Research

Research is a systematic work that involves the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data to:

• Answer a question
• Solve a problem
• Test a hypothesis
• Gain new knowledge

Systematic -> conducted objectively according to specific principles and procedures.

Methods of scientific research

• Operation
  the experiment that you conduct on the subject under study
• Observation
  the active perception and recording of data from their primary source
• Model
  the theory, fact or hypothesis that you use at a specific time
• Utility Function
  the use of a model or theory to explain, predict, control, and cost the research

Criteria of Scientific Research

• Controlled
• Rigorous
• Systematic
• Valid and verifiable
• Empirical
• Critical

Steps of Scientific Research

• Formulating the research question or problem
• Reviewing the literature
• Developing the research hypothesis
• Designing the research
• Collecting the Research Data
• Testing the hypothesis via experiments
• Analyzing the data
• Interpreting the results
• Preparing the report and presentation of the results

Research Design

Research design will help you to

• Collect the relevant data and use the required techniques
• Get reliable results with minimized cost
• Get maximized information with minimized effort, time, and cost
• Provide direction and facilitate the operation of research
• Document your research for review by other experts

Research design criteria

• Objective
• Reliable
• Valid
• General
• It provides adequate information
• It will minimize bias in the results
• will be flexible and efficient to minimize the cost

Research methodology steps

• Formulation of the research question
• Research design
• Samples selection
• Writing a research proposal
• Collection of data
• Processing of data
• Writing a research report

Research ethics

• Honesty and integrity
• Objectivity
• Precision in data analysis
• Validity of results
• The credibility of sources
• Good treatment of the involved humans and animals
• Preservation of human and animal rights
• Protecting the confidentiality of participants
• Publishing and sharing of data, methods, and results
• Social responsibility

Misconduct

• Falsification
• Fabrication
• Plagiarism

Formulation of the research problem

• Reviewing of the literature

Literature review

• Search the existing studies within your field
• Select the relevant studies and review them
• Develop your theoretical framework
• Develop your conceptual framework

From reviewing the literature, you will find

• Various relevant theories in your study field
• The gaps in your study field
• Recent advances in your study field
• Current trends in your study field
• Confirmatory and contradictory results to those you expect from your study

The type of research problem that you formulate will determine:

• The type of study design you will use
• The type of sampling strategy that you will use
• The type of instrument that you will use or develop
• The type of analysis that you will use

How to formulate your research problem

• Your interest
• Your capacity
• Relevance
• Level of expertise
• Availability of data
• Research Ethics

Steps to go through to formulate your research problem include

• Identify your area of interest
• Divide your area of interest into subareas
• Select the most interesting subarea(subtopic) for you
• Ask yourself what you want to find in your selected topic
• Formulate your objectives
• Assess the feasibility of your objectives according to your time, resource, and technical expertise

Research objectives

• Research objectives are divided into general and specific objectives
• General objectives are the overall aim that you want to achieve from the study
• Specific objectives are the specific elements of the study topic that you want to investigate

Concepts and Variables

Concepts

Mental images, perceptions, or subjective impressions that we all have in our minds, e.g. effectiveness, impact, satisfaction, etc.
Variables
images perceptions, or things that can be measured objectively, e.g. age, gender, weight, and height.

Function of the research hypothesis

• Identification of the specific aspects of the research problem that you are going to investigate
• Clarification of the data
• To enable you to focus on your research objectives
• Defining what you will try to prove is true or false

To test your hypothesis

• Formulate the assumption
• Collect the required data and evidence
• Analyze the data to reach a conclusion

**Errors in hypothesis testing **

• Type I error(false positive)
• Type II error(false negative)

Research Design

Function of research design

• Clarify the methods and tasks that you need to complete
• Confirm that your objectives are valid, and your methods are adequate to get accurate results

Research design will show

• The method of your study design
• Your study population
• Your sample size and the person who will collect
• Your data collection method and the person who will collect the data

Quantitative and Qualitative study

Quantitative study designs - deductive logic

• It is specific, well structured, with tested validity and reliability, they can be defined and recognized clearly
• useful to measure the extent of variation and diversity

Qualitative study designs - inductive reasoning

• Less specific, less precise, and less structured
• useful to discover the variation and diversity

Sampling

• It is the process of taking representative samples from the entire population
• You must select the samples with care
• A good sampling design helps you to minimize the gap between your selected samples and the whole population
• Your samples must all be representative of the population as well as unbiased.
• Sampling in quantitative research aims to draw inferences about the population from which samples are selected
• Sampling in qualitative research aims to gather deep information

Research proposal

Your research proposal must tell

• What you plan to do
• How you will do it
• Why you selected your suggested methodology
• Why your study will be significant
• What are the expected outcomes of your research project
• How your study will help science and society

Research proposal must contain

• Introduction
• Research problem
• Study objectives
• Study rationale
• Hypothesis if available
• Study design
• Tools, instruments, and the site at which you will conduct y our study

