Easy to read summary of 'Research Methods: The Essential Knowledge Base' by Donnelly and Trochim!
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Pre-Master Business Administration (6012S0010Y)
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Universiteit Van Amsterdam (UvA)
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Research Methods
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TEST BANK FOR RESEARCH METHODS THE ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE BASE 2ND EDITION BY WILLIAM TROCHIM (ISBN 978-1133954774)
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Research Methods: the essential knowledge base for Academic Project
Chapter 1. Foundations of research methods
1.1 The Research Enterprise
Research is a type of systematic investigation that is empirical in nature and is designed to contribute
to public knowledge. In this it is important to understand the broader effort that each research
project contributes to. That broader effort is also known as the Research Enterprise. The research
enterprise is the macro-level effort to accumulate (to gather or cause to increase) knowledge across
multiple empirical systematic public research projects.
When we move research from discovery to practise (and to the effects of that practice on our lives)
we can say we are translating research into practice. The translational research is the systematic
effort to move research from initial discovery to practice and ultimately to impacts on our lives –
from bench to practice to community.
We can think of the research enterprise as encompassing a research-practice continuum within
which translation occurs. In the course of moving through this continuum it is likely that many
individual research projects will be conducted. It is it assumed that different discoveries take
different pathways through this continuum. Looking at the arrows at both sides, it means the process
works in both ways.
Some are what might be called basic research; designed to generate discoveries and to understand
their mechanisms better. Some are followed by a series of applied research; it is tested under
increasingly controlled conditions. This happens for example with research that involve humans. If a
discovery survives this applies research testing, there is usually a process of seeing how well it can be
implemented in and disseminated to a broad range of contexts that extend beyond the original
controlled studies – the implementation and dissemination (broadening) research. Ultimately,
many such discoveries are assessed for the impacts they have broadly on society; impact research.
Some discoveries lead to the development of new policies; investigated with policy research in the
broader population.
The research literature has become voluminous and is often very technical, making it a barrier for
practitioners that reduces the rate of adoption of new discoveries. So, the research enterprise had
evolved a system for synthesizing the large numbers of research studies in different topical areas. A
research synthesis is a systematic study of multiple prior research projects that address the same
research question and summarize the results in a manner that can be used by practitioners.
There are two major types of research synthesis; meta-analysis (uses statistical methods to combine
the results of similar studies to allow general conclusions to be made – always quantitative) and the
systematic review (focuses on a specific question or issue and uses preplanned methods to identify,
select, assess and summarize the findings of multiple studies). The systematic review might include a
meta-analysis and is often involved with experts (judgemental expert-driven synthesis).
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,Meta-analysis and systematic reviews can be to technical and are written in a style that typically is
cautious about making formal recommendations for action. Because of that the enterprise has
developed a practice guideline; systematic process that leads to a specific set of research-based
recommendations for practice that usually include some estimates of how strong the evidence is for
each recommendation. This is a great example of shifting from discovery to impact.
The interpositioning of a synthesis and guideline process in the middle of the research-practice
continuum has transformed virtually every area of applied social research practice in our society. The
term that is most associated with this change is evidence-based practice. EBP is a movement
designed to encourage or require practitioners to employ practices that are based on research
evidence as reflected in research syntheses or practice guidelines.
Increasingly we view research as an evolutionary system. This is based upon the idea of evolutionary
epistemology; the branch of philosophy that holds that ideas evolve through the process of natural
selection (an individual discovery or idea is like an organism – it competes with other discoveries, it is
selected (or not) through a complex selection mechanism and it will or will not survive).
This broader perspective, taken together with the ideas of translational research, the research
practice continuum, and evidence-based practice, helps unify our thinking about the emerging
research enterprise in the twenty-first century.
1.2 Conceptualizing research
Where research topics come from
One of the most common sources of research ideas is the experience of practical problems in the
field. Many of the practical problems that arise in practice can lead to extensive research efforts.
Another source for research ideas is the literature in your specific field – by reading it, and thinking of
ways to extend or define previous studies. Another type of literature that acts as a source of good
research ideas is the request for proposals (RFP’s). Those are published by government agencies and
some foundations and companies. They describe the problem that the agency would like researchers
to address – virtually handing them an idea. They explain the problem, the context, the approach
they would like you to take and the amount they would be willing to pay for such research.
The literature review
One of the most important early steps in a research project is the conducting of the literature
review. The literature review is a systematic compilation and written summary of all of the literature
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,published in scientific journals that is related to a research topic of interest. The literature review is
not about finding the same exact topic, but about identifying related research, to set the current
research project within a conceptual and theoretical context.
Some tips; put the greatest emphasis on research journals that use a blind or juried peer review
system. In a peer review, authors submit potential articles to a journal editor who solicits several
reviewers who agree to give a critical review of the paper. The paper is sent to these reviewers with
no identification of the author so that there will be no personal bias (either for or against the author).
Based on the reviewers’ recommendations, requests, the editor can accept the article, reject it, or
recommend that the author revise and resubmit it. Articles in journals with peer review processes
are likely to have a fairly high level of credibility. Second, do the review early in the research process.
