Understanding

Research Methodology
and Design

Chapter 3
Research Methodology
● Is situated after the literature review and
before the data collection methods
● Signals the readers how the research was
conducted, and what philosophical
assumptions underpin the research
Research Methodology
Data Collection Methods
● Are a major part of the methodological
framework for the research project
Research Methodology
● The research methodology used must be
capable of supporting the research, capable
of enabling and facilitating its completion.
● Must be appropriate with the research
project
Research Methodology
● Each research project is designed to make a
contribution to knowledge.
● The process or processes through which
knowledge is created are of fundamental
importance in research.
 Research Methodology
● A researcher poses a question, and then
conducts research in order to be able to answer
that question. When the researcher develops
some clarity in relation to the focus of the
project, they can start to develop the design
of the research project.
Research Methodology
● The researcher thinks about the nature
and purpose of the study and begins to
develop a sense of the best research
methodology to use in the research
project.
 Observation Images
METHODOLOGICAL
Questionnaires Vignettes PYRAMID
Interviews Life History
Focus Groups Data Narrative
Scales Diaries
Collection Documents/Record/Archives
Projective Techniques
Methods Internet Research
Survey Discourse Analysis
Case Study Documentary Analysis
Experimental Design Textual Analysis
Ethnography Semiotics
Action Research Research Image-based Research
Grounded Theory Archival Research
Content Analysis
Methodologies Feminist Research

Positivism Critical Theory

Constructionism Fundamental Feminism
Interpretivism Philosophies Post-Structuralism
Functionalism Postmodernism
 The Conceptual
Framework

The Theoretical The Methodological

Framework Framework

The methodological framework emerges from the conceptual framework.

