Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Dr Turkhan Ali Abdul Manap Department of Economics, KENMS International Islamic University Malaysia
Research is all about addressing an issue or asking and answering a question or solving a problem, so Identify an issue, question, or problem.
Talk with people who want or need your study.
Talk with experts and/or read their reviews and the original
Plan, cost, and do your study accordingly. Write it up and submit it for assessment.
Better still, do a good job on it and submit it for publication.
Undergrad projects are sometimes good enough to publish. Your work will benefit more people if you publish it. Rule No. 1 in academia is publish or perish.
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Source of New Idea Prior Research Need to know/ own experience Curiosity
The Heart & Soul of it All Statement of the problem. /Research Question
Research Design Population & Sample Instrumentation (or Source of Info Data Collections procedures Data Analysis / Reporting procedures
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The End Product of your study Findings, Conclusions, recommendation & Implications
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My understanding of the various kinds of research advanced when I identified various dimensions (components) of research.
Meanwhile consider these dimensions:
topic: physicalbiologicalpsychologicalsociological novelty: create new vs review published data or info technology: develop new vs use existing methods scope: study a single case vs a sample mode: observe vs intervene methodology: qualitative vs quantitative (info vs numbers) ideology: objective vs subjective (positivist vs interpretivist) utility: pure vs applied reassembling the dimensions
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Examples
Clinical: the effect of a herb on performance. Psychological: factors affecting work-place satisfaction. Behavioral: how can we reduce truancy at this school? Economic: characterize the productivity of new immigrants. Social: develop risk-management procedures at a gym.
knowledge or practical experience of and affinity for a topic. You must read journal articles to find out what's already known.
Authors also often point out topics for future research
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phenomenon.
A quantitative statistical review is called a meta-analysis.
taking on a stand-alone review. But a write-up of an original investigation always has to include a short review of literature
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Sometimes a legitimate topic for study is methodological. For example, development or novel investigation of
a measuring device a psychometric instrument (questionnaire or inventory)
You usually include or focus on a reliability and/or validity study of the measure provided by the method.
Validity = the relationship between observed and true values. Reliability = reproducibility of observed values.
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Are you solving a single case of something, or is it a sample that will allow you to generalize to a population? In a case study
You are interested in "what happened or will happen here". Your finding applies only locally: to the case you studied. The quest for an answer can be like that in a court case. Qualitative methods are often required. You reach an answer by applying logic (= common sense?) and skepticism to your knowledge and to the information you gather.
Be wary of conventional wisdom and your own prejudices.
various answers.
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In a study of a sample
You are interested in "what happens in general". Rarely, "what" is simply descriptive: the frequency, mean value or other
simple statistic of something in the sample. Most often, the "what" is the value of an effect statistic: the relationship between the thing of interest (a dependent variable, such as health, performance) and something else (a predictor variable, such as training, gender, diet) in the sample.
Examples of effect statistics: difference or change in a mean value; ratio of frequencies (relative risk); correlation coefficient.
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(and therefore unethical) to study a population. What happens in general" refers to the average person or situation in a population represented by your sample. "Population" is a defined group, not the entire human race or all possible situations. You make inferences about that population; that is, you generalize from the sample to a population.
You can make inferences to other populations only if you can argue that those populations are similar to your sample with respect to the effect you have studied.
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Sample size is a big issue. The smaller the sample, the more the uncertainty. A stronger relationship needs less certainty. So a stronger relationship needs a smaller sample. Unfortunately most relationships are weak or trivial, so you usually need large samples.
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In an observational study
The aim is to gather data or information about the
world as it is. So you hope the act of studying doesn't substantially modify the thing you are interested in.
In an interventionist study
You do something to the world and see what happens. You gather data or information almost always before
refer to observational and interventionist studies with samples. The estimate of the magnitude of a relationship is less likely to be biased (that is, not the same as in a population) if
An observational study of a sample
the sample is selected randomly from the population, and you have a high compliance (low proportion of dropouts). usually establishes only an association between variables
rather than a causal relationship; needs hundreds or even thousands of subjects for accurate estimation of trivial or small effects.
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generalization about trivial or small effects. The outcome is the effect of a treatment on the average subject. Researchers usually neglect the important question of individual responses to the treatment.
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stopwatch, a blood test, a video analysis package, or a structured questionnaire. You derive measures or variables from the data, then investigate relationships among the variables.
Some people think you have to do it by testing hypotheses.
Almost all measures have noise or other errors. Errors affect the relationship between measures. You attend to errors via validity and reliability. A pilot study to investigate error can be valuable.
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flexibility and serendipity in identifying factors and practical strategies than the formal structured quantitative approach.
The direction of the research may change mid-stream.
information.
Triangulationaim for congruence of info from various sources. Member checking or respondent validationthe subjects check the researchers analysis. Peer debriefingcolleagues or experts check the analysis
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and solve them without disagreement about the nature of meaning or reality. This so-called dominant paradigm is responsible for our current understanding of life, the Universe, and almost everything.
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Post-structuralist
The researcher views people as subjects of discourses
(interrelated systems of unstable social meanings). Although the subjectivity of research is emphasized, the researchers attempt to achieve objectivity. Do they succeed? Many people find post-structuralist papers hard to understand.
