Research Methods

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If you need help on Research Methods I may be able to offer some help though I cannot promise to read through you project or dissertation. Here is a sample project outline that might be used at almost any level.

Basic Chapters - these are the usual chapters to find in a whole project. You can add appendices as necessary but here I just show the ones which are almost always required.

Chapter 1 - Introduction and problem outline
Chapter 2 - Literature Review
Chapter 3 - Research Design
Chapter 4 - Presentation of data and generation of results
Chapter 5 - Evaluation of outcome and practice
Chapter 6 - Conclusions and Generalizations

Appendices – Specification, schedule, Glossary, References list and Bibliography, primary data collection/set. Other items that might be included in an appendix are: Inclusions (copies any relevant documents), Sample Questionnaires, Summary interview transcripts, Details Evaluation scripts, Requirement catalogues, etc

I might start here be asking a question: so what is your defintion of all the following: a project might generate an outcome (a model, a plan, a description etc) but is that the same as the conclusions?
 
Thanks Hugo, those seems to be good tips, I might let u go quickly through my final paper before I submit it.

The most thing I hate is writing long papers or researches though <_<

May I ask what is your profession?
 
Research methods eh. I'm doing Research Methods, its in the Nursing Module. My assignment is due this Thursday and I'm totally lost. It's a critique of a paper imsad
 
Hafsah said:
Research methods eh. I'm doing Research Methods, its in the Nursing Module. My assignment is due this Thursday and I'm totally lost. It's a critique of a paper imsad
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It's never a good idea to leave it right at the end but I will post a note on that later. However, when doing a critique one way is (after reading the paper) to start by asking what problem does the papers address and does it arrive at any sort of conclusion. It might address several problems but that would be a point of critique itself as the paper then might be considered not focused very well - or if you like, anyone who tries to tell you he/she can solve many problems in one go is likely to be over confident.

That idea then gives you a sort of theme to use as you work through the paper. It is also useful if you have in mind some idea (try to avoide several ideas, you need focus) of your own about the subject in the paper. Be careful though with you own idea and make sure it has some foundation in the available literature.

Tutors (good ones anyway) always love to see you adding your own idea because that tells them you are thinking but as I said make sure it has some support. By support I do not necessarily mean copy someone else's idea although that is possible but generate a new idea of your own out of ideas you find elsewhere. One can say for example "I notice Smith said X and that has led me to believe that Y might be a useful idea here... because ....
 
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You know, I wish you had made this thread at least 2 months ago.
Now my dissertation's out the way, but I haven't a clue how I've fared.
Rah.
 
Hugo said:
It's never a good idea to leave it right at the end but I will post a note on that later. However, when doing a critique one way is (after reading the paper) to start by asking what problem does the papers address and does it arrive at any sort of conclusion. It might address several problems but that would be a point of critique itself as the paper then might be considered not focused very well - or if you like, anyone who tries to tell you he/she can solve many problems in one go is likely not over confident.

That idea then gives you a sort of theme to use as you work through the paper. It is also useful if you have in mind some idea (try to avoide several ideas, you need focus) of your own about the subject in the paper. Be careful though with you own idea and make sure it has some foundation in the available literature.

Tutors (good ones anyway) always love to see you adding your own idea because that tells them you are thinking but as I said make sure it has some support. By support I do not necessarily mean copy someone else's idea although that is possible but generate a new idea of your own out of ideas you find elsewhere. One can say for example "I notice Smith said X and that has led me to believe that Y might be a useful idea here... because ....
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- rep points :><:

Anyway thank you Hugo, I've left it this late because of that darn holiday I shouldnt have taken *sigh*

I'll make a start on my work and then pop by with any concerns if you're still online.

Peace Out.
 
Learning Tip: Record your study time
This is really part of taking responsibility but many failures occur because too little time has been spent on study in all its forms or if you like practising your subject area. We all learn at slightly different paces but there is very good evidence to suggest that if you really want to get to the top flight academically, really reach your potential then you need to put in about 1,000 hours study per year according to Gladwell (2008) or more simply about 20 hours a week or something like 3 or 4 hours a day (assuming a 5 day working week).

Research indicates that this has little to do with talent (though that might give you a better start) or how intelligent you are, it’s the same for everyone, to get to the top you have to be dedicated. Another way of looking at this is to say if you are good enough to start a course then you will succeed and get to the highest standard if you put in the hours of work. The corollary is of course that if your make the choice (either implicitly or explicitly) not to put in the hours of work then you will never get to the top, it’s impossible.

