rm b62011 ( editted )

8/6/2019 RM b62011 ( editted )

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Dr Arbab I B Faris 1Dr Arbab I B Faris 1

Research Methods

Instructor: Dr Arbab I. B. Faris

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C ourse Outlines The overall aim of this course is to int roduce student s to

the process and basic tools and techniques of conduct ingresearch in business-related areas. This is intended as a

preparat ion for the more complex issues encountered inthe conduct ing real research. Student s will be able to design basic research programmes

with realist ic object ives, appropriate methodologies andwithin a manageable t imescale whilst underst anding thelimit at ions of a chosen research approach and method of primary dat a capture. They will also be able to apply basictechniques of quant it at ive and qualit at ive dat a analysis.They will also know how to crit ically evaluate their ownand other peoples' research.

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T opics covered include: Basic concept s and def init ions of relevance Writ ing a research proposal Formulat ion of research problem Quest ionnaire design Sampling: probabilit y and non-probabilit y methods Dat a collect ion through measurement and/or

observat ion Dat a management . Dat a analysis Disseminat ion of research f indings

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Assessment Scheme This course is assessed by a written

mid- and end- of term examinat ionswhich count for 100 per cent of the marks.

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T exts: Ranjit Kumar (2005). Research Methodology. A

step by step guide for beginners.2nd Edition. Sage

Publications. London- New Delhi. Mamoun M A Homeida et al (2008).Roadmap to

Research Methods for HealthProfessionals.UMST Printing Press, Khartoum,

Sudan.

Donald R. C ooper and Pamela S. Schindler (2001).Business Research Methods.7th Edition.McGraw-Hill.

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Basic C oncepts and Definitions

Definition of Research

Research is def ined as scientific andsystematic investigation to find out orrevise facts or add to knowledge about a specific topic, test models and develop

theories about a natural aspect .

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Basic C oncepts and Definitions In it s most general sense research is

simply a search for knowledge or truth . The search process it self involves

collecting information about a subject

f rom a variet y of sources including books, journals and the Internet or by carrying out surveys or experiment s or t alking to peopleand analysis of this informat ion.

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Objectives of Research

Research generally attempt s to find answers to quest ionsthrough the applicat ion of scient if ic procedures. The main aim of research is to f ind out the t ruth which is hidden and which has not been discovered as yet to gain f amiliarit y with a phenomenon or toachieve new insight s into it . More specif ically research aims at :1. port raying accurately the characterist ics of a part icular individual

object s, a situat ion or a group.2. determining the f requency with which something occurs or with

which it is associated with something else.3. present ing a hypothesis about causal relat ionship bet ween

variables

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W hat is Research Methodology?

Research Methodology is def ined as

a highly intellectual human act ivit y usedin the invest igat ion of nature andmatter and deals specif ically with themanner in which dat a is collected,analyzed and interpreted.

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T ypes of Research Methods Four t ypes of research methods:

1. Qualit at ive,2. Quant it at ive,

3. Mixed (qualit at ive and quant it at ive) ,and

4. Crit ical and act ion oriented.

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W hat C onstitutes a Research T opic?

A Research T opic is an unanswered

quest ion, an unsolved quest ion, aConcern, a Query, or a St atement of inquiry.

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How to C hoose a Research T opic?

A Topic is chosen for research eitherbecause of Personal interest , Socialproblem, Test ing theory, or Program

evaluat ion.

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T ypes of Research:

1. Descriptive research:It describes the st ate of aff airs as it exist s at present .

2. Analytical research:It analyses f act s or informat ion already available to make a crit icalevaluat ion of the material.

3. Applied research:

It aims at f inding a solut ion for an immediate problem f acing asociet y.

4. Quantitative research It is based on the measurement of quant it y.

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T ypes of research:5. Qualitative research:

It aims at discovering the underlying mot ives of human behavior.

