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Objective
In this lesson, you will learn about different field research approaches, such
as surveys, questionnaires, interviews, and observations. This lesson also will
help you to choose from quantitative and qualitative research, as well as some
specific steps involved in conducting useful field research.
Introduction
When you want information that hasn't been analyzed or interpreted by someone
else, think about doing your own research. This kind of research frequently
is called "field research," because much of it is conducted "in
the field" or in the subject's natural environment. It is also a form of
"primary" research, whereas most research that you do in the library
is called "secondary" research in that you are often researching the
subject from what other authors and researchers have written about it.
- If you observe children in a preschool setting, for example, you're conducting
field research.
- If you interview shoppers in your local mall, you're conducting field research.
Field research provides you with data from a primary source and, after you've
collected the data, you need to analyze and interpret it.
The research you conduct in the field will be either qualitative research
or quantitative research. Qualitative research examines how people or
animals (or other things) act and react under natural and experimental conditions;
it often uses interviews and observations. Quantitative research seeks numerical
data and uses tools ("instruments") like surveys and questionnaires
to gather the data.
Most researchers agree that you can get valid data from either a qualitative
or a quantitative study if you've followed sound principles in designing it.
You choose your methodology (qualitative or quantitative) based on what you
are studying and what you hope to discover, not on whether you like to work
with words or with numbers.
Choosing Your Research Methodology: Quantitative or Qualitative
Step 1: Define your problem and design your research questions. What
are you researching? Frequently, that problem can be defined in terms of research
questions-what questions do you hope to answer through your research? These
questions will determine what kind of research you do because different kinds
of research yield different kinds of data, or collected information.
When designing your research questions, it's always a good idea to get some
help. If you're a novice researcher, then you'll want to make sure that you
work closely with your instructor or mentor. If you're an experienced researcher,
you know how important it is to get another perspective on your research questions.
Frequently, we see what we want to see when looking at a research project.
Often a novice researcher will define a problem in terms of its solution.
Getting input from someone not involved in your problem can save you time
in the long run because s/he may be able to point out design flaws that you
can't see. Since your research questions will drive all of the decisions you
make about your methodology, you want to be certain that you've done a good
job at this initial stage of your research.
Example:
Most of us understand things more easily if we can see an example, so we're
going to do some research together.
Problem: The textbook I use when I teach a composition class has free,
online writing support available as part of the purchase price of the book.
Compared to other textbooks that would teach the students similar information,
this book is a bit more expensive ($8.50 more). Many students are on a tight
budget, so I'd like to know if I made the right choice in going with this
textbook. I also want to know whether I should recommend this service to
other teachers. Let's make a list of what kind of information would be helpful
in making that decision:
1. How many of the students actually are using the service?
2. Are those students who are using the service finding it helpful with
their writing?
These two major concerns actually form my research questions. I'll need
to get information about both of these questions. So, I may discuss my research
questions with other teachers (that outside advice I mentioned earlier),
and then plan my research.
Step 2: Decide what kind of data you need and how you will collect it.
Data form the substance of any research project, no matter how small. As the
researcher, it's up to me to decide what kind of information I need to answer
my research question, and I also have to decide how I'll be able to get that
information. Let's look at my research questions. What information do I need
to answer those questions?
1. How many of the students actually are using the online writing service?
That's a "numbers" kind of question and suggests a quantitative
approach to the research, like a questionnaire or a survey.
2. Are those students who are using the online writing service finding it
helpful with their writing? Here, I also want to discover what the students
who have used the service think about it, what they found most helpful, and
what they did and didn't like about it. These are "description"
kinds of question that suggest a qualitative approach.
Either approach would be valid with the research question I've written; however
I would receive very different kinds of data from them. At this point, I think
I need to learn answers to both major questions and that I'll need to use
both quantitative and qualitative research.
The quantitative approach: If I want to know how many people are
using the online help, then I'm going to need to ask the people who are
in my class. Since this is a fairly small group (thirty-six people), I can
give a survey to the entire population (my class). Generally, this part
of the survey simply asks for numbers and those numbers are what I'll consider
to answer Question #1. (See my "note" below for an exception to
this statement.)
Many times you don't have the luxury of gathering data from the entire
population. Instead you might need to use a sample of that population. Picking
the right sample is something you don't do without some preparation. If
your research involves using a sample of a particular population, you will
want to get some help to make sure that you're choosing the sample correctly.
Since I'm able to survey my entire class (the population rather than a sample)
then I don't have to worry about choosing a representative sample.
