The Research Process

7 Steps Research Process

1. Determine the problem & define the question to answer

2. Find general background about your problem/question.

3. Use the library catalog, Mirlyn to find books.

4. Use article indexes to find and follow the research regarding your
problem/question.

5. Consider using the Internet to find government information and open

access articles related to your topic.

6. Collect, read, evaluate and write what you have learned.

7. Cite the information you have found so that others will be able to follow
your research trail.

Step 1 - What's the research problem or question?

The first step for any research project, whether it is a dissertation, a grant proposal or
research to find the best practice intervention is formulate a question you want to answer.
Being clear on the question makes it easier to formulate a research strategy for finding the
best information about this question.
Here are some examples of research questions:

What are things to keep in mind when working with transgender elderly adults in a health
care setting?

What are the best interventions for preventing youth violence in Asian urban
communities?

How can social workers best meet the needs of children of illegal immigrants?
Are there proven ways to increase trust when urban communities become
polarized?

When starting your research you may or may not have a clear question but by starting with
an idea and formulating this idea into a question you will be able to review the literature
already written on this topic which will likely help you to refine and narrow your questions or
give you ideas for new research questions you may not have though about previously.

Step 2 - What's the Background?

Start your research with general background resources. This will help you to become
familiar with the research history in the area related to your problem/question. Reading
general background also helps researchers become familiar with terminology and jargon
used in specific research areas. Knowing the words experts use will help you find to craft a
better search when you begin searching for information in books and scholarly journals.
Examples of general resources to consider include:

Subject Encyclopedias

Textbooks (examples)

Handbooks

Comprehensive Handbook of Social Work and Social Welfare

Social Work Desk Reference

Oxford Handbooks Online

APA Handbooks of Psychology

Routledge Handbooks Online

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V)

Newspapers
o

New York Times

The Wall Street Journal

Washington Post

Chicago Tribune

Detroit News

Step 3 - Find the Past & Current Research - Books

Mirlyn is the name of the library catalog at University of Michigan. The library catalog lists all
of the resources available at all library locations, including videos, archives, special
collections, journal titles, books and electronic resources. There are actually 2 different
Mirlyn catalogs available.

Mirlyn

Video Introduction to Mirlyn

The Mirlyn catalog allows you to search the entire library collection from a single search
box, retrieving many potentially relevant titles, and then to quickly narrow down the results
by choosing facets or narrowing options presented on the left side of the screen. Narrow
the search results by selecting options listed along the left-hand side of the results page.
You can narrow your results by subject, discipline, library, format, date range, language and
other options.
You will find a link to the Mirlyn catalog on any library page with the MLibrary banner. The
Mirlyn link is at the top of the library page, above the blue banner.
MIRLYN TIPS:

If you use Boolean Operators in your Mirlyn search (AND, OR, NOT) make
sure they are capitalized when you are combining search terms.
Example: juveniles AND gangs

When searching for a phrase in Mirlyn make sure you use quotation marks
so the words are combined.
Example: "child welfare"

Step 4 - Find the Past & Current Research - Articles

The next step in the research process is to find scholarly journal articles appropriate to your
topic. The library subscribes to hundreds of databases which make it easy for you to find
the latest research available in social work as well as other disciplines. Social work is an
interdisciplinary area of research so you will likely want to use a number of different article
index databases to make sure you have found the most already written regarding the
problem or question you are trying to answer.
One quick way to discover the best article index databases in your research area is to use
the browse feature on the library page.

Use the arrow in the Browse box to select a specific discipline or subject area. For example
if you are looking for article index databases in the area of law or public policy select
Government, Politics & Law as a subject area and then narrow your browse to either Law
& Legal Studies or Public Policy to see a list of article indexes in these areas.
ArticlesPlus is a way to search across multiple library databases, e-books and
newspapers from one interface. Over 6,800 publishers are represented and over one halfbillion articles. It is an excellent resource for cross-disciplinary/interdisciplinary fields, like
social work. To access ArticlesPlus select the ArticlesPlus tab, over the search box on
banner located on any library page. More information on ArticlesPlus...

Step 5 - Find Government Research & Open Access Articles

Our tax dollars pay for a great deal of research sponsored by government agencies.
Because of this, laws have been passed and continue to be drafted making the resulting
research free to the general public. When full-text research articles are placed in PubMed
Central or some other repository and are available without cost to the public this is called
open access. Open access articles can often be found by searching Google.
It is best to be skeptical when searching the open Internet for scholarly research but if you
are a careful consumer of information the Internet can offer a wealth of research which can
help you to answer your research question/problem. Government web sites are especially
rich sources for finding statistics and research on a wide range of topics.
For more suggestions on open access resources, government databases, think tanks and
other free resources for social work see the appropriate tabs in the library guide Staying
Informed Ater Graduation

Evaluating Research
Three questions to answer when reading the research
1.

What was the research question and why was the study needed?

2.

What was the research design?

3.

Was the research design appropriate for the question?

Here are some other things to think about when reading your research

1.

Title

a.

Does the title give any insight as to what the article is about?

2.

Introduction

a.

Is the problem being studied clearly stated?

b.

Is there a review of previous literature related to this study?

c.

Did the author identify a gap in the literature?

d.

Is there a hypothesis stated?

e.

Is the purpose of the study stated?

3.

Method

a.

Are the subjects well described?

b.

How was the sample selected?

c.

How large was the sample?

d.

Was a control group used?

e.

Is the procedure laid out in detail?

f.

Could someone replicate the study from this description?

g.

Is the data analysis well described?

4.

Results

a.

Are the measured data summarized?

b.

Are the results statistically significant?

5.

Discussion

a.

Was the hypothesis accepted or rejected?

b.

Were there weaknesses in the study discussed?

c.

