Assistive Technology Proposal - Research Paper Example

How Research Proposal Will Obtain and Incorporate Qualitative and or Quantitative Data The research seeks to find out the advantages and disadvantages of assistive technology. Assistive technology defined refers to the technological aid assistance that improves the lives of physically impaired persons. It refers to any item, piece of equipment, which helps a person with a disability to improve his or her functional capabilities.Qualitative research seeks to understand a given research problem or topic from perspective of population involved.

It is more effective in obtaining culturally specific information that is opinions, behavior and or values within a targeted population while Quantitative research is mainly based on measurement of quantity or amount and is applicable on to phenomenon that can be expressed in quantitative form. (Kothari 2004)The research topic, “advantages and disadvantages of assistive technology”, seeks to find out opinions from the population therefore it qualifies to be a qualitative research rather than quantitative research.

It engages the use interview schedules, closed questionnaires. These research interview instruments should be properly designed. (Denscombe1998)Before obtaining data it is necessary to come up with a sample size which should be the true reflection of the characteristic of the population targeted. Sampling is done to help save time, money among other resources. It is not easy to conduct research one by one to capture the entire population thus the necessity of sampling. (Kothari 2004)As noted earlier, qualitative research is concerned with qualitative phenomenon relating to or does involve quality.

In order to obtain data the researcher will engage various techniques of; focus group interview, projective interview, and in depth interview. In depth interview is commonly used technique due to its effectiveness in collecting data in a given face to face research problem. During in depth interview the interviewer ask questions and the respondent answers, in this case the interviewer is considered student and the respondent is considered expert. (Denscombe1998) Researcher engage with the participant by posing questions one after the other in neutral manner to avoid leading answers.

Interviewer pays attention to the responses given by the respondent and applying probing techniques where necessary to get more information. After the interview the data obtained shall be coded according to participant’s response to each question Focus group is mainly concerned with obtaining information that relates to community or sub group. Here two or more researchers and several participants meet as group to discuss a given research topic with the session activities recorded using tapes and sometime videotaped.

Here one researcher leads the discussion while the other takes notes. After the session for purposes of data analysis the data obtained usually in typed transcript are coded according to participants’ response. (Kothari 2004)Data documentation is necessary after the research to help manage it properly this could be done by converting raw data to computer files, organizing data storage.Weaknesses of Qualitative and Quantitative ResearchQualitative research much as it possesses many advantages it also has many weaknesses these include: one is that single qualitative studies cannot provide grounds for generalizing across cases thus calls for repeated research which is tedious, secondly immersion in the depths of a qualitative study can lead to researcher offering explanations in terms of the situation under observation, ignoring forces operating on the situation externally.

Thirdly it can take time to assemble a sample. Lastly they are impressionistic, subjective, and biased in some occasions. Quantitative research also poses weakness such as one possibility of collecting narrower and superficial dataset, secondly, is insufficient results as they provide numerical descriptions rather than detailed narrative, thirdly is the possibility of biasness due to standardized questions by researchers. (Maykut and Morehouse1994)How to Determine Whether to Use Qualitative or Quantitative ResearchQuantitative research is most applicable when: first when one seeks to confirm hypotheses about a phenomena, secondly when one wants or seeks to quantify variation, thirdly when one wants to predict causal relationship, fourth and probably the last for this case when on wants to describe the characteristic of a given population.

Qualitative research is mainly applicable in scenarios like; first is when one seeks to explore a phenomenon, secondly is when one wants to describe a variation, thirdly when one wants to describe individual experiences. ( Maykut and Morehouse 1994)ReferencesKOTHARI, C. R. (2004), Research Methodology; Methods and Techniques; New Delhi, New Age international Publishers.Denscombe, M. (1998) The Good Research Guide: for small-scale social research projects, Buckingham, Open University Press.Maykut, P.

and Morehouse, R. (1994) Beginning Qualitative Research. A Philosophic and Practical Guide, London, Falmer Press.