The qualitative approach: Since I also want to understand the experience
my students have had using the online writing service, I'm going to need
to ask some very detailed questions of the people who have been using it.
In this case, since I only have thirty-six students, I will ask everyone
my questions. Those students who answer Question #1 negatively (e.g., that
they never used the service) will not be answering any of the questions
that deal with experiences in using the online service.
If I have a really large population, I may want to work with a sample,
or smaller portion, of that population (the people who have used the service).
If I decided to work with a sample, I'd probably use a purposeful sample.
I would handpick people I think are the most representative of the class
or I would handpick people to make sure that I get someone from predefined
categories. If I chose the latter approach, I would first ask who has used
the service, and then from that group of users I will try to find at least
one person who is doing well, one person who is doing poorly, one person
who is a native speaker, one person who is a nonnative speaker, one person
who is a traditional student (18-23 years old, full time college student),
one person who is a nontraditional student (over 23, part time student who
also works part time or full time) and one person from any other categories
I've defined.
The most common tools: There are a number of different ways to collect
data when doing field research. The three most common data gather instruments
are the survey or questionnaire, the interview, and the observation. Each
method of gathering data has positive and negative aspects to it. As a researcher
you have to decide what method will give you the best data to answer your
question. Once you've decided what approach, you will need to do some reading
to find out just how to go about designing a survey or conducting an interview
or observation.
Step 3: Gather your data. How will I gather the data? That question
was at the heart of the decision I made in the previous step. How you gather
the data depends on what data you seek. I decided that I need some kind of
survey and an interview. In my research example, I won't need observations,
but that is another choice I could make. Since other people's surveys probably
won't help me with my primary research about an online writing service, I'll
need to develop my own questions.
The quantitative approach: I need to develop a survey that I can
give the students to find out how many of them are using the service, as
well as other information. Some of my questions might look like these:
Have you used the online writing service for this class?
If no:
- Why haven't you used it?
- What could have inspired you to use this service?
If yes:
- How many times have you used it?
- Did you use this service more than one time for any one essay?
Did you realize that you paid for this service when you purchased your
textbook?
Would you recommend this textbook for other students?
Would you recommend this service for other students?
From these answers, I can figure out what percentage of the students has
used the service, and of those users, what percentage felt satisfied and/or
helped by the service.
Note: The two additional questions that I asked the people who said
"no" are not quantitative, but qualitative in nature. I want to
find out more about why people did not use the online writing service, but
I don't want to put people on the spot or make them feel uncomfortable.
So, I'm asking these questions in the original survey and hoping to get
good feedback there. However, I could do this differently and ask for a
volunteer, as I do with the students who have used the service; then, I
could get a sense of why one student did not use the service as I conduct
interviews below.
Since I'm in a position to have people complete the survey during a class
period, I'll have a very good response rate. However, because I want the
responses to be accurate and honest, I'll need to let students know that
they can remain anonymous if they want so that they feel safe in answering
questions. I need to set up the situation so that students believe me when
I say I won't be able to tell how they've answered any of the questions.
Otherwise my data won't be any good. So, since these are my students and
they have something at stake from me (grades), I'll need to wait until after
grades have been turned in before conducting the next step of the process:
interviews (below).
The qualitative approach: I also want to learn more about the experiences
of the students who have used the online writing service. That means I'll
need to interview some of the students in my sample. In this case, since I
promised students that they could remain anonymous, I'll have to rely on volunteers
to participate in the interview. I will want to take very good notes and maybe
even tape record the interview, if the students consent to being taped. I'll
have some predetermined questions (my interview protocol) but unlike the survey
questions, these won't be yes/no questions, but open-ended questions. Example
questions include:
- Why did you use this online writing service?
- For what kinds of writing problems did you use the service?
- Were your questions answered?
- Was there anything that you didn't understand about the help you received?
- Was there anything that the service could have done differently to help
you better?
- Where 1 means not satisfied and 5 means very satisfied, how satisfied
with the writing help have you been?
- Why were you satisfied or not?
These types of questions will help the students to describe their experiences
for me.
What I'm hoping is that I'll find some common themes (e.g., the experience
was good; it was bad; it's good for this kind of question but not good for
that kind of question). If I do find those themes, I may be able to learn
whether I made a good choice in assigning this textbook and the online writing
service. Also, I might be able help the other students (the non-users) understand
what's available and help them to access and use the service too.
Step 4: Analyze the data. After collecting the data, I've got to do
something with it. If I don't analyze the data, I'll never be able to answer
my research questions.