 List of Research Methodologies
Survey Life History

Case Study Phenomenology

Experimental Design Narrative Analysis

Ethnography Semiotics

Action Research Attitude Research

Grounded Theory Image-based Research

Content Analysis Archival Research

Discourse Analysis Textual Analysis

Documentary Analysis Meta-analysis

Historical Analysis Feminist Research

 Today’s Task : Group Quiz
1. Define the assigned philosophy, research
methodology, or data collection method to your
group.
2. Write the steps of each methodology.
3. Indicate the source by writing the link or URL
in your presentation.
4. Create a short presentation with 5-10 slides
 DETAILED
RESEARCH
METHODOLOGIES
 SURVEY
● Tend to be quantitative research projects or largely
quantitative, research projects that is quantitative with
some qualitative element.
● In general, the data collection methods that tend to be
used in surveys are questionnaires or scales.
● It is often the case that the population or population
sample used in surveys is big, and a questionnaire and/or
scale is an effective method in engaging with large
research populations.
 SURVEY
● Sometimes the population is geographically scattered.
● A questionnaire can generally easily be posted or
emailed or made available on the internet for a
geographically scattered population.
● The use of the internet in survey research is very
common, and online surveys are commonly used.
 CASE STUDY
● Used if the research is located in a bounded entity, in a
specific space or place, in a particular incident.
● The case to be studied could be a class in a school, it
could be a school, and it could be an office, or a shop,
or a factory, an enterprise of some kind.
● It could be a study of a particular practice, for example
recruitment and selection processes or marketing
campaign.
 CASE STUDY
● Can involve the study of one case, or the study of a
number of cases.
● The researcher engages in an in-depth examination of the
phenomenon under investigation.
● Generally, this does not have the substantial population in
terms of numeric size or geographic spread of survey
research.
● Instead of breadth, i.e. numeric size and geographic
spread, case study research recalls for depth.
 CASE STUDY
● It calls for the deeper investigation of some bounded
entity.
● A simple definition of case study methodology is that it
is the in-depth study of a bounded entity.
● A case study methodology can draw on quantitative or
qualitative data, or it can draw on a mixture of both
 EXPERIMENTAL
DESIGN
● Is used when conducting experiments
● True experiments are rarely conducted in business
research or in social science research generally.
● This is because of the difficulties in controlling all the
different variables in social science situations and
phenomena.
● Properly designed experiments can be very effective in
laboratories or in laboratory conditions.
 EXPERIMENTAL
DESIGN
● Laboratory conditions are difficult to replicate in the social
world or in the study of social phenomena.
● The experiments which are conducted in real-life settings
are field experiments.
● In an experiment, two groups are established, with
individuals or units being randomly assigned to both
groups.
● The two groups are pre-tested, and the dependent variable
is measured.
 EXPERIMENTAL
DESIGN
● Then a program or application, the independent variable,
is applied to one group, the experimental group, and not to
the other group, the control group.
● Both groups are tested again; again the dependent variable
is measured. If there is a difference in the experiment
group but not in the control group, the program or
application applied to them, the independent variable, is
said to account for the difference.
 EXPERIMENTAL
DESIGN
● There can be more than one dependent variable in an
experiment, but there should be only one independent
variable.
 ETHNOGRAPHY
● Is used when a researcher wants to carry out an in-depth
examination of a culture.
● It calls for the observation in the field of the
phenomenon under investigation.
● Using this, the researcher goes inside the culture being
investigated in order to develop a very deep
understanding of it.
 ETHNOGRAPHY
● The researcher must be inside the culture enough to be
able to document the culture, but also (and at the same
time) outside of the culture enough to be able to
document the culture.
● This means that when an individual is part of a culture,
when they are immersed in that culture, they are in a
position to properly and thoroughly document that
culture and all its complexities.
 ETHNOGRAPHY
● Yet because they are immersed in the culture they often
cannot see the strangeness of the culture - the culture
can appear to them to be natural.
● In order to be able to conduct ethnographic research, the
researcher must have the capacity to see the
“strangeness” of the culture they are attempting to
document and analyze.
● This methodology can on quantitative or qualitative
data, or a mixture of both.
 ACTION RESEARCH
● Is used to bring about change, improvement and
development in the quality of any organization and/or in
the practice or performance of any team or group or
organization.
● It follows a cyclical or spiral process of planning, action,
critical reflection, and evaluation.
● It can be a particularly effective approach to
problem-solving in organizations.
 ACTION RESEARCH
● One form of action research (AR), participatory action
research (PAR) is widely used in development research.
PAR was developed from the teaching theories of Paulo
Freire, the revolutionary twentieth-century Brazilian
educator.
● AR was developed my MIT Professor Kurt Lewin in the
1940s. This methodology can draw on quantitative or
qualitative data, or on a mixture of both.
 GROUNDED THEORY
● Is used when the specific focus of the research is on
building theory from data.
● This methodology is very useful when researching
phenomenon about which is little known.
● In the thesis of a GT research project, there is sometimes
a very short literature review, as little has been written
on the phenomenon under investigation.
 GROUNDED THEORY
● In some grounded theory research projects, there is no
literature review at all - this is because some
methodologists hold that within a grounded theory
methodology, studying the literature gives the researcher
preconceived ideas about what is to be found in the data.
● Within the GT research project, theory is generated
from data, and so, within a grounded theory research
project, the concluding chapter in the report
 GROUNDED THEORY
of the research/the thesis is theoretically very rich.
● This chapter contains the theory developed from the data
gathered for the research project.
● A GT approach to data analysis involves three stages: (1)
open coding; (2) selective coding; and (3) theoretical
coding.
● This approach to data analysis is used in research projects