Interpretivist
interpretation of the self-understandings of participants. Truth is discovered partly by thought as well as by observation. Grounded theory of social science is interpretivist: truth emerges from your observations; you do not test a hypothesis.
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Attempt to add or contribute to the general body of knowledge in a particular area... attempts to improve understanding of certain problems that commonly occur in organizational settings (Sekaran, pp.5-6). Attempts to solve a "currently existing problem in the work setting... to solve specific problems being experienced in an organization." (Sekaran, pp.5-6). Pure is sometimes lab-based, lacking naturalness. Applied is sometimes field-based, lacking control.
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Case Method: analysis of a real world problem of which he or she has experience or been able to observe. Projects involving other forms of conventional empirical or experimental research (surveys, statistics, questionnaires, fieldwork) Theoretical projects looking mainly at a conceptual issue As your first task, you should clarify the kind of research approach you are following and the research question that you are aiming to explore/explain.
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Advantages: Systematic and 'Scientific' Demonstrates data collection skills Involves 'fieldwork' (variety and interest!) May have immediate application to work environment Disadvantages: Time consuming Careful planning required Chances of measurement error (timing?) Have to read experimental data as well as theoretical papers Fieldwork (expense?) Final preparation difficulties: tables, histograms, etc.
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Advantages: Data is 'just a search away' Tests analytic and research abilities Uses theoretical training taught in university training Disadvantages: Lacks variety Lots of reading and searching for data Needs careful scholarly skills Technical/difficult Requires high degree of literacy/verbal analytic skills May lack immediate business application
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Pure/Basic/Fundamental: Attempt to add or contribute to the general body of knowledge in a particular area... attempts to improve understanding of certain problems that commonly occur in organizational settings (Sekaran, pp.5-6). Applied: Attempts to solve a "currently existing problem in the work setting... to solve specific problems being experienced in an organization." (Sekaran, pp.5-6).
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Qualitative (exploratory) research employs case study methods or action research to explore particular management problems (which may be pure or applied/empirical or theoretical). It asks: what are the relationships between variables x and y? E.g., How are conflicts between owners and managers which are resolved in the board of directors of a big business resolved in a small professional practice without a board of directors?
Quantitative
Deductive Linear
Qualitative
Inductive Spiraling
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A construct is an abstract entity, it is not something physical. For example, employee satisfaction or customer satisfaction are constructs, as is short term pressure on interest rates. You must be clear how the constructs can be made operational (objectively testable). You need to ask yourself questions such as these:
How do I decide what customer satisfaction means? How can it be measured? What counts as an example of customer satisfaction?
and so on.
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An hypothesis is a statement that relates two or more constructs. For example: The greater the stress experienced in the job, the lower the job satisfaction of employees. Here you need a clear operational definition of stress and job satisfaction. A good hypothesis is tested by the research that you propose to do. Note that assumptions are not the same as hypotheses.
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that the greater the stress the lower the job satisfaction.
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Your aim is to identify these in other research and avoid them in your own!
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Construct validity means selecting the most appropriate measurement tool for the concepts being studied.
Does your tool really measure what you want to assess?
Internal validity is another term for using different methodological tools to triangulate the data.
What other methods can you use to check for the same
phenomenon?
External validity refers to how well the data can be applied beyond the circumstances of the case to more general situations.
Can you apply your data across the industry and to others
as well?
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Theory formulation
Hypothesizing Further data gathering Data Analysis Deduction from theory
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Noticing that things are not as they should be in a management situation (noticing that customers are unhappy...) Noticing a problem in the application of management theory etc........ Situation: Assume that a manager observes that customers are not as happy as they used to be.
He talks to the customers and finds out that the shop is
frequently out of stock and see the salespeople as unhelpful. Further discussion uncovers that the delivery dates are not kept though the salespeople inform the customers of the later delivery dates.
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Talking to people in the work setting (customers, salespeople...) Identifying how the problem is tackled in other similar situations; Beginning the process of formal interviews etc....... Conducting research on the issue. Finding the Gap in Research (Literature Review)
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Making associations/identifying the variables which help to explain situation (anticipated and actual delivery times, importance of items in stock for customers, other commitments of service providers, JIT management practices...) Attempting to justify why these variables are relevant....
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Draw associations between variables; (stock, supply and unhappiness...) Making conjectures about how they may be manipulated; (new provider, different delivery arrangements....) Using conjectures to arrive at an understanding of the situation (if make new arrangement to stock items twice weekly then there will be a reduction in customer dissatisfaction...)
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Making measurements (if empirical) Collecting resources (if theoretical) BOTH (if case study) Analyzing the circumstances hypothesized in different, carefully monitored situations (measure customer dissatisfaction under situation S1, S2....) Collecting this data
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Making recommendations
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Inductive research is the first stage in this process (steps 1-3 inclusive): from observation to theoretical understanding. Deductive research is the second stage in this process (steps 4- 7 inclusive): This involves arriving a conclusion about data from ones theoretically informed perspective/understanding. The entire process is called the hypotheticodeductive method.
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Wassalam
Make Observation
Pass
Test Hypothesis
Fail
Theory
Pass
Test Theory
Fail
Pass many
Theory
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Law
Fail
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