The Elements of Inquiry

Research and Methods for a Quality Dissertation

Peter J. Burke, Sara Jimenez Soffa

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781351111058
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Research & Methodology in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

The Elements of Inquiry covers the basic guidelines for graduate students doing an investigation or inquiry project. It distils the rubrics necessary for teaching research methods and completing research projects, and gives the student researcher a list of steps to follow to complete any type of inquiry project – including formal research projects such as doctoral dissertations. It was written to support the work of students in an educational leadership doctoral program, but it will also assist the research efforts of college students at any level in any discipline.

The book begins by establishing the underlying philosophical concepts upon which all good research is based, preparing students to get down to the "nuts and bolts" of conducting their own research and evaluating the research of others. Fundamental concepts and rules of research are explained both for producers and consumers of social science and educational research. Numerous practical examples illustrate the steps in the research process presented in the text. There are end-of-chapter exercises for students to apply the concepts discussed in the chapter. Templates for organizing and presenting research provide students with a game plan for success with their research. The book ends with an up-to-date annotated bibliography of beginning and advanced research texts allowing students easy access to books that detail the more specialized research topics.

While most research books detail one or more method in depth, this text provides a broad introduction to many techniques and models used in doctoral dissertations, and will be of particular value to those who are consumers of inquiry studies and research reports. Key to the overview provided is the annotated bibliography that leads the reader to the next stage of understanding or doing research.

Part I
An Introduction

The first six chapters in Part I of this text provide the connection from inquiry to research. Beginning with the scientific method, the discussion moves through the current thought regarding research concepts and conditions. Types of data and methods of research are reviewed, and techniques for reading and using research are provided.

1
Research as Inquiry

What is inquiry? Why is research a human endeavor? Human beings are a naturally curious species imbued with an unquenchable thirst for new knowledge, and a natural inquisitiveness that stems from a basic need for substantiation and verification of events, circumstances, or behaviors. Inquiry – the need to know – has been a human trait from the earliest recorded times. Classical inquiry began with the Socratic method of asking the right question, expanded through the period of Archimedes’ contemplation of natural conditions, and grew into Pythagoras forcefully demanding intellectual honesty in explaining phenomena like irrational numbers. There is an international journal devoted to publishing work in all areas of philosophy called Inquiry. To inquire is to investigate a topic, examine or explore a phenomenon, seek information or new knowledge, solve a problem, resolve a doubt, or probe for the truth. Formal investigative research is one form of inquiry, and the concept of formal research is the focus of this book.

Inquiry as a philosophical tradition suffered through the medieval times when religion and superstition ruled the day. Then the Renaissance ushered in the beginning of the scientific method, and inquiry developed into the concept of research, as we know it today. Knowledge and philosophy create the foundation of research efforts, and the STEPS of research presented in this text are built on the philosophical traditions.

It starts with inquiry. Inquiry is a request for information, often just a simple question. “How are you?” is an inquiry that stands both as a common greeting and a question as to a person’s well-being. In most cases there is little structure to an innocent inquiry. However, inquiry can include a formal investigation to determine the facts of a case. When a physician asks, “How are you?” and then orders tests to be done the inquiry has moved to research.

Research as inquiry is a productive and scholarly investigative activity commonly accepted to be either examination or experimentation. Research is used to confirm theories or ideas, solve problems, answer questions, test hypotheses, uncover and explain interrelationships between or among people or things, build an argument to revise old theories and create new ones, or to test new theories. Research is a positive and important tool for business, government, science, industry, education as well as all other professions, and, actually, for everyday life.

When a homeowner inspects an attic to determine why the living room ceiling is damp, that person is doing research. When a car buyer reviews consumer reports regarding different models that might be purchased, that person is doing research. When an investor constantly reviews the stock market trends and prices, that person is doing research. When an investigator is looking into the causes for some action or lack of action on the part of an individual or group, that person is doing research. When a voter is interested in how neighbors might vote in an election and engages those neighbors in a conversation around politics, that person is doing research. The examples are endless.

