research methods overview of two day program. 2 research methods: overview designing the study...

Research Methods

Overview of two day program

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Research methods: Overview

• Designing the study

• Developing the project

• Methodology: conceptual matters

• Collecting the data

• Ethics

• Analysing the data, reporting & final matters

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• The nuts and bolts of the process

• BUT

• What are you bolting together?

• The framework rests very much on the questions you considered with Lyn

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• Each session will consist of three components:

Recounting episodes from the PNG project An analysis of the issues Small group work for you to reflect on your project

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• Big picture

• The fine detail will vary considerably between members of the group

• The following aspects will need to be dealt with and appear in your thesis, somewhere

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• Four critical and sometimes crippling, problems for many students:

1. Slow start with problem formation & / or literature review

2. Perfectionism

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3. Distractions from the main research focus: read all sorts of interesting material which at best is marginally related to main issue of project

4. Inadequate collection of data often due to poor planning: note taking, referencing of data, awareness of context of data, etc.

Research methods

Designing the study

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Research methods: Designing the study

PNG ?

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• The issue

• This the crucial matter

• The one that prevents most students progressing at a reasonable speed

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• What do you want to know?

• What do others know?

• What are you assuming

• What do you believe?

• The hegemony of the scientific paradigm and numbers?

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• What do you want to find out?

• You can use a concise issue statement or a general question.

• What will be new to whom?

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• New: creating new ideas

Absolutely new: ideas, results, methodology Investigating something in a new context Progression of a theory to a new stage

• Central component of your program

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• Why will you spend 2-5 years of your life thinking about this?

• Why will anyone be interested in what you are doing, and where you get to?

• Often it is the former that is the crucial issue to ensure you complete.

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Research methods:Designing the study

• Review in a small group the issue that you plan to base your dissertation on

• Try to articulate it to each other in one sentence.

• Why do you want to write on this?

Research Methods

Developing the proposal

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Research Methods: Developing the proposal

PNG ?

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• What have others said about the issue?

• Developing the literature review Sequencing and/or overlapping How much is enough? Stating your road map Linking paragraphs, sub sections, & sections Summary paragraphs: where have we come from & where

are we going

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• The research questions emerge from the literature review

• They speak to key issues that the relevant academic community think are relevant, or

• They identify gaps in the literature

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• Defining the central problem or issue prevents reading material of marginal relevance and taking extensive notes that purpose of which is not clear

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• Why am I reading this?

• How does this relate to the main issue?

• Is this note I am making directly relate to a research question, which in turn relates to the main issue?

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• You need to continually be asking yourself your supervisor your buddy group

am I still hitting the main issue with what I am doing here?

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• The central research problem does not spontaneously emerge from your copious reading.

• Your literature review is driven by the research issue (and bit by bit) the subsidiary problems you have set out to focus on

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• Pay close attention to the methodology, both instruments, procedures and stance, that authors use when reporting in journals

• These may well give you guidance on possible methodology approaches you may wish to adopt

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• What questions can you ask?

• What questions should you ask?

• What questions are useful to ask in the context of doing a doctoral program?

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Research methods:Developing the proposal

• Review in a small group possible research questions (3-4) that might emerge for you

• Are they linked to the main issue?

• Why these and not others?

Research methods

Methodology:

Conceptual issues

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Research methods:Methodology: Conceptual issues

PNG ?

Nogat!

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• Are you looking for:

– a description,

– the truth,

– possibilities,

– an explanation, …

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• Are you looking for:– Differences over time?– Differences between groups?– Differences from some defined standard?– What will the differences tell you?– Why are they important?– How will you decide whether such differences are

important? – May be difference is irrelevant?

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• Is the data:– Reliable?

– Valid?

– Authentic?

– Generalisable?

– Robust?

• What do these terms mean in your context?

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• What will you do with the different data banks?

• Are you after triangulation?

• Are you wanting to layer the databanks?

• What’s common, what’s not? Does it matter?

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PNG ?

• We didn’t pretend our findings would be objective and neutral.

