It is a guided conversation between the researcher and the respondent from whom you want to learn something. The level and structure of the interview can vary but in most cases, the semi-structured format is commonly used.
The interviewer is always free to take different paths of conversations emerging during the interview. The interviewer can also prompt the respondent to expound on certain aspects. However, interviews are not the best approach when you want to get information from a large group of respondents. They are time consuming and as such, you need to be keen on selecting the informants with the necessary knowledge and experiences that align with the questions.
This research method is a straightforward way for the researcher to know what people do under specific situations. Watching them in such situation would provide god data that can be used in the research.
Observations can fall in both qualitative and quantitative research. However, there are ethical concerns when it comes to observation.
One of them is if the people being observed are aware of it. Have they consented to the observation? These ones are the best if you want to collect standardized information from a group of people. They can be both qualitative and quantitative even though they do not provide the level of details in qualitative responses. The design and delivery of questionnaires is very crucial and require care in their design. They can be distributed to a large number of people who would be impossible to interview.
Questionnaire are necessary if you what to measure some parameters for a group respondents or to make comparisons between groups of respondents. In this research method, you have to obtain data from existing documents without carrying out interviews, questionnaires or using observation.
This is the major way that historians use to collect data concerning their subjects. It can also be applied by the contemporary social scientist. Documents offer a great way of revealing information about people or organization that produced them as well as the social context in which they emerged.
Some of these documents are in the public domain and accessible whereas others are confidential, classified, meaning they are available only to a select few. If they are to be used in a research, the researcher has to be guided on how to use them and how to ensure there is total confidentiality.
From the above explanation, it is to tell the distinction between research design and research methods. Your research design is the overall structure of the research study whereas research methods refers to the various processes, procedures and tools used by researchers to collect data an analyze it.
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Order research paper. Research design Research design refers to the general structure of the of the research project. Research design sections The major sections of a research design include the:. Elements of research design The crucial elements of research design include:. Characteristics of a research design As we explore the distinction between research design and research methods, these are the characteristics of a research design that you need to know about: Neutrality Every research design should have results that are unbiased and neutral.
Reliability Conducting regular research means the researcher has to calculate similar results every time. Validity Research design measuring tools are many but the valid ones help a researcher to gauge the results based on the objectives on the research.
During the observations, it found a deeper understanding of the working environment and the different sections in the production system and OSH practices. Interview is a loosely structured qualitative in-depth interview with people who are considered to be particularly knowledgeable about the topic of interest.
The semi-structured interview is usually conducted in a face-to-face setting which permits the researcher to seek new insights, ask questions, and assess phenomena in different perspectives. It let the researcher to know the in-depth of the present working environment influential factors and consequences.
It has provided opportunities for refining data collection efforts and examining specialized systems or processes. It was used when the researcher faces written records or published document limitation or wanted to triangulate the data obtained from other primary and secondary data sources.
This dissertation is also conducted with a qualitative approach and conducting interviews. The advantage of using interviews as a method is that it allows respondents to raise issues that the interviewer may not have expected. All interviews with employees, management, and technicians were conducted by the corresponding researcher, on a face-to-face basis at workplace. All interviews were recorded and transcribed. The main tool for gaining primary information in practical research is questionnaires, due to the fact that the researcher can decide on the sample and the types of questions to be asked [ 2 ].
In this dissertation, each respondent is requested to reply to an identical list of questions mixed so that biasness was prevented. Initially the questionnaire design was coded and mixed up from specific topic based on uniform structures. Consequently, the questionnaire produced valuable data which was required to achieve the dissertation objectives.
The questionnaires developed were based on a five-item Likert scale. The data obtained in this way was used for prioritization and decision-making of OSH, improving factor priority. The prioritization of the factors was using Saaty scales 1—9 and then converting to Fuzzy set values obtained from previous researches using triangular fuzzy set [ 7 ].
The researcher has measured the workplace environment for dust, vibration, heat, pressure, light, and noise to know how much is the level of each variable. The primary data sources planned and an actual coverage has been compared as shown in Table 1. The response rate for the proposed data source was good, and the pilot test also proved the reliability of questionnaires.
