RESEARCH DATA

What Factors Should Be Considered By Researchers When Defining The Data Required For Their Research?

What Factors Should Be Considered By Researchers When Defining The Data Required For Their Research?

Data are the raw materials with which a research can build. The term data means systematically collected groups of information that represents the qualitative or quantitative attributes of a variable or set of variables. Data are typically the results of measurements and can be the basis of graphs, images, or observations of a set of variables. It often viewed as the lowest level of abstraction from which information and knowledge are derived.

Data collection itself involves administrating instruments as well as gathering and organizing responses and measures for analysis. So for making a well planned data collection process, the major task is to define data clearly that it can fulfill the research requirement. Researcher may bring different assumptions to his work; data gathered by different methods may provide different windows onto social world (Gilbert, 2008). Now the question requires explaining the factors which are need to define data of a study. That means, before starting data collection, what would be the essential steps in order to meet the research demand.

Basically, researcher needs to interconnect with theory and methods which affect each other. Data is meaningless in the absence of a theory. Absence of it, no reasonable operational techniques or inductive procedures exist for extracting anything from data which can lead to insight or understanding in focus area. Beside this, the theory is needed for deciding the methods of gathering data. For instance, descriptive theories are the generated and tested by descriptive research which can employ empirical methods of data collection. The several factors which are needed to define data are described below.

Principle of the Research

The research process usually begins with the theoretical perception or formulation of the research topic (Sarantakos, 2005). Before start, researcher obviously needs to have some ideas on what area he going to deal with. Finding the focus involves identifying what is the researcher wants to gather information about (Robson, 2002). Except this, a planning for doing research is impossible.

For instance, a researcher has an interest to understand why students dislike mathematics. However, this initial interest is far too broad to study in any single research project. The researcher has to narrow the question down to one that can reasonably be studied in a research project. This might involves formulating a hypothesis or a focus question. Researcher might hypothesize that a particular mathematical method avoided by school students in a specific district.

At the narrowest point of the research hourglass, the researcher is engaged in direct measurement or observation of the question of interest. The principle of the research should be clearly defined by researcher; it can be varying but the presence and necessity are taken for granted (Sarantakos, 2005). There are three basic research paradigms - positivism (quantitative, scientific approach), interpretivism (qualitative approach), and critical science (Cantrell, 2006). These paradigms based on assumption of the ...