Learning diary 3

As I am working abroad on a new project I have become completely reliant on the blogs of the tutors and of fellow students. I have found them an absolute godsend! As I am unable to attend the sessions at the university campus I have spent time this week reading and highlighting crucial phrases and sentences of the handbook, which I am pleased to say is finally making sense to me. Thinking back to when I first received it and how overwhelming it seemed I can see how much I am actually learning.

I have been reading up on various research families including;
Qualative research- the purpose of qualative research is to gain insights from participants about their feelings and motivations. This form of data results from an attempt to specify the quality of the relationship between two or more things.
Key words- emotions, attitudes, reactions and beliefs.

Quantative research- involves interviewing a large number of people in an attempt to quantify the relationship between two or more things.
Key words- numerical measurements, percentages, proportions, graphs, charts and statistics.

Exploratory research- helps the researcher develop an understanding of the problem. It is often used in the initial stages of the research. Exploratory research can be used to;
-Develop a focus and direction for conclusive research.
-Uncover problems and identify variables that need to be measured.
-Help formulate a hypothesis or educated guess about the outcome of a test.
-Designed to answer a research question.
-Provide detail to evaluate alternative courses of action.
-Test hypotheses and examine relationships between variables.

Descriptive research- describes the behaviour of phenomena in a research problem, student competence, satisfaction, likes and dislikes and improvement.
- Generally answers the questions who, what, when, where and how?
- Has a clear statement of the research problem and details exactly what is to be measured.

Casual research- describes the relationship between two or more variables.
-It gathers evidence regarding cause and effect relationships. For example, studies on the effectiveness of advertising might look at how changes in attitudes of consumers affect sales.
-Answers the question why?

I also thought about what kind of research tools I will use for my project?
Surveys, interviews, questionnaires and/or focus groups? I have to decide the aim of my project, which data is most appropriate? What is the most effective way to gather this information? Another thing to ask yourself when it comes to your research participants is why they would want to help with your research project? Treat participants professionally, be on time and engaging.

Observation is one research tool; observations provide data from a visual source.
The data collected in this way is normally qualative, however at times it can be quantative observing people in their natural surroundings.

Participant observation is when the researcher enters the group they are observing. The researcher must gain trust and respect from the group in order for them to act naturally.
The researcher can observe from a very intimate angle using this approach.

Non participant observation is when a researcher observes from a distance and does not immerse himself in the group.

Interviews are another research tool; Interviews are a qualative method of gaining data from your interviewee (your sample) in order to gain evidence. It allows you to dig deeper asking the questions why?
It should be noted however that it is not a conversation and interviews should follow some sort of structure and you must be able to retain this data in order for it to benefit your research project.

Interviews can be conducted in different ways,
Structured- The interview has a strong structure to it, where the interviewer knows what questions need to be asked in order to gain the data he/she wants to complete the research.

Semi structured- The interviewer knows what questions to ask but will allow for some flexibility.

Open- where the discussion is around a topic but the participant can direct the interview in which way he/she wants to.

I think the best way for me to progress now with the module is to complete activity 7 and try to fix my project topic. I now know about the types of research and what tools but in order to plan which ones I will use I need to be more clear about my final project.