1 Hour

Gain Attention
What course would you like to take after finishing high school? Are you interested in
becoming a businessman, an engineer, a nurse, a lawyer, a doctor, a teacher, or other
professions? How do you think research is done in these areas of discipline?
Inform Learners of objectives
At the end of this module, you should be able to:

Cognitive:
1. Express your worldviews using newly learned words;
2. Explain how qualitative studies take place in other areas of knowledge.

Affective:
1. Differentiate hard sciences from soft sciences concerning research studies;
2. Appreciate the different areas of knowledge concerning qualitative research.

Psychomotor:
1. Specify the data collecting technique for a certain area of knowledge.
2. Conduct an interview with professionals about their research.

Stimulate Recall of Prior Learning

Using Newly Learned Words

Directions: Do the KIM (Key, Information, Memory). Complete the following grid
with ideas or pieces of information indicated by the headings.

KEY TERMS Information/Meaning Memory Clues

(sentence expressing
your experience
about the key term)

1. Yielded

2. Actual

3. Ethical

4. Indispensable

5. Dichotomy

6. Symbiotic

7. Deduced
 Present the content and provide learning guidance

RESEARCH IN DIFFERENT AREAS OF KNOWLEDGE

Subject Area Research Approaches

● Research studies happen in any field of knowledge. Anthropology, Business,

Communication, Education, Engineering, Law, and Nursing, among others,
turn in a big number of research studies that reflect varied interests of people.
Don’t you wonder how people in these areas conduct their research studies?

● Belonging to a certain area of discipline, you have the option to choose one
from these three basic research approaches: positive or scientific,
naturalistic, and triangulation or mixed method.

Scientific approach Naturalistic approach

● It gives stress to measurable and
observable facts instead of
personal views, feelings, or
attitudes.
● It can be used in research under
the hard sciences or STEM
(Science, Technology,
Engineering, Medicine) and
natural sciences (Biology,
Physics, Chemistry). The positive
or scientific approach allows
control of variables or factors
affecting the study. (Laursen
2010)
● Is people-oriented. Data
collected, in this case, represent
personal views, attitudes,
thoughts, emotions, and other
subjective traits of people in a
natural setting.
● Collecting data is done in family
homes, playgrounds, workplaces,
or schools. In these places,
people’s personal traits or
qualities naturally surface in the
way they manage themselves or
interact with one another. The
naturalistic approach focuses on
discovering the real concept or
meaning behind people’s
lifestyles and social relations.

● To become positivist or scientific ● Using words rather than numbers

in conducting your research
study, you must collect data in
controlled ways through
questionnaires or structured
interviews. For instance, in the
field of medicine, to produce a
new medicine, a medical
researcher subjects the data to a
controlled laboratory experiment.
as the unit of analysis, this second
research approach concerns itself
with qualitative data—one type of
data that exists in abundance in
social sciences, which to others
exists as soft sciences.
Considered as soft sciences are
Anthropology, Business,
Education, Economics, Law,
 Politics, and all subjects aligned
with business and all those
focused on helping professions
such as, Nursing, Counseling,
Physical Therapy, and the like.
(Babbie 2013)

● Factual data collected are ● Having the intention to collect data

recorded in numerical or
statistical forms using numbers,
percentages, fractions, and the
like. Expressed in measurable
ways, these types of data are
called quantitative data.
from people situated in a natural
setting, social researchers use
unstructured interviews and
participant observations.

● In the field of Humanities, man’s social life is also subjected to research

studies. However, researchers in this area give emphasis not to man’s social
life, but to the study of the meanings, significance, and visualizations of
human experiences in the fields of Fine Arts, Literature, Music, Drama,
Dance, and other artistically inclined subjects. Researches in these subjects
happen in any of the following humanistic categories:
1. Literature and Art Criticism where the researchers, using well-chosen
language and appropriate organizational pattern, depend greatly on their
interpretative and reflective thinking in evaluating the object of their study
critically.
2. Philosophical Research where the focus of inquiry is on knowledge and
principles of being and on the manner human beings conduct themselves on
earth.
3. Historical Research where the investigation centers on events and ideas
that took place in man’s life at a particular period.
RESEARCH IN DIFFERENT AREAS OF KNOWLEDGE

Hard Sciences vs. Soft Sciences

Hard Sciences Soft Sciences

● Sciences that explore the workings of
the natural world are usually called hard
sciences, or natural sciences.
● The soft sciences deal with intangibles
and relate to the study of human and
animal behaviors, interactions, thoughts,
and feelings. Soft sciences apply the
scientific method to such intangibles, but
because of the nature of living beings, it
is almost impossible to recreate a soft
science experiment with exactitude

