Research skills

What is Research? 

Research is a process of inquiry and investigation which can help to solve practical problems and increase knowledge. Research: 

• is one of the most absorbing features of any degree course, as it offers you a fair measure of control and independence over what you learn. 
• gives you an opportunity to confirm, clarify, pursue –or even discover– new aspects or perspectives on a chosen topic. You can become a person who contributes knowledge to society. 
• can give you a chance to take a subject that really interests you, formulate questions about the topic, and pursue answers, or explore new perspectives to these questions in a way that advances knowledge about the research subject a little (or sometimes a lot) further. 
• will draw together skills you have developed, both inside and outside of higher education, including information retrieval; social skills; writing skills; and presentation skills. 
• is an important contributor to your overall degree grade. 

The purpose of research 

Research involves one or more of the following: 

• Reviewing, contributing to, or synthesizing existing knowledge. 
• Testing ideas, models and theories. 
• Investigating existing situations or problems. 
• Exploring and analysing current or past events, situations or phenomena. 
• Providing interpretations or solutions to existing problems. 
• Generating new knowledge. 
• Explaining a new phenomenon. 
• Constructing or creating new procedures or systems. 

The literature review 

The literature review is an essential stage of the research process, for the following reasons: 

• It is essential you know what previous studies have been done in your chosen topic area. 
• There is no point in spending time to produce a research finding and outcome identical to another. 
• It will help you learn more about the existing ideas and theories in your chosen topic area. 
• It will help you to justify your research topic to your supervisor/tutor at the project proposal stage. 

Checklist for reviewing previous studies 

• Take a previous study and ask the following questions: 
• What was the purpose of the previous study? How does it differ from other studies I have encountered and my own research ideas? 
• What methodology was used in the previous study? How does it differ from my own proposed research? 

(The term ‘methodology’ refers to how the research was conducted, including the means used to gather data.) 

• What were the findings in the study; how do they differ from other studies and what I expect to find? 
• What were the limitations and weaknesses of the study? 

Primary and secondary sources 

The selection of relevant material – but of the right quality – is an essential component in conducting a literature review. If faced with a mass of information on a topic, how can you begin to discriminate and choose which sources to use? You may, for example, get sidetracked into using secondary sources, when you should be using those with a more primary role to play in supporting evidence 

Primary sources: 

Evidence that comes directly from the people, the time, the place, the agencies involved in the event or phenomenon in question. 

Secondary sources:

Material produced about the event or phenomenon, or the commentary or interpretation of others about theories, models, ideas, definitions and practices. 

Choosing sources 

For both electronic and printed sources there are essentially three cascading areas of inquiry to help you select the best sources (see Figure 1). 

Figure 1: Three cascading areas of inquiry

The first two will help you to determine which sources to choose if more than one appears relevant to the point you are making. 

Different categories of research 

There are four main categories of research: exploratory, descriptive, analytical and predictive 

Exploratory research:

Exploratory research is undertaken when few or no previous studies exist in the topic area. The aim is to look for patterns, hypotheses or ideas that can be advanced tentatively and will form the basis for further research. 

Descriptive research:

Descriptive research can be used to identify and classify the elements or characteristics of the subject. This type of research is particularly useful when you need to look closely at the: what features of a topic, for example, what is happening; what are the component parts or features of the subject. 

Analytical research:

Analytical research often extends the descriptive approach to suggest or explain why or how something is happening, for example the underlying causes of a particular situation. 

• An important feature of this type of research is the process of locating and identifying the different factors (or variables) involved. 
• Predictive research enables you to speculate intelligently on future possibilities, based on a close analysis of available cause and effect evidence 

Research methodology 

The term methodology refers to the broad; overall approaches and perspectives to the research process, and is concerned with the following main issues: 

• Why and how you collected certain data. 
• What data you collected. 
• Where you collected the data. 
• How you collected and analysed the data. 

Research methods 

Research methods are about the tools or the specific means that you will use to collect your data. 

Sampling 

Before you start any research involving other people, you need to think about sampling. 

This means how you will go about choosing or finding the target number of people to be involved in your research for the purposes of data collection. It is often necessary to look for ways of gathering data from a representative number of people from any group rather than from them all. 

Probability sampling 

Probability sampling is where the researcher has a significant measure of control over who is selected and on the selection methods. Main methods of probability sampling are as follows: 

a) Simple random sampling:

selection at random by the researchers from a choice of subjects. 

it's just numbering each individual and randomly selecting a certain number of them. Here's the image we used in the previous section 

b) Systematic sampling: 

selection by the researchers at numbered intervals; for example, every one person in five in the target group. 

is obtained by selecting every kth individual from the population. The first individual selected corresponds to a random number between 1 and k. 

c) Stratified sampling: 

sampling within particular sections of the target groups; for example, you target a specific number of people based on the percentage of the total group that share the same characteristics. So, for instance, in a study of an organization that had 50 managers and 800 machinists, a 10 per cent representative sample of this population would involve 5 managers and 80 machinists. 

With this technique, we separate the population using some characteristic (called strata), and then take a proportional random sample from each. 

d) Cluster sampling: 

surveying particular clusters of subjects that share naturally occurring groupings; for example, groups of companies classified by product or area. 

A is obtained by selecting all individuals within a randomly selected collection or group of individuals.