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Discuss the main steps to be used in qualitative research? Pg. 41.
1. Decide on topic and general research questions
2. Conduct a background literature review
3. Choose a qualitative research design
4. Select relevant step (s) and subjects
5. Initial data collection
6. Analyse and interpret data
7. Conceptual and theoretical work
7.1 Refine research question (s)
7.1 Further data collection
8. Prepare and write your report
Discuss the main steps to be used in a quantitative research approach. pg. 32-33
1. Develop a theoretical/conceptual framework- indicates that quantitative research takes
a broadly deductive approach. Theory forms the basis for the definition of research
questions and hypothesis.
2. Define specific research questions (s) and hypothesis- the specification of hypothesis
is most likely to be found in experimental and survey research. In practice, however, much
quantitative research does not involve the specification of a hypothesis.
3. Select research design- entails selection of a research design, which has implications for
a variety of issues, such as the external validity of findings and researchers ability to
attribute causality to their findings.
4. Devise measures of concepts- involves arriving at measures of the concepts in which
the researcher is interested. This process is often referred to as operationalization.
5. Select research site (s) - entails the selection of a research site or sites as well as the
selection of subjects or respondents.
6. Select research subjects/respondents- entails the selection of a research site or sites
as well as the selection of subjects or respondents.
7. Administer research instruments/collect data- involves the administration of the
research instruments. In experimental research, this involves pre-testing, manipulating the
independent variable for the experimental group and post-testing respondents.
8. Process data- the information that has been collected must be prepared so that it can be
quantified and transformed into data. Some information-such things as peoples ages,
incomes can be captured directly from the questionnaires.
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9. Analyse data- the researcher uses quantitative data analysis techniques to summarise
the data collected, to test for relationships between variables and to develop ways of
presenting the results.
10. Develop findings/conclusions- the researcher will consider the relationship between
his or her findings and the various questions raised at the beginning of the research.
11. Write up finding/conclusions- then the research must be written up to enter the public
domain as a conference paper, research report, or as a book or journal article for academic
business researchers.
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It is important to ensure there is no inherent ordering of the sampling frame, since this may
bias the resulting sampling.
Stratified random sampling- in our study of employees, we may want our sample to
contain a proportional representation of the different departments of the company. It might
be that the department an employee works in is relevant to a wide range of attitudinal
features that are relevant to our study of skills development and training. Generating a
simple random sample or a systematic sample might yield such a representative but some
departments may be under or-over represented.
Multi-stage cluster sampling- if we wanted to create a national sample of employees who
are dispersed throughout the country, interviewers would then have to travel the length and
breadth of the country. This would be extremely costly and time consuming. Cluster
sampling is one way of dealing with this potential problem. The primary sampling unit is not
the units of the population to be sampled but groups or cluster of those units.
Sample
A sample is the segment or subject of the population that is selected for
investigation. A sample requires less time and financial expenditure. However, if
the number of participants (units of analysis) in a research project is too small, it
will influence the significance of the results and may not be representative of the
population. In other cases it does not make scientific sense to collect data from
few people and suggest that it is the view of the entire organisation they are
employed at.
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3. Focus groups: is a qualitative method that is concerned with studying how participants
express their view and perspectives on an issue as members of a groups. The moderator is
expected to guide a fairly unstructured discussion without being too intrusive.
Advantages: focus groups provide sources of information that can be obtained rapidly and
at a low cost. Enable participants in the group to discuss their opinions and experiences in
such a way that a consensus of opinion regarding research problems can be reached.
Disadvantages: focus groups often inhibits the response of participants. Some respondents
are not able to express their feelings freely because they are intimidated by the presence of
other respondents in the group.
Quantitative data collection methods:
1. Questionnaires- are the most popular instrument used to gather data in a survey study. It
can be mailed or posted to participants. This method is relatively cheap and simple to
administer as compared to other methods. This method is mostly used in a quantitative
research approach where the sample is big. A questionnaire method has its own advantages
and disadvantages that should always be observed. Research must always have a plan on
how to deal with the disadvantages of the questionnaire method. Thus, research must
always have a plan on how to deal with the disadvantages of the questionnaire method. In
using questionnaires, the researcher can adopt previously used questionnaires or design his
or her own instrument. pg. 21 (SG) pg.192-193 (PS)
Advantages
Cheaper to administer- the cheapness of the self-completion questionnaire is especially
advantageous if you have sample that is geographically dispersed.
Quicker to administer-self completion questionnaires can be sent by post or otherwise in
very large quantities at the same time.
Absence of interviewer effects- since there is no interviewer present when a self-
completion questionnaire is being completed, possible interviewer effects such as age,
ethnicity are eliminated.
No interview variability- self-completion questionnaires do not suffer from the problem of
interviews asking questions in a different order or in different ways.
Convenience for respondents- self-completion questionnaires are more convenient for
respondents, because they can complete a questionnaire when they want to and at the
speed that they want to go.
Disadvantages
Cannot prompt- there is no-one present to help respondents if they are having difficulty
answering a question.
Cannot probe- there is no opportunity to probe respondents to elaborate on an answer.
Difficulty of asking other kinds of questions- it is also important to avoid asking many
open questions because respondents dislike having to write a lot.