6. Empirical research:It relies on experience or observat ion alone.

7. One-time research:It is conf ined to a single t ime period

8. Longitudinal research:The research is carried out over several t ime periods

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Research Proposals Having decided on the research topic and

def ined a clear research quest ion or set of

quest ions, together with appropriatemethods of seeking answers, you nowneed to convey your plan of research

clearly in a research proposal. This precedes the design and

implement at ion of a research.

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Research Proposals A research proposal is a formal plan

encompassing the purpose and the

methodology of the study. It brief ly cont ainsthe following element s:1. An int roduct ion:

This is a brief overview of the relatedconceptual issues and/or historicaldevelopment s of some aspect s of relevance to the research topic.

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Research Proposals (contd) 2. A precise st atement of research problem

or quest ion.

3. Reasons for undert aking the research

(signif icance).

4. St atement of research Object ives.

5. Specif icat ion of Parameters (indicators)of the study and/or hypotheses to be tested.

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Research Proposals (contd) 6. Specif icat ion of element s and Target populat ion (or

universe).

7. Specif icat ion of main study variables; i.e. characterist icsof element s of interest , and their t ypes.

8. Specif icat ion of the appropriate dat a collect ion mode.

Generally there are three modes:

i. Experiment at ion,ii. Surveying, and

iii. Cont inuous regist rat ion system.

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Research Proposals (contd)

9. Specif icat ion of appropriate Sample or Experiment alDesign.

Consequent ly the appropriate sample size and it sallocat ion should be specif ied.

10. Specif icat ion of dat a collect ion method.

11. Dat a Management/Processing ,t abulat ion, andanalysis plans.

12. Time schedule.13. Budget s.

14. References cited.

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Research Proposals (contd)

Remark:

T o be able to formulate the research problem, prepare a research proposal, and conduct a

research scientifically , literature of relevance

should be thoroughly and critically reviewed.

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W hat is Literature Review?

A Lit era tu re revi ew is :

1. a Sy st ema tic revi ew of ava il a bl e resou r c es,

2 . Th eo retic a l and co n c eptu a l co n c epts

3 . Id en tific a tio n of i n d epen d en t an d d epen d en t v ar i a bl es

4 . Mea su remen t an d op era tio na l d efi n itio n s

5. Sel ectio n of a pp r op r i a t e res ear c h t ec h n iqu e

6 . Sam pli ng st ra t egy , S t a tistic a l t ec h n iqu e

7 . Fi n d i ng s an d co n clusio n s of si m il ar a l rea d y execut ed stu d i es of rel ev an c e.

U su a ll y , S ou r c es of I n fo rma tio n fo r Lit era tu re Revi ew are

B ooks, Jou rna ls, I n t ernet, D a t a ba s es, Ar c h iv es, I n t er vi ew s, O bs er v a tio n s, Repo r ts, an d Reco r d s .

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Research Proposals

(contd) W hy Developing a Research Proposal? Research proposals serve the following purposes:

1. They convince others that your research is worthundert aking.

2. They enable you to demonstrate expertise andcompetency in your part icular area of study.

3. They may serve as a contract bet ween the

researcher and his /her funders.4. They serve as a planning tool for the researcher.

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Main Phases of Research

1. Formulation of Research Problem:

T his includes: Checking the existence of a problem that

needs to, and can, be studied.

A Research problem/topic is an unansweredquest ion, an unsolved quest ion, a Concern, a Query, or

a St atement of inquiry. A problem /topic is chosen for research eitherbecause of personal interest , social problem,test ing theory, or program evaluat ion.

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Dr Arbab I B Faris 24

Main Phases of Research (contd) Formulat ing and delimit ing that problem.

Is it relevant and execut able?

Checking the adequacy of resources (namely; t ime,personnel, and money) available for the research.

Can we do it in a t imely manner?

Are resources available?

Will it be accurate enough to be useful? Is the informat ion worth the cost of the study?