which have been designed using other research
methodologies.
 GROUNDED THEORY
● GT was developed by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss
(1967). Glaser and Strauss later split in their
understanding of the methodology. Within Glaser’s GT
methodology, the methodology can draw on quantitative
or qualitative data, or on a mixture of both.
 PHENOMENOLOGY
● Is used in the social science to examine lived
experience.
● It is the study of lived experience from the first-person
point of view.
● It is the study of consciousness.
● It is one of the most qualitative of the social science
methodologies.
● The researcher spends a great deal of time developing
accounts of lived experience from the
 PHENOMENOLOGY
perspective of those living the experience.
● The lived experience can be any lived experience : that of the
worker in a factory, that of the CEO of any company, that of
the undergraduate business student, and so on.
● Very powerful phenomenological accounts of personal
experience can be used to bring about change; phenom.
accounts of, for example, experiences of bullying in the
workplace or experiences of working
 PHENOMENOLOGY
in a racist or sexist workplace, can highlight and challenge
such behaviors and practices in a way that can quickly lead
to change.
NARRATIVE RESEARCH
● Narrative analysis
● Is used in the gathering and analysis of narratives.
● The narratives gathered as data and analyzed are often
narratives (or stories) of personal experience told to the
researcher by the person who has had the experience.
● Narrative research is frequently used in marketing and
consumer behavior research in order to understand
consumption and consumer behavior.
NARRATIVE RESEARCH
● It can be used to analyze textual data, in written or visual
texts.
● It can be used to examine and analyze the narratives or
stories created or developed around the products for
marketing purposes - such narratives are often developed
around a character(s) real or fictional, with attributes or
characteristics which the product developers want
consumers to associate with their product(s).
NARRATIVE RESEARCH
● An example would be the fictional character Lara Croft
and the use of her image in promoting such diverse
products a s video games, magazines, credit cards, and
soft drinks.
HISTORICAL RESEARCH
● Historical analysis
● It involves exploring and analyzing the history of some
phenomenon.
● The subject of the research might, for example, be a
particular industry, such as coalmining in Wigan, or
brewing in Wiveliscombe. There might, for example, be
useful lessons to be learned from the study of the history
of Apple Computer Inc. or the history of the
HISTORICAL RESEARCH
of the Microsoft Corporation.
● The different social periods of trade such as an aspect of
colonial trading historing, or a history of some aspect of
globalization, might prove illuminating in terms of some
issue in contemporary business studies.
HISTORICAL RESEARCH
● Some contribution to the study of the history of
economic thought might be valuable, perhaps a study of
the lessons of Marxist economics for contemporary
society.
● An interesting idea for a research project might be the
study of Guinness advertising over the last fifty years, or
perhaps a study of the most popular Guinness
advertising campaign ever.
HISTORICAL RESEARCH
● It is worth remembering that recent history is as valid as
ancient history in terms of historical research.
● There might be some aspect of recent business history that
you could study that would count as valuable contribution
to knowledge.
● There are very many possibilities for the useful application
of this methodology in business research. This
methodology can draw on quantitative or qualitative data,
or on a mixture of both.
 LIFE HISTORY
● Is used to compile life histories of different people or
different companies.
● It could be used, for example, to understand the changes
that have occurred in the lives of a group of people, or the
changes that have occurred in the life of a company.
● This can draw on quantitative or qualitative data, or on a
mixture of both.
 LIFE HISTORY
● Oral history has been written about by Thompson (2000).
● An oral history is a vocalized account of some historical
experience given by a witness or participant in that
experience.
● An interesting and useful oral history research project
might be one of the vocalized accounts of experiences of
people involved in the contemporary crisis in banking.
 LIFE HISTORY
● The most fundamental data collection method within
a life history and an oral history research
methodology is the life history interview.
 CONTENT ANALYSIS
● Is used to analyze the content of any text.
● It can be used to examine the tenor of a text, and both
the explicit and latent content of texts.
● It can be used to calculate the frequency with which
particular words, or phrases, or concepts or ideas appear
in the text being analyzed.
● It can be used to examine the placing within the text of
particular aspects and elements of communication.
 CONTENT ANALYSIS
● It can be used to examine the strength of communication,
through the force given to aspects of communication,
evident in the size of the font, in the organization of the
communication, and in any highlighting, for example
through the use of color, in the text.
● Texts can be documents, interview transcripts, or the
transcripts of speeches, newspapers, conversations,
advertising, websites, and web pages, and so on.
 CONTENT ANALYSIS
● Any text that is language-based can be analyzed using a
content analysis approach.
● This is used a great deal in media analysis.
● An interesting research project using content analysis
might be the study of the website of a company - you
could study a company’s website in order, for example,
to examine their positioning in the marketplace, or to
examine their brand, or perhaps to examine their
business ethics.
CONTENT ANALYSIS
Although traditionally a quantitative methodology, this
methodology can draw on quantitative or qualitative
data, or on a mixture of both.
 DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
● A methodology that facilitates the identification of
discourses in the social world and the analysis of those
discourses.
● According to Fairclough (1995), discourse can be
written texts, spoken words, and/or cultural artefacts.
● Discourses are, he suggests, are embedded in social
events and social practices
 DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
● Foucault (1970, 1972) believed that public discourses
can be shaped by powerful individuals and groups, and
he also believed that such discourses have the power to
shape individuals and their experiences of the social
world.
● Foucault believed that powerful discourses could bring
about particular realities.
DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
● You might, by way of an example, think about the
