This is a summary with notes from all lectures, the readings and other sources (supplementary materials and own research) combined together to give you all the knowledge you need to get the best possible grade for the Research Skills midterm. The document is well organised and has a table of conten...
,Table of Contents
Lecture 1b: Research approaches and getting started ........................................................ 3
The Role of Research Questions:................................................................................................. 3
Role of a Literature Review: ....................................................................................................... 4
Research Logics: ......................................................................................................................... 5
Research strategies: ................................................................................................................... 5
Lecture 2a: Research design principles in quantitative and qualitative research ................ 7
Research approaches in natural science:..................................................................................... 8
Lecture 2b: Research design principles: social sciences view .............................................. 9
Research Designs: ..................................................................................................................... 10
Validity: .................................................................................................................................... 12
Lecture 3a: Sampling design – principles, logic and application ....................................... 13
The purpose of sampling? ......................................................................................................... 14
4 types of probability sample ................................................................................................... 15
Sample size .............................................................................................................................. 16
Types of non-probability sampling............................................................................................ 16
Lecture 3b: Sampling in Qualitative Research .................................................................. 18
Sampling .................................................................................................................................. 18
How to decide on sample size? ................................................................................................. 20
Lecture 4: Data Collection in the Field & Descriptive Statistics ......................................... 20
Process: .................................................................................................................................... 20
Statistical Inference .................................................................................................................. 21
Probability and Statistical Significance:..................................................................................... 21
Statistics: mean, median, mode etc.: ........................................................................................ 23
Lecture 5: Surveys and Questionnaires............................................................................. 24
Structured interviews: .............................................................................................................. 25
Interview design: ...................................................................................................................... 26
Conducting a structured interview............................................................................................ 27
Self-administered Questionnaires............................................................................................. 29
Lecture 6: Data collection – qualitative: interviews .......................................................... 31
Open interviews ....................................................................................................................... 31
Conducting an open interview .................................................................................................. 32
Lecture 6b: Data collection – qualitative: focus groups .................................................... 33
Focus groups ............................................................................................................................ 33
Conducting focus groups .......................................................................................................... 34
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, Online focus groups: ................................................................................................................. 35
Lecture 7a: Ethnography & Action Research .................................................................... 36
What is ethnography? .............................................................................................................. 36
In practice: ............................................................................................................................... 37
Action Research........................................................................................................................ 38
Lecture 7b: Ethics of field research ................................................................................... 39
Past practice: ............................................................................................................................ 39
Issues: ...................................................................................................................................... 39
2
, Lecture 1b: Research approaches and getting started
Why should you do research:
• Find answers to important questions
• Test theories and advance knowledge
• Inform policy and debate (what course should be taken in society)
The research Process:
• Problem
• Research Questions
• Literature review
o A critical examination of existing research relating to the interest, and
relevant theoretical ideas
• Analytical Framework
o A theoretical lens outlining key variable and relationships, which drives your
data collection and interpretation
• Sampling strategy
• Data collection
• Data analysis
• Interpretation/Discussion
o The way you make sense of the findings eg. What do they mean, do they
confirm or disconfirm the existing theory?
• Conclusion
o What did we learn from this work? Does it improve our theoretical or policy
knowledge? What should be done next?
The Role of Research Questions:
• These are questions about exactly what you are investigating
• Must be focused and specific!
• They take time to get right
• Benefit is that they force you to be clear about what you want to find out
• They drive:
o Literature search
o Research design
o Type of data you will collect and from whom
o Data analysis
o Interpretation and Conclusions
Sources of Research Questions:
• Intellectual puzzles and contradictions
• Existing literature
• Replication
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