Research methods ( April 2nd lesson)

1. What did I learn?

In this lesson, research methods were explained in order to do a great final report.

First of all, there is the main difference between investigation and research. Most people in order to refer to research they say or we say INVESTIGATION, that is such a mistake since the lattest looks for the truth and it is mainly used by police departments, while research refers more to cientific processes, it has an academic framework and knowledge identification.

Due to the nature of the final report, we are going to focus on the RESEARCH itself.

There are primary and secondary research, the first ones are those which are new to everyone and the second is new for the person doing the research but not necessary to the rest of people. The secondary research is well known as the "desk research" which implies the exploration of database and the analysis of that data.

TYPES OF RESEARCH: Qualitative and Quantitative. The first one is about features, or a word description about a data meanwhile, quantitative one requires the use of numbers especially in a statistic field.

Moving forward the topic, we do reach the concept of EPISTEMOLOGY, which at the same time, has got two aspects: Empiricism and Rationalism. The empiricism is the knowledge as a product of sensory perception, on the contrary, rationalism see knowledge as a product of rational reflection.

On the other hand, the concept of POSITIVISM comes up., It describes the phenoemna that people experience, always under the cause and effect laws. POST POSITIVISM is critical realism and brings the concept of triangualtion, which in researching talking is asking for something with three different methods, that can provide a wider perception about a specific point.

Moreover, there are two concepts very important to bear in mind. DEDUCTIVE AND INDUCTIVE APPROACHES. The first one, goes from general to specific data; in contrast inductive goes from specific to general, both of them give a particular way reaching a topic.

About Searching literature as a support of the research as a whole, the literature should provide explanations of:

• The problem
• The approach used
• the results
• the background of the approach

And should answer the following questions: What you search?, What you search for? and how you search it?

About the selection of a suitable topic, it should be one which data can be collected and analyzed, something reachable. On the other hand, The types of research desing to used, should selected by keeping in mind the question: How are you going to collect the data?, since there are several ways of collecting (interviews, surveys and so on) it is relevant in order to run a successful researching process.

In order to go deeper about the data collection, it can be carried out by:

• Reports,
• Observation (direct or indirect), which implies the content analysis, basic tabulation (coding, verbatims), discourse analysis (who says what, about what, to whom, in what format), a knowledge representation which is well known among students as a concept graphic or concept map, or statistics; the lattest makes reference to the quantitive research,
• or by a Interview, which is an interaction, an exchange of information which results might help a lot with the research process.

2. Question: which types of studies approaches can be used in cross-cultural research methods?

3. Answer: Quantitatives and Qualitatives.

Quantitative Approaches:

• – Descriptive studies focus on describing phenomena in a specific sample of people, or describing differences between two or more specific samples of people
– Inferential studies study specific samples of people in order to understand how phenomena operate in large groups of individuals
In cross-cultural research, descriptive studies are generally not too interesting because you find many differences. So what? What does it mean? You need inferential studies and models to answer these more important or challenging questions.
• Emic vs. etic
– Cross-cultural models tend to have one of two emphases. Emic models view behavior as culture-specific; behavior must be understood in the context of a particular culture but Etic models view behavior as universal; behavior must be understood in comparison to behavior in other cultures. So, three approaches (or combinations) are possible:
– Subjective single-culture
– Objective single-culture
– Objective cross-cultural

On the other hand, the quantitative objects of Study could be:
• Construct (hypothetical): a phenomenon that is important for the understanding of human behavior which cannot be directly observed.
• Universe: set of conditions for observation or items of measurement, usually indicated by the hypothetical construct
• Populations: larger groups of people that are the ultimate object of interest

About the Scope of Study they can be:
• Limited: Cross-cultural research should be limited to verifying the validity of standard or indigenous psychological constructs
• Broad: Cross-cultural research should view culture itself as a relevant psychological construct and attempt to build models that use it as a variable.

Qualitative Approaches:

– Grounded theory: It is a systematic qualitative research methodology in the social sciences emphasizing generation of theory from data in the process of conducting research.
– Ethnography: Which specifies mainly interviewing and participanting of an observation
– Analysis of visual and material culture: Documentaries, visual reports.
– Phenomenological analysis: This method looks for gaining an insight into how an individual perceives a phenomenon. The researchers can gather qualitative data from the individual. The responses given are then intrepreted by the researcher to extract topics, ideas, opinions relevant.
– Hermeneutic analysis: Which consists on narrative analysis and life history.

To sum up, form these two methods a culture can be analyzed correctly, without leaving important data behind.

SOURCES:

• María Alejandra González´s Presentation
• Nelson, M. James. Department of Psychology. Valparaiso University