Importance Of Methodologies In Research

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Research may be defined as “an endeavour to discover new or collate old facts etc. by the scientific study of a subject or by a course of critical investigation” (Oxford Concise Dictionary, 1995). This definition clearly emphasizes the importance of methodologies as it pertains to researching a subject matter. It is for this reason that it is extremely essential that the researcher adequately considers the relative merits of a range of possible methodologies along with their associated data needs and analysis techniques from the inception of the research. There are three main methodologies which can be considered in research. These are the quantitative, qualitative and mixed methodologies. Quantitative methodologies adopt a scientific method…show more content…
The variables they wish to study are then isolated and extraneous variables controlled. Standardized procedures are then used to analyse data and draw conclusions. It usually ends with a confirmation or disconfirmation of the tested hypothesis. It is best used when the purpose of the research is to explain, predict, confirm, validate or test theory whereas the qualitative method is best used to describe, explain, explore, interpret or build theory. In this method, the researcher continually attempts to understand the data from the participants’ subjective perspectives. The researcher’s most important task is to understand the insider’s view and then take on the role of an “objective outsider” in an attempt to relate the interpretive-subjective data to the research purpose and research…show more content…
Mixed method allows the limitations of the qualitative method to be offset by the strength of the quantitative method and vice versa. The use of both methods can be very powerful to gain insights and results, assist in making inferences and allow conclusions to be drawn. As a result of the nature of my proposed research, the mixed method would prove most suitable as the use of questionnaires will facilitate a large number of participants and allow for data to be easily generalized and represented by graphs and charts. The reasons for using the questionnaire is that as the researcher I hope to obtain the views and attitudes towards my topic from the persons living in low to middle income housing while the qualitative data will be collected through interviews with various

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