Edgar Allan L.

Bantigue 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM

DGM 323: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods March 13, 2021

Exercise No.1

Lesson 1 Selecting Research Design

Article 1: Vogt, P. W. (2008). The dictatorship of the problem: Choosing research

methods.Methodological Innovations Online, 3(1), 1-17.

Summary: It is relatively easy to investigate how to employ a particular research method in the social
sciences. It is considerably more difficult to decide which to use. Which method to use is arguably a
more important question than how to use that method.

Questions to Consider

1. After reading this article and Chapter 1, what type of worldviews do you hold that might be a
factor in your research methodology selection?

Ans. After reading the article, I now realize that at this early stage of my journey as freshman
of the program, I need to start conceptualizing my dissertation paper. It has been proven in the
article based on facts that a research does not happen overnight that if you conceived it today
you can have the result by tomorrow. No. Its definitely not. I have learned that a good, effective
and useful research paper starts off with a painstaking process of determining first the research
design. As what has been pointed out in the article, the most difficult part in the research process
is how you begin it. In the blueprint of research, chronological processes must closely be knitted:
DESIGN, SAMPLING, CODING and ANALYSIS.

Factors that will affect my research methodology will certainly be the type of research
that I intend to investigate which must be closely related to my current job as an educator, who
will be my respondents, how am I going to collect and analyze the data, what will be the tools
that am I going to employ in order to statistically treat the data at hand.

As a matter of principle, the nature of the research questions and the specific problems
that arise as a consequence of answering them directs a good research design.

2. The author discussed asking yourself six questions to help in the selection of an appropriate
research design approach. As you begin to think about what works best for you, why would
the other approaches not be a good fit for your research?

Ans. Answering the six questions about the problem/question helps generate some of the
conceptual capital needed to explain and justify design choices. The questions are meant to
orientate design choices. After answering these design-orientating questions and selecting the
basic design, then it is easier for the researcher to move to the important issues of sampling or
selecting cases and the ethical implications of the intersection of the design and the cases
including coding and analyzing evidences which can be categorized as quantitative and
qualitative.
Edgar Allan L. Bantigue 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM
DGM 323: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods March 13, 2021

I do believe that all the six questions suggested by the author are relevant information
to guide neophyte researchers like me to distinguish the over-all research processes at an early
stage of conception until it is out for publication. I do not see any of the approaches offer
negative setback to my research. In between, most of the six guide questions does not only guide
but gives reminders for the researcher to be on track and at focus more especially to the
methodologies being employed.

3. The author discussed how the design process is the first stage in a natural sequence of
choosing a methodology, but a researcher needs to be thinking about the audience they are
trying to reach. What approach (qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods) would be the best
to communicate with your audience and why?

Ans. The best approaches according to the author and also my preference is the mixed
(employing both the quantitative and quantitative) methods. It is because when a researcher
reaches out to his/her samples, he/she may be employing variety of tools. These tools are
indispensable in research. Research would be more valid and reliable if both quantitative
and quantitative data are generated. Because according to the author, categories in research
are not “mutually exclusive”.

This means that in conducting a survey research for example, one may employ a
qualitative method because of the way survey research is conducted, that is usually contain
replies that are open-ended in nature influenced by the beliefs and attitudes of the
respondents. But surveys are also quantitative. Many of the questions included in a
typical survey are written to generate answers that are best analyzed using quantitative
techniques. In sum, although the analysis of survey data is frequently quantitative, it is not
exclusively so. Surveys, like all research designs, can be used to collect either qualitative or
quantitative evidence – or both.

Article 2: Finlay, L. (2012). Unfolding the phenomenological research process: Iterative stages of
“seeing afresh.” Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 53(2), 172-201.

Summary: Phenomenology is an umbrella term encompassing a philosophical movement and a range

of research approaches. It is a way of seeing how things appear to us through experience. More than
a method, phenomenology demands an open way of being—one that examines taken-for-granted
human situations as they are experienced in everyday life but which go typically unquestioned.

Questions to Consider

1. Finlay (2012) stated, “Phenomenological research starts with the researcher who has a curiosity
or passion that is turned into a research question.” What is it that you want to research?
Edgar Allan L. Bantigue 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM
DGM 323: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods March 13, 2021

Ans. First, in her book, Finlay defined Phenomenology as an “umbrella term encompassing a
philosophical movement and a range of research approaches. It is a way of seeing how things
appear to us through experience”. “Phenomenological researchers generally agree that our
central concern is to return to embodied, experiential meanings of the world directly
experienced”.

In the context of social science, one cannot just do away with Philosophy. It is this body
of knowledge which explains everything including the world existing as it should be. Apart from
Pure Science, it is philosophy which gives meaning to everything that exists in the world. This
is explained in the philosophy of existentialism.

Now putting my work relative to the concept of phenomenology, I would say that this
branch of social science cannot be separated and therefore taken for granted because there
might be situations along the way of completing my research work where I am obligated to turn
and use the pages of phenomenological approach in order to point out clarity or distinguish a
point of view from the standpoint of a phenomenological researcher.

2. Finlay (2012) also stated, “The immediate challenge for the researcher having this passion or
curiosity is to remain open to new understanding—to be open to the phenomenon— in order
to go beyond what they already know from experience or through established knowledge. The
researcher starts to engage a phenomenological attitude, which is one of noninterference and
wonder.” Do you foresee any challenges or biases in your research based on previous personal
experiences?

Ans. Yes I would say biases cannot simply be undone. But in the field of research, it has no room
in it. That is why it will be hard for the researcher to eliminate biases if solely he will rely on
his/her own judgment without the aid of established phenomenological theories of existence
authored by renowned phenomenological researchers. According to Giorgi (2009), “It is the
researcher’s task to engage the phenomenological attitude to go beyond participants’ words
and reflections (or words in a text) in order to capture something of implicit horizons of meaning
and pre-reflective experience (i.e., the actual experience before thinking about it).” So it is very
clear therefore that in order for me to be uprightly objective and not lose sight of what I want
to prove based on my objectives, I must draw the line between what are data of information
which are based only on one’s presumption over an approved, universal body of knowledge that
are proven, tested and stands the test of time.