Primary Research Methods

Ethics
- Any research you do that involves 'human participants' needs to be approved (by a tutor) in advance.
- Any research using vulnerable people (children or people with certain disabilities) must be approved by the ethics sub-committee.
- Research involving human participants must be anonymous and you must obtain informed consent in advance.

Empiricism vs. Rationalism
These are the two main approaches to 'knowledge'.
Empiricism: something that is only 'true' if it is experienced using senses.
Rationalism: truth can be grasped intellectually using logic and reason.

Empirical research is about primary research, observing things at the source. Eg. people and their thoughts, feelings, opinions.
Rational research is about secondary research, what you find out and how you apply that knowledge to context and your research question.

Qualitative/Quantitative Data
Quantitative data is organised in numerical form.
Qualitative data is found in language - written or oral forms.

Data Collection
Focus Group: A focus group is a gathering of deliberately selected people who participate in a planned discussion about a particular topic.
Survey: Interviews (qualitative)/ Questionnaires (quantitative)
Interviews - Structured/semi-structured/unstructured
Questionnaires - Should be multiple choice, easy to complete, easy to read and understand without leading questions
Ethnography: (study of people and cultures) Participant observation/ direct observation
Content Analysis: (extracting quantitative data from qualitative sources) Measures the frequency of pre-specified items within a particular context
Creative Explorations: (Gauntlett, 2007) Using creative techniques as a means of gathering subjective data, eg. Lego building, collage, film making etc.

Data Analysis/ Organisation
Quantitative (numerical data) - In order to analyse numerical data you must start with a hypothesis, what you expect to be able to prove using the data. The data should then prove or disprove your hypothesis.
Cross Referencing - you may have basic personal information (eg. gender) that you can cross reference with other trends (ie. 30% of men prefer red 70% prefer black; 55% of women prefer red 45% prefer black)
Statistical significant - how you decide if a result is significant? This needs to be asked early on in the process and should have some logical or rational justification.

Qualitative (written or oral data) -
Coding - making sense of numerous qualitative responses from the same/similar questions won't happen without some coding. Coding means organising your data into common themes/concepts. Coding can be long and iterative.
Deductive Analysis (top down) - using a general rule or theory to find specific data in support of the rule.
Inductive Analysis (down up) - using the data and your analysis to establish new generalisations about the subject.