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Doctoral Training Workshops

Research Design and Focus

Sue Oreszczyn and Julius Mugwagwa

November 2014

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SESSION AIMS

• To help you to explore and refine your research questions

• To begin to think about research methods

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Doctoral Training Workshops

Where do research questions come from?

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Doctoral Training Workshops

• The published literature• Challenging existing assumptions and

research Ideas and views of your colleagues and supervisors

• The context of the research• Your own professional practice and/or

circumstances • From what you want the research to achieve• Your funder

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Doctoral Training Workshops

How do you develop research questions?How do you develop research questions?

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•Questioning: what you know; how do you know this? are you sure about it? what other possibilities exist?

•Free writing and word-doodling about your topic: writing down what you know and what you don't know

•Brainstorming: what do other people think? how are their ideas different? what are they interested in that you haven't thought about? Challenge opinions and ask people to defend them

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Doctoral Training Workshops

Activity 1: Brainstorming your research Activity 1: Brainstorming your research questionsquestions

1. On the paper handed out write your research and topic area

2. one person collects up the sheets from your table and passes them on to the table to your left

3. Each person on the next table takes a sheet, adds a question that comes to mind about this research area/topic and then passes it on to the person on their left

4. This person reads the questions, then adds a new question and then passes the paper to the person on their left again to add another question. Continue until everyone on the table has contributed

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Doctoral Training Workshops

Formulating Research Questions

Activity 2: What is your project about? What is the aim and key questions?

What is the research question or hypothesis at the centre of your research project?

First – individually - Write this down in the form of a question (or questions)

Then check with your neighbour that they understand it

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W W W W W

How did you formulate your question(s)? Did it involve:

What, Can….. ?

How many ….. ?

How do….?

Why ….. ?

Who ….. ?

Where….. ?

What if ….. ?

Others???

“I keep six honest serving-men

(They taught me all I knew);

Their names are What and

Why and When

And How and Where and Who”

Rudyard Kipling ‘Just So’ Stories

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Rewrite your research question (or one of your key questions) as a ‘what’; ‘how’; ‘why’; ‘who’ and ‘what if’?

e.g. a social health care project could be…. “What types of intermediary care services are likely to be successful in reducing acute emergency hospital admissions?”“How can intermediary care services reduce acute emergency hospital admissions?”“Why are existing services not preventing rising numbers of acute emergency hospital admissions?”What and who would be involved if patients’ needs for treatment after hip replacement operations were provided more at home?”

Reformulating the question can help you think through the different understandings alternative approaches might produce

Activity 3

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Criteria for good research questions

• Be convertible into specific tasks• Have a comparative element • Specify when you have done enough • Specify the: Field of Study

- Limits the ‘population’ studied (e.g. geographical area, industrial sector, person type, topic boundary)

- Unit of analysis- Measures used

• Have theoretical links with big questions in the subject area as a whole.

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Doctoral Training Workshops

Remember the elephant

A real example:Whether, how and to what extent have the three supranational bodies (SADC, NEPAD and AU) contributed to cross-national convergence of biosafety regulatory systems in the SADC region?

Turning research questions into tasks

How doable is this research question as it stands?

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Broad, overarching research question

Sub research questions

An example:How do context specific institutional factors effect innovative capabilities?

Sub-question 1: How has the network of actors in the innovative agri-biotech sector evolved in a way that accommodates the particular characteristics of the technology?

Sub-question 2: How do linkages between actors in the network demonstrate the sustained use of institutional arrangements which characterised the pre-transition NIS?

Sub-question 3: How does this existing network as it has evolved, show difficulty in adapting to the regulatory environment created in the country’s post accession phase?

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What changes in the legislative framework have been proposed to assist in the development and delivery of a pandemic influenza vaccine in Canada?

Sub Q1) What institutional relationships between upstream actors involved in vaccine testing and production have been formed as a result of changes in the legislative framework?

Sub Q2) Do such institutional relationships contribute to complementarities and potentially translate into improved production times?

Another example:

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Focusing is a key task

Setting research boundaries is very important – it will affect how widely you read

• You need to think through what information you want to come out of the project

• You need to consider the original contribution you will make

• You need to select appropriate research methods

Research questions can be turned into tasks

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Different sorts of questions require different sorts of data

and levels of complexity

Activity 4: What Methods?

With the person sitting next to you consider:• What are the tasks associated with your research question?

• What data would you need for different questions?• Where would you get it?• How would you get it?• How practical it is to gather your data with the time and resources you have available

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Different kinds of research question

Type of question Typical examples of research methods

What? Surveys / structured interviews; archives; ‘administrative’ statistics, content analysis, structured observation

How, Can?Surveys; simple modelling; semi-structured interviews

Why, Where, Who?

Case studies; experiment; semi-structured interview

What if?Experiment; scenarios; multi-variable modelling; unstructured / qualitative interviews, focus groups

output

operations

causality

modification

Source: Adapted from Chapter 1 (pp 27-48) of Thomas, A. and Mohan, G. (Eds) (2007): Research Skills for Policy and Development: how to find out fast. London, Sage.

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Different question formulations involve different forms and logics of enquiryBehind this can be different theoretical/philosophical perspectives (explored in Matthew’s session)

“It is the task of methodology to explicate methods of turning observation into explanation, theory and data into theory. Methodology is not just the science of technique or a brand of theory, it is the link between technique and theory”.

“Just as we select a tennis racquet rather than a golf club to play tennis because we have a prior conception of what the game of tennis involves, so with social research.” (Dave Wield – Doctoral Training Workshops founder)

Logics of inquiry

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Researching on people. The researcher places themselves outside the system of interest. The researcher learns. Eg. questionnaire surveys, scientific observations.

The researcher places themselves within the system for a short while and then leaves. The researcher learns but the participants only do so while the researcher is present. Eg. Face to face semi-structured interviews

The researcher as co-researcher (the action research model). The researcher place themselves within the system and work with the people. In this case learning is assumed to continue once the researchers leaves the system.Eg. cooperative research, participatory research techniques

Three models for doing research(Oreszczyn, 2000)