You are likely to learn a lot in the literature review that will help you determine what the necessary
trade-offs are. After all, previous researchers also had to face trade-off decisions.
Feasibility issues (achievability of the study)
If you had unlimited resources and unbridled control over the circumstances, you would always be
able to do the best-quality research; but those ideal circumstances seldom exist, and researchers are
almost always forced to look for the best trade-offs they can find to get the rigor they desire. When
you are determining a research project’s feasibility, you usually need to bear in mind several practical
considerations. First, you have to think about how long the research will take to accomplish. Second,
you have to question whether any important ethical constraints require consideration (see Chapter
2). Third, you must determine whether you can acquire the cooperation needed to take the project
to its successful conclusion. And finally, you must determine the degree to which the costs will be
manageable. Failure to consider any of these factors can mean disaster later.
1.3 The language of research
Research vocabulary
We present the first two terms together because they are often contrasted with each other;
theoretical and empirical. Socials research is theoretical; concerned with developing, exploring, or
testing the theories or ideas that socials researchers have about how the world operates. But it is
also empirical; based on observations and measurement of reality (what you perceive of the world
around you). Most research is a blending of these two terms.
There is always some error in all measurements; thus, the third big word that describes much
contemporary (nl: hedendaags) social research is probabilistic, or based on probabilities (nl:
waarschijnlijkheden/kans). The inferences made in social research have probabilities associated with
them; they are seldom if ever intended as covering laws that pertain to all cases with certainty. Part
of the reason statistics has become so dominant in social research is that it enables the estimation of
the probabilities for the situations being studied.
The third term is ‘causal’; we are interested in looking in at a cause-effect or causal relationship. For
example, when you evaluate whether your treatment or program causes an outcome to occur, you
are examining a causal relationship.
Types of studies
Research projects usually can be classified into one of three basic forms:
1. Descriptive studies; designed primarily to document what is going on or exists. You are simply
interested in describing something. For example, how many people who will vote for a Democratic or
a Republican.
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,2. Relational studies; to look at the relationship between two or more variables, for example public
opinion poll that compares the proportion of males and females who say they would vote for a
Democratic or a Republican.
3. Causal studies; designed to determine whether one or more variables (for example, a program or
treatment variable) causes or affects one or more outcome variables. If you performed a public
opinion poll to try to determine whether a recent political advertising campaign changed voter
preferences, you would essentially be studying whether the campaign (cause) changed the
proportion of voters who would vote Democratic or Republican (effect).
Time in research
Time is an important element of any research. Cross-sectional studies take place at a single point in
time – you are taking a slice or cross-section of what you are observing or measuring. Longitudinal
studies take place over multiple points in time – you measure your participants on at least two
separate occasions or at least two points in time. You then are measuring multiple ‘waves of
measurement’.
There are two types of longitudinal designs; repeated measures and time series. This means in
general, if you have two or a few waves of measurement, you are using a repeated measures design.
If you have many waves of measurement over time, you have a time series. Usually, you wouldn’t
use the term time series unless you had at least twenty waves of measurement. With fewer waves
than that, you would usually call it a repeated measures design.
Types of relationships
Refers to correspondence between two variables – you can mean that in at least two ways (the
nature or the pattern of the relationship).
1. The nature of the relationship; first we have to make the distinction between two types of
relationships. A correlational relationship simply says that two things perform in a synchronized
manner. For instance, economists often talk of a correlation between inflation and unemployment.
When inflation is high, unemployment also tends to be high. The two variables are correlated; but
knowing that two variables are correlated does not tell whether one causes the other. A causal
relationship is a synchronized relationship between two variables just as a correlational relationship
is, but in a causal relationship we say that one variable causes the other to occur.
This leads to consideration of what is named the third variable or missing variable problem - an
unobserved variable that accounts for a correlation between two variables. So, you have to be
careful when you interpret correlations.
2. Patterns of relationships; when there is no relationship at all, you don’t know anything about the
values of the other. When there is a positive relationship, high values on one variable are associated
with high values on the other (same for low values). Negative relationships imply that high values on
one variable are associated with low values on the other – inverse relationship. A curvilinear
relationship changes over the range of both variables.
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, Hypotheses
A hypothesis is a specific statement of prediction and it describes in concrete terms what you expect
to happen in your study. Whenever we talk about a hypothesis, we are really thinking simultaneously
about two hypotheses. One that describes your prediction and one that describes all the other
possible outcomes with respect to the hypothesized relationship. The hypothesis that you support
(your prediction) is called the alternative hypothesis (Ha or H1), and the hypothesis that describes
the remaining possible outcomes is termed the null hypothesis (Ho). In some studies, your prediction
might well be that there will be no difference or change. In this case, you are essentially trying to find
support for the null hypothesis and you are opposed to the alternative
If your prediction specifies a direction, the null hypothesis automatically includes both the no-
difference prediction and the prediction that would be opposite in direction to yours. This is called a
one-tailed hypothesis. For example:
HO: As a result of the new program, there will either be no significant difference in depression or
there will be a significant increase, which is tested against the alternative
Ha: hypothesis: HA: As a result of the new program, there will be a significant decrease in depression.
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