Rethinking Research

1. Rethinking Research Deane Neubauer Professor Emeritus, University of Hawaii, Manoa Presented to the School of Social Science and Languages King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi August 27, 2006

2. Why Should We Rethink Research? • Lack of meaning in research • Tendency to do what we know, rather than to do what may be needed • New problems require new research questions • Good research is cumulative--as knowledge accumulates, we need to ask new questions • Keeping up: novelty and innovation in research care constant

3. Why Do Research? • Obviously--to gain knowledge. But…what kind of knowledge? • The centrality of the research question to the research endeavor. • What do you what to know? • Why do you want to know it? • How might you go about it?

4. What Do You Want to Know? • Whatever the subject, it is critical to know whether others have done it before you. Research is done on the efforts of our predecessors. • The first step always is researching the research question--then one can ask: how is my question similar or different? How can I build on what has been done?

5. Yin’s Approach (1984) • Is it exploratory? Seek to describe the incidence or distribution of some phenomenon? • What is happening? • What are the salient themes, patterns, categories in participants’ meaning structures? • How are these patterns linked to one another • Or, does it try to explainsome phenomenon? • What events, beliefs, attitudes, policies etc. are shaping the environment • How do these forces interact to result in the phenomenon?

6. Description and Prediction • Is it descriptive? What do you seek describe? Documenting the phenomenon. • What are the salient behaviors, events, beliefs, attitudes, structures, processes occurring in this phenomenon? • Is it predictive? Predicting outcomes or forecasting events. • What will occur as a result of the phenomenon? • Who will be affected? In what ways?

8. Developing Research Proposals: Introducing the Study • Describe the substantive focus of research • Frame as larger theoretical, policy or practice problem--develop its significance • Pose initial research questions • Forecast literature to be discussed in literature review • Discuss limitations of Study

9. Developing Research Proposals: Review of Related Literature Four functions of literature review: • Demonstrate underlying assumptions behind general research questions • Demonstrate knowledge of researcher in related research and its traditions • Demonstrate that researcher has identified gaps and that proposal will fill needs • Refines and redefines the research question and any related hypotheses

10. Developing Research Proposals: Research Design and Research Methods • What is your research intended to do? What is it not intended to do? (Bounding the study.) • Which methods will you employ? • Why these? Why not others?

11. The tension and complementary nature of quantitative and qualitative research approaches • Quantitative research of one variety very good for doing macro research in politics, sociology, economics, environment, etc. • Quantitative survey research is very useful in identifying characteristics of populations, but requires care in control of sample size and representative nature of the sample. Power of significance dictated by the rigor of sample selection. • Critiques of survey biases.

12. Complementary Nature of Qualitative Research • More detailed examination of survey characteristics • Deeper exploration of meanings • Ability to do micro level research--the focus in much qualitative research on “lived-life” issues and activities • In general survey research tells us “what” and qualitative research can tell us “how” and “why”.