Steps of the Process - Research Paper Example

Research Method-Interview al Affiliation Contents Contents 2 Introduction (203 words) 3 Research issues addressed (113 words) 3 The pros and cons of the chosen strategy (1622 words) 4 Theoretical Background 4 I. Quantitative/Qualitative 4 II. Deductive/Inductive 5 III. Other approaches 6 IV. Positivistic philosophy 7 Reasons for chosen strategy 8 Method section (551 words) 12 Findings summary and implications (394 words) 15 References: 19 Research Method-Interview Introduction (203 words) Stress is one of the most common issues that characterize the present society. It is affecting students, particularly first year students who are making contact with a totally new environment and are dealing with increased volume of work compared to high school or lower qualifications. Stress among students is an issue researched since 1960s when the first writings on this topic have become popular such as the “Students under Stress” by David Mechanic. Nowadays, students have been proven to be more stressed than ever according to various surveys undertaken worldwide among students. There are several main reasons: living away from family, friends and home; the pressure to obtain high grades in order to achieve the career goals; financial issues; and exam pressure. However, it is believed that, in addition to the mentioned reasons, there is also a strong connection between the subjects that a student has chosen to study and the levels of stress that affect them. This relationship must be carefully analysed and researched in order to develop efficient methods of dealing with the caused stress. This project is coming to present the results and methodology used in order to identify how a particular degree matter is influencing the level of stress among ‘freshers’. Research issues addressed (113 words) The research undertaken by my group is aiming to answer the following question: “To what extent can stress in first year students be attributed to the degree course that they are undertaking?” In other words, the research is about establishing a clear relationship between the stress and difficulty of a degree course that a first year is studying. As stress is a general issue studied by many specialists, this research comes as a particular investigation of the topic of stress among students. Adequate research methods will try to identify particular behaviours and opinions in the interviewed group of students and link it to the subject they are studying, thus answering the above question. The pros and cons of the chosen strategy (1622 words) Theoretical Background “Research is a process of enquiry and investigation; it is systematic, methodical and ethical; research can help solve practical problems and increase knowledge” (Collis et al. 2003) Choosing the right strategic approach when undertaking a research project can be sometimes a challenging task and every particular topic must be addressed accordingly depending on its nature. When deciding upon which strategy to use, the choice was between a deductive and inductive approach. Both of the approaches, together with the motivation for the choice, will be discussed further. First of all it is worth mentioning that there are different ways through which research can be approached. The most popular and reliable approaches are: Quantitative/Qualitative and Deductive/Inductive I. Quantitative/Qualitative A quantitative research principally consists of gathering numerical data that will be further analysed. The approach is suitable for scientific research that requires statistical information. However, despite the fact that the information obtained using this procedure is detailed and accurate it is not the right approach for the case since the designed questionnaire and interview do not consist of numerical data. A qualitative research approach is based on analysing and interpreting the attitudes and perceptions of the subjects considered when undertaking the research. Since the research is meant to collect students’ opinions and perceptions with regards to the stress they are subjected to and what influences them in being stressed, a qualitative approach would be more appropriate and efficient than quantitative. II. Deductive/Inductive By far the most reliable research methods are the deductive and inductive approaches. A deductive approach considers first general ideas and then moves to specific situations with other words “from the general, a particular is deduced”. From the available facts, conclusion is drawn. (Fig.1) Prior to collection of data, the researcher needs to get a broader theoretical contact with a particular topic researched. Furthermore, once a general conclusion has been obtained this will be compared and contrasted with the information obtained from the selected subjects through questionnaire, interviews or group discussions. Once all the data has been collected and structured it is time for the last step of analysing the available information. An inductive approach is identifying particular situations and patterns in order to establish general theories and ideas. Opposite to a deductive approach, an inductive strategy is moving from a particular situation to general ideas (Fig.2). The method determines a sample of individuals based on their characteristics, first year in this case, which will be further interviewed using adequately designed questionnaires. Even though this method can be time-consuming, it is often more reliable and can establish totally new theories. The advantage of this over the deductive approach is that, in the case of researching the causes of stress among students, there are no general ideas and theories regarding this matter. Hence, by starting from particular situations (individual first year students) it is possible to obtain a general theory which questions the validity of future examples. III. Other approaches Exploratory research is a method applied when there is limited or no previous study on a specific issue. The method’s purpose is to identify patterns and ideas. The techniques used in this method are the analysis of various case studies and previous research papers on the subject. Also, exploratory research is useful when the problem has not been clearly defined. It helps the process of research design, data collection method and determining what subjects are the most suitable for questioning. Exploratory research often relies on secondary research such as reviewing available literature and/or data, or qualitative at approaches such as informal discussions with consumers, employees, management or competitors, and more formal approaches through in-depth interviews, focus