One needs to remember that learning is not just sitting in a garret somewhere on your own night and day. Learning is about a whole range of activities including the most obvious ones: learning on your own, talking with others, spending time in a library, reading books (or Journals, magazines, reading anything), joining seminars, discussion over coffee, using message/discussion boards, meeting your tutor, classroom lessons, talking to someone in the corridor; the list is endless as one can learn anywhere, any time, from anyone or anything. Daniel Goleman in his excellent book Emotional Intelligence recalls one of the most importance and unexpected lessons of his life and it occurred when he was in no mood to learn – it occurred on a bus in New York City on a steamy August afternoon and the lesson came from a middle aged, black bus driver. Believe me, if you think you can only learn from textbooks on your subject area or in classrooms or sitting at you desk with no distractions you are going to throw away huge amounts of often the most valuable learning time and the opportunities it brings.

So I recommend you keep at least for a few months a record of all the time you use to study in all its forms and then see how close to this golden figure of 1,000 hours per year you get and that will be a very good indicator of your likelihood of high success.
 
Musaafirah said:
You know, I wish you had made this thread at least 2 months ago. Now my dissertation's out the way, but I haven't a clue how I've fared.
Rah.
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If you put in the work it will be fine I am sure. I have marked 1000s of dissertations and its always obvious when a student has tried very hard and that itself helps the tutor to feel inclined to give you a good mark. Let me know how you got on
 
Chapter 0 - Motivation
Chapter 1 - Introduction and problem outline
Chapter 2 - Literature Review
Chapter 3 - Research Design
Chapter 4 - Presentation of data and generation of results
Chapter 5 - Evaluation of outcome and practice
Chapter 6 - Conclusions and Generalizations
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Chapter 4.5 - Comparison with previous works and how it interpolates.
 
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GreyKode said:
Chapter 0 - Motivation

Chapter 4.5 - Comparison with previous works and how it interpolates.
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Motivation is always important though one does not normally write about it. One usually discusses previous work in the literature review because it is important before you do your research design that you have prepared adequately for it. It would be a bit unwise to only look at past research studies after you have generated your own outcome.

In terms of dealing with any data there are two stages: firstly one pre-processes it from its raw form (eg in questionnaires or observations or etc) into some structured form such as a table or catalogue or charts whatever seem the most suitable/convenient. Secondly, you take your organised data and use it to derive a project outcome of some sort. For example, you might be using the data to get a model or process, or protocol or whatever. The question then arises what methods can I use to do that.

This is where previous studies can be helpful because you can copy or modify their methods to use with your own data and of course if there any deep similarities you can compare their finding with your own.

Other studies may also be used and indeed are mainly used at evaluation, when you look at your own research outcome and test it to see if it has any value. Finally, when you draw conclusions (generalisations) it is common to use the literature review as a guide.
 
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Someone sent me a private message but others might find my reply shown below useful when thinking about using the available literature

1. I will post a detailed note later that you might find helpful on using the literature. It is not easy so don't worry that you might be falling behind as it can take quite a while to get into a scholarly routine. Some simple tips are

2. Key Texts - Find out what the key texts are in your area. Ask the tutor or anyone what they are but try to keep the list below 5 otherwise the work load is huge. You can add other texts later as you gain more knowledge and skills but keep a list of useful sources handy in your phone or computer or a note book.

3. Bit by Bit - Try to read as much as you can but don't just rush through things. Do it simply, take a key text in your area and plan to read it a bit each day. Very often I will make myself read either 2 or 4 pages every day and it is really surprising how much you get through like that. You can of course read more but build up to it gradually. You can do this with a few books every day. You can read more and often you will, but build up to it, its a bit like sport, you have to train.

3. Recording - I also mark books in pencil that I read when they are my own and write the page number of parts that interest me on the inside of the front cover. I also have a small hand held scanner and use it to copy sections I want but they are unfortunately expensive. If your in a library you can just make a list of pages you want and photocopy them for later use.

4. Spend Time in the Library - It is often BETTER to spend a few hours in the library reading through books or journals, making notes as you go along than actually borrowing books. There is sadly very good evidence that students borrow books, carry then round with them for 3 weeks and then take them back without opening a page. So its better to take a book off the shelf and work on it in the library often you will find its not what you want or you get immediately what you are looking for and again if a book really gets you going you can then with purpose borrow it.

5. Study Plan - Finally, if you have work to do, make a plan of what you want to cover from the literature. You can add to it or take away from it as you go along but it just gives you a thread to follow. Here is a plan I saw on Real Estate.

What is real estate? (Covering both commercial, private and Government areas)
Real Estate business, it structure and organisation (you might focus on one sector or several)
Personnel and customers
Business Planning and policies
The changing nature of real estate (looks at some stats and peer into the future)
Privatization/liberalization in national policies
Real estate codes of practice and legislation
Real Estate regulation and standards
IT systems and their place in real estate
The place for IT training
Existing research in this area
 
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Parahoo (2006) structure for evaluating studies...I cant find it online anywhere :laugh:

Dyu have any idea Hugo?
 