Research proposal content

Introduction

Commonly, the introduction section involves background and literature review.
In the background, start with a broad description, then narrow your information to focus on your specific problem

In the literature review, cite, compare, contrast, critique, and connect the previous studies that are relevant to your topic

Function of introduction part

• Demonstrate your background knowledge
• Clarify why you selected your suggested methodology

Introduction must contain

• Overview of your main area of study
• The historical background to your main area of study
• Concepts relate to your topic
• The main issues, problems, and advances in your study area
• Your principle theory, if applicable
• The importance of the theoretical and practical aspects of your study area
• The most important existing findings in your specific topic
• Previous studies that relevant to your topic
• The unknown area or the gap within your topic

Research problem, objectives, study rationale, and hypothesis

Your objectives must be

• Clear and well-defined
• Any specific objective must test on the issue only
• Written in action verbs like "to find" and "to determine"

After you stated your research objectives, you must justify why you need to conduct your study, and show the importance, significance, and novelty of your study

After you explained your study rationale, you will state your hypothesis, if applicable, show the assumption about the prevalence of your problem or the relationship between variables that you aim to test

Study Design

• Having explained your hypothesis, your proposal will then describe the specific study design you will use to test it

• The proposal must describe the strengths and weaknesses of your selected study design.

• Things need to be included within the design section

1. Type of study population
2. Could you identify each element of the study population or not
3. The method that you will use to study your selected population
4. Your data collection method
5. Your plan to protect the confidentiality of all participants

Measurement procedures, sampling, data collection, and Data analysis

Measurement procedures part

• Describe the tools and instruments you will use
• Justify why you selected those tools and instruments
• Outline their strength and weaknesses
• Explain the evidence for the validity and reliability of the standard instruments
• If you aim to apply changes to the standard instruments, explain the changes you will make
• Explain how you plan to measure the main variables

sampling part

• Identify the size of your sampling population
• Identify the size of your selected samples
• Describe your sampling design

data collection, analysis

• Explain your method for data collection
• Explain your data analysis strategy
• Identify your method for data analysis, is it manual or computerized?
• Describe the data analysis software you will use for a computerized method

The general structure of your research proposal

• Title page

Describe your proposed research project, it involves the title of your project, your name, affiliation, as well as your supervisor's name

• Abstract

Summarize your problem, objectives, methods, and solution

• Table of contents

Itemizes the sections of the proposal

• Introduction

Provides background information about your topic, literature review, your problem, objectives, and significance of your research

• Your proposed methodology

Involves your study design, proposed method, measurement procedures, and sampling, as well as data collection and analysis method

• Relevant institutional resources
• List of references
• Personnel
• Budget

Data collection

• General sources of data collection are divided into primary and secondary sources
• Methods of data collection from primary sources include observations, interviews, and questionnaires.
• Methods of data collection from secondary sources include searching documents like publications and records.
• Selecting a suitable method for data collection depends on the aim of the study, available resources, and the skills of the researcher
• Before you collect your data, you need to conduct pre-tests to confirm the validity of the collection methods and tools.

Data validation and processing

Data validation aims to confirm

• Each piece of data is collected properly
• Each participant was selected according to your research criteria
• All the collected data are complete
• All ethical standards are applied during data collection

Steps for processing of quantitative data

• Editing

Processing of your raw data to confirm that it is free from incomplete and inconsistent data(clean)

• Coding

Ordering, classifying and giving the row data specific codes, etc.
The coding part will facilitate the analysis
After coding, you can classify them into either

• Quantitative responses
• Categorical responses
• Descriptive responses

Steps for processing qualitative data

• Determination of main categories(themes)
• Coding for the main themes
• Grouping the data into the main themes
• Linking the main themes into your report

After you processed your qualitative data, you can then analyze their content to order and classify them

Data analysis

To understand the relationships between variables, you will need to use statistical methods

Develop a frame of analysis to identify

• variables that you want to analyze
• How do you plan to analyze them
• variables that you must join together to formulate your concept
• The type of statistics required for each variable

The analysis of your data depends on

• Type of data
• Presentation of data

Methods of data analysis in quantitative research are divided into

• Descriptive statistics(univariate analysis)

Describe your data

1. Frequency measures

mean, median, mode

2. Variation measures

range, variance, standard deviation

3. position measures

percentile ranks, and quartile ranks

• inferential statistics

Compare your data

1. Regression analysis

studies the strong relationship between two variables

2. Frequency tables
3. analysis of variance

study the degree of difference for two or more variables

4. correlation

analyzes the relationship between two or more variables

5. Cross tabulation

studies the relationship between multiple variables

Methods of data analysis in qualitative research include

• Content analysis

for data that are present in text and images

• Narrative analysis

for data collected from personal interviews, field observation, and surveys

• Discourse analysis

to analyze data from interactions with people

• Grounded theory

a systematic analysis that constructs theories from the collected data, it is used to analyze particular phenomena

