Research in Practice
Š K. Pinney @UCB
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Chapter 1: Overview of the research process This first section of the notes will look at different stages of the research process. Look at the diagram below to identify what these different parts are.
Each week, in your practical class, you will be allocated time to use the recommended tools that will support you as you progress through the different stages of the research process. Although these do not contribute to your module mark, they are invaluable in terms of conducting the research and achieving a satisfactory research project.
Selecting the topic Although this seems to be an easy task it can be quite challenging to select an appropriate research topic.
Š K. Pinney @UCB
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Tools: Research Schedule/Time Plan
Reading around the topic In order to select an achievable research project, it is important to have the good understanding of the topic area. In order to organise your work it is important to have a framework within which to structure and organise your ideas and reading. It can take a long time to identify a lot of useful literature. In the practical sessions you will be spending time identifying key useful articles. It is essential that you have read a lot of different articles two ensure that you have a good understanding of the topic. By the end of your initial reading you will be in a position to draw out a mind map all of your oldest standing of the topic and relevant theories. Tools: Using Google Scholar, Summon, Athens Tools: Mind Map Tools: Questions to Answer from reading
Setting aim objectives and rationale By this stage you should be in a position to focus your research on a precise area. Your aim is a precise and focused statement of what you intend to achieve by the end of your research project. Your aim should they one sentence and have one very specific and achievable target. This might be more difficult to achieve the man you think. Once you have written your name you all advised to shell it to two other people and ask if they have any questions about what to you will achieve you need to make sure that it is very clear what should you will do as your research. Once you have a clear aim, you are then in a position to break down your aim into smaller tasks or objectives. An objective is a specific task that you will undertake in order to move towards achieving your aim. It is usual two have between four and six objectives and these should be listed in the order of which you will do them. Once you have achieved all your objectives you will be in a position to conclude with the answer to your aim. It is very important that you can justify your research aim. Your justification for doing the research is known as your rationale. A rationale is simply a justification for doing the research it should say why the research is useful or needed and who will benefit from reading it. It is helpful to back up your rationale way of appropriate references. Tools: AOR Planning Tool
Methodology
Š K. Pinney @UCB
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The methodology will explain how you carried out your research. A good methodology will make use subheadings to help the reader followed it. There are five subheadings that you will be expected to use: choice of research design, research construction, research sample, research procedure and analysis. We will consider each of these in turn. Research design – here you will identify whether you are doing just secondary or primary and secondary research and justify this choice. If you are doing primary research you will also identified the tool you will be using to gather the data. You may be using a questionnaire or interview will focus group to gather primary information you need to justify your choice in this section. Research construction – here you will explain how you constructed your research. If you did just secondary research you will need to explain what criteria he used to evaluate the information. You will also need to discuss the usefulness of the different types of literature (such as books journals and websites) for your research. If you are doing primary research you will also need to explain how will you designed the questions or for information gathering tool. This might for example the shelling how the questions directly relates two relevant theory that you have discussed in your literature review and justify the decision you make in doing this. Sample – this section is where you explain how you shall use your secondary data sources and, if you do primary research, how to choose who to research you need to justify your choices. This will include an inclusion and exclusion matrix for your literature and details of how you selected to your research sample for primary research with justification. Procedure – here you need to explain exactly how you carried out the research giving enough details for somebody else to replicate what you did. It is important to give full details. Analysis – one of the problems that people often have, if they are doing primary research, is that they create a questionnaire gather all the data and then tried to decide how they can use that the data to address the aim this is not good practice. It is essential that you plan and how you will use your information where the primary or secondary before you gather it. By doing it this way you will be in a position to ensure the day to you gather is useful to your research aim and can be analysed appropriately. Here you will explain what type of analysis you will do it and what she will be seeking to find out from the data. Tools: Inclusion/Exclusion criteria Tools: Methodology Planner Tools: Primary Research Design
Reviewing the literature The starting point for research should be a review of what is already known on the topic area. In order to do this to you will need to do a lot more reading. Some of the articles and books you have already read will be relevant but at this stage now that you have a focused aim you will need to find additional articles that relates specifically to the aim.
© K. Pinney @UCB
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Usually a review of the literature will identify the relevant theories and previous research. Sometimes this will provide sufficient information for you to achieve your name without gathering more data yourself. If you find that you do not need to collect new information and that the literature can already answer your aim then you will be doing secondary research (using existing information sources to achieve your aim). However it may be that you need to gather original data yourself in order to answer the aim and you have set, in this case you will need to do primary research (gather at new data) as well as a secondary research. •
If you are doing secondary research your literature review will be an overview of the related theories and will therefore provide a framework (or structure) for your analysis/discussion.