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Main Phases of Research (contd) 2. Statement of Research Objectives:

T his includes the specification of: Parameters of interest and t h e hypotheses (if any) to be

tested; Study variables (i.e. variables of relevance to the st ated

object ives); St at ist ical techniques to be used at the analysis st age (at least

tent at ively) ; and Element s and t arget populat ion (these usually differ f rom one

study to another depending on the study object ives).The nature of the study (i.e. whether descript ive or analyt ic)may now be specif ied.

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Main Phases of Research (contd) 3. Review Existing Sources of Data:

Is the information required already available? At this st age one needs to check if any adequate data of

relevance exist in any accessible source(s).

Generally, there are t wo sources of dat a:

primary and

secondary . As such dat a may either be primary or secondary.

(what about ter tiary sources?)

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Data and their Sources

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Primary and Secondary Data Definition:

Dat a which are collected at f irst hand either

by the researcher or by someone else for thepurpose of the research are known asprimary dat a.

Definition: Any dat a which have been gathered earlierfor some other purpose are secondary dat a inthe hands of the researcher.

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Primary and Secondary Data As a researcher one should be fully

aware of the advant ages and limit at ions

of each t ype of dat a.

Emphasis will be on Secondary dat a.

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Advantages of Secondary Data 1. A major advant age of SD is that it is f ar

more economical ,as the cost of collect ing

original dat a is saved.2. It saves much of the researchers t ime. This

leads to prompt complet ion of the research.

3. Search for SD is helpful in gaining f amiliarit ywith such dat a and thereby pinpoint ing toit s def iciencies and gaps.

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Advantages of Secondary Data As such, the researcher can make hisprimary dat a collect ion more specif ic and

more relevant to his research.4. As a researcher explores the availabilit y of

SD of relevance to his research, s /he f inds,in the process, that her /his underst anding

of the problem has improved. S /He mayeven have to change some of her /his earlierideas in the light of the secondary dat a.

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Advantages of Secondary Data 5. SD can be used as a basis for comparison

with the primary dat a the researcher has

just collected.

Save cost

Save t ime

Improve underst anding of the problem

gaining f amiliarit y with such dat a

Basis for comparison w /PD

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Disadvantages of Secondary Data 1. SD seldom f it perfect ly, in a number of

f actors, into the f ramework of the current

research. These f actors are:- the unit s of analysis used in secondarydat a may not be the same as required inthe current research.e.g., the size of a f irm

can be expressed as the number of employees, paid-up capit al employed, grosssales, gross or net prof it ,et c.

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Disadvantages of Secondary Data It is just possible that the unit of measurement used in SD is different

f rom the one needed in the current research. In this case, SD can not beused.

Even if the unit s are the same asthose required by the current research,class boundaries may bedifferent f rom those required.

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Disadvantages of Secondary Data 2. One does not always know how accurate the

SD are. In case the degree of inaccuracy is

high, the use of this dat a will underminethe ut ilit y of the current research result s.

3. A severe limit at ion in the use of SD is that they be somewhat out of date. For, the ut ilit y

of SD declines progressively as t ime goes by,and they are f inally useful only for historicalpurpose.

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Evaluating Secondary Data It is always advisable to explore the possibilit y

of using SD in any research because it is

cheaper.In this connect ion there are fourrequirement s to be met :

1. Availabilit y:

SD, when they exist , must be available for use.When SD are either not available orinaccessible, there is no alternat ive but to t akerecourse to the collect ion of primary dat a.

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Evaluating Secondary Data 2. Relevance:

Relevance of SD refers to the f act that the dat a available must f it therequirement s of the research problemin terms of unit s of measurement and

dat a should not be obsolete.

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Evaluating Secondary Data 3. Accuracy:

Here one should consult the originalsource to know the context in which dat ahave been collected, and the procedurefollowed, as well as the extent of care

exercised in their collect ion.

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Evaluating Secondary Data 4. Suff iciency:

It refers to the adequacy of SD. If SD areinadequate, the compliance with thepreceding requirement s will be in vain.

One may seek answers to quest ions

regarding the sample design, thequest ionnaire, and the extent of nonresponse and how it was handled.

