Student Research and Report Writing

From Topic Selection to the Complete Paper

Gabe T. Wang, Keumjae Park

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781118963913, 9781118963906
• eBook ISBN: 9781118963937
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This is an invaluable, concise, all-in-one guide for carrying out student research and writing a paper, adaptable to course use and suitable for use by students independently, it successfully guides students along every step of the way.

• Allows students to better manage their research projects
• Exercises and worksheets break down the research process into small steps and walk students through each stage of the research project
• Offers real-world and lively examples that are attractive and relevant to students
• Based on twenty years of experience in teaching research techniques to students in a way that avoids the methodology "overkill" from encyclopaedic and intimidating textbooks

Chapter 1
Introduction: Start Your Research Journey

If you have picked up this book, you are likely to be a student of the social sciences, business, or education. You may be thinking about original research for a major paper, for an undergraduate seminar class, or for a bachelor’s or master’s thesis. Or you may be in a practicum course in social science research and writing (often called “Senior Seminars” in many U.S. universities). You probably have already learned about different theories and have taken research methods courses in your discipline. Perhaps, you feel that you know a fair amount about research terminology, but you might not have had practice designing and carrying out original research of your own. Or you may be simply overwhelmed by the magnitude of the work ahead and do not know exactly where to start. You know what you need to produce in the end but are anxious about how to get it done. If this is the case, this book is for you.

Conducting social science research is a journey that requires a step-by-step blueprint and a time-management plan. Most people today rely on a GPS (Global Positioning System) device or internet map services when they drive to unfamiliar locations. We hope this book works as your GPS research guide, a one-stop shop of practical help for you in each step of your research project, from coming up with a research topic to completing the report. Most chapters provide you with exercises corresponding to each research phase, which will help you complete the work effectively, and work out solutions to problems you may have.

What Is Research?

Before you get on the road, let’s first talk about the definition of the term which we will use throughout the book. What is research? These days “research” has become a part of our everyday life. For example, when you ask someone in business about a new product or a new service, he/she may reply, “let me research that for you.” As a consumer, you do research on a daily basis, whether it is the price of a car, which tablet device to purchase, or opportunities in the job market. In these cases, research refers to gathering available information so that you may make informed choices. The use of the internet has made this practice so common and routine that even children search for toys on the internet and compare various gadgets they can find before asking their parents to buy them.

On other occasions, you may be asked to do “formal” research that involves more systematic and conscious processes of gathering information, careful evaluation of evidence, and a methodical synthesis of the information gathered. Examples include doing research for term papers in undergraduate and postgraduate courses, writing a thesis to satisfy a requirement of a bachelor’s or master’s degree, or writing scholarly papers for publication or conference presentations. Or at work you may be asked for a market analysis or a needs assessment. The main difference between the casual everyday research you do as a consumer and the more formal research is the extent of the information to be considered and the methods to be employed in analyzing the information. For the everyday research, you may look up a few pieces of information you can easily find on the internet or from a few people around you; but more formal research will require you to examine issues thoroughly and draw careful conclusions. Formal research requires systematic methods of investigation and a critical analysis of evidence to discern credible and not-so-credible knowledge.

We will use the term “research” with specific meanings in this book and we want to clarify it here. When we refer to “research,” it will involve: 1) questions that are academic in nature and advance a scientific understanding of human society or human behavior; 2) systematic and evaluative screening and collection of information on a topic; and 3) tasks of systematic and careful data analysis and report-writing. It is the type of research that students conduct for educational purposes and to gain and produce knowledge in academic settings.

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Box 1.1 What Is Research?

In this book, we will focus on the following type of research:

• Asking questions that are academic in nature and advance a scientific understanding of society and human behaviors;
• Requiring systematic and evaluative screening and collection of information;
• Involving systematic and careful data analysis and report-writing.

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Today, there is a growing expectation for student research. Students like you are often trained and required, as part of the university curricula, to conduct research and write papers or theses that meet the professional standards of the discipline. A good reason behind this trend is that research skills are increasingly expected in the workplace worldwide. Doing empirical research enables you to acquire many valuable skills. It requires you to raise appropriate questions; assess existing information; set goals and make plans to meet the goals; collect, analyze, and interpret data; and use data in a meaningful and appropriate way. The process requires systematic project management skills to allocate time, resources, and handle unexpected problems. Your research experiences will provide you with rich, in-depth learning, which many of your future employers will highly value. With advances in technology you have greater access to the tools of field research and to a broader population whom you can engage in your research. The continuing efforts of colleges and universities to establish networks with professional and local communities are increasing opportunities for your learning experiences in the real world.

What Type of Research Project Do You Have?

