Chapter 1: Foundations of Research Methods
Rene Descartes → “I doubt therefore I am” of “Cogito ergo sum”
→ researchers systematically question or doubt things to improve some outcome, learning
about research methods is akin to learning a new language
Research: is a type of systematic investigation that is empirical in nature and is designed to
contribute to public knowledge. It produces or tests theory, which is a set of expectations
about the nature of reality. (relationship (knowledge) between theory and data)
→ purposeful, systematic, empirical, public, cumulative, critical of itself.
Empirical effort: an effort that is based upon systematic observation that yields data that you
can use in your decision-making.
Social research → our societies, the things we do, how we interact, how we live, how we feel,
and how we see ourselves. (sociology, education, public health, criminology, housing public
welfare, and social psychology)
Business and management research: transdisciplinary, double hurdle (theoretical and
practical impact), science-practice gap / translational research, Evidence Based
Management.
Research enterprise: the macro-level to accumulate knowledge across multiple empirical
systematic public research projects.
→ encompassing a research practice continuum
Research practice continuum: the process of moving from an initial research idea to
practice, and potential for the idea to influence our lives or world.
We accumulate knowledge with the idea that it may contribute some day to something we
can use.
Translational research: the systematic effort to move research from initial discovery to
practice and ultimately to impacts on our lives.
▪ Basic research: research that is designed to generate discoveries and to understand
how the discoveries work. (satisfies curiosity)
▪ Applied research: research where a discovery is tested under increasingly controlled
conditions in real-world contexts, related to humans. (find answers to ‘real life’ problems)
▪ Implementation and dissemination research: research that assesses how well an
innovation or discovery can be distributed in and carried out in a broad range of contexts
that extend beyond the original controlled studies.
▪ Impact research: research that assesses the broader effects of a discovery or
innovation on society.
▪ Policy research: research that is designed to investigate existing policies or develop and
test new ones.
Research synthesis: a systematic study of multiple prior research projects that address the
same research question or topic and that summarizes the results in a manner that can be
used by practitioners. → spur the generation of guidelines and inspire future studies.
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,Two main types:
1. Meta-analysis: uses statistical methods to combine the results of similar studies
quantitively to allow general conclusions to be made. (quantitative)
2. Systematic review: focuses on a specific question or issue and uses pre-planned
methods to identify, select, assess, and summarize the finding of multiple research
studies. → judgmental expert-driven (may involve meta-analysis)
Guideline: the result of a systematic process that leads to a specific set of research-based
recommendations for practice that usually includes some estimates of how strong the
evidence is for each recommendation.
Evidence-based practice (EBP): 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.
→ examples: Community Guide in public health or Campbell Collaboration in education.
Evolutionary epistemology: the branch of philosophy that holds that ideas evolve through
the process of natural selection.
Sources of research ideas: the experience of practical problems in the field, literature in your
specific field, or researchers think up their research topic on their own.
Request for proposals (RFPs): a document issued by a government agency or other
organization that, typically describes the problem that needs addressing the context in which
it operates, the approach the agency would like you to take to investigate the problem, and
the amount the agency would be willing to pay for such research.
Literature review: a systematic compilation and written summary of all the literature
published in scientific journals that is related to a research topic of interest. (one of the most
important early steps in a research project)
Tips about conducting a literature review:
1. Concentrate your efforts on the research literature.
2. Do the review early in the research process.
Peer review: a system for reviewing potential research publications where authors submit
potential articles to a journal editor who solicits several reviewers who agree to give a critical
review of the paper, without personal bias. Based on this reviewers’ recommendations the
editor can accept, reject, or recommend the article.
When you are determining a research project’s feasibility, several considerations:
1. How long the research will take you to accomplish?
2. Are there any important ethical constraints, that require consideration?
3. Can you acquire the cooperation needed to take the project to its successful conclusion?
4. To which degree will the cost be manageable?
Important research terms:
▪ Theoretical: pertaining to theory.
▪ Empirical: based on direct observations and measurements of reality.
▪ Probabilistic: based on probabilities.
▪ Casual: pertaining to a cause-effect relationship, hypothesis, or relationship.
