Research Cycle

Question 1

What are the five steps of the research cycle?

Answer 1

1. problem analysis (what is the problem)
2. design research (how can you reach this aim)
3. data collection (how can you collect data)
4. data analysis (what can be interpreted from the data)
5. reporting (which conclusions are backed up by data)

Question 2

What are the five steps in problem analysis?

Answer 2

1. Direct Cause
   • answer all the WHY-questions
   • What is the direct reason for conducting research?
2. Problem
   • What is yet unknown at this moment in time? What info is missing?
   • What exactly is going wrong?
3. Aim
   • What will the results of this study allow you to do/decide that you can’t do/decide now?
4. Research question
   • Which overarching question will your research answer?
   • And which sub-question do you need to answer first to get there?
5. Hypothesis
   • If you have enough information to make predictions about the outcomes of your study, you can spell these predictions out in the form of hypothesis.
   • Well defined hypotheses are verifiable

verifiable= able to be proved

Question 3

What are the 5 steps of Research design?

Answer 3

1. Operationalisation of variables
2. Type of research and study
3. Population and sampling
4. Research method
5. Representativeness, biases and quality

Question 4

What is operationalisation of variables (step 1 research design)?

Answer 4

Every concept or term that you used in the problem analysis needs a detailed definition. What do you mean exactly when you use term ‘x’ in the context of your research. What does ‘x’ refer to?

The process of coming up with these specific descriptions is called operationalization.

Question 5

What type of research are there (step 2. research design)

Answer 5

• Descriptive – presenting known information
• Exploratory – trying to find new information
• Examinatory – checking if your conjectures (hypotheses) are true
• Quantitative - express outcomes of your research in numbers
• Qualitative - study that aims to acquire information that isn’t numerical (e.g. people’s opinions or preferences, overall themes)

Question 6

Step 3. research design (population and sampling):

What is:
• population
• sample
• sampling
• generalising

Answer 6

• Population = focus group
• Sample = smaller group
• Sampling = drawing a sample from a population
• Generalising = drawing conclusions about a population based on a sample

Question 7

Step 4. research design (research method):

What three questions do you need to ask yourself?

Answer 7

1. Research Tool:
   How will you acquire information? Which research tool are you going to use?

Examples: 
• experiment
• conduct a survey
• interview people
• make observations

2. Instruments:
   How will you measure that which is of interest to your research? Which instruments are you going to use to tap into your constructs?
3. Procedure:
   How will you execute your research? What procedure will you follow?

Question 8

Step 5. research design (representativeness, biases and quality):

What questions do you ask yourself?

What are the 2 qualities of measurements?

Answer 8

• How successful will my research design be at answering my research question?
• Representatives

1. Reliability/precision/consistency =
   Refers to the degree which multiple measurements come up with the same result.

[test/re-test reliability, inter-rater reliability, internal consistency]

2. Validity/accuracy =
   Refers to the degree to what extend your measurements corresponds to what you want to measure, the true value

Question 9

Step 5. research design (representativeness, biases and quality):

What are the three types of reliability/precision/consistency?

Answer 9

1. Test/re-test reliability
   Imagine you take an IQ rest and repeat that two weeks later, to what extend do the results agree to each other?
2. Inter-rater reliability
   When two people are assessing something (for example whether someone performs proper research), to what extend do the results agree to each other?
3. Internal consistency
   Imagine you want to assess someone’s mood with three different questions, to what extend do the results agree to each other?

Question 10

What are the measurement levels?

Answer 10

Categorical variables (measured in groups/categories)

• > nominal
• > ordinal

Continuous variables (measured on a continuous scale)

• > interval -> below zero possible & no absolute zero
• > ratio -> absolute zero –> weight, height, distance