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Do-not-know who answers- with postal questionnaires, you can never be sure that the
right person has answered the questionnaire.
Difficult to ask a lot of questions- long questionnaires are rarely feasible and often results
in a greater tendency for questionnaires not to be answered in the first place.
2. Structured interviews
Involves the use of standardised interview scheduled by an interviewer so that all
interviewers are given exactly the same questions. Interviewers are supposed to read out
questions exactly and in the same order as they are printed on the schedule. The goal is to
ensure that interviewees replies can be aggregated.
Advantage: standardised questions make the process more efficient.
Disadvantage: the interviewer is restricted to the questions, their wording and their order as
they appear on the schedule with relatively little freedom to deviate from it.
3. Structured Observation- is a method for systematically observing the behaviour of
individuals according to a schedule of categories. The researcher uses explicit rules to
directly observe and record behaviour. Structured observation therefore also finds the
researcher in the presence of the person or persons being studied. Is generally understood
as a quantitative method because of the positivistic prescribed observation schedule. Pg.258
(PS)
Advantages
Allows the researcher to observe the behaviour of managers and other employees
directly.
Researchers do not have to depend on participants possibly misleading reports
about the relevant behaviour, but instead observe it directly. pg.172 (Welman)
Disadvantages
The presence of the observer, usually a stranger to the respondent, may influence
the behaviour to be observed, resulting in reactive measurement.
The observers prejudices may affect their observation and consequently the validity
of their ratings. pg.172 (Welman)
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whether or not the measure seems to capture the concept that is the focus of attention.
Establishing validity is an essentially intuitive process.
Concurrent validity
The researcher employs a criterion on which cases (for example, people) are known to differ
and that is relevant to the concept in question. A new measure of job satisfaction can serve
as an example. A criterion might be absenteeism because some people are more often
absent from work than others. In order to establish the concurrent validity of a measure of
job satisfaction, we might see if people who are satisfied with their jobs are less likely than
those who are not satisfied to be absent from work.
Predictive validity
The researcher uses a future criterion measure rather than a contemporary one. The
researchers takes future levels of absenteeism as the criterion against which the validity of a
measure of job satisfaction would be examined. The difference from concurrent validity is
that a future rather than simultaneous criterion measure is employed.
Construct validity
The degree to which a test or other measure assesses the underlying theoretical construct it
is supposed to measure. If a test is designed to assess knowledge of facts concerning rate,
time and distance and their interrelationship with one another, then perhaps reading skills
are inadvertently being measured instead of factual knowledge of basic algebra. Requires
the compilation of multiple sources of evidence. In order to demonstrate construct validity,
evidence that the test measures what it purports to measure as well as evidence that test
does not measure irrelevant attributes are both required.
Convergent validity
Some methodologists argue that validity of a measure ought to be gauged by comparing it to
other measures of the same concept. For example, if we develop a questionnaire to
measure how much time managers spend on various activities, we might examine its validity
by tracking a number of managers and using a structured observation schedule to record
how much time is spent in various activities and their frequency.
Discriminant validity
Consists of testing whether concepts or measurements that are supposed to be unrelated
are, in fact, unrelated and do not correlate strongly.
Stability are we confident that a measure is stable over time and that it does not
vary or fluctuate if we administer a measure and re-administer it?
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Internal reliability are the indicators that make up the scale or index consistent? In
other words do respondents scores on any one of the indicator relate to the scores
on the other indicator?
Inter-observer consistency when more than one is involved are the different
observers involved in recording observations consistent in what they record?
Internal reliability- means whether or not, when there is more than one observer,
members of the research team agree about what they see and hear.
External reliability- the degree to which a study can be replicated. It is a difficult
criterion to meet in qualitative research.
In many ways, the most important criterion of research is validity. Validity is
concerned with the integrity of the conclusions that are generated from a piece of
research. It is important to be aware of the main types of validity: pg. 25-26 (PS).
Measurement validity- this criterion applies primarily to quantitative research and to the
search for measures of social scientific concepts. Measurement validity, which is often called
construct validity, addresses the question of whether or not a measure really reflects the
concept that it is supposed to capture.
Internal validity- a concern with the question of whether or not a finding that incorporates a
causal relationship between two or more variables is sound.
External validity- A concern with the question of whether or not the results of a study can
be generalised beyond the specific research context in which it was conducted.
Ecological validity- this criterion is concerned with the question of whether or not the
findings of social research are applicable to peoples every day, natural social setting. This
criterion is concerned with the question of whether business research sometimes produces
findings that may be technically valid but have little to do with what happens in peoples
everyday lives.
Describe five threats to internal validity. Jan/Feb 2017 (10) pg.102-103 (PS)
Testing- The threat arises if subjects become sensitised to the aims of the experiment.
History- this threat arises if events in the experimental environment, unrelated to the
manipulation of the independent variable, have caused the observed changes.
Maturation- the ways in which people change naturally over time, may have implications for
the independent variable.
Selection- if the experimental and control groups are selected at random, variations
between the groups could be attributed to pre-existing differences in their membership.
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Ambiguity about the direction of causal influence- the concept of an independent
variable and dependent variable presupposes a direction of causality
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