STEPS TO DESIGN A RESEARCH STRATEGY- Sociologists play a very important role in our society, they study people’s social lives, activities, behaviors, interactions. They use many different designs and methods to study the social behavior of human and development of society along with how it functions on both large and small scales.
There are quite few steps in designing and implementing research strategy.
STEP#1: IDENTIFYING THE PROBLEM
The first and foremost step is to identify a problem which should be more of a puzzle that is, it shall not only lack information but it shall also have lack of understanding. You can’t find a solution until you have a clear idea of what the problem actually is.
Example: Why do women perform more in less working hours than men?
Some factors that might influence the sociologists as to what to research are:
- Personal interests, experiences and observations.
- What is already known about the topic/problem and what is not known yet
- Any social changes or developments.
- If social funding is available to bear the expenses of research.
- Is it practical to conduct the research by reaching out to the potential respondents?
Sociologists conduct research on almost every aspect of human behavior. However, while conducting a research there is a cost associated with it . These can be:
- Cost of Material
- Travelling Cost
- Time
STEP#2: LITERATURE REVIEW
Eventually, when a sociologist collects all the evidences then its time to review them in order, to clarify the issue and after clarifying it, he has to build up the idea of hypothesis.
Hypothesis basically determines the relationship between two or more variables or in other words it basically determines the cause and affect relationship of two variables.
Hypothetical statements assert a possible answer to a research question.
STEP#3: FORMULATING A RESEARCH DESIGN
In addition to this, it is very important to choose the right research method for your research . After discovering and defining the research problem, researchers should make a formal statement of the problem leading to research objectives.
The research method should be giving you much supporting evidence either in the support of the hypothesis or to disprove the hypothesis. The various sources of the data or the information should be very clearly stated by the researcher.
A small number of respondents are selected to conduct the research and assess whether the research is valid and if there is any need of further improvement in the research design or not.
This basically helps the researcher in saving cost because at this level, before going big formally you can easily determine the validity of the research method and design.
STEP# 4: IMPLEMENTING A RESEARCH STRATEGY
There must be several difficulties in implementing a research strategy and these could be lack of funding from the sponsors or may be finding the right sponsor for your research .
Furthermore, there could be difficulty in finding out the right research method for your research .
WHAT ARE THE ISSUES?
There are several ethical issues that are also involved when you are conducting a research and these issues could be specifically related with the welfare of the respondent as well as the researcher.
- Confidentiality is really important. There is no need to disclose the identity of the respondent as most of the respondents are not comfortable with it.
- Credibility The Sociologist should take care in carrying out research and avoid careless mistakes. Review your work carefully and critically to ensure that your results are credible.
- Record keeping is also important to keep complete records of your research.
These were the STEPS TO DESIGN A RESEARCH STRATEGY
Stay tuned at thecircuit.live for more informative and learning videos .
Also see:
http://thecircuit.live/category/the-learning-circuit/
