Research Methodology Basics

Research Methods and Techniques for Urban Land Development and Management

• Module Code: UIPM6023
• Instructor: Dr. Degu Bekele, College of Urban Development and Engineering, ECSU
• Date: October 2024

Module Outline

• By the end of the module, participants will be able to:
  • Understand the basics of research.
  • Design a smart research proposal and conduct research independently and in teams on urban development and management issues.
  • Write and present research findings attractively and understandably to an audience.
  • Critically review relevant literature pertinent to proposed research projects.
  • Evaluate the methodology of other research reports.

Module Outline (Continued)

• Portions and Topics:
  • Portion 1: Introduction and Types of Research
  • Portion 2: Data Collection and Measuring
  • Portion 3: Sample, Sampling Design, and Sampling Distribution
  • Portion 4: Variables & Scale of Measurements
  • Portion 5: Research Proposal Development
  • Portion 6: Research Ethics
  • Portion 7: Referencing Styles
  • Portion 8: Qualitative Research methods and Approaches to Data Analysis
  • Portion 9: Quantitative Data Analysis (Descriptive Statistics)
  • Portion 10: Quantitative Data Analysis (Inferential Statistics)
  • Portion 11-14: Practical Sessions on the Application of SPSS

Assessment

• Test: 20%
• Individual Assignment (Research Proposal Development): 20%
• Group Assignment (SPSS Practical Application): 20%
• Final Examination: 40%

Grading System

• Different score ranges correspond to letter grades (A+, A, A-, B+, etc.)

Module Policy

• Attendance: Mandatory
• Classroom Behavior: Contribute in class discussions, meet assignment deadlines, maintain discipline, be punctual, turn off cell phones.
• Late Submissions: Not acceptable
• Missing Exams/Tests: Allowed only in exceptional cases (medical/emergency) and require supporting documentation

Introduction to Research

• Learning Objectives:
  • Recognize the concepts and essence of research.
  • Appreciate the objectives of research.
  • Identify the characteristics of research.
  • Compare research paradigms.
  • Familiarize with the research process.
  • Identify various research types.

Meaning of Research

• A scientific and systematic search for pertinent information on a specific topic.
• A systematic process of enunciating the problem, collecting facts, analyzing facts, and reaching conclusions.

Objectives of Research

• Move beyond guesswork and test commonsense.
• Understand what really is happening.
• Gain familiarity with a phenomenon.
• Portray accurately the characteristics of individuals, situations, or groups.
• Determine the frequency of occurrences or associations.
• Test hypotheses about causal relationships between variables.

Motivation in Research

• Desire for a research degree.
• Challenge of solving unsolved problems.
• Intellectual joy from creative work.
• Service to society.
• Gaining respectability.
• Government directives, employment conditions, curiosity about new things, desire to understand causal relationships.

Significance of Research

• Progress is born from inquiry and doubt, not overconfidence.
• Research makes progress possible.
• Research develops logical thinking and organizational skills.
• Research provides a basis for nearly all government policies.
• Research allows for alternative policy development and examination of consequences.

Characteristics of Research

• Controlled: Minimizing the effects of other factors affecting a relationship.
• Rigorous: Procedures followed are relevant, appropriate, and justified.
• Systematic: The procedure follows a logical sequence.
• Valid and Verifiable: Conclusions are correct and can be verified.
• Empirical: Conclusions are based on hard evidence from real-life experiences or observations.
• Critical: The investigation process is foolproof and free from drawbacks.

Research Paradigms

• Two main paradigms in social sciences: Positivist and Naturalistic.

Positivism

• Associated with questionnaires, social surveys, and experimental design.
• Results in "hard", numerate, statistical data, contrasting with the "soft" data of the naturalistic approach.
• Believes in a real world independent of human perception.

Naturalism

• Favors ethnography, unstructured interviews, and qualitative techniques.
• People construct their own realities.
• Believes there are no universal laws external to human interaction.
• Seeks to understand sociological knowledge and social reality.