Reporting on research projects often requires careful scripting and sometimes includes the preparation of summary documents that detail the research and the results of the events that represent the research process; that is, research and writing are often combined. Research and writing are combined when a journalist interviews subjects and creates a story for a periodical or newspaper. Research and writing are combined when a market analyst surveys prospective buyers of a product and completes a report on the sales potential of the product. Research and writing are combined when a student reads several sources of literature and combines the information into a term paper. Research and writing are combined when a graduate student designs and carries out a research proposal as part of a dissertation. Once again, there are numerous examples of how research is the precursor to a writing project.

Those who read research reports or those who carry out the research – the consumers and producers of research – must have a solid foundation in both the investigative and communication processes. In order for research to lead to knowledge growth or program improvement, the basic elements in the research tradition, the STEPS of research if you will, must be followed, just as the basic STEPS of professional writing must be followed.

In order for improvement to occur in any endeavor, there must be change. Continuously and repeatedly using the same mode of operation – the same teaching or grouping techniques in education, for example – will not lead to improved results. But change just for the sake of change with the hope that positive results may occur could lead to disaster. That is why research has become the basic ingredient for thoughtful change. Decisions should be data-driven, and the data used should be valid, reliable, and the result of well-planned and careful inquiry.

Consuming Research

Consumers of research reports are the first audience for this book. A consumer of research is one who needs to find and interpret valid research in order to implement research-based projects or structures in a work environment, or to make data-driven decisions. Research consumers include those who need to keep up to date with the latest changes in their work environment by reading, and understanding, what has been studied, validated, and published as research results in the field for the purpose of making positive advances in their professional lives. In order to become a knowledgeable consumer of research, one must have, first, a solid background knowledge of research methodology and, second, a basic repertoire of interpretative skills.

Authors of research texts in the field of education have worked to help consumers of education research be judicious in their selection and use of quantitative data in scientifically based research reports (see, e.g., Bracey, 2006). As educators consume research they need to understand how data are used, and abused, how data may be manipulated in politically motivated research, whether conclusions from the research are valid, and how the use of student test scores may or may not be appropriate as data in research. Bracey, for example, provides 32 principles of data interpretation that are intended to help readers of educational research sort out the good from the bad in quantitative research. These principles are separated into four major theme areas:

• understanding data and how they are used – and misused;
• uncovering how variables are used in the construction of scientifically based research – and manipulated in politically motivated research;
• drawing conclusions about a study and deciding whether the data presented are meaningful;
• assessing the data that come from the research.

Consumers also need to develop a basic understanding of research reports from other research paradigms in addition to strict scientific experimental research. This would include qualitative approaches and those that use mixed quantitative and qualitative methods. Research reports in periodicals and other literature, once the appropriate sources for these reports are found, need to be understood and digested. One-stop shopping does not work. Readers of research must have the tenacity to gather a plethora of information or data from several locations, using various library and internet resources in locating research references to build a solid foundation of supportive literature.

Once consumed, readers need to understand the function of research in designing, developing, monitoring, evaluating, and conducting professional programs. It is here that the value of research is most often displayed. Actions that have been the subject of study, and publication, may provide the basis for informed, data-driven decisions regarding program growth and improvement. Program planners need to be aware of the potential for the “garbage in, garbage out” potential for using published research. The results from a project are only as good as the design and implementation of the project allow them to be. Program improvement relies heavily on valid and reliable research.

Research Fundamentals

The second audience is those who are in the beginning stages of planning and designing a research project, especially graduate students preparing to write a doctoral dissertation. There exist certain fundamentals that form the basis for what is considered to be authentic “research.” This chapter focuses on the quantitative methods commonly used in a scientific approach to research. Expansion of qualitative methodologies will be found in the chapters that follow.

A researcher needs to identify the reason why, confirm the research problem, present the relevant theoretical lens by which to understand the problem, state the significance of the study, present relevant literature about the problem, and discuss steps for designing a study that can answer the research question. These basic steps are important for all types of research. One methodology that is most recognized for research is the method of science.