groups, projective methods, case studies Descriptive research does not belong to any of broad research categories. However, it is making use of elements from both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The characteristics of the subject are determined through this method. Quantitative techniques are used to realize data collection and analysis. Descriptive research involves gathering data that describe events and then organizes, tabulates, depicts, and describes the data collection (Glass et al. 1984). Descriptive studies find out "what is," so observational and survey methods are frequently used to collect descriptive data (Borg et al. 1989). The research environment detaches from the descriptive study but does not cause any changes whatsoever. In this case, students are researched, the descriptive study is appropriate as it can reveal information about the attitudes, behaviour and traits of a representative group of people. Interaction between the researcher and the subject characterises the descriptive research.. The interaction consists of a survey or interview that is designed so it will collect relevant information. The interview must be ethic and must not intrude the subject’s privacy in any way. On the other hand, there is a descriptive research that is not based on interaction. This particular descriptive research is called observational research. Bickman and Rog (1998) suggest that descriptive studies answer questions such as “what is” or “what was.” Experiments can typically answer “why” or “how.” Unlike, descriptive research, which is aiming to describe events, explanatory research has as the main objective to explain the issue studied. Also known as analytical research, the approach’s purpose is to suggest or explain why or how something has occurred, principally identifies the causes and effects of the phenomenon. IV. Positivistic philosophy A positivistic approach is strongly related to a quantitative method. The methodology used in positivistic approaches is the same with the one used in science research projects. The researcher is completely detached from the subject and is looking for the causes of a specific phenomenon. Belief that the study of human behaviour should be conducted in the same way as studies conducted in the natural sciences, creates the basis for positivistic approaches (Collis, 2003). The purpose of a positivistic approach is to evaluate the issue and determine, the cause of the problem. This explanation will attempt to establish causal links and relationships between the different elements (or variables) of the subject and relate them to a particular theory or practice. There is a belief that people do respond to stimulus or forces, rules (norms) external to themselves and that these can be discovered, identified and described using rational, systematic and deductive Reasons for chosen strategy In order to identify the main sources of stress among first year university students, a questionnaire that uses nominal questions, ordinal, interval/ratio and open ended questions. Additionally a semi-structured interview has been prepared for the subjects in order to make a comparison of the results obtained with those from the questionnaire. The interview is based on an inductive approach and is exploring the factors that determine a student’s stress and how these differ from case to case. Therefore, the whole research process is based on a mixture between a positivistic (quantitative) and an inductive approach. A positivistic approach offers the advantage of quantification of both the causes and effects of stress, thus being the approach to use. The subjects chosen are the following: Total 24 first year students (10 male 14 female) (14 UK 8 International 2 EU) (7 business, 3 art, 3 engineer, 1 biological science, 2 medicine and health, 1 environment, 1 performance, visual arts and communication, 4 maths and physical sciences, 2 education, social science and law) It has been assured of the fact that the students are studying various degrees and thus taking UK, International and EU nationalities in order to be able to determine if the culture has any influence on the level and causes of stress. The first set of questions is meant to provide the students’ identity and basic information about degree, date of birth, amongst others. Example of question: Which of the following best describes you? (Please tick the appropriate answer) Male Female Prefer not to say The following set of question is concerned with identifying what are the principal causes of stress among the students. Example of question: Tick which causes of stress most applies to you. Moving away from home Making friends Workload Money Responsibilities Language barrier Work-life balance Exam stress Pressure from families Future job Jump from sixth form to university Other (please specify below) The question above is identifying what the causes of stress among the surveyed students are. In the process of analysing the collected data, it will be identified what is the most common factor of stress among the students. Furthermore, subjects are asked to make their own top two causes of stress. The last part of the questionnaire is aiming to identify how students are dealing with stress and what influence it has on their life. Example of question: Tick the mechanisms you use for coping with stress from the options listed below. Crying Getting angry Becoming motivated to work harder Becoming unsociable Socialising Drinking Smoking Taking drugs Comfort eating Going home Skipping classes Hobby (ex: Sports, reading, listen to music…) Talking to someone Other (please specify below) The semi-structured interview is using an inductive approach as it offers more advantages in this particular case than the deductive approach does. It is possible to obtain a general theory based on various particular attitudes and reactions collected from the students, through using the inductive approach, it. It was proven to be more advantageous for the following reasons: Less time-consuming than the questionnaire. Able to identify more specific things that could not have been identified using the positivistic-quantitative approach. Similar results and patterns were found by using a questionnaire but in a shorter time and with fewer questions that are more convenient for both the researcher and the subjects. Overall, it can be concluded that the inductive approach should be followed on this particular research project as it is both less time-consuming and more effective than the quantitative positivistic approach. Method section (551 words) The research process has been divided in eight major steps Problem identification