RESEARCH METHODS STATISTICS

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RESEARCH METHODSSTATISTICS

• WEEKEND SCHOOL
• SESSION

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CONTACT

• JUSTICE G. DJOKOTO
• (Ph.D. (Cand.), M.Phil., P.G.D.E., B.Sc.)
• Office Frank Roberts, Mataheko
• Phone [phone]
• Email dgameli_at_centraluniversity.org

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Meetings

• Group I
• Friday 600 to 900pm
• 12 weeks from 22nd June 7th September 2007
• Group II
• Saturday 200 to 500
• 12 weeks from 23rd June 8th September 2007

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Course Outline

• Objectives
• The course is designed to equip students with the
  training necessary for research. By the end of
  the module, students should
• gain in-depth understanding
• become aware of the nature and scope of research
  in business and management,
• effectively organise, structure and manage a
  research project.
• develop a research proposal for academic or
  organisational area

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Description

• This module is to equip students with the
  necessary training both to be able to assess the
  academic research and literature in business
  fields and to prepare the student to do thesis.

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Description

• Students will gain in-depth understanding and be
  keenly aware of
• the nature and scope of research in business and
  management,
• be able to effectively organise,
• structure and manage a research project.

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Description

• In this regard students will be aware of and be
  familiar with the facilities available for
• conducting literature and bibliographic search,
• obtaining relevant data to facilitate empirical
  investigation,
• further develop skills of inquiry,
• research design,
• data collection and information retrieval,
• measurement, analysis, interpretation and
  presentation of a research project.

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Teaching Format

• Classes will consist of a combination of
• case studies,
• lectures,
• powerpoint and presentations.
• Students will be expected to come to class having
  done the readings and participate in class
  discussions.
• Student teams may present cases that will be
  defended and discussed.
• Attendance and class participation are therefore
  expected elements of this course.
• There will also be a written exam and a
  compulsory coursework assignment.

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Outline

• Introductory Topics and Literature Review
• Data and Data Collection
• Data Compilation and Cleaning
• Data analysis
• Hypothesis Testing
• Writing of Research Proposals
• Other Topics

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Introductory Topics and Literature Review

• Introduction of course module
• The meaning of research and research methods
• nature and scope of research
• in business and management
• skills of inquiry
• longitudinal, time series and cross-section
  research the nature of methodology

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• Scientific method of enquiry
• Planning a Research Project
• How to organize, structure, and manage a research
  project
• The research process, proposal writing,
• Components of a good research proposal
• Uses of a research proposal
• Seeking funding from funding agencies
• Choosing /Identifying an appropriate Research
  topic
• Identifying an appropriate research approach/
  method

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• conducting literature searches - the literature
  review
• information retrieval,
• presentation of bibliography or references

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Data and Data Collection

• Statistics defined
• Data and
• Types of data and Sources of Data
• Qualitative and quantitative
• Primary, secondary,
• Time series and cross-sectional data.

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• Secondary data collection
• Primary data collection design of data collection
  instruments
• Methods of data collection
• census verses survey methods (their advantages
  and disadvantages)
• Sample Selection
• population,
• sample frame,
• sample size
• sampling error

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• Principles of sampling
• Probability
• Non-Probability
• Methods of Sampling
• Random Sampling
• Purposive
• Stratified sampling
• Systematic sampling
• Multi-stage and multi-phase
• Interviews
• Questionnaires and design,

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• Focus Group Discussions
• Planning group meetings, etc.
• Group dynamics
• Some qualitative methods
• Household classification
• Wealth ranking, etc

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Data Compilation and Cleaning

• Data compilation and coding
• Data entry
• Data cleaning
• Missing data

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Data analysis

• Qualitative Methods
• Variables and relationships between variables
• patterns,
• correlation and causal
• Descriptive and inferential statistics
• central tendencies (mean, mode, median, range,
  etc)
• Measures of dispersion (standard deviation)

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• Graphical data presentation (histogram, pie
  chart)
• Other Qualitative Methods of Analysis
• Frequency tables,
• Chi square.
• measures of dispersion
• correlation analysis
• Analysis of variance (ANOVA)

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Hypothesis Testing

• Formulation of hypothesis
• Testing of hypothesis
• Type I and Type II errors
• Confidence intervals - one-tail, two-tailed,
  standard normal.
• Simple regression analysis
• Formulation of a simple OLS
• Regression analysis
• Interpreting regression results

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Writing of Research Report

• Writing research reports and presentation of
  project work.
• Outline for thesis
• Chapter by chapter analysis
• Statistical modelling of business problems.
• Familiarisation with computer packages such as
  Excel and SPSS work

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Other Topics

• research design,
• fundamentals of managerial statistics a random
  variables,
• probability distributions,
• Assessment of programme impact.

