research

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What does research do?
Research provides a systematic and strucutured process of knowledge desined to improve our understanding of the world.
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what does research differ too?
authority, media myths, personal experince, traditions, common sense
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What is academic research?
focused on producing theory, the immediate audience is other researchers, valididated by wider research, it is peer reviewed and judged on originality and rigour
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What is applied research?
it addresses particular praticals, the immediate audience is policy makers and practioners, and research findings are judged on policy and pratice
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What is the research process?
identify a topic or research problem ,define research objectives and questions and hypothesis, develop research design and methodology, collect data, analyze data and interpret data and answer research question
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What are research problems wrapped around?
methods, theoretical framework, ethics, planning and logistics, and onotology and epistemology
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What is ontology?
it is a set of beliefs about what exists or what is real. all people have an ontlogy and it is always the focus of much research. These include in human geo landscape, place, scale , space and region.
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What are the different types of ontology?
biophysical world is ontologically presented diffferent from the social human world. ontology can be cartesian(world in distict parts, strucutured by rules or norms) or reational(meshwork of realations, things that cannot be defined by a priori)
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What is epistemology?
the study of how we know the world, and how we ought to know the world, looks at how we make reality knowable
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What are the is one contrasting approaches of epistemology?
positivist- based on the assumption that there is one obserable realityin order to generate knowledge about that reality, empirial evidence needs to be collected through observation and experiment in a value free way
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What is the other approach of epistemology?
interpretivism- aim is not to establish one universal truth but to create knowledge relating to subjective meanings,mor eon understanding than explaning, research is not neutral or objective but linked with the social construction of knowledge
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what is quantitive research?
seeks facts, causes, positivism approach (single and objetive reality), uses large scale representative data, strucutured, numbers or statistical, strengths are generalisation and comparability but hard 2 address complex issues)cant be quantified)
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What is qualitiative research?
seeks meaning, multiple realities, truths, interpretivism approach, small number of data that provide insights, semi structured/unstructured, usually text, strength- depth, context, flexibility but less scope for generalized findings and is consuming
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What can qualitiive research do?
ask in-depth questions, focus on experinces and relationships, multiplicity and difference, power relations, meanings of experinces of space, place, scale and time,voice to non scienfitic forms of knowedlge and expertise
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how is qualitiative research achieved?
immersive and indepth research methods, empathic research methods, interpretive analytic methods
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What do you do at the start of a research process?
identify the theme. topic and aim of the project and justify what contribution the original knowedlge will make, define research questions and explore the context of the research area
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Why then undertake research design?
to develop a theoretical framework, to select appropriate methods, to conduct review and literature as a means of answering the question
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Why analysis and interpret your data?
to place findings in the existing context of existing knowledge
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What else should you do?
wider reading to focus the reader, have a look at the nature of the phenemena or social realities that need to be investigated(ontology) and knowing about those realities (epistemology), PURPOSE, topic area and intellectual puzzles
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what is the development puzzle?
How and why did X and Y develop?
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What is the mechanical puzzle?
how does X and Y work and why does it work in this way?
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What is the comparative puzzle?
What can we learn from comparing X and Y, how can we explain differenes and similarities between these?
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What is the causal/predicitive puzzle?
What influence does X have on Y, What causes X/Y and what is the likely outcome of X/Y
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What is a concept?
an idea that is expressed in words or as a symbol. technical concepts in any discipline form the language of which it deals with the subject matter?
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What is theory?
specifies the relationship between concepts and why these relationships exist, good theories represent what happens in the social world
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What is deduction?
uses a particular theory as a starting point for research. it involved developing a hypothesis based on this theory, testing the hypothesis through research and them depending on the research findings, either confirming or rejecting the hypothesis
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What is induction?
It does not require a particular hypothesis. Instead the findings of the research are used to generate theory, which is therefore an outcome of the research process
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What is methodology?
Methodology is the element that links theory and data, there is not one way to develop concept-data linkages
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What are the different types of secondary data?
textual, graphical, cartographical, aural, numerical and provides context for primary research
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What are the advantages and disadvantages of using secondary data over primary?
cheaper and quicker to obtain but the researcher may still need to invest time and resources to gain access, there are issues concerning quality and reliability, secondary sources are not neutral artefacts, need to be critically examined in context
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What is the main concern affecting the reliability of data?
Whose voices we hear and whose we ignore
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What are case studies?