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Evaluating Secondary Data Generally, a thorough evaluat ion of SD and

underst anding of their potent ial limit at ions

involves the applicabilit y to the researchobject ives, cost of acquisit ion, and dat aaccuracy.

Availabilit y

Relevance

Accuracy

Suff iciency

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Main Phases of Research (contd)

4. C onsider the Suitable Data C ollection Mode:The appropriate mode of dat a collect ion follows f rom the specif ied study

object ives and the nature of populat ion members.

Basically there are three modes of dat a collect ion: Surveying:

A survey is the measurement and/or observat ion of thecharacterist ics of members of the populat ion as they exist andwithout exercising any cont rol over the f actors which may affect them.

Experimentation:

Ad ministrative (continuous) registration.

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5. Questionnaire Design

A quest ionnaire is the f irst dat a collect iontool. It s design refers to the writ ing of simple worded direct and/or probingtopical quest ions using nontechnical

phrases and systemat ically groupingthem themat ically avoiding leadingquest ions.

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Main Phases of Research (contd) 6. C hoose to conduct full or partial coverage

or a combination of both 1. A partial coverage involves measuring and/ or observing

the characteristics of a limited number of members of the

target population (i.e. a sample).

2. A complete coverage measures and/or observes the characteristics of all members of the target population.

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Advantages of Partial over C omplete C overage

Partial C overage C omplete C overage

Less expensive More expensiveLess t ime More t ime

More accurate dat a (lessmeasurement errors)

Less accurate dat a (moremeasurement errors)

Applicable whenmeasurement process isdest ruct ive.

Not applicable whenmeasurement process isdest ruct ive.

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W hich to use?

Because of these and some other reasonspart ial coverage of the t arget populat ion

members is the appropriate approach toundert ake in many applied researches.

However, when the f rame required for

select ing a random sample is lacking ordiff icult to obt ain, then conduct ing acomplete coverage becomes inevit able.

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W hich to use? (contd)

Somet imes, both part ial and completecoverage are used concurrent ly in the

same invest igat ion.

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Main Phases of Research (contd) 7. Sample Design :

A sample design is the process of select ing some members of the t arget populat ion with the intent of using theirdat a for est imat ing a parameter or

test ing a hypothesis.

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T ypes of samples:

1.Random sample (probability sample):

This is a select ion procedure wherebyeach member of the populat ion is given aknown nonzero chance of select ion intothe sample.

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T ypes of samples (contd)

2. Nonrandom sample (nonprobability or judgment

sample)

This is based on some prior knowledge of thepopulat ion members whereby only those whichsat isf y cert ain condit ions are chosen.

The select ion probabilit y in this case is eitherzero or one.

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T ypes of samples (contd)

C omparison:1. Probabilit y samples are represent at ive samples

and allow inference about populat ioncharacterist ics to be drawn.

2. Probabilit y samples are relat ively moreexpensive.

3. No inference can be drawn f rom nonprobabilit ysamples.

4. Nonprobabilit y samples are relat ively lessexpensive.

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Popular types of random sampling 1. Simple random sampling,

2. St rat if ied random sampling,

3. Cluster sampling , and

4. Systemat ic sampling.

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Sample Design (contd)

The following f actors determine the randomsample design to use in any part icularresearch:

(a) The populat ion st ructure and nature of it selement s,

(b) The st ated object ives,(c) Readily available informat ion (i.e. auxiliary

informat ion),(d) Tot al resources devoted for the

invest igat ion.

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Sampling Distributions Usually the select ion of sample members is made at random.

As such, performance of the same select ion procedurerepeatedly yields samples with different component s. If amethod of est imat ion is used for these sample dat a, different

st at ist ics will be obt ained. The result ing st at ist ics form the so-called sampling dist ribut ion of the est imator upon which allinference f rom sample surveys rest s.

We usually study the propert ies of the est imator by using thisdist ribut ion.

Sampling dist ribut ions usually differ in accordance with thesample design and est imator; that is, different sample designsand est imators induce different sampling dist ribut ions.