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If you are doing primary research you will still need to use secondary research initially in order to understand the topic and help you to plan an appropriate methodology for gathering your primary data. If you are doing primary research your literature review will not only provide the framework from theories but it will also summarise the previous research done on the topic. In this instance your analysis/discussion will be analysing your primary data and comparing your primary findings to the literature.
In order to review the literature it is helpful to create a literature matrix which is the table that summarizes the content of each article you read. This literature matrix will help you to organize your ideas and a structure them. It can usefully be created using your objectives as the themes that you are summarizing from your reading. When you write the literature review you need to take care to compare and contrast different views in the literature and to evaluate these. A good a literature review requires goods academic writing skills, if you find academic writing difficult you may benefit from wider reading this will help you to become familiar with the language.
Tools: Literature matrix Reviewing the literature The starting point for research should be a review of what is already known on the topic area. In order to do this to you will need to do a lot more reading. Some of the articles and books you have already read will be relevant but at this stage now that you have a focused aim you will need to find additional articles that relates specifically to the aim. Usually a review of the literature will identify the relevant theories and previous research. Sometimes this will provide sufficient information for you to achieve your name without gathering more data yourself. If you find that you do not need to collect new information and that the literature can already answer your aim then you will be doing secondary research (using existing information sources to achieve your aim). However it may be that you need to gather original data yourself in order to answer the aim and you have set, in this case you will need to do primary research (gather at new data) as well as a secondary research.
Š K. Pinney @UCB
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•
If you are doing secondary research your literature review will be an overview of the related theories and will therefore provide a framework (or structure) for your analysis/discussion.
•
If you are doing primary research you will still need to do secondary research initially in order to understand the current and knowledge on the topic and help you to plan an appropriate methodology for gathering your primary data. If you are doing primary research your literature review will not only provide the framework from theories but it will also summarise the previous research done on the topic. In this instance your analysis/discussion will be comparing your primary findings to the literature.
In order to review the literature it is helpful to create a literature matrix which is the table that summarizes the content of each article you read. This literature matrix will help you to organize your ideas and a structure them. It can usefully be created using your objectives as the themes that you are summarizing from your reading. When you write the literature review you need to take care to compare and contrast different views in the literature and to evaluate these. A good a literature review requires goods academic writing skills, if you find academic writing difficult you may benefit from wider reading this will help you to become familiar with the language. Tools: Tools: Tools: Tools: Tools:
Literature matrix Evaluating and selecting information sources Referencing Guide Academic writing techniques Writing a Literature Review
Gathering the data If you have a clear methodology you simply followed this thread and in order to gather your data. This might include further secondary research as well as primary data.
Findings, Analysis and Discussion The largest section of your work should include the findings analysis discussion section. In terms of marks this section carries the highest share of the marks. •
If you are doing secondary research only, each of your remaining objectives will become subheadings in this section and you will address the each one here.
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If you are doing primary research, you will need to too shedding a summary of your analysis and findings (possibly making use of charts and tables) and then you will compare your findings with the literature (in your literature review) showing where they agree or disagree and explaining possible reasons for this and how this achieves your aim.
© K. Pinney @UCB
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Tools: Quantitative & Qualitative Analysis Techniques
Conclusion and recommendations You should now be in a position to say what the answer to your aim is and it in your conclusion you should share how by answering your objectives you are in a position to give a conclusion which is the answer to your aim. This will be compared to your stated aim to ensure that you have achieved what you said he would achieve. You may, as part of your conclusion, be offering recommendations if this is required to by your aim: not every piece of research will have action recommendations. However all research should offer recommendations for further research. You may have identified it areas that you have not been able to address in your research that would benefit from research in the future, you may have decided that there were some flaws in your research (for example a small sample or poor data collection) or your research may have highlighted areas that would point to the need for further research in this area. Tools: Conclusion Guide
References It is essential throughout your work that you support your statements with accurate referencing. You should also have reference the sources at the end of your work in the reference list. For guidance on how to present references, please look at the UCB reference guide which is available online. Tools: UCB Referencing Guide
Abstract The final thing you that you will write for your research project is your abstract. An abstract is a summary of the whole research: its will include what you were a seeking to find out, how you get this and what you found. You cannot write and abstract, therefore, until the research is completed. However, the abstract should be at the very beginning of your research paper or poster so that someone can read what it is about and then decide whether to continue reading the whole project. Tools: Abstract guide
Š K. Pinney @UCB
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By Karen Pinney  karenpinney@yahoo.co.uk
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed.en_GB.
Š K. Pinney @UCB
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