analyses of people, events, institutions, decisions that are studied holistically using one or more methods, usually as an example of particular group of people
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What is the aim of a case studies?
To eliminate the general by looking at the particular, they are descriptive/explanatory and tend to be multidimensional, data is drawn from peoples experiences and practices
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What are the benefits of a case study approach?
it allows the researcher to recognise the complexity and embeddedness of social truths and alternative interpretations, can be used for theory building and theory testing, captures unique features that may otherwise be lost, holistic analysis
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other benefits of a case study approach?
cost effective and suitable when the researcher has little control over the events thats being studied
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what are the limitations of a case study approach?
often result in too much information and provide more variables than data points, unrepresentative and neither rigorous nor generalisable, can't clearly define boundaries of a case, need to gain access to case study setting, observer effect may occur
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What is ethnography?
'a methodological approach that seeks to provide immersive and holistic analyse of social phenomena. Material is usually generated by participant observation, interviews, reading, artefacts and time diaries.
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What does ethnography understand?
a community and its social relations, rhythms and cultural norms, power decision making and ways of being in order to understand people relations and society, deeper understanding, not just scrape surface, why not just what
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What are the features of ethnography?
questions and hypotheses develop during the process and not before, different methods are used, researchers be in the field to look at people in their natural setting, how people conceive reality and contribute to meaning of events
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other features of ethnography?
commitment to cultural interpretation, studying cultural and symbolic aspects of behaviour in relation to shared cultural meanings of people studied
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Benefits of ethnography?
explore unknown and new phenomena, identity different cultures, processes, context and behaviour, direct contact with people and places,used in developing and developed theories, detailed data which provides holistic explanation about processes patte
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other advantages of ethnography?
well suited to describing the actors perspective of events
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What are the limitations of ethnography?
can sometimes be descriptive rather than analytic, could be poor reliability and little scope for generalising, gaining access without disrupting naturalness is hard, insider knowledge may cause a blind spot, intrusions to privacy, difficult to cons
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What are the different ways to collect data?
participant observation, focus group and interviews
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What is participant observation?
involves reflecting on the experience of prolonged participation in the life of a social group which is recorded, total- role of researcher is kept quiet and participate in society, normal, role known to some, observer without affecting results
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Advantages of participant observation?
retains naturalness of setting, grains insights to social processes, produce data that is context sensitive, holistic explanations and relationships, capture meanings
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Disadvantages of participant observation?
issues relating to access, reliability and generalisability, personal commitment and resources are needed, risk of going native, too descriptive, physical danger, ethical issues
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What are interviews?
Structured- same questions/order so reliably aggregated and comparisons are made, semi flexible but still structure, unstructured, listens to respondents without interfernce
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Advantages of semi structured interviews?
allow own point of views, yield rich insights into biographies, experiences, opinions, values, attitudes and feeling, direct interaction allows for greater depth, more flexibility
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Disadvantages of semi structured interviews?
sacrifies standardisation of data and makes comparison problematic, time consuming, challenge with balancing researchers interests with open ended nature of interviews, costs and phrasing of questions will change answers
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What is a focus group?
interview which address a particular topic, allows for a lot of interaction between people, group interview is more structured which has a guide and a schedule, less interaction
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advantages of a focus group?
allows interviewer to recognise the existence of multiple perspectives valuable insights into social relations and social dynamics, develops themes, topics, schedules , less intimidating
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disadvantages of a focus group?
needs full participation, challenge of group facilitation, lack of continuity can affect nature and quality of data collected
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What is triangulation?
issue ub data collection and it is the use of more than one method of data generation and analysis to cross validate results, between different methods such as quantitative and qualitative data between different sources of data
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What is sampling?
issue in data collection, necessary in research since one cannot study everywhere doing everything
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What is population?
the universe of units from which the sample is to be selected
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What is a sample?
the segment of the population that is selected for investigation, subset
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What is representative sample?
reflects population accurately, looks at all scales
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what is probability sample?
sample selected randomly
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What is non probability sample?
not been selected by random election method, some units are more likely to be selected than others
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What is theoretical sampling?
selection linked to the aim or new aims/theories
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What is convenience sampling?
selection of sample dependent on access
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What is snowball sampling?
sample developed based on contacts suggested by participants
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In the process what are examples of organisation and management of data?
coding/labelling, annotation, selecing data manually or using software
