Metode Penelitian Administrasi

DR. H. Rasyidin, S.Sos, M.A

What is Research?
A systematic process of critical enquiry leading to valid propositions and conclusions that are communicated to interested others

(McLeod, 1994).
What are some of the key words in this definition and why are they important?

Taking A Closer Look at Methods

METHODS

What methods will you use to address the research questions? How many and why this many? (sampling) How will these methods be designed? i.e. How will the study be conducted? Where? How will you gain access? What is the justification for these methods? What questions will be asked and why? What are the limitations of these methods and how will you address these limitations? How will analysis be undertaken? What are the ethical concerns related to these methods and how will these be addressed?
All the methodological decisions you make i.e. how you answer each of the above questions should be tied to the methodological literature and/or the literature in your subject area.

Deciding on a methodological approach

Ontology: What is the nature of the phenomena, or social reality, that you want to investigate? Epistemology: What might represent knowledge or evidence of the social reality that you want to investigate? Research area: What topic is the research concerned with? Research Question: What do you wish to explain or explore?

Ontology
What is the nature of things in the social world? For example, are you investigating: Bodies, subjects, objects Rationality, emotion, thought Feeling, memory, senses Motivations, ideas, perceptions Attitudes, beliefs, views Texts, discourses Cultures, society, groups Interactions, social relations Some ontologies are better matched to qualitative research methodology than others (e.g., social processes, interpretations, social relations, experiences etc.)

Epistemology
What is your theory of knowledge? What are your presuppositions about the nature of knowledge? Examples of epistemological perspectives Positivist Perspectives (also called empiricism) Fundamental claim is that reality is a fixed, measurable entity that is external to people. There exist social facts. Aims to find true, precise and wide-ranging laws of human behaviour which we can generalise to the population as a whole If it cant be measured, it doesnt exist. Social Constructionism Reality is constructed socially so rejection of social facts Aim is to describe the subjective and consensual meanings that constitute social reality. Understanding of social world as local truths which cannot be evaluated by external criteria

At the start of your research project.

After you have decided upon your research question, you need to decide what approach you are going to take:
Quantitative? Qualitative?

Ask yourself are you seeking to prove or disprove a theory? Or are you trying to generalise your findings to a population? If so this will be a deductive approach, a quantitative approach
Or are you hoping to elicit some understandings on what people think or feel about an issue? Is the topic an area that there is little information and so you must undertake an initial, exploratory study? If so, this will be induction, a qualitative approach

Deductive Theory
Theory Hypotheses Data Collection Findings

Hypotheses Confirmed or Rejected

Revision of Theory

Induction
[General research question] Observation

Theory Formulation

Quantitative and Qualitative Methods

Quantitative: Deductive Tests hypotheses Positivism Objectivism Employs measurement Macro Detached researcher

Qualitative: Inductive Produces theories Phenomenology Constructionism Does not employ measurement Micro Involved researcher

Quantitative and Qualitative Methods

Quantitative: Measures objective facts Focuses on variables Value free Reliability is key Independent of context Many cases Statistical analysis Qualitative: Constructs social meaning Focus on interactive processes Values are present Authenticity is key Context constrained Few cases Thematic analysis

Main Steps in Quantitative Research:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Theory Hypothesis Research design Devise measures of concepts Select research site(s) Select research subjects/respondents Administer research instruments/collect data Process data Analyse data Write up findings and conclusions

Main Steps in Qualitative Research:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. General research question Select relevant site(s) and subjects Collection of relevant data Interpretation of data Conceptual and theoretical work Tighter specification of the research question Collection of further data Conceptual and theoretical work Write up findings

Examples of Quantitative Research Methods

Experiments Social surveys
Cross-sectional Comparative (cross-national) Longitudinal

Content Analysis Secondary Statistical Analysis Official Statistics

Demography Epidemiology

Field stimulations
Structured Interviews and Observation.

