Research methodology Class -Reflection
Dr. Izaham announced that there will be no class the following week. Thus, the time should be used to the fullest which is completing the Research Proposal. No class. We were given some time to repair our research proposal.
A lot of proposal presented was given the green light but there are also others needed some amendments. I'm certain if I had not met up with Dr. Izaham the day before I would have flunk badly for my research proposal presentation.
Qualitative data on the other hand deals with a lot of text. So you’ll have to do a lot of reading and interviews and observations. Example, from the interview conducted with the respondents, you have to transcribe and analyze. Find which ever data you can use to support your research questions.
The first consultation with Dr. Izaham regarding out draft of research proposal. Some people were critic heavily on their research title as it was outdated. It is more favourable if the research topic is selected or connected to the current issue. As for my research title, Alhamdulillah pass but need to do a lot more reading up on the subject so that I can refine the topic.
Update on my research: my sample would be teachers and student in three different schools around Klang Valley.
Review of the proposal outline with Dr. Izaham - need to do a lot of amendments. I may need to change the title though. I'm still not familiar with how to write a research paper. Confused with the chapters like literature review, statement of problem, how to formulate research questions. After much reading, I did manage to clarify some of the things in mind but at the same time still a little bit confused. Thanks to my friend's help I managed to recover from the confusion. My research questions were approved and the problem statement is ok but I need to support the facts with literature.
All in all, I still prefer this form of research method unless suddenly I’m interested to learn statistics (which is unlikely of me) then I’ll just stick to this method instead.
Examples of research proposal were distributed so we know what it looks like. Even so, by looking at it I was still lost. Really need to buckle up and get to know what it is, otherwise I’ll be in trouble as I have to start drafting from now on. Dr. Izaham gave a good advice as to start the research early, otherwise it’s going to be difficult for us to cope with the class. This is only the beginning of conducting our research, not yet our real dissertation.
WEEK 14 (5th April 2011) - Presentation of Research Proposal Part 2 & Quiz
Before the quiz, there were around 6 more people left to present their research proposal. So, I had a little bit of time to read more and prepare for the quiz in the next hour. Couldn't pay much attention to the presentation as I was petrified of the quiz to come.
Quiz day - everything we learnt in class from the types of research conducted to data analysis. It's very nerve racking as I don't know what to expect. The types of questions Dr. Izaham will ask. Just pray hard that I won't fail this course.
WEEK 13 (29th March 2011) - Presentation of Research Proposal Part 1
Presentation of research proposal - the day before this presentation I had consulted with Dr.Izaham regarding my topic and everything else under research proposal. The presentation went well except that I forgot to include the word 'literature' in my presentation. I had overlooked it. I was too busy focusing on other aspect of the research proposal. It was a careless mistake and should not be repeated.
WEEK 12 (22th March 2011) - Data Analysis
The topic for this class is, Data analysis. How do we analyze the data that we have collected? There are two types of data analysis that we can use to conduct the study, which is qualitative and quantitative.
Quantitative actually deals with numbers, so you can imagine all the statistics, bar graphs and charts with percentages in this section. Which does scare me a lot. I don’t like numbers much so better stay away from it.
WEEK 11 (15nd March 2011) - Continuation of consultation for Research Proposal outline
There weren’t any lectures for today. The class time is fully utilized for the purpose of consultation on our research proposal. Refining out topic, make changes needed so that we are more focused on what we want to conduct.WEEK 10 (8th March 2011) – lecture on Instrumentation & consultation of research Proposal outline
The class started with the topic of instrumentation. This means our selection of instruments for conducting our research. Instruments include questionnaires, interview questions, video recordings and any other materials you used
WEEK 9 (1st March 2011) – Two groups Presented (my group presented) & lecture on sampling
· Presentation topic 7: Historical Research
Me and my partner presented this research design. It is a design which is focuses primarily in the past. It is a study that examines what happened in the past, the failures and causes of things that happened and how to improve it for the future. This study is done by looking at old relics and digging up old information from the library and maybe the museums as well. We presented a good presentation and Dr. Izaham really liked out sample of research. It is a research done on the influence of politics in Malaysian education system.
· Presentation topic 8: Case studies
The last group presented on the case study research. A type f research which questions why and how things happen. It is actually a mixture of qualitative and quantitative research approach. The primary focus is on contemporary phenomenon which means the current issue.
After completing both of the research design presentation, we continued our lecture on sampling. This is our target respondents. Who or what do we want to conduct the study on? How many people do we need to collect? From which background and how do you determine they are the right sample? for the purpose of your research? The last and important question is how reliable are they?
WEEK 8 (22nd February 2011) – Three groups presented
This week’s class more presentations of research design
· Presentation topic 4: Survey Research
Conducting a study by giving out questionnaires/survey. It can be either face to face, by telephone or online. The easiest research design I think. Just hand out the survey and then analyze it. Usually people in the marketing or sales field will use this to test out the successfulness of their product in the market before deciding to launch the product officially.
· Presentation topic 5: Ethnographic research
A research design which portrays and document experiences of an individual by observing and interviewing the person who is experiencing the situation. The data is collected through fieldwork. An example of a study conducted for this design is to discover how one tribe survives in the Amazon jungle. So the research will go about the daily lives of the tribe.