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What does analysis data mean?
systemtically searching for key factors and relationships between them
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What does interpreting data do?
makes sense of the data and links together theory and data
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What are the steps in organising data?
organise it, transcribe all recordings, anonymise it, fileit , sort it, work out a system that makes sense to you
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What is coding?
'the process of putting tags, name or labels against pieces of data, .. the data may be individual words or smal/large chunks of data(punch2005), thinking with data, linking raw data and concepts, asking questions
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What are emic codes?
used by the informants to attribute meanings and theories
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What are ethic codes?
used by the researcher to attribute meanings and theory, codes used externally not directly
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What is hand coding?
used to highlight, key quotes, key texts, or can highlight in microsoft word using the highlight tool and ledgends, or computer aid coding such as Nvivo and this works well when the data is in large amounts
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What is data reduction?
reducing it to classes/ categories
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What is data complication?
expanding, transforming and reconceptualizing data, going beyond, asking questions, generating theories, reading/re reading of data, indetifies particular processes and words
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What can you use in order to establish clear relationships and theories?
pre-defined code list from different sources using a theoretical/ conceptual framewor, need to read in the general areas,look at hypothese and research questions, move from identifying categories to establishing relationships among categories.
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What are the 1 and 2 different stages of coding?
1) initial coding, open coding, large quantities of raw qualitative dataare focused and labeled, 2) focused coding, cateogory development, furhter focuses the data from level 1
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What are the 3 and 4 stages of coding?
3)axial/thematic coding- previous coding is studied to develop highly key defined themes 4)theories can emerge from saturated categories and themes
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what is the criteria for evaluating research questions?
credibility (authenticrepresentations of experince), strategies are purposeful samping, disciplined subjectivity, prolonged engagement, persistant observation, triangulation, peer debriefing, member checking
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What is transferability?
Fits within context outside the sudy situation, strategies are purposeful sampling and thick description,no single way to arrive at the truth
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What is dependability?
minimisation of idiosyncrasies in interpretations
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What is confirmability?
exent to which biases, motivations, interets or perspectives of the inquirer influence interpretations
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What are the 5 important steps to untertake in researh process?
select data to include in your argument, and which parts are relevant, reflect on research design and methods and show that methods are reliable and accurate, demonstarte the validility of interpretation, make appropriate generalisations and link
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What is ethics?
the context of research that is 'concerned with the attempt to formualte codes and principlies of moral behaviour'research is not value free and is not neutral but linked to power relations
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What is deontological ethics?
considers certain acts as wrong or good in and of themselves
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What are consequentialist ethics?
considers the consequences of an act to determine if it is right or wrong
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What are the key issue for ethics?
informed consent, privacy and confidentially, trust and honesty, reciprocity, advocacy and intervention, safety, harm, risk and data analysis and ownership of data, avoid plagiarism and data fabrication
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What is a key quote about ethics from scheyvens 2003
'decisions based onethics are not determined by how sucessful the researcher will be but whether the researcher is just or not, by the extent to which the researcher takes into account the participants needs and concerns into account, must d, p, s
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What is anonymity?
'refers to the ersearchers responability to keep the level of participant privat, if they so wish, so that they will not be personally identifiable in any outputs' refers to identity
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What is confidentitality?
'is a broader term whcih recognises that a researcher may be entrusted with private information, the researcher has responsability that notes are stored in a safe placeand that infoprmation is only used for the purpose of the researcher, refers to da
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What is informed consent? bryman 2008
'implies that prospective research participantsshould be given as much information as might be needed to make an informed decision about weather or not they wish to participate in a study'
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Why should privacy be considered?
requires protection from intrusion into private space, enough to get info but not too much personal experince, avoid getting irrelavant private information,continour negotation of permission, privacy is personal
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Why do you have to be careful undertaking research?
be carefull asking vulnerable groups and sensitive topics
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What is positionality?
refers to aspectsof idenity in terms of race, class, gender, sexualityand other attributes that are relational positions in society, rather than intrinsic
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What is reflexivity?
researcherbeing aware of his affect on theprocess and outcomes of the research, takes into account involvment, knowedlge is not seperated from the knowedlger, not natually produced information
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What do you need to be aware of?
cultural norms andcultural bias and different cultural conceptions of space, time, local language use and cultural equitette, existing power relationsand social difference
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what does research differ too?

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authority, media myths, personal experince, traditions, common sense

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What is academic research?

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What is applied research?

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What is the research process?

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