Descriptive Research Flashcards
Said that descriptive research involves the description, recording, analysis, and interpretation of the present nature. The focus is on prevailing conditions or how a person or group behaves. It often involves some types of comparison or contrast.
Manuel and Medel
Who said “It is fact-finding with adequate interpretation. It is something more and beyond than data gathering. Data must be subjected to the thinking process in terms of ordered reasoning.
Descriptive research describes and interprets what is. It is concerned with conditions or relationships that exists. The process of descriptive research goes beyond mere gathering and tabulation of data.”
Aquino
Said that “Description is often combined with comparison and contrast involving measurements, classifications, interpretation, and evaluation.”
Best (Cited by Sanchez)
May be defined as a purposive process of gathering, analyzing, classifying, and tabulating data about practices or beliefs and cause-effect relationships and then making adequate interpretation about data with or without statistical methods.
Descriptive Research
Give the characteristics of Descriptive Research (8)
- Descriptive research ASCERTAINS PREVAILING CONDITIONS OF FACTS in a group or case under study.
- It GIVES QUALITATIVE OR QUANTITATIVE DESCRIPTION of the general characteristics of the group or case under study.
- PREVAILING CONDITIONS ARE NOT EMPHASIZED
- STUDY OF CONDITIONS at different periods of time may be made and the change or progress that took place between periods may be noted or evaluated for any value.
- COMPARISONS of the characteristics of two groups or cases may be made to determine their similarities and differences.
6.The VARIABLES are NOT usually CONTROLLED. - Descriptive studies, except in case studies, are generally CROSS-SECTIONAL, that is, it studies the different sections belonging to the same group.
8.Studies on prevailing conditions may or CAN BE REPEATED for purposes of verification and comparison.’
Value, Importance, and Advantages of Descriptive Research (Good and Scates) (7)
1.Descriptive research contributes much to the FORMULATION OF PRINCIPLES AND GENERALIZATIONS in behavioral sciences. This is especially true in causal-comparative and correlation studies.
2.Descriptive research contributes much to the ESTABLISHMENT OF STANDARD NORMS OF CONDUCT, behavior, or performance. This is especially true in psychological testing, as for instance, norms in an intelligence test. Normative standards are based on what are prevalent.
3.Descriptive research REVEALS PROBLEMS OR ABNORMAL CONDITIONS so that remedial measures may be instituted. It reveals to us what we do not want, what we want, and how to acquire what we want.
4.Descriptive research makes POSSIBLE the PREDICTION OF FUTURE on the basis of findings on prevailing conditions, correlations, and on the basis of reactions of people toward certain issues.
5.Descriptive research gives a BETTER AND DEEPER UNDERSTANDING ON A PHENOMENON on the basis of an in-depth study of the phenomenon.
6.Descriptive research provides a BASIS FOR DECISION MAKING.
7.Descriptive research helps FASHION TOOLS with which we do research, such as, instruments for the measurement of many things, instruments that are employed in all types of quantitative research. These instruments include schedules, checklists, score cards, and rating scales.
What are the techniques under the descriptive method of research?
Survey, Case Study, Content Analysis
Is a fact-finding study with adequate and accurate interpretation. It is used to collect demographic data about people’s behavior, practices, intentions, beliefs, attitudes, opinions, judgments, interests, perceptions, and the like and then such data are analyzed, organized, and interpreted.
Survey
Is a comprehensive, complete, detailed, and in-depth study and analysis of an individual, institution, group, or community.
Case Study
Is a research technique deals with documentary materials that are already existing and available. “____________ is a research technique for the objective, systematic, and quantitative description manifest content of communication.” Bereleson
Content Analysis
Give the advantages of survey over case study. (6)
1.Survey reveals what is typical, average, or normal against which the behavior or performance of an individual can be judged or evaluated.
2.The results of a survey may be used for prediction. This is especially true in correlation studies or even in status studies.
3.Survey makes possible the formulation of generalizations because the sample has a high degree of representativeness.
4.Survey reveals problems for which timely remedial measures may be instituted.
5.It is easy to get respondents for a survey.
6.The instruments for gathering data are easy to determine, construct, validate, and administer.
Disadvantages of the Survey over Case Study (1-3 Simon; 4-5 Treece & Treece Jr.) (5)
1.Lack of manipulation over independent variables.
2.One cannot progressively investigate one aspect after another of the independent variable to get closer to the real cause.
3.Statistical devices are not always able to separate the effects of several independent variables when there is multivariable causation, especially when two independent variables are themselves highly associated.
4.Survey approach yields a low degree of control or there is no control at all over extraneous variables.
The instrument for gathering data may lack validity, reliability, or adequacy.
The entire population is involved in the survey.
Total Population Survey
The investigator researches on the attitudes and behaviors of different groups of people.
Social Survey
This is used to gather data for and about schools and to assess educational achievement and education itself.
School Survey
This is used to gauge the reactions of people towards certain issues or persons.
Public Opinion Survey
This is a survey in which the respondents are asked if they are voting for a certain candidate in an election.
Poll Survey
This is aimed at finding out what kinds of people purchase which products, and how packaging, advertising, and displaying affect prices, and so on.
