This past few weeks has been a bit of a relief to be honest, before upon receiving the handbook and attending the first session on campus I was overwhelmed and unsure where to begin. I now feel I have little bit of direction.
I found the second chapter of Bell's "Doing your research project" perticularly helpful and relevent to my situation.
At the time I found the first chapter of her book very informative but rather alot to digest all at once so I was pleased when I checked the blogs after the second Campus session,which I was unable to attend and found a nice break down of research types and Peter's slide. Although I was not there I found the slide really imformative and helpful.
Firstly it made me consider if my topic would be worthwhile? This made me consider what it was that prompted me to come up with my topic, and think about who i would be helping with the results.
In order to complete the research design I need to develop a way to collect and analyse information that can be used to solve, answer, prove, inform, explore, describe your topic. I need to make a plan that enables me to design my research effectivly and that includes my objectives to ensure that I gather the appropriate information efficently.
The slide also focused on PRIMARY and SECONDARY research.
SECONDARY research is information that already exsists, for example research already undertaken by others, census data, features in journals, newspapers,databases internal company documents like memo's and annual reports.
PRIMARY research is info collected directlyby the researcher and is gathered to address the problem at hand. This includes instruments such as survays, interviews and focus groups.
I thought about my topic ideas and what types of research i might have to undertake and what resourses I have available to me.
I hope this week to continue defining my project. To look for data and continue thinking about my approch.
Thursday, 18 March 2010
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