The scientific method of research is based on theory and often provides the foundation model for what people consider “true” research, and the accepted steps in the research process are as follows:

• Hypothesize: identify a phenomenon and conjecture about its being or make-up; have an idea about the interaction of research variables.
• Control: manage the environment around the phenomenon; focus the idea.
• Experiment: design a way to look at the phenomenon; test the idea.
• Analyze: inspect the results of the experiment; review the test.
• Appraise: assess and evaluate the results.
• Conclude: make a judgment about the phenomenon.

The logic of research in science is usually based on either the inductive approach or the deductive format. Induction involves gathering together a collection of pieces of information such as observations, experimental results, or other kinds of data that may be available, and then formulating a generalization which reasonably explains all collected pieces of information. Deduction, as a form of reasoning, begins with a generalization. Predictions are made based on the generalization, and those predictions are challenged. That is, many cases are studied, or many experiments are carried out, and conclusions for future groups or future trials are made based on the results of those earlier experiments. Deduction, in essence, is the testing part of science. This “scientific model” for research, also known as “scientifically based” research, has become the coin of the realm for many research arenas.

But not all work that is considered “scientific” follows the same controlled, experimental design of research. Within the scientific method there are, for example, case studies where there may be no treatment, or quasi-experimental designs where strict control of some variables may be lacking. In addition, the broad research community uses several different ways to organize and categorize the legitimate efforts made to resolve issues or solve problems that are, in fact, authentic research. Research design is, in the end, the structure, plan, or strategy of investigation that is created and assembled in order to answer the research questions. It is the overall scheme or process for the research and it may follow several approaches, each one appropriate for answering different kinds of questions.

The scientific model that was developed and refined in the hard sciences, a term used to distinguish natural and physical science from social science, is a quantifiable, or numbers-based, approach. There are research fundamentals that include other types of data and other methods of study as well. There are ethnographic or qualitative approaches to research, based on words or text and not numbers, which are well-accepted methodologies in the social sciences. There is the analysis and appraisal of archival documents that seeks to explain events or other structures in the past – historical research – that is also a well-accepted technique.

Today, many research efforts use a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods – an analysis of both text, transcripts, documents, experiences, and numbers – to produce a well-rounded research project. This combination is often referred to as a “mixed-methods” approach. Researchers who conduct mixed-methods research need to be knowledgeable about the scientific method for collecting and analyzing quantitative data and to understand qualitative techniques for establishing trustworthiness and credibility as they synthesize and report results. The following sections provide basic descriptions of these methods. The quantitative methods described are the strict scientific approach, along with the quasi-experimental method. Survey research is discussed. Ethnography, grounded theory, case study, phenomenology, and narrative inquiry are discussed as primary qualitative traditions. Action research is also presented as a common method used by practitioners who conduct applied research. Dissertation research, as an application of several of the techniques, is emphasized in the final section.

Readers are reminded that the descriptions included here are an attempt to only scratch the surface of research techniques in very general terms. A more complete and inclusive description of these basic methodologies in the following chapters, and additional information on specific techniques, may be found in one or more of the references included in the Annotated Bibliography in Chapter 20. The first approach to be discussed here is what is commonly accepted as the scientific method.

The Scientific Approach to Inquiry

Science as a discipline includes a systematically organized body of knowledge that has been produced by careful study and that has been carried out according to accepted methodologies. These scientific methods are techniques for investigating phenomena and acquiring new knowledge based on empirical evidence. Most people think of research as a strictly controlled scientific event. That is not the case. None of the examples provided above would be considered strict scientific research, but they are all, nonetheless, research. There is more to research than the scientific method as the basic research model. However, anyone interested in consuming research reports or doing authentic (genuine and original) research must be familiar with the scientific method as the basic research model. The...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• PART I An Introduction
• PART II The Steps in the Process
• PART III Resources
• Bibliography
• Glossary
• Appendix
• Index