ARAŞTIRMA YÖNTEMLERİ - Deneme Sınavı - 17

A mixed method research includes (i) hypothesis or quantitative research questions (ii) qualitative research questions, and (iii) mixed method research questions. As you know, previous sections have been dedicated to explaining how hypothesis or quantitative and qualitative research questions should be written and what their characteristics are. 

While planning mixed method research studies, research questions should be written in a way that transcends quantitative and qualitative methods and requires use of mixed method. In other words, mixed method research questions should not emphasize only quantitative or qualitative research approaches but they should combine both methods. Writing research questions in this way is also known as method centered approach. However, writing research questions in this way entails a certain command of knowledge about mixed method designs. Accordingly, a researcher should develop her/his research questions compatible with the research design s/he will employ.

The second approach to writing mixed method research questions is labeled as content-centered approach.

This design aims to integrate the results obtained from both qualitative and quantitative data analyses. Researchers adopting this design collect both qualitative and quantitative data simultaneously. In other words, collection of neither qualitative nor quantitative data is prioritized. Data is collected and analyzed separately. Later, the results produced after data analyses are combined. So, the researcher can check whether quantitative and qualitative results confirm each other.

* Abbreviations such as QUAN and QUAL indicate that either a quantitative or a qualitative method is dominant and prioritized in that mixed method research. If these two approaches are evenly employed within a mixed method research, then both of the upper-case initials are included.

* Lower case initials such as Quan and Qual represent the less dominant or recessive approach. 

* Plus (+) points out the integration of collected data, and it is also used to mark quantitative and qualitative data sets are collected simultaneously.

* Arrow “→” shows that data is collected consecutively. When this symbol is used, the researcher bases the approach (e.g. qualitative) s/he will utilize in the second stage onto the one in the first stage (e.g. quantitative).

*  Parentheses “( )” mean that there will be an addition to some parts of the research, and square brackets “[ ]” symbolize that another independent study has been embedded into the current research.

There is no particular strategy for students and researchers to choose a research topic but there are three well-known reasons that researchers seek after. They are; experience, theory testing, and replication of previous research. Past experiences of professionals can be a strong inspiration for researchers. Researchers are mostly interested in negative experiences for the purpose of improving practices and making them better for next generations. Theories can be used to develop research studies. Even a single study can be the focus of a research to examine its implications. The replication studies refer to repeating a past research recognizing its methodological weaknesses to do a better one. A researcher repeats a study carefully so that the previous limitations will not be repeated.

When the research question is decided, it can be written in either interrogative or declarative form. For example, an interrogative form can be stated as “What factors have changed international relations after the World War II”, while a declarative form of that question can be worded as “An analysis of the reasons behind changes in international relations after the World War II”.

Research questions may arise from various sources. For example, one can get a research question from a discourse with colleagues or from their works and writing. Students may not be excellent source of emerging research questions but their interesting questions generally activate new paths to explore. Roselle and Spray (2011, 5) suggest some sources that may be useful to search for your research topic:

A literature review is considered to be a research methodology in its own right when it is carried out systematically. In other words, if a literature review:

The general purpose of literature review is to narrow down the focus of your research, to focus on it, and to help readers relate it to your research. Purposes of a literature review includes:

To identify the field and specific context in which the topic is located.
To decide which research and methodology will be adopted, which type of data may be collected and analyzed.
To deepen your knowledge related to the key concepts of the research topic
To avoid repeating previous studies that have ben completed before your attempt and to produce an original work.
To avoid the mistakes that past studies reported.
To discover the key people, organizations, and papers related to your research topic.

A literature review can be performed in seven steps:

There are four types of literature review: narrative, systemic, meta-analysis and focused. Narrative reviews are typically found in theses, dissertations, grant and research proposals, and research articles. In such reviews, the author selects relevant past research and synthesizes it into a coherent discussion. Narrative reviews typically are somewhat broad in focus compared to other kinds of literature reviews, discussing methodologies, findings, and limitations in the existing body of work.

Some issues in considering the quality of the information obtained from Web sites can be summarised as follows:

Sources on the Internet are questionable in terms of reliability. The following tips may help you decide the scholarliness of the sources accessed electronically: level of detail, level of discourse, structure, explanation of methodology, footnotes and endnotes, bibliography, and date of publication.

Some common mistakes in writing a literature review include discussing the studies consecutively without making a connection with each other; neglecting to state similar findings of the past research; and including the articles that are almost irrelevant to the research questions. In order to write a literature review, a lot of reading is essential, but not everything read should be included in the review. The researcher should be critical in this perspective.

Sensitivity to natural environment refers to the condition that the focal phenomenon/phenomena or event(s) of a qualitative research has/have to be examined in their natural environment, or context. This specifically means that any phenomenon or event studied via qualitative research can never be manipulated. The correct answer is B.

Assessment based case studies refer to informing relevant people or institutions about value judgements after researchers closely examine the aforementioned political formations, systems, projects, or other case studies.

Case studies are sometimes known as process tracing and case reports in IR, and they employ quantitative data collections, too. Therefore, the correct answe is D.

Ethnography researcher enters in the natural environment where the group lives and participates in daily routines together with the members of that culture during a time labeled as fieldwork. Sharing the same culture with the members, researchers conduct studies where they interact with others for a considerable amount of time with minimum intervention in order to develop noticeable study models.

What a researcher aspires to explore in narrative inquiry are the participants’ experiences. Therefore, the correct answer is C.

Interpretive phenomenology defines interpretation as revelation of concealed things within human relations and experiences. Therefore, interpretive phenomenology focuses on meanings embedded in individuals’ lives rather than simple definitions of concepts and their qualities. The correct answer is A.

The researcher in a grounded theory tries to explore participants’ social processes, behavioral patterns, acceptances, and meanings. In other words, researchers focus on a process or action that has a different step or phase formed in time. The correct answer is C.