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Issues of Thesis

• Selection of a supervisor,
• meetings with supervisor,
• deadlines, etc

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THE RESEARCH PROPOSAL

• BY
• JUSTICE G. DJOKOTO

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THE RESEARCH PROPOSAL

• THE OUTLINE
• WHAT TO DO

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OUTLINE

• COVER PAGE
• BACKGROUND
• PROBLEM STATEMENT
• OBJECTIVES
• METHODOLOGY
• JUSTIFICATION/RELEVANCE
• ORGANIZATION OF STUDY

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COVER PAGE

• The Institution
• The Title
• Author
• Object
• Date

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The Title

• Also known as the topic
• This should include
• Concepts
• Linkages of the concepts
• Objects

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Steps to Choose a Topic

• Identify a problem
• Read further on the problem
• Clearly define the problem
• Write out the problem statement
• Outline your objectives
• From here you can now decide on the topic

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Assessing the Topic

• Criteria
• Availability of literature
• Look out for about 20 literature
• Largely journal articles and research works of
  students
• Other research reports
• Books
• Newsletter

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Assessing the Topic

• Criteria
• Availability of data
• Access to the data
• Cost of the data
• Timeliness of access
• Personal interest of the student
• Your personal interest will be a motivation
• Project work can be frustrating hence the need
  for personal interest
• Project will be funded by you

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Assessing the Topic

• Criteria
• In discipline you are pursuing
• Also, may be related to your discipline
• Or you want to apply theory from some area to
  your discipline

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BACKGROUND

• This explains the concepts
• University education
• Employee productivity
• Linkage
• Object of the research/setting
• Banking industry

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PROBLEM STATEMENT

• This is the origin of the research
• This needs to be clearly defined
• The structure involves two things
• Preamble
• Questions
• You need to paint a picture
• Then the questions will be natural consequence

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PROBLEM STATEMENT

• The preamble provides grounds to raise the
  questions
• Example
• Competition in banking industry
• The role of employees in organisation
• Concerns about employee productivity
• Ways to increase productivity e.g. education,
  traning

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PROBLEM STATEMENT

• Questions
• These are the issues that agitate your mind for
  which you want to find solutions to
• State the issue in question form
• Major question
• The main issue in question form
• Specific questions
• Other issues within the main issue that are
  components of the main issue
• State these in question form

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PROBLEM STATEMENT

• Example
• Main/major question
• What is the relationship between between
  university education and employee productivity in
  the banking industry in Ghana?
• Specific questions
• What is the trend of productivity in the banking
  industry
• What is the trend of university graduates
  employment in the banking industry

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OBJECTIVES

• This what you have set to achieve
• The problem well stated helps to build your
  objectives
• These should be positive statement of the
  questions
• Major objective
• Specific objectives

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OBJECTIVES

• Example
• Major objective
• To analyse the relationship between university
  education and employee productivity
• Specific objective
• Determine the trend of employee productivity in
  the banking industry
• Determine the trend of graduate employment in the
  baking industry

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OBJECTIVES

• An alternative
• Determine the trend of employee productivity in
  the banking industry
• Determine the trend of graduate employment in the
  baking industry
• Assess the linkage between university education
  and employee productivity in the banking industry

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METHODOLOGY

• This describes the steps to be traced in
  achieving the objectives
• This has been covered already hopefully.

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RELEVANCE

• This section outlines the importance of the study
• Guide
• Importance of the concepts
• Importance of the linkage
• Importance of study to
• private sector
• Public sector
• Researchers
• Policy makers

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RELEVANCE

• If you need funding for the study by a donor this
  is where you need to provide reasons why you
  should be funded.
• For student research it is also important to
  provide cogent reasons

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ORGANISATION OF THE STUDY

• How the chapters will be organised
• You need not tabulate them
• Dont provide the details of the subsections.
• in the proposal you can capture chapter one
• But in paper dont include chapter one

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Example

• The study will be presented in five chapters.
  Chapter two will present review of relevant
  literature. The methodology to achieve the
  objectives is outlined in chapter three. Chapter
  four presents the results and the accompanying
  discussions. The conclusions and recommendations
  are distilled in chapter five.

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ACTION PLAN

• This details
• Activities
• Dates to be completed
• Forms bass of budget if needed.

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After the Proposal

• Cut-off the methodology section
• What is left constitutes chapter one-INTRODUCTION
• The methodology section becomes chapter
  three-METHODOLOGY