Archive for Research Methods

Survey Research

June 6, 2009 · Filed under Honours, Research Methods · Tagged , ,

Dichotomous questions – two possible answers (yes/no, male/female etc)

Questions based on levels of measurement – ranked by numbers (like voting) or on a scale (eg. of 1-5)

The cumulative or Guttman scale – respondents check items they agree with. Items are placed in an order so if you agree with the lowest one, you agree with all above it.

Filter or contingency question – eg. If ‘yes’ go to question 5, If ‘no’, go to question 8

- Tips on Filter questions from Research Methods Knowledge Base:

  • try to avoid having more than three levels (two jumps) for any question

Too many jumps will confuse the respondent and may discourage them from continuing with the survey.

  • if only two levels, use graphic to jump (e.g., arrow and box)

The example above shows how you can make effective use of an arrow and box to help direct the respondent to the correct subsequent question.

  • if possible, jump to a new page

If you can’t fit the response to a filter on a single page, it’s probably best to be able to say something like “If YES, please turn to page 4″ rather that “If YES, please go to Question 38″ because the respondent will generally have an easier time finding a page than a specific question.

Opening questions – icebreakers, easy to answer

Sensitive questions – build rapport first, have an introduction/warming sentence to link them in

A checklist (thanks again to the Research Methods Knowledge Base:

start with easy, nonthreatening questions
put more difficult, threatening questions near end
never start a mail survey with an open-ended question
for historical demographics, follow chronological order
ask about one topic at a time
when switching topics, use a transition
reduce response set (the tendency of respondent to just keep checking the same response)
for filter or contingency questions, make a flowchart

and remember:

  • Thank the respondent at the beginning for allowing you to conduct your study
  • Keep your survey as short as possible — only include what is absolutely necessary
  • Be sensitive to the needs of the respondent
  • Be alert for any sign that the respondent is uncomfortable
  • Thank the respondent at the end for participating
  • Assure the respondent that you will send a copy of the final results

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Am I skewing the transparency of the blogosphere?

May 29, 2009 · Filed under Honours, Lit Review, Research Methods, Thesis · Tagged ,

While reading for my lit review (alone on a Friday night, eating a family size bag of m and ms – this is what my life has become) I came across a very interesting statement in an article entitled Educating Public Relations Students to Enter the Blogosphere by Shearlean Duke. A study using the Delphi method of two or more rounds of questionaires sent to a panel of experts in order to reach a consensus on a topic, came to a conclusion that although it is important that public relations students learn to blog, they should not be forced to

“because forced content skews the transparency of the blogosphere”.

Maybe someone should mention this to RMIT?

Aside from this point, the article got me looking into the Delphi method. The general idea is that a questionaire is formed, sent out to 15 or so ‘experts’ (left to my discretion) with open-ended questions based around themes. From there, the answers of Q1 are collated and a new questionaire (Q2), containing previous responses of all participants and a summary is sent back to the panel for them to further comment in light of their colleagues comments. This can be done a third time as neccessary, with the idea being to lead to a general consensus on the query. The method is based on the idea that experts in the field of research hold the best answers.

This method seems to fit my project perfectly, at least I think so. So instead of regular surveys, I will create a ‘master questionaire’, and follow up on it although I will probably only have time for two rounds. This method will also help my ethics approval no end… I HOPE!

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Liki learning

April 21, 2009 · Filed under Honours, Research Methods · Tagged , , ,

What have I learnt so far through doing the Liki?

  • Wikis seem to be totally subjective to the authors. Someone can open up a wiki, see something they don’t agree with and *bam* it’s gone. Or maybe something’s worded a way they don’t like, so they just switch it around. But maybe I liked the way it was worded in the first place.
  • I also wonder about the plagiarism aspect of a wiki. By putting the reference list at the end, is that enough citation for the authors? Should individual thoughts be cited throughout the pars?
  • Wiki’s as a learning resource. In this case I think it’s interesting as I trust the people submitting the content (at least enough to explore their references further, if not take their word as 100% accurate), however I can see the downfalls of other, less regulated wikis. While I see why we can’t cite Wikipedia in academic essays, I think it is a good resource for students. It can help to develop an idea and also be a good starting point for finding academic references, although sometimes it can be hard to piece that together.

I look forward to reading the wiki once all (or at least all for now) our submissions are complete and hopefully getting a good idea as to which research methods will be most useful for me this year.

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Ethnographical Research

April 21, 2009 · Filed under Honours, Research Methods · Tagged

In searching research methodologies for research workshop, I came across lots of information about ethnography.

That is – a qualitative research method based around the study of people. Methods such as interviews, first-hand participartory observation allow a researcher to delve into the world of those they are studying and find what drives behaviours of certain communities or sub-communities. These behaviours can then be used to determine their needs and how they can be met.

For accurate results, it is important that subjects are studied in a natural environment so their behaviour is truly reflected, as opposed to an artificial environment in which many experiments take place. There must be an understanding by the researcher that humans behave differently to physical objects or other animals, they react to the environment around them, often interpreting situations and stimuli differently to one-another or from one instance to another. Thirdly it must be noted that ethnography is based around discovery, not just cementing that which already exists. An ethnographer would not go into a situation with a series of set hypotheses as it is likely that they will become distracted by the assumptions already made. A general area of interest will be established before an ethnographer commences research and from there will be flexible to let the path alter along the way due to the nature of the research.