They include: Some examples of the soft sciences, sometimes

● Physics referred to as the social sciences, are:
● Chemistry ● Psychology
● Biology ● Sociology
● Astronomy ● Anthropology
● Geology ● Archaeology (some aspects)
● Meteorology

● Studies in these hard sciences involve ● Particularly in sciences dealing with

experiments that are relatively easy to
set up with controlled variables and in
which it is easier to make objective
measurements.
● Results of hard science experiments
can be represented mathematically, and
the same mathematical tools can be
used consistently to measure and
calculate outcomes.
people, it may be difficult to isolate all
the variables that can influence an
outcome. In some cases, controlling the
variable may even alter the results!
● Simply put, in soft science it is harder to
devise an experiment.

● Just like in other subjects under soft sciences such as marketing, man’s
thoughts and feelings still take center stage in any research studies. The
purposes of any research in any of these two areas in business are to
increase man’s understanding of the truths in line with markets and
marketing activities, making him more intelligent in arriving at decisions
about these aspects of his life. Research types that are useful for these
areas are the basic and applied research. (Feinberg 2013)
● A quantitative or qualitative kind of research is not exclusive to hard sciences or soft
sciences. These two research methods can go together in a research approach
called triangulation or mixed method approach. This is the third approach to
research that allows a combination or a mixture of research designs, data collection
and data analysis techniques.
● Thus, there is no such thing as a clear dichotomy between qualitative and
quantitative research methods because some authorities on research claim that a
symbiotic relationship, in which they reinforce or strengthen each other, exists
between these two research methods. Moreover, any form of knowledge, factual or
opinionated, and any statistical or verbal expression of this knowledge are deduced
from human experience that by nature is subjective. (Hollway 2013; Letherby 20
Synthesis
Here are the module’s key ideas:
● There are these three basic research approaches: positive or
scientific, naturalistic, and triangulation or mixed method.
● The hard sciences that explore the workings of the natural world
are usually called hard sciences, or natural sciences. .
● The soft sciences deal with intangibles and relate to the study of human and
animal behaviors, interactions, thoughts, and feelings.
 Assess performance

A. Direction:: PAIR WORK. With your partner, think of the correct expression to
complete each sentence.
1. Numerical data are true for the _____________ approach.
2. For the naturalistic approach, ________ is the unit of analysis.
3. The focus of social research is _________ for the common good.
4. _________ is the focus of humanistic research.
5. Quantitative is the scientific approach; ___________ to naturalistic approach.
6. A researcher in Humanities studies his subject with the use of his __________.
7. Playgrounds, classrooms, workplaces make up the __________ to yield
qualitative data.
8. Laboratory experiments give way to a ________ way of collecting data.
9. Hard sciences present research findings in __________ forms.
10. _________ is to hard sciences; subjectivity is to soft sciences.

B. Directions: With the same partner, check the right column representing
your decisions about each statement in the first column. Accomplish the
last column, too.

Statements Agree Disagree

Reasons/Reactions/Com
ments

1. Reasons happen in
just one field of
knowledge.

2. All research types

apply to all data
collecting techniques.

3. Sticking to one data

collection technique is the
best research method.

4. Subjectivity exists in
any social science
research.

5. Subjectivity and
objectivity are
inseparable.

6. Quantitative research
tends to be more
objective than subjective.

7. Past events in a
person’s life are the
focus of triangulation.

8. Biology and Chemistry

are hard sciences.

9. It is necessary for the

qualitative researcher to
conduct his or her
research in a laboratory.

10. The mixed method of

research happens only
in quantitative research.
 Enhance retention and transfer

Directions: Ask some people whom you know have already done research
work or who are currently conducting a research study. Get to know the
title, research method (data gathering and data analysis) of his or her
research study including the importance of such research work in the
subject area under which it belongs. Present the results of your inquiry
through a table.

Bibliography
● Avilla, R. A., (2016). Practical research 1. Makati City: Diwa Learning
System, Inc.
● Baraceros, E. L., (2016). Practical Research 1. Manila: Rex Publishing.

● https://www.dreamstime.com/teenager-boy-student-wearing-academic-hat-
gown-thinking-dreaming-future-profession-career-choice-university-image1
94382263
● https://www.thoughtco.com/hard-vs-soft-science-3975989