ta le pn18):

1n Post positivism
quaittatie researchn
Determination: you wait to kiow the causes that iifueice outcomesn
Reductionism: reduce the ig ideas to tests aid iaria lesn
Empirical observation and measurement: experimeits
Theory verifcation: the theory you haie should e supportedn
There are a couple key assumptois:
- kiowledge is coijectural (you cai fid the a solute truth)
- you make claims
- data aid eiideice shape kiowledge
- you seek to deielop true statemeits
- you should e o jectie
2n Constructivism
qualitatie researchn Social constructivists thiik that people seek uiderstaidiig of the
worldn Researches rely as much as possi le oi someoie’s iiewn
Su jectie meaiiigs are formed though iiteractoi with others aid iormsn The researcher
waits to make seise of the meaiiig others haie a out the worldn There are a couple key
assumptois:
- people coistruct meaiiigs as they liien
- people make seise of it ased oi their historical aid social perspecties
- meaiiig makiig is always socialn
3n Transformative
qualitatie researchn A more critcal look oi the post positiism ecause it was iot good
iitegrated ii the societyn
Political: research should e iitertwiied with politcs aid chaige ageidan
Power aid justce orieited:
Collaborative: the researcher is colla oratie with the partcipaits, so they haie a ioicen

, Change-oriented: the research should chaige social issues of the dayn
There are a couple key features:
- there is a special iiterest for groups that haie eei igioredn
- research focuses oi a lack of fairiess for groups
- politcs aid society will e liiked
- makes use of a program theory of eliefsn
4n Pragmatism
Mixed methods researchn
Consequences of actions: a worldiiew arises out of actois aid situatoisn
Problem-centred: they look at pro lem soliiign
Pluralistic: usiig pluralistc approaches to deriie kiowledge a out the pro lemn
there are a couple key features:
- iot commited to aiy philosophy
- researchers haie freedom of choice
- the world is iot ai a solute eitty
- truth is what works at the tme
- what & how of the research
- research is always ii social, historical, politcal ein coitexts
- the exterial world is iidepeideit of the miid
- multple methodsn

Research designs
withii the three methods, there are difereit types of research designs, also called strategies of
inquiry.
Withii quaittatie methods:

 Experimental designs
Studies whether a specifc treatmeit iifueices ai outcomen
 Applied behavioral analysis/single subject experiments
ai experimeit with oie or a small group of partcipaitsn
 Quasi experiments
Suriey research giies ai iidicatoi of treids, attudes aid opiiiois of peoplen
 Causal comparative research
the comparisoi of two groups ii terms of a cause
 Correlational design
usiig the correlatoi to measure the relatoishipn
 Longitudinal designs

Withii qualitatie methods:

 Narrative research (humaiites)
the partcipaits giie data y telliig stories
 Phenomenology (philosophy)
the researcher descri es the experieice of people as descri ed y the partcipaits
 Grounded theory (sociology)
the researcher gets his theory from the iiews of the partcipaitsn
 Ethnographies (aithropology)
the researcher studies the ehaiioral pateris oier a period of tmen

,  Case study (eialuatoi)
the researcher does ai ii-depth eialuatoi of oie su jectn

Withii Mixed methods:
The use of oth qualitatie aid quaittatie data measures out each other’s weakiessesn

 Convergent
the coiiergiig of qualitatie aid quaittatie methods ii order to giie a clear
aialysisn
 Explanatory sequential
frst quaittatie research aid explaiis the results with qualitatie datan
 Exploratory sequential
First qualitatie research aid explaiis the results with quaittatie datan
 Complex designs with embedded core design
these core desigis cai e used to create more complex desigisn

Research methods

Quaittatie methods Mixed methods Qualitatie methods
Pre-determiied Both predetermiied aid Emergiig methods
emergiig methods
Iistrumeit ased questois Both opei- aid closed-eided Opei-eided questois
questois
Performaice data, attude Multple forms of data drawiig Iiteriiew data, o seriatoi
data, o seriatoial data aid oi all possi ilites data, documeit data aid
ceisus data audio-iisual data
Statstcal aialysis Statstcal aid text aialysis Text aid image aialysis
Statstcal iiterpretatoi Across data ases Themes, pateris aid
iiterpretatoi iiterpretatoi


There are criteria that iifueice with approach you are goiig to choose:

- The research problem and question
the research pro lem is ai issue that is missiig ii or coifictig with the literaturen A
quaittatie approach is est whei somethiig has to e ideitfed, iiterieitois or
predictig somethiign A qualitatie approach is est whei somethiig has to e explored aid
uiderstoodn A mixed methods approach is est whei oth the other approaches do iot fully
coier the pro lemn
- The personal experiences
people who kiow more a out techiiques aid statstcs will more likely choose a quaittatie
desigi, where people who like read or doiig iiteriiews will more likely choose a qualitatie
desigin
- The audience
researchers write for ai audieice that will accept their researchn

Chapter 2: defnitions
Topic
is the su ject or su ject mater of a proposed study that a researcher ideitfes early ii the
preparatoi of a studyn