Are other articles or studies cited which address the findings?

d.

Were any suggestions made for further study on this topic?

6.

Conclusion

a.

Are the results briefly restated?

b.

Do conclusions make sense based on the results and discussion?

APA Bibliography Format

Books
Author, A. A. (Year of publication). Title of work: Capital letter also for subtitle. Location: Publisher.
Note: For "Location," you should always list the city, but you should also include the state if the city is
unfamiliar or if the city could be confused with one in another state.
Calfee, R. C., & Valencia, R. R. (1991). APA guide to preparing manuscripts for journal publication.
Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Articles
APA style dictates that authors are named last name followed by initials; publication year goes between
parentheses, followed by a period. The title of the article is in sentence-case, meaning only the first word
and proper nouns in the title are capitalized. The periodical title is run in title case, and is followed by the
volume number which, with the title, is also italicized or underlined.
Author, A. A., Author, B. B.,& Author, C. C. (Year). Title of article. Title of Periodical, volume number(issue
number), pages.
Periodical (journal, magazine, newspaper):
Jone, J. (1994). Title of article. Title of Periodical, xx(Volume), xxx-xxx (Page Numbers).
Part of a nonperiodical (book chapter):
Jones, J. (1994). Title of chapter. In A. Editor (Edition #), Title of book (pp. xxx-xxx). Location: Publisher.
Online periodical:
Jones, J. (2000). Title of article. Title of Periodical, xx(Volume), xxx-xxx(Page Numbers). Retrieved month
day, year, from source/website.
Online document:
Jones, J. (2000). Title of Work. Retrieved month day, year, from source/website.
Article From a Database
When referencing material obtained from an online database (such as a database in the library), provide
appropriate print citation information (formatted just like a "normal" print citation would be for that type of
work). This will allow people to retrieve the print version if they do not have access to the database from
which you retrieved the article. You can also include the item number or accession number in parentheses

at the end, but the APA manual says that this is not required. For articles that are easily located, do not
provide database information. If the article is difficult to locate, then you can provide database information.
Only use retrieval dates if the source could change, such as Wikis. For more about citing articles retrieved
from electronic databases, see pages 187-192 of the Publication Manual.
Smyth, A. M., Parker, A. L.,& Pease, D. L. (2002). A study of enjoyment of peas. Journal of Abnormal
Eating, 8(3), 120-125.

Web Document, Web Page

List as much of the following information as possible (you sometimes have to hunt around to find the
information; don't be lazy. If there is a page like http://www.somesite.com/somepage.htm, and
somepage.htm doesn't have the information you're looking for, move up the URL to
http://www.somesite.com/):
Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Date of publication). Title of document. Retrieved from http://Web address

In Text Citations

APA uses the author-date method of citation.

For a work by a single author, the last name of the author and the year
of publication are used in the text: Walker (2000) compared... or In a
recent study of reaction times (Walker, 2000)...

For a work by two authors always cite both names every time the
reference occurs in the text: (Baker and Lightfoot, 1992).

When a work has three to five authors, cite all authors the first time; in
subsequent citations include only the first author followed by et
al.": Wasserstein, Zappulla, Rosen, Gerstman and Rock (1994)
found... followed by Wasserstein et al. (1994) found... in subsequent
citations. Omit year from subsequent citations after first citation within a
paragraph: Wasserstein et al. found...

When a work has six or more authors, cite only the last name of the first
author followed by et al, and the year for the first and subsequent
citations:Kosslyn et al. (1992)...

Corporations, associations and government agencies as authors are

listed in full in the first citations (National Institute of Mental
Health [NIMH], 1991) and as abbreviations in subsequent
citations (NIMH, 1999).

Scientific research involves a systematic process that focuses on being

objective and gathering a multitude of information for analysis so that
the researcher can come to a conclusion. This process is used in all
research and evaluation projects, regardless of the research method
(scientific method of inquiry, evaluation research, or action research).
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process where the steps are interlinked with the other steps in the
process. If changes are made in one step of the process, the researcher
must review all the other steps to ensure that the changes are reflected
throughout the process. Parks and recreation professionals are often
involved in conducting research or evaluation projects within the
agency. These professionals need to understand the eight steps of the
research process as they apply to conducting a study. Table 2.4 lists the
steps of the research process and provides an example of each step for a
sample research study.
Step 1: Identify the Problem
The first step in the process is to identify a problem or develop a
research question. The research problem may be something the agency
identifies as a problem, some knowledge or information that is needed
by the agency, or the desire to identify a recreation trend nationally. In
the example in table 2.4, the problem that the agency has identified is
childhood obesity, which is a local problem and concern within the
community. This serves as the focus of the study.

Step 2: Review the Literature

Now that the problem has been identified, the researcher must learn
more about the topic under investigation. To do this, the researcher
must review the literature related to the research problem. This step
provides foundational knowledge about the problem area. The review
of literature also educates the researcher about what studies have been
conducted in the past, how these studies were conducted, and the
conclusions in the problem area. In the obesity study, the review of
literature enables the programmer to discover horrifying statistics
related to the long-term effects of childhood obesity in terms of health
issues, death rates, and projected medical costs. In addition, the
programmer finds several articles and information from the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention that describe the benefits of walking
10,000 steps a day. The information discovered during this step helps
the programmer fully understand the magnitude of the problem,
recognize the future consequences of obesity, and identify a strategy to
combat obesity (i.e., walking).
Step 3: Clarify the Problem
Many times the initial problem identified in the first step of the process
is too large or broad in scope. In step 3 of the process, the researcher
clarifies the problem and narrows the scope of the study. This can only
be done after the literature has been reviewed. The knowledge gained
through the review of literature guides the researcher in clarifying and

Steps of the research

process.