· Presentation topic 6: Phenomology
This research is conducted to examine experiences of other people. For example, to experience the life of a doctor. So the researcher will follow one particular doctor day and night to experience his daily life.WEEK 7 (15nd February 2011) – Maulidur Rasul (No class)
WEEK 6 (8th February 2011) – Finish of Qualitative study, Two groups presented
· Presentation topic 2: Correlational research
Correlational study seemed to be an interesting research design for conducting my research. This method/design is more on to test the relationship/connection of one variable to another. It is to test out the degree of connection between one variable and the other.
My research progress up to date: I want to test the relationship between teachers’ attitude and teaching literature or maybe on the students’ interest in literature. I want to discover the degree of relationship between teachers attitude and students interest.
· Presentation topic 3: Causal comparative research
A type of study that goes into cause and effect. It basically compare between the two variables, what causes the other to change and the effects. This research consists of Independent (causes) and dependent(effect) variables.
MID TERM BREAK (1st February 2011)
WEEK 5 (25th January 2011) - Types of Educational Research (Qualitative and Quantitative), 1 Group presentation
We were given a lecture on the differences between qualitative and quantitative data. Qualitative = analytical analysis, Quantitative = numerical analysis. The easiest way to remember the differences is by is by looking at the word. One is quanti = quantity, more focused on the quantity (i.e samples and population) and Quali = quality, focus on the study of cases.
If asked which approach is better than the other the answer is, it depends on what type study you want to conduct. For example, to discover (discovery) themes and relationships you should use qualitative approach whilst if you want to validate (confirmatory) the themes and relationships in samples and population it is best to use quantitative approach.
These are the divisions of the types of research design under respective approach
| Qualitative Research Methodologies | Quantitative Research Methodologies |
| Experimental research | Ethnographic research |
| Single-subject research | Historical research |
| Correlational research | |
| Causal-comparative research | |
| Survey research | |
· Presentation topic 1: Experimental Research
This is an experiment which is conducted by observation under a controlled condition. It is an experiment that uses deliberate manipulation of one variable and the other variable is kept constant. This methods is mainly used to test out new things that will be introduces. For example, to change from the old textbook to the new.
I don’t think I’ll be choosing this type of research for my dissertation as I won’t be introducing something new. Maybe I’ll just replicate some other type of research and change it to the Malaysian context/situation.
WEEK 4 (25th January 2011) – lecture on Qualitative research method
This week Dr. Izaham gave us a lecture on qualitative research design. A qualitative research design is basically a research design that is developed by verbal data through series studies of cases. The data is analyzed through analytical analysis.
This research design is most appealing to me compared to quantitative because it deals with text and not numbers. Even though I don’t like reading much either but by doing this type of research it forces me to read up a lot and to my surprised I enjoyed it. Qualitative method also focuses on the study of the case rather than the samples and populations. Meaning, to conduct this study you don’t have to collect a lot of responses like questionnaires are needed to be distributed to more than 50 people at a time. But for qualitative is more focused on small numbers of sampled to be interviewed or observed.
I think in the analysis part, qualitative method is easier to analyze because you just go through the interview and find data which you might think is useful. But the tedious part is trying to transcribe the interview sessions, which can take up time.
WEEK 3 (18th January 2011) -Introduction to Writing A Research Proposal
The class was very informative on writing a research proposal, Dr. Izaham even gave us a couple of samples for us to refer to. We had a variety of samples from the bad example to the good ones. Since I did not graduate from UiTM itself I was not exposed to writing a research proposal during my degree nor did I have to complete any report like Academic Exercise report the degree students in UiTM have to complete in order for them to graduate.
During my bachelor days we did have a research methodology class by I can vaguely remember what we learnt in the class itself. Since we did not have to conduct any research back then I took the class for granted and did not pay attention and thus that is why I’m clueless. It is my fault really.
So, how to write a research proposal? Well at first I don’t even know what it is let alone answering the question but basically it’s a plan of what, how, when, where, why and who I want to conduct my research on.
· what – the issue
· how – in conducting the study, i.e methodology
· when – the time
· where – the area
· why – the significance of the research
· who – the sample
WEEK 2 (11th January 2011) – No class
The second week of the semester we didn’t have any classes. Even so, we had to brainstorm ideas for our Research Proposal. It’s not easy to find a good topic. Really need to read a lot and find good issues to conduct a research on. Not only that, it must be in line with the participants interests. Otherwise, it will be painful for the researcher to conduct a research which is not in his/her area of interest.
WEEK 1 (4th January 2011) - The first class of the semester - Introduction to EDU702 / Education Research
This is the first class at the beginning of the 1st semester 2011. I felt excited but at the same time I was anxious of what is to come. From the assignments, presentations, article review, reports and etc. The starting first class of any class is always the relax one, but once the lecturer started to discuss the course outline what is expected of us the feeling of anxiety crept on us slowly and we start to panic. Since it was 4 years ago I even touched an academic book and writing up my assignments, I felt really nervous this time, as I've never been a student ever!
The class started with a mini experimental research. We had to memorize several words then list it down and see whether we have a strong memory or not and also the technique we used to memorize there words. Some may form chains and others may just try to remember it by single words. It was fun as Dr. Izaham wanted us to get the real feel of what research is about.
Back in those days it was different. I did not carry so many responsibilities on my shoulders. But now, I’m so many things at one go plus I'm pregnant as well. So wish me luck for this semester. I hope my baby does not pop out before the end of the semester as I need time to complete my assignments.
Assignments needed to be done for this course in this semester is:
1. Article review
2. Presentation of the type of research + sample research
3. Research Proposal Outline + presentation
4. Research proposal report
5. e-portfolio (this reflective journal here)
And
A quiz
