RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research Methodology

Research Methodology

Research methodology refers to the research process, the procedural framework within which the research is conducted. This methodology is defined by Leedy (p.120) cited by Remenyi et al, 1998, (p. 28) as 'an operational framework within which the facts are placed so that their meaning may be seen more clearly'.

Some methods provide data, which are quantitative and some that are qualitative. Quantitative methods are those, which focus on numbers and frequencies rather than on meaning and experience. Quantitative methods (e.g. experiments, questionnaires and psychometric tests) provide information, which is easy to analyze statistically and fairly reliable. Quantitative methods are associated with the scientific and experimental approach and are criticized for not providing an in depth description.

Qualitative methods are ways of collecting data, which are concerned with describing meaning, rather than with drawing statistical inferences. What qualitative methods (e.g. case studies and interviews) lose on reliability they gain in terms of validity. They provide a more in depth and rich description.

Considerable research exists on the use of mail, telephone and in recent years the use of web surveys. Dillman (1978, 2000) an authority on mail surveys points out that telephone and mail surveys have many deficiencies; mail survey suffers from extremely low response rates; that the questionnaires might not reach all the people; that only educated people tend to return the questionnaire; that even when completed, the quality of questionnaires leaves a lot to be desired. Kanuk and Berenson (1975) conclude from their literature review of mail survey that:

"Despite the large number of research studies reporting techniques designed to improve response rates, there is no strong empirical evidence favoring any techniques other than the follow-up and the use of monetary incentives".

Web surveys enjoy the benefits of low cost, short fieldwork period and automation of data collection and analysis. Unprecedented expansion in the use of Internet has facilitated many research studies that have used web surveys since mid 1990s. For example, WebSM site (http://WebSM.Org) lists thousands of publicly available online research. Many firms offer web survey software and increasing number of research agencies already incorporate web surveys as part of their research methodology. Baker (1998) predicted that online self administered surveys will become the next major step in the evolution of computer-assisted survey information collection (CASIC) process. Marketing professionals claim that web surveys are rapidly replacing mail survey mode, as the popular method to collect data. However, one cannot lose sight of the fact that most web surveys are commercial in nature, many may have restricted access to public and the existing bibliography available on WebSM may indeed be a small proportion of the thousands of web surveys launched daily. Two important drawbacks with this method are:

Non-coverage, sampling and unit non-response (Groves, 1989)

Low response rates compared to other survey methods (Lozar Manfreda, 2001)

These drawbacks can be attributed to the fact that we do not yet have a set of methodological principles to elicit high response rates as has been done in case of ...