This document provides an overview of developing a research design. It discusses defining a research topic and evaluating whether it is worthwhile. It also covers developing research approaches, including secondary and primary research. Quantitative and qualitative research methods are introduced. Different types of research like exploratory, descriptive, and causal research are explained. The document stresses the importance of validity and reliability in research and discusses using sampling to represent a population.

1. Campus session 2 Developing your research design

2. Topic? You will have begun to think of your research topic. It might be a problem you want to solve, a question you want answered or an idea you want tested. You will have begun the process of challenging the topic to determine if its ‘worthwhile’

3. Topic? The ‘so what’ factor The nice to know testIs it done to death Does it push your buttons? Is it bleeding obvious?

4. exercise 1 Pair off and explain your topic to your partner Ask them for a one sentence response to your topic Can they list 5 things they know about that topic? repeat the process in reverse

5. Research design you ask? You need to develop a way to collect, analyse and interpret information that can be used to solve, answer, prove, inform, explore, describe your topic

6. What is research design? A research design is like a master plan that outlines the type of information to be collected, the sources of data and the methods to be used to collect and analyse the required information. The objectives of your research are included in the research design to make sure that you gather the appropriate information that will help solve the marketing management problem. In real terms research design looks at the rationale of why we are conducting our inquiry in a certain way and suggests tools that can be used to collect data in a way that supports the aims and outcomes of the research

7. Research approaches There is more than one way to approach your research problem. Research approaches are designed by you as a researcher in order to provide you with the ‘best’ data or information.

8. secondary and primary research

9. Secondary research approaches Secondary research is information that already exists. Examples of secondary research include research projects already undertaken by other people, census data, features in journals, newspapers, databases, internal company documents like memos and annual reports. Secondary data can be oral as well as written, and also incorporates information from industry experts.

10. What is secondary data? identify the problem better define the problem develop an approach to the problem formulate an appropriate research design. It can also… answer certain research questions help to interpret primary data more insightfully

11. Evaluating secondary data Not all secondary is 100% reliable. I mean would you believe everything you read on the net?

12. Apparently according to some guy on the internet I have been left over US$4 million by a Prince and all I have to do is give him my bank account number and passwords!

14. accuracy of the data

15. currency of the data

16. objectivity of the data

17. content of the data

18. dependability of the data Evaluation is required to ensure that its use does not weaken the objectivity, accuracy, and credibility of your research.

19. Example of secondary data Dance Manifesto was a document produced by Dance UK that undertook a 6 month consultation and research process that identified the following; Dance to be supported and developed as an art form · Dance to be an integral part of every young person’s education · Dance to be available and affordable for everyone to watch and participate in · Dance to be a sustainable career with world class training What types of research problems might this data help inform or explain?

20. Primary research Primary research is information collected directly by the researcher and is gathered to address the problem at hand. This includes instruments such as surveys, interviews and focus groups and observation

21. exercise 2 Pair off with someone different In 100 words or less explain your topic idea to each other On a sheet of paper, draw two columns like this List some ideas of some primary and secondary sources of data that you might use to inform your problem or topic

22. Types of research approaches All information is not made the same way. Information can be represented, explained or expressed in different forms and therefore used for different purposes

23. quantitative and qualitative Researchers need different types of data to solve different types of problems.

24. Qualitative research The purpose of qualitative research is to gain insights from participants about their feelings and motivations. This form of data results from an attempt to specify the quality of the relationship between two or more things. Key words: emotions, attitudes, reactions and beliefs.

25. Quantitative research Quantitative research involves interviewing a large number of people in an attempt to quantify the relationship between two or more things Key words: numerical measurements, percentages, proportions, graphs, charts and statistics.

26. Horses for courses You need to undertake different types of research in order to solve different research problems or questions

28. uncover problems and identify variables that need to be measured

29. help formulate a hypothesis or an educated guess about the outcome of a test

30. designed to answer a research question

31. provide detail to evaluate alternative courses of action

33. Descriptive research Descriptive research describes the behaviour of phenomena in a research problem. Student competence, satisfaction, likes and dislikes, improvement. Generally, descriptive research answers the questions who, what, when, where and how. Descriptive research has a clear statement of the research problem and details exactly what is to be measured.

34. Causal research Causal research describes the relationship between two or more variables. It gathers evidence regarding cause and effect relationships. For example, studies on the effectiveness of advertising might look at how changes in attitudes or awareness affect sales. At a more simple level it answers the question why?

35. Research is not a perfect process You have to be able to measure how accurate, appropriate and reliable your research is… Can people spend money on the basis of it? Would you risk your job because of it? Would you risk your life on the basis of your findings? Would you trust the findings?

36. Validity and reliability Validity and reliability are two terms that are often associated with research. The aim of these two measurements or tests is to determine how useful our research is. How accurate a pictureare we are getting from our data? Are the conclusions we make applicableto everyone or simply the group of people we have studied? Can our research be repeated by others and would they get similar results if they did repeat our research?

37. Validity Validity is when the research measures what it is supposed to measure and is free from bias. Does the research truly represent what is happening in the real world, does it represent practices that are applicable to yours and others work example: I might want to compare the rates of pay for performers in the UK from now and 20 years ago..what might some of the factors that might impact on validity?

38. Reliability Reliability is when the results the research gives are consistent and free from random error. That is, if you repeated the study you would most likely get the same results. example: I have a chat with this group of people about the future of dance education in the western world…what might some of the impacts on reliability?

39. One final note It is usually impossible to collect data from everyone concerned with a problem. There might be too many of them, they might refuse to participate, they might be located all around the world or you might simply have no way to contact them or even know they exist We solve this problem by a process called sampling A sample can be designed to ‘represent’ a small slice of the entire population The aim is to ensure validity and reliability in that the information you gain from your sample can be applied or is similar to the information you would gain from the everyone we will talk a lot more about this in later sessions