This step involves the process of identification of the main problem or the development of the research question. The researched subject can be current issues occurring in society, desire for knowledge or scientific information that is considered to be valuable and useful. In our case, the research question is: “To what extent can stress in first year students be attributed to the degree course that they are undertaking?” The research is aiming to identify first what are the main factors causing the stress among first year students and furthermore, determine to what extent there is a relationship between the degree studied and the level of stress encountered. Using the available literature The available relevant literature has been used in order to identify what are the available options in terms of research approach. After thorough review of the available methods and similar studies, a decision has been made on what is the most appropriate method for addressing the problem raised. Clarification of the research purpose This part of the research process is reaffirming and highlighting the main objectives of this research. As mentioned before, the purpose of this study is to determine the causes of stress among first year students. On top of that it is aimed to identify what methods the students are using in order to cope with stress, and how this is impacting their aspects of life. Determining the subjects and their circumstances The subjects involved must be first year students undertaking various degrees and belonging to different nationalities. The subjects sample is the following: (10 male 14 female) (14 UK 8 International 2 EU) (7 business, 3 art, 3 engineer, 1 biological science, 2 medicine and health, 1 environment, 1 performance, visual arts and communication, 4 maths and physical sciences, 2 education, social science and law) Instrumentation plan “The plan for the study is referred to as the instrumentation plan. The instrumentation plan serves as a roadmap for the entire study. It does this by specifying who participates in the study; how, when, and where data will be collected. The researcher develops the plan for a walking program, indicating what data will be collected, when and how the data will be collected, who will collect the data, and how the data will be analysed. The instrumentation plan specifies all the steps that must be completed for the study” (Diane 2012). The data will be collected using two different methods: positivistic approach and inductive. The comparison between the two in terms of advantages and disadvantages has been presented. Collection of data Collecting is one of the most important steps as it involves the collection of the actual relevant data for the study. Data is being collected through questionnaires, surveys and interviews addressed to the subjects. In this case, data has been collected thorough a positivistic a questionnaire that uses nominal; ordinal; interval/ratio and open ended questions. Additionally an inductive semi-structured interview has been used to collect data, the aims being the same. Analyse the data The last step of the process consists of analysing the data collected from the interview. Conclusions can be drawn with respect to the issues raised by the research question. The results of the research will be presented in detail in the next section. Findings summary and implications (394 words) The collected data from the questionnaire has revealed the fact that 100% of the participating subjects believe that the workload is the principal stressor for them. Furthermore, the majority of the students have identified exam stress and workload as being the main factors that are causing stress in their lives. When asked how they deal with stress the answers were totally different between male and female subjects. The overall majority of female students are choosing to cry and eat when encountering stress, while the majority of male are talking to someone or skipping classes. One of the most relevant questions in the questionnaire is the following: How much of your day-to-day stress do you attribute to your specific degree course? (By faculty) The answers obtained are the following: Business: All of it 1 Most of it 2 Some of it 3 None of it 1 Unsure Maths and physical sciences: All of it Most of it 3 Some of it 1 None of it Unsure Medicine and health: All of it Most of it Some of it 2 None of it Unsure Engineering All of it Most of it 1 Some of it 2 None of it Unsure Art All of it Most of it 2 Some of it None of it 1 Unsure It can be concluded from the results that there is an important connection between the degree studied by the first year student and the level of stress he or she is dealing with. As it can be seen the students who are enrolled in degrees related to science (mathematics) are more stressed than a business student. Additionally, the students from science degrees are also believing that their degree course is more stressful than others. The analysis of the semi-structured report has revealed the following: • Deadlines and workload are the most stressful part of the degree course • Money is a significant stressor • Socialising is a coping mechanism for UK students • Socialising is a stressor for international students, due to language barrier • Stress is seen as a positive thing, meaning it can positively affect the attitude towards work. Compared to the questionnaire, the interview has revealed pretty much the same. However, the effort and time were considerably less than in the questionnaire case. Several improvements for the interview: • Greater number of responses • Greater number of questions, people were willing to answer more References: Introduction to Research and Research Methods, Bradford University-School of Management, PDF document available at: http://www.brad.ac.uk/management/media/management/els/Introduction-to-Research-and-Research-Methods.pdf Steps of the research process, Diane C. Blankenship, (2012), Article available at: http://www.humankinetics.com/excerpts/excerpts/steps-of-the-research-process Accessed on: 20/04/2014. Stress in College Students, Published on October 1, 2011 by Alan Reifman, Ph.D. in On the Campus, Available at: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-campus/201110/stress-in-college-students Accessed on 22/04/2014 The reality of student stress, Erik Leijon, (2014) Article available at: http://www.concordia.ca/cunews/main/stories/2014/02/05/the-reality-of-studentstress.html Accessed on 21/04/2014. What is research? Dr Camille Nebecker, San Diego State University, Article available at: http://ori.hhs.gov/education/products/sdsu/contact.htm Accessed on: 20/04/2014. Read More