2. Research design and questions Flashcards
What is research?
A collection of information
-Evidence based conclusions about real world problems
-Starts with a research question
Research design - plan on how to answer RQ, plan for sampling
How to find a research question?
- Own interest
- Observation
- Theoretically motivated- do your literature review!
- Gap in our existing knowledge
- Contradicting existing theories
- Empirical evidence contradicting theory
- Boundaries for existing theory
What is a research question?
Exact interrogative statement, aim of the overall study, giving it direction,
relevance and coherence (boundaries).
Success of the project- did you actually answer your research question?
What is a good RQ?
- Gives you a reason to conduct the research
- Specific enough- mentions units of analysis, points to the data needed and
analysis, limit research area/theories - Gives you a starting point to think and write the entire paper as an
argument, with grand finale- answering your RQ - Gives you the terminology that limits your audience and literature
Good and bad RD?
Quality criteria- generalizability, validity, replicability …
* The match between RQ and design determines priorities
* If causal RQ- causality important for RD
* If RQ about population- generalizability important
Bad research design- not thinking through all the choices in the research
process, lacking in allignment
* Patching- I did a mistake in my survey (missing a variable) so now I am
trying to do quick interviews in order to cover it up
* Starting from the wrong end-
What is practices?
Ways to collect and analyze data
Name two methods of collecting data
Quantitative and qualitative
Name 6 research designs
Survey
Interview
Experiment
Observation - naturalistic and participant
Archival - data and textual archives
Combination
What is a survey design
Sample survey- information is gathered from a representative group of people (census- whole population)
When to use survey
Subjective attitudes, values, opinions, intentions
* Social desirability bias- big problem when asking about sensitive topics (although anonymity helps)
* Can understand and remember!
* Objective information that is too complex to access
* Best- combination with objective secondary data
Interview design
- Research interview- detailed information is gathered from a selected individual (representativeness
is important here too, but less so in comparison to the survey) - Aimed more at understanding a phenomenon rather than generalizing
- Frequently combined with different designs
When to use interview?
- Subjective attitudes, values, opinions, feelings- just like survey, but the complexity matters here
- Would take way too many questions in a survey to get the complexity you are looking for?
- Do you have expectations for the answers?
- Internal or external phenomena?
- Surveys often ask multiple respondents about the same external phenomena (to find ”objective” truth)
- Interviews better at capturing internal phenomena
What choices should be made when making an interview?
- Degree of structure
- Types of questions asked- exploratory, descriptive, explanatory, confirmatory…
- Group interviews
- Different interview modes
- Formal/informal site
Experiment design
Randomized control trials- random selection and assignment of participants/cases into
experimental grous, controlled treatment, so the differences in outcomes can be only
due to treatment
When to use experiment design?
Is the research question focusing on causality?
* Is the RQ about cause and effect- asking whether a relationship exists? Or is it asking about a
process- how a relationship unfolds?
* Causality will come at a price- trade-off
* To achieve generalization to entire population through experimentation is difficult and
expensive!
* To avoid self-selection is difficult
* To simulate the real-life condition in an experiment is difficult
* To make people behave naturally is difficult