• We attempted to find validation for our findings in that they seemed to be trustworthy in their own context and for people who should know.

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• We worked in the social world of dynamic change

• A world that was constructed in and through our and our colleagues discourse and actions, though our joint praxis

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• The validity arose from the cyclic layering of description, analysis and testing of possible explanations by reference again and again to the data and experience of members of the team

– Read for yourselves

• Ken Smith may well differ (e reserve material)

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• How will you interpret these terms?

• What is demanded by your issue?

• What will be the better way to think through your research questions?

• Listen carefully to what your colleagues suggest.

Research methods

Collecting the data

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Research methods:Collecting the data

PNG ?

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• Operationalising your research questions if needs be?– What data can be collected that will illuminate the

question?

• Setting up the data collecting process– From who or what and why these?– With what? – How?– When?– Will it cost too much?

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• Data collection techniques– surveys / questionnaires– focus groups– interviews (structured, semi structured, unstructured)– tests– document analysis– participant observation– journals

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• Are you there?

• Do you make a difference?

• May be you are part of the data set?

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• Do your research questions need tweaking?

• What type of data will help you to illuminate your questions?

• What data collection devices might give you data?

• What limitations do they have for your project?

Research methods

Ethics

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Research methods: Ethics

PNG ?

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Research methods: Ethics

• Ethics forms– available from http://www.acu.edu.au/forms.cfm#research

• At least two platforms to think about ethics;– the official one:

• read through the guidelines carefully

• do what they say

• you can submit the final form of interview questions, etc. later

– the personnel one:• do you feel comfortable with what you are doing?

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Research methods: Ethics and other administrative matters

• What ethical issues may confront you with your project?

Research methods

Analysing the data, reporting & other matters

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Research methods: Analysing the data, reporting & other matters

PNG ?

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• The analysis will be structured by the research questions

• This is not a fishing trip for what might be there

• This is directive looking for what might be there

• When possible link back directly to studies referred to in the literature review

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• Look at each set of data individually

• Is this set clean?

• Are there any provisos in reading this set of data?

• Are you interested in the middle ground, the edge, both of these?

• Repeat for other sets

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• Bring the different sets together in a way that progresses your investigation

• What is demanded by the research questions?

• What techniques have others used who have worked in your area?

• What techniques have others used who have worked outside of your area, but they might be applicable?

• You must justify what you do!

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• Narrative data:– Do you chose to impose a structure (we did in PNG)?– Do you wish to look for the emergent (but there are

limits)?– Can you do both?

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• Items in …– Do they link to something in the literature reviewed?– If not, why is this item there?

– Do you request the gender of the respondent?– WHY?

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• Case studies

– A case study is not, “just because you are working with a small number of …”

– The structure you give to reporting each study will allow generalities across the contexts to emerge

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• Reporting

– Who is your audience?– A thesis is not an essay, a novel, a journal article, a

conference paper, an undergraduate paper– You are advised to either stick to the normal style, or

clearly justify departures (these can be exciting!)– Linkage, clarity, linkage, clarity, linkage, clarity

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• The above discussion on ‘analysing the data and reporting it’ is still in the methodology chapter

• You need to discuss in that chapter how you will do the analysis

• You do not collect the data and then start wondering what to do with it

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• What types of data are you likely to have?

• What options are open to you for an analysis of these data?

• How will you draw links between different data banks?

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The other matters

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• Changing involving the Office of Research: http://www.acu.edu.au/forms/mediastore/hdvariation.dot– thesis title

– status: ie. leave, sick & other types

• Changing involving the Faculty:– campus, specialisation, School

– supervisor and getting him / her

– monetary support

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• Working with your supervisor– Ask for 2 good theses to look at (Lyn’s & Andrea’s)– Ask for 2 good thesis proposals to look at

• Be part of a buddies’ group

• Feel free to call me up if you think I might help

research methods overview of two day program. 2 research methods: overview designing the study...

Documents

research methods overview

study slide

research questions

project slide

proposal slide

lyn slide

perfectionism slide

main research focus