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,Two types of studies:
1. By evidence, research projects can be classified into one of three basic forms:
▪ Descriptive studies: to document what is going on or what exists, describing status
quo. What percentage of the population would vote for a Democrat or a Republican?
▪ Relational studies: looks at the relationships between two or more variables.
What is the relationship between males and females who say they would vote for a
Democrat or Republican?
▪ Casual (explanatory) studies: investigates a casual relationship between two
variables, difficult to establish. Did the recent political advertising campaign change
voter preferences?
2. By time:
▪ Cross-sectional studies: take place at a single point in time. (all data collected at
one time)
▪ Longitudinal studies: take place over multiple points in time. (data collected over
time)
→ Repeated measures: if you have two or many waves of measurement(< 20 waves)
→ Time series: if you have many waves of measurement over time(> 20 waves)
Two types of relationships:
1. The nature of a relationship
▪ Correlational relationship: two things perform in a synchronized manner.
▪ Causal relationship: a cause-effect relationship, a special type of relationship.
Not all relationships that we observe are causal, we can design our research in such
way that we can rule out these alternative explanations. (isolation, temporal precedence)
To establish that A causes B, we must show that: valid quantitative measures of A and B
are related to one another, A precedes B in time, A is related to B even when we rule out
all other possible causes of B, understand why A and B ought to be related.
Third variable or missing variable problem: an unobserved variable that accounts for
a correlation between two variables.
The pattern of a relationship
Different types of patterns:
1. No relationship
2. Positive relationship: high values for one variable are associated with high values
on the other variable, and vice versa.
3. Negative relationship: high values for one variable are associated with low values
on the other variable, and vice versa.
4. Curvilinear relationship: a relationship that changes over the range of both
variables.
Hypothesis: a specific statement of prediction.
▪ Alternative hypothesis: usually states what you expect will happen in your study.
▪ Null hypothesis: usually states there will be no effect of a program, treatment, or other
variable you are studying.
▪ One-tailed hypothesis: specifies a direction, for example when your
hypothesis predicts that your program will increase the outcome.
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, ▪ Two-tailed hypothesis: does not specify a direction, for example if your
hypothesis is that your program will have an effect, but you are unwilling to
specify whether that effect will be positive or negative.
Hypothetico-deductive model: a model in which two mutually exclusive
hypotheses that together exhaust all possible outcomes tested, such that if one
hypothesis is accepted, the second must therefore be rejected.
Variable: any entity that can take on different values, for instance age.
→ Are not always quantitative or numerical.
▪ Quantitative variable: the numerical representation of some object.
▪ Independent variable: variable that you manipulate.(program or treatment / the cause)
▪ Dependent variable: variable affected by the independent variable.(effect / outcome)
Attribute: specific value of a variable, should be:
→ a simplified way of thinking about a quantitative variable is that all attributes are known
and coded with a number prior to data collection.
▪ Exhaustive: includes all possible answerable responses.
▪ Mutually exclusive: the property of a variable that the respondent is not able to assign
two attributes simultaneously.
Two types of data:
1. Qualitative data (build theory): data that are in the form of text, photographs, sound
bites, and so on.
2. Quantitative data (test theory): data that is in numerical form.
All quantitative data are based upon qualitative judgements, and all qualitative data can be
summarized and manipulated numerically.
Unit of analysis: the entities about which we want to draw conclusions.
Hierarchical modelling: a statistical model that allows for the inclusion of data at different
levels, where the unit of analysis at some levels is nested within the unity of analysis at
others.
Deductive reasoning: top-down reasoning that works from the more general to the more
specific. (narrow in nature and concerned with testing or confirming hypotheses)
→ theory, hypothesis, observation, confirmation (from theory to data)
Inductive reasoning: bottom-up reasoning that begins with
specific observations and measures and ends up as general
conclusion or theory. (open-ended and exploratory) from data
to theory → observation, pattern, tentative hypothesis, theory
Structure of research:
Research question: the central issue being addressed in the
study.
Narrowest point of the hourglass, focusses on direct
observations or measurements.
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