Research

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Research Design
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The Next Step

• You have decided
• What the problem is
• What the study goals are
• Why it is important for you to do the study
• Now you will construct the research design which
  describes what you are going to do in technical
  terms.

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Research Design

• Is a plan for selecting the sources and types of
  information used to answer the research question.
• Is a framework for specifying the relationships
  among the studys variables
• Is a blueprint that outlines each procedure from
  the hypothesis to the analysis of data.

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Research Design

• The research design will provide information for
  tasks such as
• Sample selection and size
• Data collection method
• Instrumentation
• Procedures
• Ethical requirements
• Rejected alternative designs

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Classification of Research Designs

• Exploratory or formal
• Observational or communication based
• Experimental or ex post facto
• Descriptive or causal
• Cross-sectional or longitudinal
• Case or statistical study
• Field, laboratory or simulation

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Exploratory or Formal

• Exploratory studies tend toward loose structures
  with the objective of discovering future research
  tasks
• Goal - to develop hypotheses or questions for
  further research
• Formal study begins where the exploration leaves
  off and begins with the hypothesis or research
  question
• Goal test the hypothesis or answer the research
  question posed

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Observational or Communication Based

• Observational studies the researcher inspects
  the activities of a subject or the nature of some
  material without attempting elicit responses from
  anyone.
• Communicational the researcher questions the
  subjects and collects response by personal or
  impersonal means.

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Experimental or Ex Post Facto

• In an experiment the researcher attempts to
  control and/or manipulate the variables in the
  study. Experimentation provides the most
  powerful support possible for a hypothesis of
  causation
• With an ex post facto design, investigators have
  no control over the variables in the sense of
  being able to manipulate them. Report only what
  has happened or what is happening. Important
  that researches do not influence variables

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Descriptive or Causal

• If the research is concerned with finding out
  who, what, where, when or how much then the study
  is descriptive.
• If is concerned with finding out why then it is
  causal. How one variable produces changes in
  another.

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Cross-sectional or Longitudinal

• Cross-sectional are carried out once and
  represent a snapshot of one point in time.
• Longitudinal are repeated over an extended period

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Case or Statistical Study

• Statistical studies are designed for breath
  rather than depth. They attempt to capture a
  populations characteristics by making inference
  from a samples characteristics.
• Case studies full contextual analysis of fewer
  events or conditions and their interrelations.
  (Remember that a universal can be falsified by a
  single counter-instance)

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Field, Laboratory or Simulation

• Designs differ in the actual environmental
  conditions

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Subjects Perceptions

• The usefulness of a design may be reduced when
  people in the study perceive that research is
  being conducted
• Hawthorne effect

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Linking Data and Research Methodology

• inextricably linked
• Must always take into account the nature of data
  collected in the resolution of the problem
• Example historical data you cannot extract
  much meaning from historical documents by using a
  laboratory experience

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Quantitative vrs Qualitative Approaches

• Categorize research studies into two broad
  categories
• Quantitative relationships among measured
  variable for the purpose of explaining,
  predicting and controlling phenomena
• Qualitative answer question about the complex
  nature of phenomena with the purpose of
  describing and understanding from the
  participants point of view

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Same investigative question but different design

• Investigating What makes case-based instruction
  effective or ineffective?
• Researcher 1 assumes the role of participant
  observer in a case-based business management
  course for an entire year, spends extensive time
  with the teacher and students and their
  perspectives on case-based instruction,
  scrutinizes data for patterns and themes in the
  responses, finally writes an in-depth description
  and interpretation of what was observed

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Same investigative question but different design

• Investigating What makes case-based instruction
  effective or ineffective?
• Researcher 2 restates the question to How
  effective is case-based instruction in comparison
  with lecture-based instruction?
• Finds 5 instructors teaching case-based and 5
  teaching the same content as lecture-based, at
  the end of the semester administers an
  achievement test to students in all 10 classes,
  using statistical analysis, compares the scores
  to determine outcome, writes up the experiment
  and summarizes the results of the statistical
  analysis

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Qualitative Techniques

• There are several approaches for qualitative
  research
• In-depth interviewing
• Participant observation
• to perceive first hand what participants in the
  setting experience
• Films, photographs and videotape

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Qualitative Techniques

• Projective techniques and psychological testing
• Projective measures (sentence completion or word
  association tests, games or role playing
• Case studies
• Elite interviewing
• Information from influential or well-informed
  people
• Document Analysis

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The Validity of Your Method

• Accuracy, meaningfulness, an credibility
• Two basic questions
• Does the study have sufficient controls to ensure
  that the conclusions we draw are truly warranted
  by the data? (internal validity)
• Can we use what we have observed in the research
  situation to make generalizations about the world
  beyond that specific situation? (external
  validity)

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Internal Validity

• Allows researcher to draw accurate conclusions
  about cause-and-effect and other relationships
  within data

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Suspect Internal Validity

• Problem How humor in TV commercials affects
  sales
• 2 commercials
• One airs in March, April and May with a serious
  well-known actor
• One airs in June, July and August with a humorous
  tone involving teenagers
• Sales double in June, July and August
  -gtconclusion Humor boosts sales.

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Suspect Internal Validity

• Problem Studying the effects of soft classical
  music on the productivity of typists in a typing
  pool
• After getting consent, and talking to the
  typists, music is piped in and productivity is
  increased by 30
• Conclusion soft music increases productivity
• (Hawthorn effect)

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Suspect Internal Validity

• Problem The effectiveness of a new method of
  teaching reading to first graders
• 14 out of 30 teachers in a particular school
  district volunteer to learn and use new method.
  At the end of the school year, students who were
  instructed with the new method have significantly
  higher average scores on a reading achievement
  test than students who received the traditional
  method.
• Conclusion new method is definitely better than
  the old one

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Strategies to reduce internal validity problems

• Controlled laboratory study
• A double-blind experiment
• Unobtrusive measures ( to see where people use
  the library look at worn flooring)
• Triangulation multiple sources

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External Validity

• The conclusions drawn can be generalized

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Strategies to enhance external validity

• A real-life setting artificial settings may be
  quite dissimilar from real-life circumstances
• Representative sample
• Replication in a different context

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Ethical Issues

• Protection from harm physical or psychological
  harm
• Risks not greater than normal day-to-day risks
• Informed consent (notice that unobtrusive measure
  violate this principle)
• At Burris, I sign an informed consent each year
  for my son. ( see page 109 for a informed consent
  form)

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Ethical Issues

• Right to Privacy participants strictly
  confidential
• Honesty with Professional colleagues
• Includes full documentation of material belonging
  to others no fabrications, representation in
  fair, honest manner
• Internal Review Boards
• Professional Code of Ethics

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What Approach Should You Use?

• Quantitative
• Qualitative
• Look at table 5.2 and the 10 items
• Also please note that you can take a
  self-assessment quiz at http//www.prenhall.com/le
  edy (noted in the margin in green text page 110)