Research process

In order to conduct a proper research and get a good outcome of understanding it is important to follow a methodological way of conducting the investigation. Over time many people have come up with methods to conduct a good research analysis.

All researches are not the same they are always done in different ways but although they may not be the same some similar features can be seen in researches .they all follow the same principles.

Good principles in research according to White( 2006)

1.      A clear statement of research aims

2.      There is an information sheet for participants stating what the research is about

3.      The methodology is appropriate to the research question.( if it should have a more qualitative approach  or a more quantitative research approach)

4.      The research should be carried out in an unbiased fashion

5.      Appropriate and sufficient resources in terms of people, time, transport, money should be available

6.      Should have a full understanding of the subject area before conducting, analyzing and supervising the research.

7.      In some instances, it helps if the researcher has experience of working in the area but should remain unbiased.

8.      If applicable, the information generated from the research will inform the policy-making process.

9.      All research should be ethical and not harmful in any way to the participants.

Steps in research process

Many people have defined many ways of conducting researches these are some of the methods.

Method 01: According to University System of Georgia(2014) there are 10 steps involved.

1.      Formulate your question

2.      Get background information

3.      Refine your search topic

4.      Consider your resource options

5.      Select the appropriate tool

6.      Use the tool

7.      Locate your materials

8.      Analyze your materials

9.      Organize and write

10.  Compose your bibliography

Method 02 : According to Gall, Borg and Gall( 1996) the following steps should be followed.

1.      Identify a significant research problem that is feasible .

2.      Prepare a research proposal consisting of the following sections :

·         Introductory

·         Literature review

·         Research design

·         Research method

·         Data analysis

·         Protection of human subject section

·         Timeline

3.      A pilot study to develop and try out data-collection methods and other procedures.

4.      The main study

5.      Documentation of a report.

Anglin, Ross and Morrsion (1995) took a closer look at the stages of a research and they advised a sequence of planning steps. These steps are very familiar to the steps we learned in class as well.

Step 01: Select a topic

Doing a research requires a great deal of effort and commitment therefore one should always consider their own areas of interest when deciding on a topic.

Step 02: Selecting / narrowing to a specific problem

A research problem cannot be immediately identified one would have study the scenario or process under investigation and taking into account of past records and observation the problem can be narrowed down. The researcher should identify the problem and see how it affects the users in a long run and also to find out what needs to be done to overcome the problem.

Step 03: The literature search

This is done for two reasons

·         To build up the researcher's knowledge base of the topic under exploration in order to ensure the significance of the research.

·         To make sure that the research will be able to contribute to the knowledge in the related field compared with the existing research literature.

In order to do that the researcher must:

·         Read critically – question what the author has said.

·         Read creatively – to look at the paper positively and see what are the contributions what can be taken out of it to improve the research.

·         Make notes

·         After the reading try to summarize the paper to one or two sentences- identify the base paper(base pare is a paper that you can base your research on)

·         If possible compare to other works

·         Make one page review of the paper.

How to read a paper-

·          Read the abstract- to get the area of applicability 

·         Read the conclusion – to see the authors finding and how it can be used to your projects

·         Critical analysis – read a large amount of material and relate to the other paper.

·         Always take down notes and summarize what you have read and your thoughts on areas in the paper.

·         Find out the sources used in the paper

Goal of reading papers /research

Identify the scientific contributions

Step 04: State the Research Question

This is to specify what questions the research study should answer .This would help to provide the basis of planning other parts of the study.

Step 05: Determine the Research Design

·         To decide if the research is based Experimental/Positivist Study, Correlation Study or Qualitative/Naturalist Study

Step 06: Determine Methods

Three major elements in the research study need to be considered:

·         Participants

·         Materials and instruments.

·         Procedures

Step 07 : Identify Analysis Procedures

Different research questions and different research designs require different analysis method to take. Its import to choose the best method that will fit the type of problem investigation and allow the research to get the accurate data for the investigation.