The Methodological Approaches - Essay Example

?Produce a report comparing the methodological approaches undertaken by the from two peer reviewed journal articles Introduction Research is very important for enhancing our knowledge about certain known facts as well as exploring new knowledge. Without research, it is not possible to progress. Human civilization would not have developed from its primitive form had the human being not put their efforts in exploring new things to make their life better. In every aspect of our life development is not possible without proper research. For conducting research there are some particular methods that should be followed, otherwise the results of the research would not be viable. Numerous researches have been conducted and are being conducted in various fields of studies. If a person wants to know some new thing of certain issue or enhance his/her knowledge regarding some commonly known issues, then indulging himself/herself in through research regarding the issue of his/her concern would be the best thing. It will also help others to know about certain things. However, conducting research is not an easy thing. A systematic way has to be adopted to obtain reliable and viable results. A research method comprises of various steps. There are also different kinds of research methodology. Methodology of researched vary according to the purpose and objective of researches. This paper will put its focus on comparing the methodological approaches undertaken by the authors from two peer reviewed journal articles. For the purpose of this study, two articles should be chosen from same field of research otherwise comparison of the methodologies will not be quite helpful. Various kinds of researches can be conducted in the same field of study and hence methods also differ on the basis of purpose of the studies irrespective of the field of study. In this paper a particular topic area has been chosen. The topic area under consideration is impacts of holding the world cup in a country, the pros and cons. The two research articles chosen for the present study belong to the topic area selected for the present purpose. The prodigious sport events have become so much demanding and super popular throughout the globe both for both the developed and developing countries in terms of property and possessions (Swart and Bob 2009). Hosting mega events like Olympic, the FIFA World Cup or World Cup Cricket, World Cup Rugby, World Cup Hockey, FA Cup and other mega sports events bring up some significant the long living on the hosting countries. It has been a kind of norm that Economists have been very skeptical about hosting very big events such as the Olympic Games or the World Cup, or the FA Cup because these events have reasonable costing scale and seem to have tangible benefits. These doubts are seldomly used by policy makers and the population who remains very excited about such events. Very often people talk about economic impacts of hoisting mega sports events. By the help of different trade models various researches have shows that hosting such big events do have a positive impact on national exports. Statistically, this effect is robust, large and permanent for countries who host such mega events. Also there are phenomenon where unsuccessful bids to host such events like Olympics have a similar positive effect on national exports. Here it can be said that the effect of mega sports events have a positive impact on trade wherein they send a signal that countries will have higher profit margin more in bidding to host the games rather than actually going out carrying out the mega events. But it is not very clear how this large effect on trade can be reconciled with the fall in GDP. Most probably, there is a signaling effect and a winners’ curse effect that works out over here. However, the effect of hosting mega sports events is not only limited to economical factors. The impacts can be economical, foundational, environmental or social. The impacts can be good or bad. It is really interesting to examine the impacts of hosting World Cup. Various researches have been conducted on this research area. Various studies have put their focus on various types of impacts. Different studies have also followed different types of methodologies. The present study will choose two particular studies in the area of selected research topic. The two journal articles selected for the present study are “Resident Perceptions of the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup Stadia Development in Cape Town” by Urmilla Bob & Kamilla Swart and “Assessing the Environmental Consequences of Major Sporting Events: The 2003/04 FA Cup Final” by Andrea Collins, Andrew Flynn, Max Munday and Annette Roberts. A comparative analysis of these two studies will help in understanding how different types of methodologies can be used to fulfill different types of purposes. A thorough review may help in analyzing the effect of mega sports events to be held in coming years on the hosting countries. For example, it will help in examining the effects of World Cup Cricket 2011 that is being taken place currently on its hosting nations. We can also learn form the short comings of the existing research and make some effort to rectify them in future research attempts. A grasp over appropriate methods are really very important for conducting any research. For our future endeavors in the field of research, this paper will help a lot. Comparison between the two selected Journal article The article “Resident Perceptions of the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup Stadia Development in Cape Town” by Urmilla Bob & Kamilla Swart talks about the foundational impacts of World Cup particularly on the development of stadium and sports infrastructure of the hosting country. Hosting the FIFA World Cup bring up some significant the long living bequests which promises probable foundational benefits. Particularly development of new stadiums and up gradation of pre existing stadiums of South Africa's 2010 sport infrastructural evolution programme is high on the list. This whole project resembles the works in the Cape Town as well. As the single biggest catalyst to help trigger major infrastructure investments in Cape Town 2010 World Cup Soccer Tournament is going to be a part of Cape Town's history. The 2010 FIFA World Cup is to be hosted in South Africa is strongly believed to give more chances to the country's objectives of using sporting events to bring international recognition and promote socio-economic development