Understanding The Different Research Methods
There are two general approaches to collecting data: quantitative and qualitative research. Let us understand in detail
Quantitative research
The data obtained in this form of study is typically represented in numbers and graphs to validate hypotheses and conclusions. The information gathered is accurate information on the topic. The truthful information can be gathered in a variety of ways using the quantitative analysis process, including
Surveys: Surveys consist of a list of multiple-choice or rating questions that are asked in person, over the phone, or online. Before you list the survey's results in the data form, you can take your readers through the survey by adding details such as when and where the survey was performed, how long it took participants to respond to the questions, the answer rate, and so on. You may also include the entire questionnaire list as an appendix so that your reader can see exactly what information was collected.
Experiments: This approach involves conducting a test in a controlled environment and analyzing the results. As variables are managed and manipulated to create cause-and-effect relationships, this form of data is used. It's a good idea to include details in your study on how you designed the experiment (for example, between-subjects or within-subjects), as well as the instruments, methods, and procedures you used to perform the test.
Existing data: You can collect data for your research from an existing source (such as publications or archival data). Include details about where you got the data, how it was originally made, and what criteria you used to choose the date range after you've entered the data into the study.
Observations: This involves observing people in their natural environment where variables can't be controlled
Content analysis: This refers to systematically recording the presence of certain words or a set of texts to analyze communication patterns
In quantitative research, you can include information on:
How the data was prepared
Software used to analyze the data (e.g. Stata or SPSS)
Statistical methods used (e.g. regression analysis)
An Illustration Of A Quantitative Research Methodology
Consider the following scenario. You're conducting a survey of 300 students at your university, asking them questions like "How pleased are you with your professors' teaching skills on a scale of 1-5?"
You can run statistical analysis on the data and come up with a conclusion like "Students gave their professors an average of 4.4."
Qualitative Analysis
Interviews, focus groups, case studies, discourse analysis, and literature reviews are used to better understand people's feelings, concepts, and experiences. It is essentially a survey designed to collect people's opinions and experiences.
Let us look at the techniques in qualitative research:
Interviews: This approach entails asking respondents open-ended questions orally. Describe how, when, and where the interviews took place. Have details of how you identified and chose your participants.
Focus groups: Gathering opinions by having a group of people discuss a topic
case study: An in-depth examination of an incident, an entity, an individual, or a community is known as a case study. Explain how you choose your case study materials for your research (such as texts or images), the types of materials you studied, and how you gathered and picked them.
Literature-review: A survey of published works by other authors
The study in qualitative research will be focused on picture, language, and observations (generally involving form of textual-analysis). Methods that can be used include
Content-analysis: Discussing and categorizing meaning of sentences, words, and phrases.
Thematic analysis: Coding and carefully examining the data to identify broad themes and patterns
Discourse analysis: Studying communication and purpose concerning their social context
Qualitative research approach example Consider the following scenario: you perform in-depth interviews with 20 students, asking them questions such as "How satisfied are you with your curriculum research?" "What is the positive aspect of the study program?" and "What do the students believe can be done to enhance the study program?" You transcribe all interviews using transcription software based on the responses you get and look for commonalities and trends in the responses.
Mixed methods
This includes a combination of in-depth exploration and numerical measurement.
Let's say you conduct interviews to find out how satisfied the students are with their studies and their answers provide new insights. Later, you use the survey as a tool to test the insights on a large scale.
Another approach could be to start with a survey to find out trends or opinions or beliefs, followed by interviews to better understand the reasons behind the trends.
Understanding differences between quantitative and qualitative research
Quantitative and qualitative research methods collect data in different ways, and they allow you to answer different kinds of research questions
When To Use Qualitative Vs Quantitative Research
When determining whether to use qualitative or quantitative data, a good rule of thumb is: • Quantitative analysis is best for confirming or testing anything (a theory or hypothesis)
• If you want to learn more about something, qualitative analysis is the way to go (concepts, thoughts, experiences)
You may use a qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods approach to most research topics. Which type you want depends on a variety of factors, including whether you're conducting inductive or deductive research, your research question(s), whether you're conducting experimental, correlational, or descriptive research, and other factors including money, time, and data availability.
Analyzing Qualitative And Quantitative Data
Once you obtain data using the quantitative method, you can analyze the combined data by using statistical analysis to discover patterns or commonalities in the data. The results can be reported in graphs and tables.
Applications such as SPSS, SAS or Excel can be used to calculate parameters like:
Average score
The number of times the particular answer was given
Correlation between two or more variables
The reliability of the results
Qualitative data is more challenging to analyze than the quantitative data. It consists of images, text or videos instead of numbers.
Some conventional approaches to analyze the qualitative data are:
Qualitative content analysis: To track the position, occurrence, and meaning of words or phrases
Thematic analysis: To closely examine the data to identify the main themes and patterns
Discourse analysis: To study how communication works in social contexts
final thoughts
Remember that your goal isn't just to explain your methods; it's also to show how and why you used them, as well as to show that your study was thorough. You should be able to persuade the reader as to why you choose a qualitative or quantitative approach and how it suits your goal. To answer the research question and the problem statement, the approach taken must be straightforward. Throughout the section, always link your choices to your dissertation's main goal.
Editors source: Latest final year project topics and Research ideas in Nigeria
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