discourses that prevailed in international economics
before the recent global economic turmoil - then think
about the discourses that prevail in international
economics since the recent global economic turmoil.
DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
● Think about the powerful forces creating, propounding,
and perpetuating those discourses, and think about the
impact of those discourses on you, your family and
your friends, and on every individual on the planet.
Discourse analysis calls for the identification and
analysis of of discourses.
 DOCUMENTARY
● ANALYSIS
Documentary research
● Is designed to facilitate research on documents.
● Documentary analysis involves systematic analysis of
data in the form of documents or data drawn from
documents.
● The documents used can be written documents, books,
papers, magazines, notices, letters, records, and so on.
 SEMIOTICS
● Semiotics is the study of signs, their forms, content, and
expression.
● It is and has long been widely used in media analysis.
● In recent years, the study of social semiotics has become
prominent.
● Signs in society are signs because they signify something
- anything that has signifying power can be studied
semiotically.
 SEMIOTICS
● If you consider, for example, the following sign: @, you
will immediately recognize the sign and you will know
immediately what it signifies.
● The social world and the world of social interaction, is full
of signifying signs.
● Semiotics is the study of such signs. it can be used to
uncover the meaning if the image of a company, or a
brand, or a product. Semiotic data can be analyzed both
quantitatively and qualitatively.
 ATTITUDE RESEARCH
● This methodology is used in the measurement of attitudes -
the attitudes of people to anything : to a product, to an
advertising campaign, to a company, to spending, to
saving, anything.
● It has traditionally been a quantitative methodology, or a
methodology that uses quantitative data; however,
qualitative data can also be used in attitude research, as can
a mixture of both quantitative and qualitative data.
 ATTITUDE RESEARCH
● There are many scales that have been specifically designed
for attitude measurement, research.
● Some examples of the different scales used in attitude
measurement include Likert scales, semantic differential
scales, and social distance scales.
 IMAGE-BASED
● This is the useRESEARCH
of images in social research.
● The researcher can draw on data from photographs, films,
videos, advertising, cartoons, drawings, maps, charts, and
any other kind of image.
● Visual data can be analyzed using a quantitative or a
qualitative approach, or a mixture of both.
● Banks (2007), Pink (2006), Prosser (1998), and Rose
(2001) are among those who have written on this
methodology.
 IMAGE-BASED
● RESEARCH
The web-resource Methodspace (www.methodspace.com) ha
a number of video interviews with research methodologists,
among them Jon Prosser, Sarah Pink, and Marcus Banks,
experts in image-based research.
● An interesting example in business studies is the work of
Pullman and Robson (2007), who in one of their research
projects used image-based research to examine hotel guests’
responses to the design of a hotel.
 ARCHIVAL RESEARCH
● This is carried out on the context of archives.
● Archives are documents or stores of documents. Archives
can be very small, and they can be very extensive.
● Libraries, for example, can store archives. The stored
records and/or documents of a company or a business
would constitute an archive.
 ARCHIVAL RESEARCH
● According to the website of The National Archive of the
UK (www.nationalarchives.gov.uk), “archives are
documents in any medium that have been created by an
individual, family, business, or organization during its
existence and have been chosen to be kept permanently
because they are considered to be of continuing value”.
 ARCHIVAL RESEARCH
● Researchers when they conduct archival research, gain
access to the archive and then conduct their research on
the contents of that archive.
● It is often the case that different data collection methods
are used in archival research, for example content
analysis, documentary analysis, image-based research.
The methods used, as always, depend on the data
 ARCHIVAL RESEARCH
● The methods used, as always, depend on the data
available in the archive, on the requirements of the study,
and they depend in this case on the imaginative way in
which the researcher engages with the archival material.
 TEXTUAL ANALYSIS
● This is the analysis of the text.
● Texts can be books, magazines, other documents or images,
or film, TV programmes, DVDs, videos, websites and web
pages, advertisements, clothes, graffiti, the décor, layout and
organization of rooms, and so on.
● The researcher analyzes the text in order to develop some
interpretation of the meaning of the text in relation to the aim
of the research. - he/she analyzes and interprets the text in
order to try to make some meaning of the text.
 META-ANALYSIS
● This is a research methodology which involves the
quantitative analysis of amalgamated previously existing
research data sets.
● This methodology involves the bringing together of
quantitative data sets from previously conducted research
projects, combining them, and then analyzing then.
 META-ANALYSIS
● The possibility of error is quite large in using this
methodology - this is because the meta-analysis is
dependent upon the validity of the existing data sets.
● The researcher conducting the meta-analysis generally
will not have been involved in the design or conduct of
any of the research projects which produced the data sets.
 META-ANALYSIS
● As this is the case, the researcher cannot guarantee the
validity of the data.
● Another issue in terms of validity in meta-analysis is that
the process of amalgamating the data sets could alter or
damage in some way the data in the data sets. Despite
these issues, meta-analyses are conducted.
 FEMINIST RESEARCH
● This research can be undertaken to highlight the
experiences of women, as well as highlight gender
equality.
● Feminism is a philosophical framework, and it is an
intellectual and political movement.
● Feminists hold a particular standpoint in relation to the
nature of the social world.
 FEMINIST RESEARCH
● Feminists hold that the world is structured around gender
inequality, with men holding more power than women.
● Feminist research is research conducted from that
standpoint.
The following may help you clarify your
thinking in relation to the decision you have to
make regarding the research methodology to
use in your research project. In order to
confirm your decision, you will need to do
further reading and engage in further
reflection -- to develop the level of expertise
required by your program of study in terms of
the research methodology you decide to
choose in your work.