as well. An observation of sport tourism events induces concentration to economic impact and neglect social matters (Ritchie and Adair 2004). Particularly, residential perceptions are neglected although they are frequently directly affected by sport events, especially when they exist in close propinquity to the event venue. This article takes into account residents’ perception regarding the impact of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The 2010 FIFA World Cup brings a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with huge legacy benefits for the South Africans. However, generally, the true voices of local residents are not present in relation to arguments relevant to this event and concomitant foreseen benefits (Swart and Bob 2007). In this research, evaluationable questions are asked hundreds of residents in each place. The focus of the survey was to examine the attitude of the residents towards the proposed stadium up gradation and potential impact of the 2010 World Cup. The results reveal that there is considerable support and appreciation related to South Africa's hosting of the 2010 World Cup. However, there were several matters raised in relation to the administration of anticipated benefits and the impact of the stadium on their lives. On the other hand, the second article chosen for the present study, i.e. “Assessing the Environmental Consequences of Major Sporting Events: The 2003/04 FA Cup Final” by Andrea Collins, Andrew Flynn, Max Munday and Annette Roberts talks about environmental impacts of another major sport event. The policy makers are highly interested on the countries who host such mega events. Their focus is based on the environmental and economic impacts of hosting such big events. There have been growing needs based on regions for higher levels of accountability on environmental aspects at par with locally and nationally set sustainable development objectives. Here we are trying to demonstrate on how two related methods can be used in order to draw conclusions on economic and environmental impacts related to event visitation. The analysis used for this purpose are environmental input-output tables and ecological footprint analysis. With the help of these two methodologies, we can have a valuable insight on the environmental and economic impacts . Along with this, we can have a global significance appreciation of average visitor consumption patterns associated with a high profile event. These tools help policy makers to undergo wise decisions. As far as the research methods adopted by the first article, i.e. “Resident Perceptions of the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup Stadia Development in Cape Town” by Urmilla Bob & Kamilla Swart, the researchers adopted qualitative research method. This research is actually interpretive and explanatory in nature as it explains on the basis of research outcomes how residents of South Africa perceive about the foundational impacts of hosting the FIFA World Cup 2010. The fundamental information for Athlone and Green Point is collected in an organized format below. The information is deduced from Bayette Development Consulting research (2006) which examined competition venues in Cape Town that had the good capacity to host 2010 matches. The study was restricted to a 2-km diameter area around the stadium. Athlone is situated almost 10-km from the City Centre towards the East of central Cape Town. The marked area for the study composed of four wards with a crowd of 128,484 people. It is a historically Colored residential zone having 18% unemployment rate with a poverty rate 22%. Green Point is a historically White residential zone near the City Centre. The area decided to study has two wards with a crowd of 63,473, almost half the population size of Athlone. With a little better result the unemployment rate is 6% with the poverty rate 12% in the Green Point, which is a relatively better-off residential community compared to Athlone. After a reasonable debate (see Swart and Bob 2009) Green Point Stadium, a pre-existing multi-purpose stadium situated adjacent to the Cape Town's (and South Africa's) most popular tourist attraction, the V&A waterfront was recognized as the competition spot. Athlone stadium was identified as a Western Cape 2010 project which will be heritage sometime and will be the hosting place for international warm-up matches. Individual interviews were arranged with 200 households, 100 from each Athlone and Green Point during December 2005. The study instrument was based on Fredline and Faulkner's (2002) questionnaire and questions were modified and added to match the South African context. A spatially based random sampling approach was used in both the communities. Houses within a kilometer radius from the venue area were the target of this research effort. The motive was to put the light on the views and concerns of residents living in close to the stadium venues under a discussion. A list was made of all the residents within the identified and marked 1-km zone. Then, a random table was used to select 100 residents in each area. If a chosen resident was not there or refused to participate in this survey, the workers interrogated a neighboring household. This research found that organizers of mega events should be better armed to address the complications of a household's perception as well as to find more resources to efficiently increase residents' perceived positive effects and lower down their perceived negative impact. This study brings out that residents normally support the hosting of the 2010 World Cup and infrastructural development with the event. Nevertheless, they have very strong belief in the whole concept realizing the social and economic benefits. There were doubts and confusions also found regarding the economic stability and the hike in the price. There were verificational queries also encountered. The whole concept related to the development of stadium and hosting of World Cup 2010 should be explained by the government including information of pertaining related to the opportunities and the prospects of participating in planning and decision-making. The method applied by the researchers is not free from criticism. The results of the research are mainly based on the face-to-face individual interviews. Face-to-face interviews have their own pros and cons. Interview is considered to be a very useful and powerful tool for conducting researches, particularly qualitative researches. During any research, interviews of the selected people are conducted to find out what a