The research process: Beginning to end
THE RESEARCH PROCESS
Introduction
The research process is the steps included or needed to conduct a research from the beginning to the end. Research that have been identify should be carried out in a deliberate and systematic manner in order to produce a substantive besides useful outcomes (Weaver and Lawton, 2006). The specific way in each of these stages and their attendant sub-stages is operationalized will wary from project to project (Weaver and Lawton, 2006). Furthermore, research also is an extremely cyclic process, where the review of earlier work might be necessitate for the later stages (Leedy and Ormrod, 2001). Therefore, it can be difficult to determine on where to begin or where to end the research due to its cyclic (Leedy and Ormrod, 2001). According Weaver and Lawton 2006, there are basically seven steps in the research as shown below.
Step 1: Problem Recognitions
According to Leedy and Ormrod, 2001, a research begins with a problem. Therefore, the first step in any research process or before conducting a research is to recognize the problem or issues that interest the investigator (Weaver and Lawton, 2006). In tourism-based corporation, the core issues that require research are reduced patronage and declining market share (Weaver and Lawton, 2006). From a destination perspective, additional concerns may be harbored about negative community reactions to tourism or declining environmental conditions that will affect the industry (Weaver and Lawton, 2006). However, methodological bias of the researcher might dictate the problems As we know, before starting to conduct a research, at first we should come out with a question because all of the research that begins with a question. Besides that, curiosity of a researcher is often used as a foundation for scholarly inquiry. Before start to conduct a research, the researcher should know the problems and broad issues that interest them to conduct a research. Researcher should clearly understand and clarify what they want to know to conduct the research. After problem has been recognized and the researcher understand what they want to know to conduct the research, it will makes them easier. Researcher can ask themselves question on what they want to know actually based on the research that will be conduct. By this, it can help them to conduct a better research because they have the purpose for conducting the research. After problem has been recognizing, the researcher can plan or create a useful framework for clarifying or contextualizing the broad problem. For example: “if you are interested in finding out about how many students will take the opportunity to involve themselves in the sports events in school”? You might need to pose out a question that “what is the advantages of taking part in sports event in school?” Researcher should understand what they really want to find out by this topic. They should indentify what problem, concepts or keywords in this question on what they want to know by doing this research and then plan their framework well before start to do their research.
Step 2: Question formulation
After all the problem and topic that researcher identify or broad problems that have been selected, research questions must be focused to prevent that time and resources are not wasted on tangential avenues of investigation(Weaver and Lawton, 2006). Furthermore, hypothesis may be expressed when question formulation. As a basis for question formulation, it is helpful to clarify that the level of investigation that is warranted by the problem and the resources of the company or destination that are available. There are four levels of investigations which are description, explanation, prediction and prescription. All of this level will be using based on the research that will be conducted by the researcher.
The first level if the investigation is description (Weaver and Lawton, 2006). Description it is the most basic level of inquiry. For example, the managers of a particular destination are concerned that the local people appear to be increasingly hostile toward visiting tourists. The logical first step in addressing this issue is to describe the actual situation, by asking questions such as what are the attitudes of local residents towards visiting tourists.
Next level for the investigation is explanation (Weaver and Lawton, 2006). Explanation is the decision whether to or not to proceed to this level of investigation, which is to explain the resultant patterns is often constrained by the availability of resources. However, the decision should be based on whether one or more serious problems have been revealed after the research process has been completed at the descriptive level. For example, the perceived hostility of residents involves only a few isolated incidents instigated by known troublemakers, and then there is probably no compelling reason to precede any further investigation. But, if the suspicious of emerging hostility have been confirmed, and the parameters of the hostility are identified as being broad-based, then the explanation is necessary towards its resolution.
Level three for the investigation level according to Weaver and Lawton, 2006 is prediction. Prediction means once a plausible explanation for a problem is found out, the further investigation is to predict the problem’s consequences if no remedial measures are taken. As with any prediction involving humans, this stage of inquiry will be speculative, but it is possible to engage in intelligent and well-considered speculation that will inform the final stage of prescription. Example would be like asking what will happen to the local tourism industry if no steps are being carried to address the hostility of young adults towards tourism.
Lastly, the final stage of the level of investigation according to Weaver and Lawton (2006) is prescription. Prescription is the culmination of research process, involving the consideration of various solutions to the problems. If the predictive phase reveals that the above situation is highly volatile, and that the community will endure great suffering if no correction action was taken, then it is essential to proceed with prescriptive phase.
To summarize, the intervention or the actions that should be taken to ensure optimum outcomes for the company or destination, is a core component of the process in management and in applied research. Appropriate solutions or prescriptions will only emerge as a result of the knowledge that is obtained through preliminary research at the levels of description, explanation and prediction (Weaver and Lawton, 2006).
Step 3: Identification of research methodology and/ or methods
Next step of the research process is to identify the methodologies that will be use to conduct the research that the researcher already selected (Weaver and Lawton, 2006). In the other words means identify the specific research methods that will be best allow the project or research to be proceed, and normally all this probably will based on the problem that have been identified and the question set for the research. For example, in the descriptive phase, the investigators may undertake quantitative surveying in which resources, time; cultural and social context will be taken into account. Whereas in the explanatory phase, the researcher will engage in qualitative, in-depth interviews to identify the reasons for revealed attitudes and behavior. While for prediction level, the interviewer has a number of options that can be pursued in conjunction with each other to see whether the different methods yield the same results. As shown in the above example, the usage of all the techniques in the same research process also can be known as methodological triangulation. Furthermore, If all of this four methods for the research reveal the similar outcomes, it will gives the researcher high degree of confidence that the real situation of their research that they want to be conduct has been identified. Moreover, it is likely that each of the method will yield its own unique insights into this situation, thereby strengthening the knowledge base that is obtained from the research.