Examples of Qualitative Research In-depth Interviews Focus Groups Ethnography/Field Research Historical-Comparative Research Discourse Analysis Narrative Analysis Media Analysis

Worth noting
Quantitative and qualitative research are often cast as opposing fields. But sometimes they blur - qualitative research may employ quantification in their work or may be positivist in their approach. Some quantitative may employ phenomenology. Both can be also be combined in a project
Qualitative can facilitate quantitative research (1) can provide hypotheses (2) fill in the gaps, help interpret relationships Quantitative can facilitate qualitative through locating interviewees and help with generalising findings Together they can give you a micro and macro level versions and so you can examine the relationships between the two levels. They can complement each other.

Final words
To make it easier to understand the two different approaches, I sometimes tell students to think of TV detectives. Induction - this is the method that CSI use. They find the evidence and then produce the theory on what happened. Deductive logic - this is your more traditional detective. They have a hunch that someone murdered someone else and seek to prove it. Think Columbo, Murder She Wrote or even Inspector Morse.

Qualitative Research
By now, qualitative research has become an acceptable, if not mainstream, form of research in many different academic and professional fields. As a result, the large number of students and scholars who conduct qualitative studies may be part of different social science disciplines (e.g., public administration, sociology, anthropology, political science, or psychology) or different professions (e.g., education, management, nursing, urban planning, and program evaluation). In any of these fields, qualitative research represents an attractive and fruitful way of doing research.

Examples of qualitative research

There are many other examples of qualitative research. They touch on all walks of life. Close to all of our lives, the changing role of women in American society has been the subject of a good number of studies, such as: Ruth Sidels (2006) inquiry into how single mothers confront their social and economic challenges Pamela Stones (2007) examination of why successful career women drop out to stay at home Kathryn Edin & Maria Kefalass (2005) study of why women with low incomes put motherhood before marriage

In the three examples above, the researchers conducted extended interviews with many women and their families, also visiting their homes and observing family behavior. These and other studies follow, in a way, Carol Gilligans (1982) landmark study of a womans place in a mans worldwhich argued that much of the so-called universal theories of moral and emotional development had been based exclusively on male perceptions and male experiences.

Beyond these examples, the range of topics covered by other contemporary qualitative works stretches from the rare to the commonplace, such as: Unearthing surprising but still existing forms of exploitation, such as human slavery in Thailand, Mauritania, Brazil, Pakistan, and India (e.g.,Bales, 2004) Analyzing the challenges of immigration between other countries and the United States, whether in educational (e.g., Valenzuela, 1999) or community (e.g., Levitt, 2001) settings Studying how older people might have been admitted into a hospital or into long-term care in circumstances that could have been avoided (e.g., Tetley, Grant, & Davies, 2009)

 Offering data and explanations on how a Fortune 500 firm in the computer business could go out of business in the 1990s (e.g., Schein, 2003) Contrasting the consumer differences between toy stores located in middle- as opposed to working-class neighborhoods, reflecting not just the stores practices but also the families shopping and purchasing habits (e.g., Williams, 2006) Examining residential life and the differences in racial, ethnic, and class tensions in four urban neighborhoods (e.g., Wilson & Taub, 2006); or Showing the different childhood experiences of working- and middle-class families by making extensive observations in the homes of 12 families (e.g., Lareau, 2003)

You even can study everyday life on the streets of your city or town, such as: Duneiers (1999) study of sidewalk vendors Lees (2009) study of street interactions; or Bourgoiss (2003) study of the addicts, thieves, and dealers who form part of the underground economy in some cities

The allure of qualitative research is that it enables you to conduct in-depth studies about a broad array of topics, including your favorites, in plain and everyday terms. Moreover, qualitative research offers greater latitude in selecting topics of interest because other research methods are likely to be constrained by:

the inability to establish the necessary research conditions (as in an experiment); the unavailability of sufficient data series or lack of coverage of sufficient variables (as in an economic study); the difficulty in drawing an adequate sample of respondents and obtaining a sufficiently high response rate (as in a survey)