The Next Step

• You have decided – What the problem is– What the study goals are– Why it is important for you to do the study

• Now you will construct the research design which describes what you are going to do in technical terms.

Research Design

• Is a plan for selecting the sources and types of information used to answer the research question.

• Is a framework for specifying the relationships among the study’s variables

• Is a blueprint that outlines each procedure from the hypothesis to the analysis of data.

Research Design The research design will provide information for

tasks such as• Sample selection and size• Data collection method• Instrumentation• Procedures• Ethical requirements• Rejected alternative designs

Classification of Research Designs

• Exploratory or formal

• Observational or communication based

• Experimental or ex post facto

• Descriptive or causal

• Cross-sectional or longitudinal

• Case or statistical study

• Field, laboratory or simulation

Exploratory or Formal

• Exploratory studies tend toward loose structures with the objective of discovering future research tasks– Goal - to develop hypotheses or questions for further

research

• Formal study begins where the exploration leaves off and begins with the hypothesis or research question– Goal – test the hypothesis or answer the research

question posed

Observational or Communication Based

• Observational studies – the researcher inspects the activities of a subject or the nature of some material without attempting elicit responses from anyone.

• Communicational – the researcher questions the subjects and collects response by personal or impersonal means.

Experimental or Ex Post Facto

• In an experiment the researcher attempts to control and/or manipulate the variables in the study. Experimentation provides the most powerful support possible for a hypothesis of causation

• With an ex post facto design, investigators have no control over the variables in the sense of being able to manipulate them. Report only what has happened or what is happening. Important that researches do not influence variables

Descriptive or Causal

• If the research is concerned with finding out who, what, where, when or how much then the study is descriptive.

• If is concerned with finding out why then it is causal. How one variable produces changes in another.

Cross-sectional or Longitudinal

• Cross-sectional are carried out once and represent a snapshot of one point in time.

• Longitudinal are repeated over an extended period

Case or Statistical Study

• Statistical studies are designed for breath rather than depth. They attempt to capture a population’s characteristics by making inference from a sample’s characteristics.

• Case studies – full contextual analysis of fewer events or conditions and their interrelations. (Remember that a universal can be falsified by a single counter-instance)

Field, Laboratory or Simulation

• Designs differ in the actual environmental conditions

Subject’s Perceptions

• The usefulness of a design may be reduced when people in the study perceive that research is being conducted

• Hawthorne effect

Linking Data and Research Methodology

• inextricably linked

• Must always take into account the nature of data collected in the resolution of the problem

• Example: historical data – you cannot extract much meaning from historical documents by using a laboratory experience

Quantitative vrs Qualitative Approaches

• Categorize research studies into two broad categories

• Quantitative – relationships among measured variable for the purpose of explaining, predicting and controlling phenomena

• Qualitative – answer question about the complex nature of phenomena with the purpose of describing and understanding from the participant’s point of view

Same investigative question but different design

• Investigating: What makes case-based instruction effective or ineffective?

• Researcher 1: assumes the role of participant observer in a case-based business management course for an entire year, spends extensive time with the teacher and students and their perspectives on case-based instruction, scrutinizes data for patterns and themes in the responses, finally writes an in-depth description and interpretation of what was observed

Same investigative question but different design

• Investigating: What makes case-based instruction effective or ineffective?

• Researcher 2: restates the question to “How effective is case-based instruction in comparison with lecture-based instruction?

• Finds 5 instructors teaching case-based and 5 teaching the same content as lecture-based, at the end of the semester administers an achievement test to students in all 10 classes, using statistical analysis, compares the scores to determine outcome, writes up the experiment and summarizes the results of the statistical analysis

Qualitative Techniques

• There are several approaches for qualitative research:

• In-depth interviewing

• Participant observation – to perceive first hand what participants in the

setting experience– Films, photographs and videotape

Qualitative Techniques

• Projective techniques and psychological testing– Projective measures (sentence completion or word

association tests, games or role playing

• Case studies• Elite interviewing

– Information from influential or well-informed people

• Document Analysis

The Validity of Your Method

• Accuracy, meaningfulness, an credibility• Two basic questions:• Does the study have sufficient controls to ensure

that the conclusions we draw are truly warranted by the data? (internal validity)

• Can we use what we have observed in the research situation to make generalizations about the world beyond that specific situation? (external validity)

Internal Validity

• Allows researcher to draw accurate conclusions about cause-and-effect and other relationships within data

Suspect Internal Validity

• Problem: How humor in TV commercials affects sales

• 2 commercials – • One airs in March, April and May with a serious

well-known actor• One airs in June, July and August with a

humorous tone involving teenagers• Sales double in June, July and August -

>conclusion: Humor boosts sales.

Suspect Internal Validity

• Problem: Studying the effects of soft classical music on the productivity of typists in a typing pool

• After getting consent, and talking to the typists, music is piped in and productivity is increased by 30%

• Conclusion: soft music increases productivity• (Hawthorn effect)

Suspect Internal Validity

• Problem: The effectiveness of a new method of teaching reading to first graders

• 14 out of 30 teachers in a particular school district volunteer to learn and use new method. At the end of the school year, students who were instructed with the new method have significantly higher average scores on a reading achievement test than students who received the traditional method.

• Conclusion: new method is definitely better than the old one

Strategies to reduce internal validity problems

• Controlled laboratory study

• A double-blind experiment

• Unobtrusive measures ( to see where people use the library look at worn flooring)

• Triangulation – multiple sources

External Validity

• The conclusions drawn can be generalized

Strategies to enhance external validity

• A real-life setting – artificial settings may be quite dissimilar from real-life circumstances

• Representative sample

• Replication in a different context

Ethical Issues

• Protection from harm – physical or psychological harm– Risks not greater than normal day-to-day risks

• Informed consent (notice that unobtrusive measure violate this principle)– At Burris, I sign an informed consent each year

for my son. ( see page 109 for a informed consent form)

Ethical Issues

• Right to Privacy – participants strictly confidential

• Honesty with Professional colleagues – Includes full documentation of material

belonging to others; no fabrications, representation in fair, honest manner

• Internal Review Boards• Professional Code of Ethics

What Approach Should You Use?

• Quantitative

• Qualitative

• Look at table 5.2 and the 10 items

• Also please note that you can take a self-assessment quiz at http://www.prenhall.com/leedy (noted in the margin in green text page 110)