Data presentation

• Text

used in scientific writing, make your text, academic, scientific, clear, and attractive

• Tables

commonly used to present large and detailed data

• statistical measures

present your analyzed data in a precise and concise way

• Graph

makes your data easy to understand and effective to communicate

Types of tables

• univariate table(frequency table)
• bivariate table(cross-tabulations)
• polyvariate table

Statistical measures

• Mean, mode, median
• Analysis of variance
• Factorial analysis
• Multiple regressions

Types of graphs include

• Histogram
• bar charts
• frequency polygon
• pie charts
• line diagram
• area chart
• scattergrams

Research report(quantitative reports, and qualitative reports)

what you aimed to study
how you studied it
reporting what you found

• You need to write your research report in academic language and divide it into different sections

preliminary section

1. title page
2. acknowledgments
3. table of contents, list of tables, and list of figures
4. abstract

main body

1. introduction and literature review
2. methodology, results, and discussion
3. limitations, recommendations, and conclusion
4. references

• Your research report must be clear, accurate, logical, and concise

Fundamental types of research

• Basic

Research that aims to answer a question or solve a problem regardless of the applied practical method

• Applied

Research that uses existing knowledge to develop new technologies and artifacts

• Evaluative

Research that concerned with the systematic evaluation of institutions, projects, and interventions

1. descriptive research

describes the goal, processes, and expected outcomes

2. Normative research

evaluates the goals according to several criteria

3. Impact Research

evaluates the effects on society and nature, as well as the costs and benefits.

Other types of research

Research can also be classified according to

• Discipline

  1. multidisciplinary research

  scientists from several disciplines working collaboratively on the same project

  2. interdisciplinary research

  tries to integrate the aspects of two or more disciplines to create a new hybrid discipline

• Aim

  1. Exploratory or explanatory

  exploratory aims to explore the main aspects of the research question, problem, or hypothesis
  explanatory aims to explain the causes and consequences of a known problem

  2. inductive or deductive

  inductive aims to develop a theory
  deductive research aims to test a theory

• Data

  1. Qualitative or quantitative
  2. Primary or secondary

  data are collected directly or indirectly by the research

  3. descriptive or experimental

  descriptive aims to describe the subject under study
  experimental looks at how, when, and why to determine the cause, and effect of the subject under such study

Quantitative study design

• Number of contacts with the population

  1. cross-sectional studies(one contact)
  2. before-and-after studies(two contacts)
  3. longitudinal studies(three or more contacts)

• Reference period(time-frame) of the study

  1. retrospective
  2. prospective
  3. retrospective-prospective

• Nature of the study

  1. experimental
  2. non-experimental
  3. semi-experimental

Quantitative study design - Experimental studies

1. The control group design

two population groups are selected, the first is the test group, the second is the control group

2. The double-control design

two control groups and one test group are selected from the population

3. The matched control design

to compare test groups individually via matched variables

4. the comparative design

to compare different test groups

5. the placebo design

it involves the addition of a substance that "has no activity" besides the test and control to reduce the confounding factors

6. the before-and-after design

pre-tests are conducted before the intervention; to get baseline information, then, observations are conducted after the intervention

7. the after-only design

baseline information(pre-test) is used from recall or records, then, observations are conducted after the intervention

Other types of experimental study design

• blind studies

participants do not know what treatment or intervention they will be given

• double-blind

neither the researcher nor the participant knows...

• cohort

the population is selected according to the presence of a common characteristic

• trend

used to map changes over a specific period

• Panel

repetitive samples are collected from the same population at specific intervals to study the change in population over time

• cross-over comparative design

participants receive different treatments which make any participant self-controlled

Qualitative studies and other common designs

• Case study

looks at a specific group from the population, to discover unknown areas of interest

• Oral history

aims to find historical and current information according to the personal experiences and opinions of a study group

• Focus groups

group discussions between researchers and participants to gather information about an idea or problem

• participant observation

aims to gather information about social interaction

• holistic research

aims to explore problems and phenomena from different perspectives using multiple methods

• community discussion forums

designed to find ideas and opinions about community issues and problems

• reflective journal log

a record of your discussions and observations as a researcher, it is helpful in formulating the findings and conclusions

Other commonly used research design methods of qualitative studies

• action research
• participatory and collaborative research inquiry

Sampling design

• Random sampling(probability)

  1. simple random sampling
  2. stratified random sampling
  3. cluster sampling

• Non-random sampling(non-probability)

  1. Quota sampling
  2. Judgemental sampling
  3. accidental sampling
  4. snowball sampling
  5. expert sampling

• Mixed(systematic sampling)

Before collecting data

• Confirm the validity of tools

  1. quantitative

  face validity; content validity; predictive validity; concurrent validity; statistical methods

  2. qualitative

  credibility; transferability; dependability; confirmability

• Confirm the reliability of tools

  1. internal consistency procedures
  2. external consistency procedures

Methods of data collection

Primary sources of data collection

• Observations
• interviews
• questionnaires