Hafsah said:
Parahoo (2006) structure for evaluating studies...I cant find it online anywhere :laugh:

Dyu have any idea Hugo?
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I am sorry I don't know this author because I don't work in Nursing. You could try ABEBOOKS.COM and see what that offers but it would help if you knew the full title or ISBN
 
Have you ever heard of CASP? (Critical Appraisal Skills Programme).. It should be online but...I dont know. Thank you anyway

Peace.
 
I offer the first of a few posts on literature reviewing. I hope you find them helpful. It is however important that you know exactly the requirements from your College or University. In this case I offer what is common in say a degree level dissertation or project.

Overview - In the project document you must write a full Literature Review of around 3,000 to 5,000 words and if that is to be done well you need to have a good plan as to content to start with, the plan can be enhanced later but it is vital you have a reasonable one to start with. One word of warning, it is very tempting to copy or paraphrase and although these are legitimate tools to use your work will not be considered good unless you add critical comments and your own thoughts and ideas. These days all Colleges and Universities have software to automatically see how much has been copied. This software is almost always available to you so you can test your own work.

Purpose - The purpose of the literature review is that at the end of it you are demonstrably competent, knowledgeable and expert in your topic area. It is not easy to say exactly what is meant by being expert but you may like to think of it in the sense that you know more, much more than the average person on that subject area, you would be someone colleagues might turn to if they wanted expert opinion or guidance.

Often there are two elements involved: firstly, that you are expert in the theoretical area and secondly in the applications area. If I take a technology project idea then the application area might be company communications practices and procedures and the theory area might be IT technology that might go with this such as VoIP, Instant messaging, email and online conferencing. In terms of expertise many people will know about communications and instant messaging so in you review the knowledge and expertise demonstrated must exceed by a long way what we might regard as common knowledge or obvious. The central and particular reasons for thorough preparation are.

Formulation - Unless the Literature Review is thorough you may NOT be able to properly explore and formulate the presenting problem that you project is attempting to resolve.

Definition - Unless the Literature Review is thorough you will NOT be able to work out what primary or secondary data is needed because as a researcher you simply will not know enough. Think of it like this; your topic is Racial Integration and you decide to use a questionnaire to gather primary data then if you know nothing about this topic area then how will you formulate or even know what questions (to get your data) to ask.

Processing - Unless the Literature Review is thorough, making you a topic area expert there is no way you will be able to process and interpret the data - you simply will not know enough. Think of it like this, suppose I were now today to send you all my collected primary data on the use of Emotional Intelligence in improving IT help desk support then I suspect it would be will be largely meaningless unless you are expert in this area.

Systematic and Systemic - In all learning there is always an element of serendipity, but whilst it is important to recognise that leaning can occur at any time or place a good learner will take serious steps to be systematic so their work is structured and organized rather than haphazard. They will also see clearly that their work has to be systemic as well so that every part contributes to and helps every other part. The place where these two ideas show themselves most clearly is in the literatures review where your collected knowledge is on display and readers can judge if it is systematic, organised and structured with more than paying lip service to it being systemic or is it haphazard betraying a poor and careless mind or a lack of real effort.
 
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A few of you have asked what is the place of God in my studies. The answer is simple, Christians for example would routinely commit their work to God in prayers, thinking of it as a service to and for Him, something that honours God in their lives. I am sure Muslim's would take exactly the same view and I urge you to do that each day.

One must say however, that no amount of praying will help you if you have not done any work, God is not going to reward a faithless servant.

One final word. Often students run into personal difficulties such as becoming ill for an extended period, or having family matters that cannot be avoided and these interfere with their studies. All Colleges and Universities will have special procedures (usually called Extenuating Circumstance Procedures or some similar name) to deal with this and if you run into such difficulties you should access those processes as soon as you can (but find out about them early in your studies). In general you will still have to do the work but you will typically be given extra time or allowed to delay your studies for a while.
 
Here is a general list of books that might be helpful in projects and dissertations. Please remember, these are NOT about you subject specialisation, they are just books that might be useful in building up your research skills. I have marked in bold some books that I regard as being of especial value in you learning about how you tick and what sort of attitudes are needed. If you have time then start with these particularly the books by Dweck and Warnock.

With regard to books on Research Methods itself there are hundreds of them and they can be useful though they often lack precise details on how to do something. For example, one can easily find material on construction of questionnaires but it rarely goes beyond telling you about closed and open questions or sampling schemes and almost never how find the right questions or test for reliability and dimensionality so you will have to read around to get all you might need.