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Determination of Sample Size: To determine the number of element s to

include into the sample; i.e. sample size,

one needs to specif y:

(a) The maximum allowable margin of error,

(b) The conf idence level, and

(c) The populat ion st andard error (or it sest imate).

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Sample size for estimating population mean under different

designs T he design Sample size , n

Simple Random

Sampling

Stratified Random

Sampling

1. Proportional allocation:

2. Neyman allocation:

3. Optimum allocation:

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Sample size for estimating population mean under different

designs (contd)

T he design Sample size

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Main Phases of Research (contd) 8. Pilot Survey :

At this st age one may think of conduct ing a

pilot (a pretest) survey to check theadequacy of the quest ionnaire andinterviewers inst ruct ions as well as acquiring

some informat ion about design variables of use in determining the appropriate samplesize.

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9.Selection of the Sample: Prior to the select ion of sample members one has to

specif y the sampling unit s which, in many pract ical cases(except under simple random sampling) ,differ f rom theelement s, and acquire the sampling f rame.

Use the random numbers t ables to draw sampling unit s. Y ou may sample with or without replacement . In

pract ice sampling without replacement is widely used forno obvious reason except that it avoids incurringaddit ional cost s for pract ically no addit ional informat ion.

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Methods of Data C ollection

Face to f ace

Telephone

By post

E-mail /Internet

Self-administrated

Interviewer

-administrated

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Self-administered interview Advantages:

Cheap and easy to administer

Preserves conf ident ialit y

Completed at respondent 's convenience

No inf luence by interviewer

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Self-administered interview Disadvantages:

Low response rate

Quest ions can be misunderstood

No cont rol by interviewer

Time and resouces loss

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Interviewer-administered interview Advantages:

Part icipat ion by illiterate people

Clarif icat ion of ambiguit y

Quick answers

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Interviewer-administered interview Disadvantages:

Interviewer bias

Needs more resources

Only short quest ionnairespossible

Especially on telephone Diff icult for sensit ive issues

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(11) Data management:This refers to the preparation of data for analysis and includes:Office editing:

I.e. revising the raw dat a as they come in the completedquest ionnaires f rom the f ield for inconsistencies and nonresponse(if any) and t aking necessary steps for resolving them.

Postcoding:This is giving codes to answers of open-ended quest ions whichusually t ake place as part of off ice edit ing process.

Data entering and verification:I.e. entering coded answers into the computer using suit ablesoft ware.This also involves dat a verif icat ion and validat ion of the enteringprocess which, among other act ivit ies, also involves producingf requency t ables.

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(12) Data Organization and Analysis:

This includes:(a) Ext ract ing descript ive measures f rom the

dat a,(b) Using advanced st at ist ical techniques to

analyze the dat a and draw inferences theref rom (remember that the technique(s) touse depends on the object ives and t ype of

variable)(c) Calculat ing the sampling errors (andsomet imes the design effect s - deff s).

(d) Interpret ing the result s.

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(13) Report W riting: Report writing i s presenting t he result of your

resear ch, an alysi s, an d in vestigation s, in a written for m.

It s main purpose i s to communi cate t he result s ofresear ch, field work, or an y ot her acti vit y. Successfully written resear ch report present s t he

con crete evi den ce of t he resear ch con ducted. In report writing, you also must con si der clarit y, organiz ation, an d content

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Report W

riting (cont·d) The report usually includes, in addit ion to theabstract, an introduction , the

methodology used, a summary of mainfindings , the sampling errors togetherwith any problems encountered during thecourse of the invest igat ion, and

recommendations. A list of references should also be annexed.

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(14) Abstract

This is an abbreviated summary

of the research problem,methodology , findings , andsignificance.

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(15) Dissemination of Research Results This involves communicat ing the main

research result s and f indings.

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Presenting the Results Int roduct ion

Research Purpose

Research Object ives Methodology (Research Approach)

Findings

Limit at ions

Conclusions and Recommendat ions

Appendices

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