Market Survey
The researcher looks back to see what has been accomplished and, with a critical eye, evaluates the results whether they are satisfactory or not, with the end in view of making improvements.
Evaluation Survey
9.In this survey, the results from two different groups, techniques, or procedures are compared. This may be used also to compare the effectiveness of a new procedure with an old one or with a standard, or two new procedures may be compared.
Comparative Survey
In this survey, data are collected over a period of weeks, months, or even years but the period should be less than five years.
Short-term Survey
Any survey conducted for more than five years is a ____________________.
Long-term Survey
This is almost the same as the long-term survey. The researchers may carry out such studies by asking their subjects questions about a past event and compare their responses to the present affairs of things.
Longitudinal Survey
In this type of survey, several groups in various stages of involvement are studied simultaneously.
Cross-sectional survey
This provides information on the general duties and responsibilities of workers, their education, training, experiences, salaries, etc.
Job Analysis survey
This survey provides information on the various aspects of the community: health, employment, housing, education, economic resources, delinquency, family, population, other social problems, and so on.
Community survey
This is a study that shows the relationship between two or more variables, that is, how a variable varies with another. (Good defines correlation as the tendency for corresponding observations in two or more series to vary together from the averages of their respective series, that is, to have similar relative positions. (Good, p. 134) For example, if two tests have a high correlation, one who gets high in one test will also get a high score in the other.
Correlation Study
According to ____________________, case study involves a comprehensive and extensive examination of a particular individual, group or situation over a period of time.
(Mckee and Robertson, 1975)
Defines case study as a “comprehensive study of a social unit be that unit a person, a social institution, a group, a district, or community.”
Young (1966)
define case study as that method which takes account of all pertinent aspects of one thing or situation, employing as the unit for study an individual, an institution, a community, or any group considered as a unit. The case consists of the data relating to some phase of the life history of the unit or relating to the entire life process, whether the unit is an individual, a family, a social group, an institution, or a community.
Good and Scates
an extensive and intensive investigation of a unit represented, whether the unit is an individual, a family, a social group, an institution, or a community, the aim of which is to identify causal factors to some abnormality or deficiency and to find and recommend a solution, a treatment, or developmental procedures.
Case Study
refers especially to the developmental, adjustment, remedial, or corrective procedures that appropriately follow diagnosis of the causes of maladjustment or of favorable development.
Case Work
has been employed to describe a plan of organizing and presenting instructional materials in law, medicine, social work, and even in education, psychology, and sociology, where as a rule, the case materials used are the product of case study investigation.
Case Method
is a biography obtained by interview and other means, sometimes collected over the years to enable us to understand the problems of an individual and to suggest ways of solving them.
Case history
detuned case history as “the complete medical, psychological, and social history of a patient.”
Wolman (1973)
is defined by Peter as “a process by which we collect all available evidence social, psychological, educational, biographical, and medical, that promises to help us understand individual child.”
Clinical method
Who should be in a case study?
Children and social groups with some forms of abnormalities
Kinds of information needed in case studies (8)
- Identifying data
2 Identification and statement of of the problem - Health and developmental history details of birth
- Family history
- Education history
- Social history
- Economic history
- Psychological history
what are the different data-gathering instruments
- interview
- observations
- questionnaires
- psychological tests
- anecdotal records
- autobiographies
- checklists, score cards and rating scales
- letters, notes, diaries
- cumulative records
Characteristics of a satisfactory case study (Maxfield) (5)
- Continuity
- Completeness of data
- Validity of data
- Confidential recording
- Scienific synthesis
Social skills of case work
Social insight
empathy
sociality
communication
cooperation
participation
organization
social counseling
guidance for creative achievement
a complex concept of great importance in meeting administrative, supervisory, teaching, and organizational problems in welfare agencies and social services
Social insight
social understanding as to how other people feel.
empathy
positive behavior of defines and spontaneity in friendly relations with others.
sociality
the process by which we transmit experience or share a common experience.
communication
acting or working jointly with others.
cooperation
social interaction within a group directed to some end, or sharing a common experience
participation
the process of systematically uniting in a group the persons who participate and cooperate in working toward a common end.
organization
Assisting the client to formulate and analyze his problem, explore resources, determine a course of action, and secure needed services.
Social counseling
to liberate the powers of individuals for their own happiness and for contributions of social value.
guidance for creative achievement
The cycle of case study and case work. (Good and Scates) (5)
Recognition and determination of the status of the phenome- non; for example, reading disability.
2. Collection of data relating to the factors or circumstances associated with the given phenomenon; factors associated with learning difficulty or reading disability may be physical, intellectual, pedagogical, emotional, social, or environmental.
3. Diagnosis or identification of causal factors as a basis for remedial or developmental treatment; defective vision may be the cause of difficulty in reading.
4. Application of remedial or adjustment measures; correctly fitted eyeglasses may remove the cause of poor performance in reading.
5. Subsequent follow-ups to determine the effectiveness of the corrective or developmental measures applied.
Characteristics of content analysis
Objective
Systematic
Quantitative
Steps in Content Analysis
- Recognizing the problem.
- Forming the hypotheses.
- Doing library search.
- Designing the study.
- Developing the instrument.
- Collecting the data.
- Analyzing the data.
- Making conclusions.
- Making recommendations