Research and Project text books.
Robson, W., (1997), Strategic Management & Information Systems, Prentice Hall. 0 273 61591 2
Saunders, M. et al, (2002), Research Methods for Business Students, 3e, FT Prentice Hall. 027365804 2
Bluman, A. G., (2006) Elementary Statistics, A Step by Step Approach, 3e, McGraw Hill. 0-07 297621-7
Boyd, R, (2002). Critical Reasoning and Logic, Prentice-Hall, ISBN 0130812218

Feldman, R (1998), Reason and Argument, Prentice-Hall, ISBN: 0136246028
Diestler, S (2008), Becoming a Critical Thinker: A User Friendly Manual 5e, Prentice-Hall, ISBN: 0132413132
Warnock, M (2006), An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Ethics, 3e, Duckworth Overlook, 0-7156-3530-1
Lipton, P, (2004), Inference to the best Explanation, Routledge, 0-415-2424-09 (pbk)
Popper, K (2005), the Open Society and Its Enemies Volume 1, Routledge, ISBN 0-415-23731-9

Popper K, (2006), the Logic of Scientific Discovery, Routledge, ISBN 0-415-27844-9
Blackburn, Simon, (2001), Think, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-285425-9
Blackburn, Simon, (2006), Truth, Penguin, ISBN 0-141-01423-3
Talib, N,N (2007), The Back Swan, Penguin ISBN 978-0-1410-3459-1
Talib, N,N (2007), Fooled by Randomness, Penguin ISBN 978-0-141-034148-4

General and Specific Research Based Guides
Monk, R and Raphael, F (ed), (2000), The Great Philosophers published, Phoenix ISBN 0-75381-136-7
Forstater, M., “The Living Wisdom of Socrates”, Hodder Headliner Audio books.
Harris, P., (2002). Designing and reporting experiments in Psychology, Open University Press. 0335 201466
Creswell, (2007). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among the five traditions, Sage, 14129 16062

Creswell J.W, (2003), Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative and Mixed Methods, 2e, Sage. 07619 24426
Denzin, N.K. and Lincoln, Y.S., (2003). The landscape of qualitative research methods, Sage. 07919 26941
Cottrell, C. (2003). The Study Skills Handbook, 2e, Palgrave Macmillan.
Audi, R. (2002), Epistemology: Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge, 2e, Routledge, 978-0415-281096
Tavani, H, (2004). Ethics and Technology: Ethical Issues in an Age of ICT, 2e, John Wiley and Sons. 0-471-24966-1

Wolcott, H.F, (2001), Writing Up Qualitative Research, 2e, Sage Publications, 07619 24299
Leszer Maciasek, (2003), Requirement Analysis and Systems Design, 2e, Prentice-Hall, 0321 20464-6
Yin, Robert K. (2002), Case Study Research: Design and Methods, Sage Publications, 0761925538
Van den Brink-Budgen, R. (2000), Critical Thinking for Students, 3e, How to books, 1-85703-634-4
Blaxter, L., et al, (2003), How to Research, Open University Press
Strauss, Anselm L.; Corbin, Juliet M, (1998), Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory, 2e, Sage Publications. 0803959400
Dweck, S.C, (2006), Mindset: The new Psychology of Success, Ballantine Books, ISBN 978-0-345-47232-8
Frazer, L., & Lawley, M. (2000). Questionnaire Design and Administration: A practical Guide. Milton, Qld: Wiley.
Presser, S, et al, (2004), Methods for Testing and Evaluating Survey Questionnaires, Wiley-Interscience, ISBN 978-0-471-45841-8
Goleman, D., (1996), Emotional Intelligence: Why it can Matter More Than IQ, Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, ISBN: 0747528306

Useful web sites
Research Methods Knowledge Base - http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/dedind.php
Harvard APA web site - http://www.apastyle.org
Finding books – http://www.abebooks.com or http://www.amazon.co.uk/
Mind Mapping Software - http://www.mindjet.com/us/
Papers and Citation Index – http://www.scholar.google.com
Critical Thinking - http://criticalthinking.org/
Electronic Journal of Business Research Methods - http://www.ejbrm.com/
Online Questionnaires - www.wufoo.com, www.questionpro.com or www.zipsurvey.com
Encyclopaedias - http://www.wikipedia.org/ (ONLY good as a starting point, be very wary of content)
Encyclopaedias - http://www.libraryspot.com/features/encyclopedia.htm
British Standards - http://www.bsonline.bsi-global.com/server/index.jsp
MIL-Standards - http://store.mil-standards.com/
British Computer Society - http://www.bcs.org/ and IEEE - http://www.ieee.org/portal/site
Oxford Reference Online – http//www.oxfordonline.com/library
 
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Learning and Religeon

of the above only emotional intelligence is about the only book with some common sense.
If you want to read 'enemies of democracy' under the guise of 'the open society and its enemies' be my guest ..
the other books on ethics can be better substituted with Coverage of ethics and legalities by conrad fischer -- medical ethics is the closest thing to Islamic ethics as well it has some actual practical not theoretical use in every day life ...

:w:
 

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