Step 4: Data collection
After the most appropriate have been identified, the next step of the research process can be proceeded (Weaver and Lawton, 2006). In a former case, a sample of data collection mostly is randomly drawn from the population and each of the members of the population has the equal probability to be selected as the sample for the data (Weaver and Lawton, 2006). Researchers will simple drawn out all the names of those will be involves in the research by using the random number tables to prevent biases when collecting the data. However, researcher also will select a large enough sample so that inferences can be made about the entire population. According to Neuman 1997, it is advisable that the sample should be at least of 30 per cent of the entire population to make sure that it will achieve the same effect. In the data collection, researcher commonly will practiced the non-probability or convenience sampling in the qualitative research and deliberate selection of certain cases to build the sample for the research that will be conducting. (Weaver and Lawton, 2006)
Besides that, for the data collection, once the sample size and procedure of selection for the research have been decided, the actual or the process of the data collection can be started and there is few factors that need to be considered at this stage such as consistency for the result in as short a time period as possible, timing of the interviewing or observation for the research (Weaver and Lawton, 2006). The reason is that it can save the cost and resources for the research without wasted and the collection of the data will be more accurately as well. Theory will be developed from the data gathered and analyzed by the researcher (Neuman, 2000). Furthermore, each research that will be conducted must use an appropriate data collection technique based on the research methodology that has been chosen. The researcher might also involve in pilot study or test, in which the researcher will conduct a trial test of the data collection tools and analysis by using the same sample of the population used in the final study (Jennings, 2001). Besides that, once the sample size and selection procedure have been decided, the actual data collection can be started (Weaver and Lawton, 2006).
The main goals of both quantitative and qualitative studies are to maximize the responses and the accuracy of the research (Walonick, 1993). The researchers will also validate the data collection process When others data collection service are being used, by contacting a percentage of the respondents to verify that they were actually being interviewed ( David S. Walonick 1993). Not only that, the checking process for inadvertent errors in the data also involves data editing and this process normally required a computer to check for the out of boundaries data.
Step 5: Data analysis
The data analysis is the next stage after data collection, which is a stage that attempts to answer the related research questions by examining and assessing the collected information to identify patterns and meanings (Weaver and Lawton, 2006). At this stage, filtering and organizing the database to eliminate the invalid responses usually will be involves to get a better result for the research. Next (at least in quantitative research), it is follow by the coding and entering of the data that already been collected into a computer software system such as SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Science) facilities which have the further classification and analysis (Weaver and Lawton, 2006). Actual analysis of the research can be undertaken after all the data already been “cleaned” to eliminate error in the coding procedure. According to Weaver and Lawton, 2006, the most basic analysis in a qualitative research is to record a simple descriptive statistics such as means, frequencies and standard deviation besides test also can be use when in a more sophisticated level. Researcher need to be open to the data to ensure that the data that they collected do not “force” the data (Glaser 1992). According to Neuman 1997, qualitative data analysis includes organization of the same categories as well as the relationship development and process models based on a constant comparison of the text-based data. There are 3 aspects of data analysis which is data reduction, data displaying and drawing conclusion (Miles and Huberman 1994). The relationship between different variables and groups can be examined or determined simultaneously by using multivariate technique, such as analyzing the factor and the multidimensional scaling. Level of sophistication depends on the nature of the research question and the data’s characteristic collected by the researcher (Weaver and Lawton, 2006). In a qualitative research, the sorting, comparing, classifying and synthesis of the collected information can be involves in analysis for qualitative research (Weaver and Lawton, 2006).
Step 6: Data presentation
In data presentation, the results of the analysis should be presented in the way that can be easily understood by the target audience. When preparing data for presentation, make sure that you are choosing the key points of the research (Gayle Jennings 2001). The most common devices that use to presenting data is by using tables and graphs but great care also should be always be taken to avoid complexity and clutter particularly if the intended audience is non-academic (Weaver and Lawton, 2006). The reason is that to prevent that audience did not understand what are being present. Furthermore, researcher also can use maps for their presentation because maps are extremely efficient means of presenting spatial information if being constructed properly (Weaver and Lawton, 2006). According to Jennings 2001 Power point presentation also can be use to present the data but there is some consideration when using it to presenting data such as slides should not overwhelmed with text, text is easy to read, try not to use colors that are hard to focus on or gaudy, not to over use different font and different style such as italics, bold, use an infra-red or timber pointer if need to indicate something, do not turn your back to audience and check out the slide is in the correct order.
Step 7: Data interpretation
The final stage of the research process is data interpretation, in which the meaning from the research results will be extracted (Weaver and Lawton, 2006). This is the stage where important implication of the research result are considered from theoretical and/or practical perspective besides in this stage, researcher also will consider higher levels of investigation which means the researcher will revisit the previous stages(Weaver and Lawton, 2006). Data that been interpret maybe will be influence by the methodological and other biases of the researcher. The important of the effective interpretation at the specific or broad level cannot be overstated since leads to translation of research results into policy decision and other outcomes that are important to the target audience (Weaver and Lawton, 2006).
