Research Methods

No matter if your research is basic or advanced, for doing research first you should design a plan to answer your research question so you’ll need a method to execute your plan.

The method that you choose depends on the purpose and the field that you have questioned about.

Generally, research methods dispart into Qualitative and Quantitative methods and contain specific ways to collect data.

Qualitative methods show in-depth and contextual results that don’t involve numerical data. It’s helpful when you want to understand the detailed reasons for a particular behavior. There might be a problem which is that the researcher’s or respondents’ point of view may affect the real results.

Quantitative methods show the statistical relationships between variables and classify or count features. The data is always numerical, some events are numerical in nature, but quantitative techniques can be used for phenomena that are not numerical by themselves too. This method can’t provide a deep understanding of a case.

This is a common approach to use quantitative and qualitative research methods together.

There are four main types of quantitative research designs:

–    Descriptive research describes the current status of a variable or phenomenon. The researcher doesn’t have a hypothesis from the beginning, but usually, after the data is collected develops one.

–    Correlational research that studies the relationship between variables using statistical analyses. But, it does not look for cause and effect.

–    Experimental researches, often called true experimentation, evaluates the cause-effect relationship among a group of variables in research. Researchers try to control for all variables except the independent variable. The effects of the independent variable on the dependent variable are analyzed for a relationship.

–    Quasi-experimental researches are used when it is not possible or practical to control all the key features. Same as experimental research the purpose is to examine the cause of certain phenomena but it doesn’t have the element of random assignment to treatment or control.

Moreover, there are some other methods that their usage may be different in various fields.

– The survey method that can be used for both qualitative and quantitative studies is questioning individuals on the topic, mainly follows describing certain aspects of a population or examining hypotheses about the nature of relationships within a population. Survey methods are divided into questionnaires, interviews and documentation review.

– Case study research provides an in-depth, detailed study of an individual or a small group of individuals, it is qualitative in nature and the result describes a behavior or an experience.  Case study research is not used to determine cause and effect. The main features of case study research are that it is focused, highly detailed, and can combine both objective and subjective data to achieve an in-depth understanding. Case studies may count in both qualitative and quantitative research methods.

– The observational method is the method of recording the participants’ actions and behaviors and actually it is observing the participants while the researcher tries to focus on the occurring situation without any disturbing, influencing or altering the environment or the participants.

This method can be useful when the research should be in a natural setting so the behaviors will be exactly what and how they really are, and it is common in the social sciences and marketing researches.

The observational method contains three main types:

Naturalistic Observation that takes place in natural conditions and sometimes known as a nonparticipant observation which means that the researcher is not a part of the participants and doesn’t have knowledge about them.

Participant Observation in which the researcher somehow interposes the environment by being a member of the group.

Controlled Observation that is under controlled conditions, often in a laboratory setting in which the participants are aware of being observed.

There is another method in researching that is called Action research. It is a process of diagnosing and solving a problem in an organization. The researcher takes action and research simultaneously by collaborating with the organization and it leads to a change. It can be used with quantitative, as well as, qualitative data.

Overall a researcher can use Mixed methods by combining some of the above.