Course: Research Methods

Lecture 1: What is Research?

A) What is Research?
What is Research?
What is Research?
 What is Research?
• “A careful, systematic, patient
investigation undertaken to discover or
establish facts and relationships.” (Mertler
& Charles, 2005, p. 6)

• “A process or set of steps involving

collecting and analysing information to
increase understanding of a topic or issue”.
 What is Research?
• Research involves:
– Posing a question (you need an answer
to the questions)
– Collecting data to response to the
question
– Presenting a response (answer) to the
question
B) Why Research?
 Why Research?
Goals of social research
• Identifying general patterns and relationship
• Testing and refining theories
• Making predictions
• Interpreting culturally or historically significant
phenomena
• Exploring diversity
• Giving voice
• Advancing new theories
(Ragin 1994, pp.32-47)
 The Importance of Research
• Adds to Knowledge
– e.g., research on gender differences in aggression;
– e.g., school community relationships

• Improves practice
– e.g., new curriculum for senior secondary

• Informs policy
– e.g., Behavior toward family planning

• Builds skills
– E.g., Push-Pull Theory

• Informs management
– E.g., Organizational Management
C) Purposes of Research?
 Purposes of Research
Types of Research purposes:
1. -Exploratory
2. -Descriptive
3. -Explanatory
 Purposes of Research
1) Exploratory purpose:
– To satisfy the researcher’s curiosity and desire to
better understanding
– To test the feasibility of undertaking a more
extensive study
– To develop methods to be employed in any
subsequence study
 Purposes of Research
1) Exploratory purpose :
– First step to determine appropriate action
– It relies on secondary research or data
– For pilot, case study and focus groups
 Purposes of Research
Example:
In Australia, aging population (elderly)
consumes more than 2/3 of federal health
budget. Federal government plans to
increase tax. However, tax payers are not so
satisfied with this. They refuse to pay tax, and
organize themselves around the issues.
 Purposes of Research
– If you have an “exploratory research
purpose”; You may:
-Learn more about the movement;
-Widespread;
-Level/degree of support in community; and
-Who involve, etc.
 Purposes of Research
2) Descriptive purpose:
-To provide data about the population or universe
being studied
- Describes a process, mechanism, or relationship
-Suit with qualitative studies which aim primarily at
description
-Only describe:"who, what, when, where and how" of
a situation, but not what caused it

Example: A product marketing survey describes people

who use, or would use a particular products.
 Purposes of Research
Example:
In Australia, aging population (elderly)
consumes more than 2/3 of federal health
budget. Federal government plans to
increase tax. However, tax payers are not so
satisfied with this. They refuse to pay tax, and
organize themselves around the issues.
 Purposes of Research
– If you have an “descriptive research
purpose”; You may describe:
-Movement structure ;
-Whether community support such movement;
-Who are actively involve in this, etc.
 Purposes of Research
3) Explanatory purpose:
-To discover and reporting relationships among
different aspects of the phenomenon under study.
-Whereas descriptive studies answer question of
what, where, when, and how, explanatory studies, of
why
Example: Reporting the voting intentions of an
electorate is descriptive; reporting why some people
plan to vote for candidate A and other for candidate B
is explanatory.
 Purposes of Research
3) Explanatory purpose:
– Determine the accuracy of a principle or theory
– Find out which competing explanation is better
– Link different issues or topics under a common
general statement
D) Types of Research
 Types of Research
Primary Research:
-A research that researcher has a contact with
sample or target group, by going to the field to
collect data to answer his/her research question.
-Example: UC’s motivation survey in 2014; Cambodian Socio-
Economic Survey 2014.
 Types of Research
Secondary Research:
-A research that researcher uses someone’s data or
existing document, data, statistics to answer his/her
research question.
-Example: Policy analysis/review.
 Types of Research
Depend on its objectives specified by
researcher, one research can be a primary, or
secondary or mix of primary and secondary
research.
E) Sources of Data in Research
 Sources of Data
There are two main sources of data for
research:
1) Primary data (sources) are documents
written by a witness to the events, whereas
2) Secondary data (sources) are secondhand
versions
 Sources of Data
Primary data (sources) can be:
-Interview scripts (incl. note, audio, video);
-Observation note
-Test (questionnaire, experimental,
examination)
 Sources of Data
Secondary data (sources) can be:
-Policies, strategic plans
-Existing statistics/data
-Publications (GVT, CSO, etc)
-Someone else’s data
F) Time Dimension
 Time Dimension
Researcher has two principle options to deal with
issues of timing in designing a research (Rubin 2005,
pp. 127):
1) Cross-sectional
2) Longitudinal studies
 Time Dimension
1) Cross-sectional studies:
-Study made at one point in time.
-It represents a single point in time.

• E.g. study on HIV/AIDS epidemic, Voting preference

study, impacts of domestic violence on child’s
educational achievements…
 Time Dimension
2) Longitudinal studies:
-Study on the same phenomenon over an extended
period
-It involves in collection of data at different point in
time.
• E.g. study on political trend– whether or not
the sample still supports or votes for party A.
G) Reference
 Source of Information

• You must know your source of information

which you cited from
Information Sources
Information Sources
Information Sources
 Referencing
• References contain only those works cited within
the text.

• A Bibliography includes texts whether you cited or

not.

• Both Refs. & Bibliog. must be in alphabetical

order; and each entry must be laid out in a strictly
ordered sequence
 Referencing

• Harvard Referencing
• APA Referencing
• Note System
Harvard Referencing
APA Referencing

According to Hart (1996), researchers

took Terrace's conclusions seriously,
and funding for language experiments
soon declined.

Hart (1996) wrote that some primatologists

"wondered if apes had learned Language,
with a capital L" (p. 109).

Hart, B. (1996). Everyday life and cultural

theory. New York:Routledge.
Note (Endnote) Referencing
In-Text Citation
However, by the inter-war years, the ideology of the
‘modern’ family had penetrated
across every class.1

Footnote
1. K Reiger, The disenchantment of the home:
modernising the Australian family, Oxford University
Press, Melbourne, 1985, pp. 1-4.

X Li & NB Crane, Electronic styles: a handbook for

citing electronic information, 2nd edn, Information
Today Inc., Medford, NJ, 1996, p. 245.
Example on how to apply Harvard
Referencing System
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What do you think of below
referencing?