We have designed this book to guide a journey of an empirical research, mostly involving observations and analysis of empirical data. Empirical research is an effective way of doing research and it is widely employed by social scientists, especially in North America. Empirical research is often based on the principle of positivism, or the pinning down of social world into tangible data and reasoning with them to explain social phenomena. But other empirical research is rooted in different traditions; for example, anthropologists often analyze their empirical data through interpretation of qualitative (narrative) data, instead of quantitative data. Your particular research will be guided by requirements of different research methods, depending on the nature of your assignment/project; some will involve empirical research of various types, and others may be mostly based on bibliographical research. Though not an exhaustive list, some possible types of assignment you may have are the following:

Empirical Research Project with Original Data Collection

Your project may require a collection of original empirical data. Empirical research projects can vary in their scope and magnitude. They range in lengths, from thirty-page journal article style papers to book lengths projects such as doctoral dissertations. Regardless of the scope and lengths, empirical research projects follow a similar process. There is a truly wide range of different kinds of empirical research project as we will discuss in chapters of this book. They may use numerical data or text data. They may use large or small sized samples. They may focus on one group or setting, or on the general population. Regardless of the styles, a successful empirical project will depend on clearly defined topics or problems, thorough and careful reviews of the literature, well-planned research methods to ensure validity and reliability of the data, proper applications of analytic techniques, and careful interpretation of the results of the analysis.

Empirical Research Project with Secondary Data

Everything mentioned above is also applicable to empirical research projects using secondary data, except that this latter uses data already collected by someone else. Thus, your task will include locating and extracting most suitable data sets for your project, instead of designing original sampling and data collection strategies. Using secondary data has its advantages and disadvantages. When you use secondary data collected by government agencies or large institutes, you are likely to work with data obtained from large representative samples; this will increase your ability to generalize the findings from your study to a larger population. One of the main disadvantages of using secondary data is that the variables in the data set may not be the perfect measures for the themes and concepts you wish to investigate. Whether you can use secondary data for your project depends on the requirement of the assignment given to you. You should consult your project supervisor or faculty mentor before you make your decision.

Synthesized Literature Reviews or Review Essays

Some of you may work on an assignment based on bibliographical research without a requirement for empirical data collection. If it is the case, your assignment may be literature reviews. Many undergraduate course assignments are different versions of literature reviews. Synthesized literature reviews provide a comprehensive and organized overview of the studies focusing on a topic area in social sciences. For this type of assignment, you need to identify the relevant literature, review the studies carefully, and produce a synthesized assessment of the field of study. A successful execution of this type of assignment depends on 1) the quality of information search which successfully identifies the right range of relevant literature and produces a near-exhaustive list of the literature on the topic, 2) your ability to evaluate the studies’ validity, relevance, and significance in the subfield, and 3) your ability to create an organized report, or synthesis which delineates agreements and contradictions, well-explored themes and overlooked ones, over-studied population and under-studied ones, and tested and un-tested theories. A good literature review project can also suggest research directions and questions to explore further, based on the “gaps and voids” identified in the existing literature.

Theoretical Essays

Theoretical essays are somewhat different from literature reviews, as they aim to do more than synthesize what is known, but to extend theoretical ideas further. Theoretical projects are primarily based on bibliographical research, just like literature review assignments, but they will focus on theories and theoretical concepts in the literature. For successful theoretical projects, you will not only need to have a comprehensive understanding of related theoretical traditions, but also be able to reflect and evaluate clarity and usefulness of theoretical concepts, internal logic of theoretical claims, and the applicability of a theory in light of social reality. Theoretical essays typically do not require empirical data but they use examples from empirical reality or cite results from empirical studies to support and illustrate particular theoretical points.

Not only may your projects be of different kinds of assignments, but also they may ask fundamentally different kinds of questions. Today, social science research is guided by a multitude of different perspectives and philosophical traditions, and increasingly becomes diverse and inter-disciplinary. This means that the research methods and the process of deciphering meanings and uncovering theories have become more malleable and creative. There is still a common emphasis on systematic exploration and investigation into the inquiry. Consider the two major paradigms or perspectives below, which have influenced social sciences, and find out which approximately approach your own project ideas.

Positivis...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright
• Acknowledgments
• About the Website
• Chapter 1 Introduction: Start Your Research Journey
• Chapter 2 Topic Selection: Getting Started
• Chapter 3 Searching for Information
• Chapter 4 Reviewing the Literature
• Chapter 5 Research Questions and Methods
• Chapter 6 Steps of Quantitative and Qualitative Research Designs
• Chapter 7 Writing a Research Proposal
• Chapter 8 Practical Issues While Carrying Out Research
• Chapter 9 Quantitative Data Analysis
• Chapter 10 Qualitative Data Analysis
• Chapter 11 Writing the Final Report
• Index
• EULA