Research Design

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Research Design

• Week 4 Lecture 1

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Research Design

• Overall research philosophy
• Research Approach
• Research Methods
• Validating your research research credibility
• Research Ethics

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Research Philosophy

• Positivism
• Based on natural science research philosophy
• All observations detached from the observer
• External world as existing objectively
  independent of the observer
• Seeking law-like generalisations,
• Emphasis on structured methodology,
  quantification, replication etc.

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Interpretivism

• Social world and business organisations as
  constructed socially,
• Not seeking law like generalisations but focus on
  the insight into the particular situation and
  context,
• Subjective meanings and individual motivations,
  actions,and interactions.

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Research approach

• Deductive approach vs. inductive approach
• Deduction use of logic and mathematical
  reasoning to prove the correctness of
  propositions,
• Developing consistent theory as a set of
  inter-related propositions.
• Induction
• Building theories from facts and observations and
  experiments
• Hybrid approaches

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Research Strategies

• Experimental Method
• Different kinds of experiments, fully controlled
  experiments, quasi experiments..
• Survey Method
• Case Study
• Grounded Theory
• Ethnography
• System prototyping and testing
• Action Research

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Action Research

• Focus on initiating and managing change and in
  the process developing a body of knowledge that
  may have more general value.
• Phases
• Purpose the research/project and management of
  change,
• Direct involvement of and close collaboration
  with practitioners in the research,
• Learning from the project for beyond.
• Reflective practitioner.

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Cross sectional vs. Longitudinal Research

• Cross sectional
• Longitudinal
• Exploratory, descriptive
• Combining methods

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Credibility and evaluation of research

• Reliability
• Validity
• Generalisability/external validity
• Evaluation

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Research Ethics

• Principles
• Full and informed consent of all participants,
• Not putting them thru undue hardship
• Making available the results of the research to
  the participants
• Need to obtain research committee approval for
  certain kinds of research
• Unauthorised sharing of data not divulging data
  collected in research to non-research-related
  parties.