C3 Flashcards
how important is defining the research problem?
Everything follows from the definition of the problem, and thus it should be done clearly and accurately - the importance of this cannot be overstated. If the problem has not been clearly and accurately defined you will not be generating the information or gathering the evidence that you need to address the problem and it is likely that research will be a waste of time.
what is the importance of defining research problem?
Everything follows from the definition of the problem, and thus it should be done clearly and accurately - the importance of this cannot be overstated. If the problem has not been clearly and accurately defined you will not be generating the information or gathering the evidence that you need to address the problem and it is likely that research will be a waste of time.
who is involved in defining research problem?
Defining the decision maker’s problem and the research problem & getting to the specific research objectives can involve several rounds of discussion with the owner of the problem, that is the decision maker, and client’s internal researcher. Most discussions may happen with the decision maker and internal researcher before an external researcher (consultant or agency researcher) is consulted - but they may be involved from the onset to provide valuable insights within early stages. Some of these discussions may be revisited if, upon receipt of a brief, external researcher finds that some elements are not clear.
how is a business problem translated into a research problem?
The process of turning a business problem to a research problem is as follows:
Client identifying business problem e.g. how to address a decline in sales
Client acknowledges that a lack of information meant that this was something that research could aid in e.g. why are sales declining
Information that will clarify this issue may be available within organisation and from external sources - this could be called an informal exploratory research stage which may test ideas or hypotheses
Information clarified the research problem, helped identify what the client needs to know in order to make a decision about what action to take
In clarifying information needs, and listing research objectives, it becomes apparent what sort of research enquiry this would be
The researcher and decision maker must be clear about what action might be taken because the aim of any research will be to deliver information that will allow decision maker to take the most effeffective course of action.
what is the importance of knowing nature of research enquiry in writing brief
It is important to recognise what type of enquiry you require, particularly in writing briefs in order for researchers to make the correct choices in research design depending on the nature of enquiry - as each have distinct purposes.
what is explortory rsearch? when is good to use? disadvantages?
Aims to explore, become familiar with topic or issues around a problem. Helpful in the following:
‘Unpacking’ issue
Insight into an unfamiliar topic
Clarifying nature of a problem
Defining scope of an investigation
Determining feasibility of conducting further research
Developing propositions and hypotheses for further research
Disadvantages may be that research may not deliver a definitive or conclusive answer to the research. This is due to sampling and representativeness - in exploring an issue you are unlikely to have the information to determine an accurate population of interest and in turn deliver a representative sample of this.
what is descriptive research?
Collecting data to describe people, places, things, events, situations and experiences and finding the answers to who? What? Why? Where? When? How? And how many? Questions. Should give a picture of the market, set of customers, user of product or service, experience.
The difference between exploratory research and descriptive research is that while exploratory research can deliver description, to choose descriptive research you should have a clear idea of what you need - you will have a clearly defined set of research questions or objectives and an idea of the data you need to inform decisions posed within research problem.
what is causal / explanatory research?
You may need to know why patterns in data exist, or an explanation. Descriptive research may tell you that something exists e.g. that sample prefer brand A to brand B, but explanatory research will tell you why they prefer brand B to understand patterns of behaviour claimed by sample. This research will allow you to explain or help identify causes or even help to predict behaviour. Explanatory or causal research allows you to rule out rival explanations and come to a conclusion.
what should research design include for causal research?
If a research problem involves looking for causal relationships in data, then research must be designed / structured in such an way that you can determine what sort of relationships there are and what variables are involved. You cannot see causation - you can see covariance, association and correlation between variables - but you have to infer causation. In order to make inferences about cause you must ensure research designs allows you to:
Look for presence of association, covariance or correlation
Look for an appropriate time sequence
Rule out other variables of the cause
Come to plausible or common sense conclusions
what must you need / know to suggest causal research?
When defining the problem and preparing to write a research brief, knowing that you need evidence to make inferences will allow you to request / specify research that will deliver this evidence. In order to be aware of what evidence you need you must understand research problem clearly and in detail - thinking about relationships that may exist between variables, and what obvious explanations or alternate explanations may be. If these things are thought out, a clear and streamlined research brief can be written making commissioning and designing research to deliver evidence for inferences will be much more effective.
Importnce of formulating research objectives?
When you have a clear definition of a research problem and idea about the sort of research enquiry you need, you can move on to specific research objectives. This is important as it allows you to clarify the sort of information you need, and gives researchers a framework on which to design the research. Thus research objectives should be as precise and specific as possible.
Importance of being clear about focus of research?
It is important to be clear about the population of interest so that you can decide which sort of research enquiry is needed. Once you have identified the research problem and what sort of research enquiry is needed, you will need to know within what context this is needed and by which population of interest this should be drawn from. This is needed to identify what kind of evidence is needed to address research problem, in order to design good-quality, actionable research.
why is it importance to prioritise information needs?
It is important within this stage to assess what kind of research is necessary to address the business problem - to make sure that research is neither too broad or too narrow. Research should tackle what is needed to know, and should not be expanded to include what would be nice to know. It is important to set out informational needs / research objectives in order of priority so that if there is any time / budgetary constraints the research can focus on delivering information most needed / key to addressing business problem. In narrowing focus, you should be careful not to define problem / information too narrowly and so run risk of failing to collect data needed to understand / interpret findings or take action.
what are units of analysis?
In most research projects the source of data is typically an individual / person. We observe / interview individuals. People are not the only data source, we can use archives, documents, texts, social media, maps, visual images. Individuals however are the main data source in primary research. We gather data from them about things that are relevant to research study, such as characteristics we think will be useful in grouping them together e.g. age, gender, social class, ethnic origin
what is aggregation of units of analysis? why is it useful?
Findings are not reported per person, and are usually aggregated into groups by characteristics.
Aggregation is useful in explanatory studies as they allow comparison of groups by characteristics that are useful to the purpose of research, thus allowing explanation of issue at hand.