person actually think regarding a particular issue. Interviews enable researchers to access the perspective of the people who are being interviewed. Through interviews it is possible to find out certain important things relevant to the studies that can not be obtained or observed directly. Interviews also help in uncovering and exploring the meanings of certain things related to the people’s behavior, feelings, routines etc. (Rubin and Rubin, 1995). Furthermore, interviewing also stands for a measure of systematic data collection by asking different sort of questions, listening to them carefully and recording and noting all the answers accurately. Through in interviews researchers get a access to a wide range of experiences, different kinds of circumstances and a range of knowledge that could otherwise not be obtained. During an interview, there exists a great chance that an interviewee would describe some private or sensitive behaviors, relevant to the topic of interview, that took place in past or in some locations which are inaccessible for the interviewer. Interviews are also able to provide certain information regarding the means or definitions that people give to different events or behavior. In case face to face interviews in-depth knowledge sharing is possible. It also helps in developing bigger picture regarding the selected issue and analysing the results in more elaborate way. Face-to-face interview is also good for networking. However, it has certain disadvantages, like it is very much time consuming and very often interviewers find it difficult to arrange an interview time with all the interviewees. Face-to-face interview also possess difficulty during the time of comparing and analysing information. Among all the disadvantages of face-to-face interviews the major disadvantage is setting an appointment with the interviewees as in most of the cases interviewees are found to be very busy, specially in case of those interviewees who hold high profile jobs. In some cases, interviewers are left with no response from the people they have targeted for the interviews. There exists one technique that can solve this problem and can increase the response rate of the data collection method. This process is email interview. In case of the second article, i.e. “Assessing the Environmental Consequences of Major Sporting Events: The 2003/04 FA Cup Final” by Andrea Collins, Andrew Flynn, Max Munday and Annette Roberts , the researchers adopted quantitative research method. The researchers actually adopted two different quantitative research methods In order to examine the economic consequences of tourism activity and sports event, the Input –output analysis has been majorly used by economists. But there are general limitations that are attached with this analysis, which is particularly the assumption of fixed technical coefficients and a passive supply side. According to Jones, the policy makers should be aware of such limitations and assumptions, where the productive capacity of a reference region may underlie the major events. The Ecological footprint Analysis was pioneered in the early 1990s. The analysis was initiated by a event where a limited amount of bioproductive land was supposed to provide all the human resource demands on the entire planet. The theory of sustainable development requires that here we survive within the carrying capacity of the Earth, allowing economies to develop, on the same hand, ensuring that all human needs are still met. The way GDP used to represent dimensions of the financial economy, in the same way, The ecological footprint represents the global ecological impact. The footprint is measured using a standardized area unit equivalent to a world average productive hectare which is usually expressed in global hectares per person. The ecological footprint is derived for a defined population usually for one year by estimating the area of bioproductive land. The shortcoming of ecological footprint analysis was that this method did not account for all visitor consumption at the event, such as visitor use of water services or hospital services. Moreover, the footprint as used in this case does not take account of any displacements effects generated by the event—for example, reduced consumption by Cardiff residents who did not eat out in the city that day. Added to this is a problem of data availability for all areas of consumption. Conclusion: On the basis of the discussion above, it can be concluded two of the selected articles approached the search topic in two different ways. It shows how various kinds of research can be performed on various topics. The discussion also shows how different types of methods can be used on the basis of the purpose of the study. While one article has used qualitative research method, the other employed quantitative research methods. However, each of the research methods has their own advantages and disadvantages as discussed. If we work on the disadvantages to minimize the level of error, then it would be possible to develop a more viable research method. The two methods can also be mixed to form a new method to conduct researches in the research area. References. Arksey, H. & Knight, P. 1999. Interviewing for Social Scientists. London :Sage Publications. Silverman, D. 2004. Doing Qualitative Research: A Practical Handbook. London: Sage Publications Ltd Fowler Jr., and Floyd J. 2002. Survey Research Methods. California: Sage Publications, Guion L. 2006. Creating an In-depth Interview. University of Florida IFAS Extension. FCS6012. Available at: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu. Herndl C, Nahrwold C. (2000). Research as Social Practice: A Case Study of Research on Technical and Professional Communication. Written Communication, 17(2):258-296. Kvale, Steinar. 1996. Interviews an Introduction to Qualitative Research Interviewing, Sage Publications. Swart, K., & Bob, U. (2007). Listening to community voices: Athlone and Green Point residents’ views on the location of the 2010 FIFA World Cup Stadium in Cape Town. 7th International Hamburg Symposium “Sport and Economics” on the economics of top performance in international sports. Hamburg Chamber of Commerce, Hamburg “Resident Perceptions of the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup Stadia Development in Cape Town” by Urmilla Bob & Kamilla Swart Urban Forum (2009) 20:47–59. “Assessing the Environmental Consequences of Major Sporting Events: The 2003/04 FA Cup Final” by Andrea Collins, Andrew Flynn, Max Munday and Annette Roberts Urban Stud 2007 44: 457 Read More