Research Methodology Lecture 1

Scientific Research

• Must be systemic, objective, and theory-dependent
• Systemic: uses procedures and measurement instruments that are reliable (consistent) and valid (measures what it is supposed to measure)
• Objective: unbiased, non-normative, and transparent
• Theory-dependent: undertaken within a framework of a set of philosophies (e.g., positivism, interpretivism, critical theory, pragmatism, postmodernism) and adds to existing knowledge/theory

Types of Research

• Descriptive: describes something in the world (1 variable), e.g., how large is the population of storks in the Netherlands?
• Correlational: investigates the relationship between two or more variables, e.g., is the number of storks related to the number of babies?
• Explanatory: explains why things are as they are, e.g., is the number of babies caused by the number of storks?

Primary and Secondary Data

• Primary: collected by yourself through field work or laboratory research, e.g., surveys, questionnaires, interviews, observations, experiments
• Secondary: primary data collected by others, e.g., academic journals, government/industry reports, databases, books/newspapers
• Note: secondary data can provide background/context to primary data

Fundamental Approaches

• Empirical Research: based on observed and measured phenomena, e.g., experiments, surveys, observations, case study
• Non-Empirical Research: based on theoretic analysis, logical reasoning, and existing research, e.g., literature reviews, theoretic modeling, conceptual analysis

Sciences

• Beta: natural and technical sciences
• Gamma: social sciences
• Alpha: arts and humanities (language, law, philosophy)
• The relationship between beta-gamma is important to prevent technocratic failure

Research Approach

• Quantitative: measures through variables/numbers, e.g., testing hypotheses, cause-effect, predict
• Qualitative: describes the world in terms of words, e.g., meaning, concepts, definitions, characteristics
• Reductionist approach: identifying regularities that apply to many cases (general patterns)

Research Orientation

• Applied/Practice-Oriented: gain knowledge for solving a practical problem
• Fundamental/Theory-Oriented: gain knowledge to expand existing knowledge about a specific topic (without application in mind)

Research Cycles

• Empirical Cycle: observation, induction, deduction, testing, and evaluation
• Regulative Cycle: problem identification, diagnosis, design, implementation, and evaluation (only used for practical problems)

Research Objective

• External Objective: states the problem to be solved or improved
• Internal Objective: states the knowledge to be produced

Formulating Research Questions

• General Research Question (GRQ): needs to be answered to reach the research objective
• Specific Research Questions (SRQs): cover segments of the GRQ, e.g., tree diagram, path diagram

Operationalization

• From concepts to variables: how to measure your concepts
• Steps to operationalization: conceptualization, definition, measurement, and data collection

Reliability and Measurement Validity

• Reliability: the quality of the measurement instrument or operationalization
• Measurement Validity: does the instrument measure what it is supposed to measure without error?

Study Design

• Quantitative Study Designs: experimental, cross-sectional, longitudinal, case study
• Measurement Scale: nominal, ordinal, interval, ratio

Hypothesis

• Non-Relational Hypothesis: expectations about the level or distribution of one or more variables