Comparing Positivist and Naturalist Approaches

• Positivist: Aims to discover the truth, knower and known are separate entities; emphasis on observable facts and control; data is often quantified; goal is generalization.
• Naturalist: Realities are multiple, constructed, interconnected; knower and known are interactive; emphasis is on describing situations using the perspectives of individuals involved; rich qualitative data; goal is to understand local contexts.

Theory and Research

• Two inseparable aspects of knowledge production and continuous improvement.
• Theory is a systematically and logically interrelated set of propositions that describe, explain, and predict events.
• Theory guides research and research contributes to theory development, verification, and refutation.
• Two approaches to the theory-research cycle: inductive and deductive.

Inductive Approach

• Moves from specific to general, starting with empirical observations and analysis, creating generalizations that formulate the theory.
• Often referred to as theory-building or theory-generation research.
• Qualitative research is associated with it.

Deductive Approach

• Moves from general to specific, starting with theory and assumptions to derive hypotheses, leading to observations, and finally generalizations which either support, modify, or reject existing theories.
• Quantitative research is associated with it.

The Research Process

• 1. Problem Identification:

  • Recognition of factual ignorance.
  • Not equivalent to a social problem.
  • Sources: Personal experience, literature and/or existing theories.
  • Factors influencing topic choice: Research interest, current debate, funding, and power of research subjects.

• 2. Literature Review:

  • Checking for existing research studies addressing the problem/topic.
  • Gaining insight into how similar problems have been approached.
  • Identifying theoretical and conceptual frameworks relevant to the problem.
  • Refining the research problem.

• 3. Refining the Research Problem:

  • Identifying specific objectives of the research.
  • Define the research using the five "Ws": What, Why, Who, Where, When.

• 4. Designing the Research:

  • Deciding on appropriate research design and method based on reliability, validity, and representativeness.

• 5. Defining the Population & Data Collection:

  • Defining parameters of the target population and data collection methods.

• 6. Analyzing the Data:

  • Conceptualization: organize and reduce large amount of raw data into workable bits to analyze.

• 7. Interpreting the Results:

  • Relating findings to the objectives and goals of the study.

• 8. Reporting the Findings:

  • Final step of the research.

Units of Analysis

• Units of observation that researchers examine; create summary descriptions, explaining differences amongst them.
  • Common Units of Analysis:
    • Individuals
    • Groups
    • Organizations
    • Social Interactions
    • Social Artifacts

Types of Research

• Application Perspective:

  • Pure/Basic/Fundamental Research: Seeks intellectually challenging knowledge, not necessarily immediately applicable. Extensive, often conducted in a laboratory; may later inform applied research and social policy.
    • Example: Increasing knowledge of how societies work.
  • Applied Research: Aims for immediate application; focus on solving specific problems, improves techniques or processes, and/or enhances theories. Often focused on an area of practice and concerned with achieving practical solutions, and improving specific outcomes

• Objective Perspective:

  • Descriptive Research: Describes a situation, problem, phenomenon, service, or program. Often involves surveys of community attitudes and conditions.
    • Example: Service provision, organization structure, living conditions.
  • Correlational Research: Aims to identify relationships and associations between aspects of a situation.
    • Example: Impact of advertising, relationship between stress and heart attacks.
  • Explanatory Research: Seeks to clarify causes and effects between aspects of a phenomenon.
    • Example: Examining why certain behaviors are linked to specific outcomes.
  • Exploratory Research: Explore an area where little information is understood; identify possibilities for conducting further studies; develop and refine measurement tools.
    • Example: Exploring strategies for improving product flavors.

• Mode of Inquiry Perspective:

  • Structured (Quantitative): Predetermined research elements.
    • Pros: Data easier to analyze, compare. Cons: might miss important factors or nuanced responses.
  • Unstructured (Qualitative): Flexible research design; explores variation and diversity within a phenomenon, issue, or attitude.
    • Pros: Deep understanding of an issue, cons: might be time-consuming, more challenging to analyze data

• The classification of research types ("application", "objective", and "mode") is not mutually exclusive. A single research can often fit into multiple categories.

This quiz covers fundamental concepts of research methodology, including sources of research problems, research paradigms, and various research approaches. Test your understanding of the research process and the different types of research conducted in social sciences.