What is Research ?

• The systematic investigation and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and
reach new conclusions.

What is social research?

• Research on topics relating to questions relevant to the social scientific fields such as sociology,
human geography, social policy, politics and criminology.

The Research Process: an Eight-Step Model.

Steps in Planning a Research Study:

Step 1: Formulating a Research Problem

• The research process begins with the recognition of a problem or opportunity.

Step 2: Conceptualizing a Research Design

• Research Design step involves the development of a research plan for carrying out the study.

– There are a number of alternative research designs. The choice will largely depend on
the research purpose.
 • Type of Research Design:

– Exploratory,

– Descriptive,

– Causal.

Exploratory Research

• It is conducted to clarify ambiguous situations or discover ideas.

• It is particularly useful in new product development.

Descriptive Research

• It describes characteristics of objects, people, groups, organizations or environments.

• It addresses who, what, when, where, and how questions.

Causal Research

• It seeks to identify cause-and-effect relationships.

• When something causes an effect, it means it brings it about or makes it happen; the effect is
the outcome.
Step 3:
Constructing an instrument for data collection

• There are many data collecting tools which a researcher can use for his research.

• The common tools are: Survey, Experiment and Observation.

Step 4: Selecting a Sample

Involves any procedure that draws conclusions based on measurements of a portion

of the population.

Sampling theory is guided by two principles:

1. The avoidance of bias in the selection of a sample.

2. The attainment of maximum precision for a given outlay of resources.

There are three categories of sampling design:

1. Random/probability sampling designs;

2. Non random/probability sampling design; and

3. Mixed sampling design.

Step 5: Writing a Research Proposal

A research proposal must clearly state:

 What are you proposing to do?

 How do you plan to proceed?
 Why you selected the proposed strategy?
Step 6: collecting the data

• This is the process of gathering or collecting information.

• It may be gathered by human observers or interviewers or may be recorded by machines (e.g.,

scanner data).

Step 7: processing data

Editing

• Involves checking the data collection forms for omissions, legibility, and consistency in
classification.

Codes

• Rules for interpreting, categorizing, recording, and transferring the data to the data
storage media.

Data analysis

• The application of reasoning to understand the data that have been gathered.

Step 8: writing a research report

Reporting requirements

• Conclusions fulfill the deliverables promised in the research proposal

• Consider the varying abilities of people to understand the research results

• A clearly-written, understandable summary of the research findings

Paradigm:

A paradigm is a standard, perspective, or set of ideas. A paradigm is a way of looking at something.

In science and philosophy, a paradigm is a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns, including
theories, research methods, postulates, and standards for what constitutes legitimate contributions
to a field.

What is Narrative Research?

• A study of individuals’ life experiences told to researchers or obtained in documents and

archival material

• It focuses on

• Studying a single person,

• Gathering data through the collection of stories,

• Reporting individual experiences, and

• Discussing the meaning of those experiences for the individual.

• Forms of narrative research - biography, autobiography, life histories, personal experience

story, contextually focused stories about individuals or organizations, narratives guided by
theoretical lenses

• 6 Key charateristics of Narrative designs

• Individual experiences

• Collecting individual stories Chronology of the experiences

• Restorying

• Coding for themes

• Context or setting

• Collaborating with participants

• 3 Ethical issues of Narrative designs

• Distorting data

• Inability to tell the story because it is horrific

• Forgetting story
 7 Steps in conducting narrative research

1. Identify a phenomenon to explore that addresses a problem

2. Purposefully select an individual from whom you can learn about the phenomenon
3. Collect the story from that individual
4. Restory or retell the individual’s story
o Chronological sequence
o Logical connections among ideas
5. Collaborate with the participant– storyteller
This collaboration might involve
o Negotiating on how to enter to the research site,
o Working closely with the participant to get field texts and
o Writing and telling the individual’s story in the researcher’s words.
Collaboration between the researcher and the participant decreases the potential
gap between the narrative told and the narrative reported.
6. Write a story about the participant’s experiences
7. Validate the accuracy of the report
o Collaboration
o Member checking
o Triangulation

6 Narrative Research Challenges

• Extensive information about the participant is needed

• Researcher needs to have a clear understanding of the context of the individual’s life

• Care must be given to uncover key source material that captures the individuals’ experiences
and explains the multi-layered context of their life

• Active collaboration with the participants is needed

• Researcher needs to reflect on how their own background shapes how they “restory”

• Questions of ownership of the story, who can tell the story, what version is convincing, and
what happens when the narrative is complete must be addressed
Phenomolgy

Research method concerned with gathering universal insight (essence) into a phenomenon

2 Characteristics

 Small sample size

 Data is gathered from
o Surveys
o Interviews
o Pictures/Charts/Graphs
o Observations

4 steps in phenomology

o Bracketing
Process of setting aside views and biases about the research topic
o Intuiting
Researcher hold themselves open to multiple meanings of different experiences.
o Analyzing
After gathering interview data from multiple resources, the researcher will search for
patterns in the reports
o Describing
A researcher understands and defines the phenomenon in a conceptual way

Validiy threats to phenomenology

o Interpretation validity
o Researcher bias
o Theory validity
In the beginning of the research, the research usually have a specific theory that he or
she feels the data will supports and must offer all the data
o Descriptive validity