This research method can be transalted into today’s technological society through online research. The internet is now used as not only an information finding tool, but a space facilitating online communities to be formed and hence online identities to be developed. These cyber-identities often differ from one’s real life persona and hence it is the new identity and how they relate within their cyber-space which is now being examined.

References for this information can be found at the Labsome Liki

While I’ve found this research method quite interesting, I feel it will be of limited use in my studies this year. It does have some relation to public relations – that being when researching target publics. The methodological practices outlined within the theory and some further reading on the subject should help when choosing the best way to relate with whomever my target audience ends up being. As my project is not decided upon yet, I will have to wait and see how useful it can be.

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Reading my confusion

March 31, 2009 · Filed under Honours, Research Methods · Tagged

I’m sick of doing readings that require a dictionary just to get throught them. In Hermeneutic Phenomenological Writing, there is at least one, possibly two words just within the heading I need to look up. Here is what i’ve found

hermeneutic = interpretative; explanatory

pedagogy = function or work of a teacher; teaching

epistemological = a branch of philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods and limits of human knowledge

ontological = the branch of metaphysics that studies the nature of existence or being as such

… great they’ve defined ‘story’ for me

aureole = a radiance surrounding the head or whole figure in the representation of a sacred personage

encomium = a formal expression of high praise; eulogy

All this and i’m only half way through. Maybe when I understand all these words I can understand what the readings are telling me…

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Next one

March 24, 2009 · Filed under Honours, Research Methods · Tagged

Find a relevant journal article:

After a few unsuccessful searches for ‘Communication and Research Methodologies’ on Proquest, I gave up and moved to CSA, searching similar keywords I found the jackpot…I think. Ok, the first article, Practitioner Research Instruction is not as useful as first thought. So I hit up the bibliography. Here I find Research Methods Course Work for
Students Specializing in Business
and Technical Communication. A little better, but still too focused on teaching research methods, and not the methods themselves. New search.

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Finding past projects

March 24, 2009 · Filed under Honours, Research Methods · Tagged ,

Find existing projects and look at their bibliography to find relevant research:

I can’t remember if this was to find research about research, or research about my specific topic… Anyway, I went to the Labsome blog, clicked Projects and looked at Bouncing into Gymnastics by Martine Perras which seems to be the most relevant project to my public relations based ideas (see future blog  post for my next best problem!).  All the references here seem to be relevant to the topic, not research methodologies. The most relevant to my new problem, which will (hopefully) revolve around an integration of PR and Web2.0, would be cited as: “Nonprofit PR 2.0:
A Tree Grows In Cyberspace. “ PR News 10 Dec. 2007: 1-3 RMIT, Melbourne, VIC. ProQuest. 2 Sep. 2008
<http://www.proquest.com/>. So far, looking at this project has not been my greatest research success.

Onto the next one I guess, Sarah Phillips’ Spinning the Bottle. Again there is a lack of research methodologies cited, but a useful reference might be Hallahan, K. (2004), ‘Protecting an
organization’s digital public relations assets’,
Public relations review, Volume 30, Issue 4. Or this looks like an interesting site with a variety of research papers McCrindle Research (2008), McCrindle
Research, Sydney, New South Wales,
viewed May 31 2008, <http://www.
mccrindleresearch.com.au>. There seem to be quite a few new technology and PR related links in her bibliography – yet nothing on how to research.

As I do this it seems kind of silly, because I am researching right now? Maybe I’ve misunderstood the point of this particular question. Oh well, I’ve got some good links out of it, so regardless if I’ve done it right or wrong, I’m ok with this!

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“Stand on the shoulders of Giants”

March 19, 2009 · Filed under Honours, Research Methods · Tagged , ,

Am I behind the times? Where have I been while everyone else has been ‘Google Scholaring”? Maybe my undergraduate career would have been much smoother had I known about this search engine! After hearing about it in class, my first move to try and find an academic about research practice in Public Relations was to try out Google Scholar.

My first issue – what keywords to use? Be too specific and get nothing. Be too broad and get everything. For me, this comes down to trial and error – try something, if it doesn’t work, try something else. Surely enough after three or four shots at it, I found my words. “public relations research methods”. It seems so simple right?

The first article I find seems perfect – lucky me! However closer inspection sees it was written in 1989, while this may still be somewhat relevant, is it too old?

The second is good. A book called Evaluating Public Relations: A Best Practice Guide to Public Relations Planning, Research and Evaluation by Tom Watson and Paul Noble, 2007. Follow this up with “Tom Watson” + “public relations” in Google and look what we have, a short bio and email/contact number for Dr. Tom Watson. Following that link is one to his blog Dummy Spit. Looky here, my research is beginning to take shape! A similar search on Paul Noble comes up with his PR company and associated contact details. Although both contacts are in the USA, Dr. Watson was a former Professor at Charles Sturt University, leading me to think that he may be the next link in finding useful contacts within Melbourne. After just 45 minutes, task number one is done – Academics found!

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