Hence, the data organization quality level has not been compromised. This response rate is considered to be representative of studies of organizations. Low response rate should not discourage the researchers, because a great deal of published research work also achieves low response rate.
Hence, the response rate of this study is acceptable and very good for the purpose of meeting the study objectives. It has been proved with this pilot test prior to the start of the basic data collections.
Following feedback process, a few minor changes were made to the originally designed data collect tools. The pilot test made for the questionnaire test was on 10 sample sizes selected randomly from the target sectors and experts.
The secondary data refers to data that was collected by someone other than the user. This data source gives insights of the research area of the current state-of-the-art method. It also makes some sort of research gap that needs to be filled by the researcher. This secondary data sources could be internal and external data sources of information that may cover a wide range of areas. From a methodological point of view, literature reviews can be comprehended as content analysis, where quantitative and qualitative aspects are mixed to assess structural descriptive as well as content criteria.
The search strategy was focused on articles or reports that measure one or more of the dimensions within the research OSH model framework. Based on screening, unrelated articles to the research model and objectives were excluded.
Prior to screening, researcher principal investigator reviewed a sample of more than articles, websites, reports, and guidelines to determine whether they should be included for further review or reject. Discrepancies were thoroughly identified and resolved before the review of the main group of more than articles commenced. After excluding the articles based on the title, keywords, and abstract, the remaining articles were reviewed in detail, and the information was extracted on the instrument that was used to assess the dimension of research interest.
A complete list of items was then collated within each research targets or objectives and reviewed to identify any missing elements. Data analysis method follows the procedures listed under the following sections. The data analysis part answered the basic questions raised in the problem statement. Quantitative data were obtained from primary and secondary data discussed above in this chapter.
Before analysis, data coding of responses and analysis were made. In order to analyze the data obtained easily, the data were coded to SPSS This task involved identifying, classifying, and assigning a numeric or character symbol to data, which was done in only one way pre-coded [ 9 , 10 ].
In this study, all of the responses were pre-coded. They were taken from the list of responses, a number of corresponding to a particular selection was given. This process was applied to every earlier question that needed this treatment. Upon completion, the data were then entered to a statistical analysis software package, SPSS version Under the data analysis, exploration of data has been made with descriptive statistics and graphical analysis. The analysis included exploring the relationship between variables and comparing groups how they affect each other.
Qualitative data analysis used for triangulation of the quantitative data analysis. The interview, observation, and report records were used to support the findings. The analysis has been incorporated with the quantitative discussion results in the data analysis parts.
The data were entered using SPSS The analysis supported with SPSS software much contributed to the finding. It had contributed to the data validation and correctness of the SPSS results. The software analyzed and compared the results of different variables used in the research questionnaires. Excel is also used to draw the pictures and calculate some analytical solutions.
The reliability of measurements specifies the amount to which it is without bias error free and hence ensures consistent measurement across time and across the various items in the instrument [ 8 ]. In reliability analysis, it has been checked for the stability and consistency of the data. In the case of reliability analysis, the researcher checked the accuracy and precision of the procedure of measurement.
Reliability has numerous definitions and approaches, but in several environments, the concept comes to be consistent [ 8 ]. The measurement fulfills the requirements of reliability when it produces consistent results during data analysis procedure. Empirical research — tests the viability of a solution using empirical evidence.
Research design is the overall plan or structure of the research project. It indicates what type of study is planned and what kind of results are expected from this project. It specifically focuses on the final results of the research.
It is almost impossible to proceed with a research project without a proper research design. The main function of a research design is to make sure that the information gathered throughout the research answers the initial question unambiguously. In other words, the final outcomes and conclusions of the research must correspond with the research problems chosen at the beginning of the research. Review literature review , systematic review. Research methods are always based on the research.
For example, a case study may involve different methods of data collection such as survey, interviews, observations, analysis of documents, etc. Research Methods : Research methods are the procedures that will be used to collect and analyze data.
Research Design: Research design is the overall structure of the research. Research Methods: Research methods focus on what type of methods are more suitable to collect and analyze the evidence we need.
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