AMRITA VISHWA VIDYAPEETHAM UNIVERSITY, INDIA

SCHOOL OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Assignment for Research Methodology

Course ID 801

Reflection journal – 17th -20th January, 2023 session

Submitted By

Degu Zewdu: Registration Number: AM.ID.R3IDS22042

Submitted to: Dr. Karthik S. (Associate Prof.)

January, 2023
Reflection Journal
Date: 17th January
Topics: Literature Review in Research
Lectured by: Dr. Karthic

When I started thinking about synthesis, I had just thought the same thing with the term
summary.
I've learned many things through yesterday's class on the research course. I just found that
in a summary, you share the key points from an individual source and then move on and
summarize another source. In synthesis, you need to combine the information from those
multiple sources and add your own analysis of the literature class.

My understanding of a literature map was quite different from the logical analysis. So, one
of the high points of the class for me, literary maps can feature real places connected with
an individual author, literary character or book, or they may show fictional landscapes. Just
as a layer on the geographical map, the top of a literature map should have to give
information with similarities to our study, while the bottom can give the replication.

I personally got an example from Dr. karthik after he shares his last study together with his
class presentation. It gave each student the opportunity to get additional individual
attention on the literature map. The paper was conducted on Behavioural Patterns in
Queuing: Agent based modelling and Experimental approach. The paper presented two
agent-based modelling frameworks to characterize the customers using the facility and-at
the end, an experiment was designed using the guidelines from experimental economics to
validate the agent based modelling framework.

For example, in the literacy narrative, I had to write to convey a story. This means using
traditional elements of a story, such as a beginning, middle, climax, and resolution, along
with elements such as foreshadowing.

I learn a lot of information about literature overview from this class. And I am quite sure it
will help me to adopt a more appropriate methodology for my research by examining the
strengths and weaknesses of existing research in the same field. In this regard, I am just
getting ready for my academic journey.
Another paper done on future research in humanitarian operations from a behavioural
operations perspective is also an exemplary literature map. I feel that I am becoming skilled
at literature review. And therefore, I knew I could execute my papers better.

This class has helped me to understand the basic concept of explanatory research. Getting
over it, as the name suggests, is a research methodology that aims to define the “why”
behind a certain phenomenon. So that it gives a relationship, association and correlation.
Explanatory research is designed to do exactly what it sounds like: explain, and explore. It
comes to my mind that I am also using explanatory research design for my PhD research:
that is the nature of my research topic. ''Climate Change impacts on rural households'
livelihood strategies and resilience building',' a case study of three rural villages. This
requires me to explain the relationship between different variables (climate with its element
-rainfall, temperature, wind etc are independent variables and Households’ livelihood
strategies-crop production, livestock, and other incomes generating activities are dependent
variables. And then I will have to look at the cause, effect and correlation of so many
variables here through explanatory design research.

On the other hand, in this class, terms like experimental (treatment group), control group,-
test and post-test -all had to bring a billboard to class, and analyse it ourselves, pointing out
what techniques we are using, are they effective or not, and who we are targeting.
Two more ways I was able to understand the types of experimental research designs – pre-
experimental designs, true experimental designs, and quasi-experimental designs. As for
me, pre-experimental research happens even before the true experiment starts. This is done
to determine the researchers’ intervention on a group of people. We generally call it pilot
testing. This can be done even before we start to collect data. The pre-experimental
approach helps give some sort of guarantee that the experiment can be a full-scale
successful study. On the other hand, Quasi-experimental designs have a comparison group
that is similar to a control group except assignment to the comparison group is not
determined by random assignment. True experimental design is a statistical approach to
establishing a cause-and-effect relationship between different variables. In general, this
class was another opportunity to learn a lot and as I progress through my studies, I hope to
not only maintain these skills, but improve them also.
Date: 20th January
Topics: Types of Survey: cross sectional and longitudinal survey

The other important course outcome from today's was about the types of survey, which are
both cross help and longitudinal survey, and it will help me to choose effective strategies for
preparing a very good research survey through multiple drafts of a project and recognizing
the role of reflecting, revising, and editing in the process, engaging in the collaborative and
social aspects of writing processes, such as learning to give and to act on productive feedback
to works in progress, both by and with peers and critically reflecting on how they may further
develop and apply for effective study skills in the future. The first outcome was reached
simply through the rough defining steps like research question or scope, identifying the main
concept to measure, identify indicator, design questioner and pilot test questioners.
The other point in this class was about research questionnaires. Here is something that I know
for sure, that needs to take this class to move on. A questionnaire, like a conversation, should
be grouped by topic and unfold in a logical order. It is often helpful to begin the survey with
simple questions. I still need to decide on how to develop an excellent research question in
order to create a simple survey questionnaire based on principles of effective item writing and
organization. Hence, I have decided to get this out of the way now. I look forward to fine-
tuning my research skills, and I expect this course to help me understand.

It is obvious that the two important qualities of surveys, as with all measurement instruments,
are consistency and accuracy. And we call them the validity and reliability of the
questionnaire. Statistical tests, ANOVA, Ancova, Chsquire, Cramer, correlation, regression
and other inferential and Descriptive Statistics are too important in today's modern world?
Using appropriate statistics, we will be able to make sense of the large amount of data you
have collected so that you can tell your research story coherently and with justification. For
me, this course is trying to give us a lot of theoretical and practical sessions that can make
me a better man. So, I really appreciate this research course and the instructor for his caring
disposition and teaching style.