The quantitative approach: I'll need to code the answers to my survey
and work with the numbers to do some very simple statistical processes.
For example, I'll figure a percentage for the question about how many students
have used the online writing service (e.g., how many students out of thirty-six
used the service). One question asks the users how many times they've used
the service, and I'll figure the mean (average) number of times for that
question. If I want to get more involved with the numbers, I'll have to
get some help because I know my own limitations-my knowledge of statistics
isn't very strong.
The qualitative approach: If I taped the interviews, I'll have to
transcribe them to typed copy and then read through them for patterns and
themes. I'll be asking myself questions like these:
- Do people use a similar word or group of words to describe a particular
experience?
- Does one group of people (men, for example) describe an experience differently
than another group (women, for example)?
- Is there any question/answer that students answered in an overwhelmingly
similar manner?
Processing narrative data is much messier than processing statistical
data because there isn't a prescribed series of actions that will give
you a set answer. There are, however, very definite steps that you should
take to verify your data, and if you're doing a qualitative study, do
some reading about data analysis before you start your project.
Step 5: Report the data. I'm doing this research for my own purposes,
but I decide that I want to write it up in a report or essay form so that
my supervisor can see whether he would recommend this textbook and online
writing service to other teachers. Like me, when you're doing a research project,
you'll need to report your finding in a format that your reader will best
understand or that fulfills your instructor's assignment. Here are some general
guidelines for the different ways to report your data.
The quantitative approach: If I report data that I've gathered from
my survey, I'm going to have a very formal, scientific writing style. I'll
use third person, for example, when I talk about the research and, if required,
I may use the third person when I refer to myself. I'll have some charts
or tables to provide a visual image of the data. Depending on the requirements
of the instructor, I may or may not have the standard five-section research
report organization (e.g., introduction/problem description; literature
review; methodology; data analysis; conclusions).
The qualitative approach: I may have a format that is similar to
the research report format described above, but the language and the style
might be different from that used in the quantitative study. My goal in
the qualitative study was to understand the experiences of the students
who had used the service. Consequently I'll report my findings in a way
that describes that experience. Most of my text may be written in a narrative
style. Since I can't distance myself in a qualitative study, I'll probably
use the first person to talk about my part in the research.
Exercise
Decide what type of study would be best for the following research problems.
(You'll find the answersat the end of the exercise.)
1. How many registered voters would vote for President Bush versus an opponent
in the upcoming presidential election?
a. Quantitative
b. Qualitative
2. What kind of tax bill would help students and parents pay for college?
a. Quantitative
b. Qualitative
3. There are three possible choices for a Homecoming Dance band. Which one would
students most like to hear?
a. Quantitative
b. Qualitative
4. Why do college students at one school prefer music that is a combination
of rock, rap, and techno, while students at another school prefer a rock/rap
derivative?
a. Quantitative
b. Qualitative
Decide whether you would use a survey/questionnaire, interview, or observation
to research the following questions:
5. How many registered voters would vote for President Bush versus an opponent
in the upcoming presidential election?
a. Survey/Questionnaire
b. Interview
c. Observation
6. There are three possible choices for a Homecoming Dance band. Which one would
students most like to hear?
a. Survey/Questionnaire
b. Interview
c. Observation
7. Why do college students at one school prefer music that is a combination
of rock, rap, and techno, while students at another school prefer a rock/rap
derivative?
a. Survey/Questionnaire
b. Interview
c. Observation
8. What are some of the characteristics of students at a Homecoming Dance?
a. Survey/Questionnaire
b. Interview
c. Observation
Exercise Answers:
Question 1: Answer: quantitative; Question 2: Answer: qualitative; Question
3: Answer: quantitative; Question 4: Answer: qualitative; Question 5: Answer:
survey/questionnaire; Question 6: Answer: Survey/questionnaire or interview;
Question 7: Answer: Survey/questionnaire or interview; Question 8: Answer: observation.
Summary
Doing field research requires you to make many decisions, and we've talked about
those decisions at a very basic level. Field research presents some challenges,
but that doesn't mean you should avoid it-field research is very rewarding work.
Do your best to be aware of everything involved in conducting a strong project,
and make the best choices that you can make with the information that you have.
Additional Resources:
Leedy, Paul, and Jeanne Ormrod. Practical Research: Planning and Design.
7th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2001.
Charnigo, Richard. From Sources to Citation: A Concise Guide to the Research
Paper. NY: Longman, 1996.
  
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