BASIC CONCEPTS IN RESEARCH AND STATISTICS

Overview,

“Research plays a very vital role in global development. It has caused and still effects
the entry of technology that facilitates man’s activities, made medical breakthroughs that save
and prolong the lives of billions of people, revolutionized farming that tremendously increase the
food yields of lands and helped build facilities that significantly lengthen the storage life of
edibles. On the other hand, research also challenged long held traditions, defied norms,
proved popular predictions wrong, and disputed previously accepted theories. Amid stiff
opposition and even threats of banishments, research braved all these and still prevailed
because of its objective, correct and scientifically respected approaches. The use of appropriate
statistical tools to analyze data is one way of coming up with “objective, correct, and
scientifically respected” research results and recommendations.

While the use of statistical methods is important, it is likewise skills-based, and needs to
be properly applied. Statistical application sees to it that data are treated appropriately. The
academe plays a major responsibility in ensuring this.

The application of statistical tools to quantitative measures of problem variables is a

major component of any thesis, dissertation, or professional research. Statistics involves the
collection, organization and analysis of data. Before any statistical analysis can be made, data
must be appropriately collected and systematically organized. Even in the advent of statistical
programs, the scientific collection and organization of data are indispensable in statistical
analysis.

It must be noted that as research works, theses and dissertations are “scientific
investigations” whose methodology must be so designed and applied to warrant further
investigation or tests by other researchers. The absence of required data and computations or
cited statistical programs needed to show proof or basis to presented statistics and critical
values in a thesis or dissertation could cast doubts on the credibility of the findings being
presented in the report. Research designs, that include sampling design and analytical tools,
are necessary to guide the investigator as to what type of statistical method to apply.

Statistics is indeed an indispensable tool in the conduct and reporting of scientific,

quantitative researches.” (See, 2011)

Appropriate statistical applications are important to research. This matter has been
classically illustrated in the case of the presidential elections in the United States of America in
1936. The Literary Digest, with non-random selected respondents of 2,376,523 wrongly
predicted that Landon would win over Roosevelt, while George Gallup, with a low but randomly
selected voters of 3,000, correctly foretold that Rossevelt would win (Sprinthall, 1997).
Module 1. Basic Research Concepts

Learning Objectives:
1. Define basic concepts
2. Give examples of some basic research concepts.
3. Describe the similarities and differences between some research concepts.

Basic research concepts

Business management research is the development of knowledge about business

management and the promotion of efficient and effective management practices, a scientific
process that validates and refines existing knowledge and generates new knowledge that
influences the business management profession, and a systematic inquiry that provides data for
appropriate business management processes.

Cohort, in longitudinal surveys, is a group of people that have a certain characteristic in

common, such as being born in 1972 (martial law babies), graduating from college in 1986
(EDSA people power) or building house in Albay province in 2007 (typhoon Reming aftermath)
It is taken from the same population throughout the research but a fresh sample is selected
every time data are gathered.

Data collection procedure is the is the step-wise process of gathering data such as
observation, questionnaire administration, interview, motivational or projective techniques (word
association, thematic apperception tests, draw-a-person-test, doll play) and experiments.

Dependent variable is a variable whose attributes or values depend on the values or

attributes of another variable. E.g. sales of pinangat in Sales of pinangat is affected by weather.

Focus group is a research tool utilizing small group interviews to obtain qualitative data
as well as items for questionnaires or surveys.

Intervening variable is a feature that intercedes the relationship between the

independent and dependent variables. It is an ideated unobserved process that cannot be
measured, or manipulated. E.g. attitude, perception

Meta analysis is a research technique to analyze a set of existing data conducted to

draw general conclusions from several empirical studies and develop support for hypotheses
that merit further testing.

Moderator variable is a factor that affects the relationship between the independent and
dependent variables but is not a dominant variable. It can, however, be manipulated to help
explain the relationship of the independent variable to the dependent variable. E.g. If one is
investigating whether the use of computers can enhance the performance of the students, sex
and socio-economic status of the students could be moderator variables.

Organismic variable is a pre-existing attribute of the researchers at the time they

appear at the research situation. E.g. sex, level of education, age, and monthly income.

Panel design is a longitudinal survey design where the data are collected at different
points in time from the same subjects called a panel
 Pre-experiment is a research strategy that attempts to make a judgment on an effect of a
“supposed” manipulation that does not exist. In many cases a pre-experiment contains an
experimental group but lacks a control group.

Proportion is a distribution ratio or the ratio of a part over the total. E.g. 1/5 and 4/5.

Qualitative research is a subjective, systematic process of collecting, organizing, and

analyzing information on life’s experiences and give them meaning.

Quasi-experimental design is a type of research design that has control and

experimental groups the elements of which are not randomly selected

Quantitative research is an objective, systematic process of collecting, organizing,

analyzing and presenting numerical facts to answer a research problem.

Research method refers to data collection procedures, and/or research strategies,

and/or types of research.

Research strategy refers to the approach that describes the conditions by which
participants to or objects of a research are observed for data. It includes experiments (pre-
experiment, quasi-experiment, true experiment), field studies, surveys, using existing data
(historical, evaluation, meta analysis)

Secondary analysis is a research technique that analyzes that same kind of data for a
purpose different from the original. A study by See (2008) shows that since the early 1980s,
secondary analysis and meta-analysis have become very popular methods among researchers
in foreign countries. These are particularly useful in re-analyzing the tremendous bulk of theses
and dissertations that would have otherwise just gathered dusts in the library shelves, and the
assessments made of the innumerable program interventions implemented by the government
and various non-government organizations. Yet, to many researchers in the Philippines, they
are still Greek.

Social impact assessment is an evaluation study that predicts the consequences of an

intervention before it is introduced. Social Impact assessment (SIA) mainly predicts the
consequences of an intervention before it is introduced. It is an anticipatory research that “seeks
to place the expectations and attainment of desired outcomes on a more rational and reliable
basis” (Wolf 1983). The most important questions for SIA concern who will benefit and who will
lose if the proposed action is implemented (Touliatos and Compton 1988). SIAs are, in the
global community used to evaluate interventions that are yet to be introduced but many
researchers apply the term erroneously to programs that have been completed. Evaluation of
the latter is called outcome assessment.

Theory is a set, or group or body of ideas, concepts, constructs, definitions, propositions,

principles, and/or statements that organizes, describes, explains, and/or predicts observations,
occurrences, phenomena, existence of truth of something, and relationships among variables.
Research plays an active role in the development of theory: it initiates, it reformulates, it
deflects, and it clarifies theory. If we examine the first “researches” that employed the scientific
method, we shall see that they did not have any theoretical foundation- they only had tentative
answers to the research questions (called hypotheses). The affirmation of these hypotheses by
the test and subsequent tests, led to the formulation of the early “theories”.The professional
researches conducted through DOST and PCARRD and DA in the 1960s and until the mid
1980s did not bear any formal theoretical basis. The results of these undertakings perhaps
became the bases for developing new theories in agriculture. Doctoral dissertations, master’s
theses, and undergraduate researches in BU did not bear theoretical foundation until the early
1980s. But their findings, I suspect were not analyzed for the purpose of developing new
theories. A theory is the foundation of a research undertaking. It gives basis for the coming up of
the research problem. In most researches that cited input-process-output diagram, however,
this is not so. The diagram in fact is not even described in the discussion of the theory. The term
“process” which refers to the transformation process that takes place in the system because of
the introduction of the input, is being paralleled to the methodology of the study. The variables in
descriptive studies (which by their very nature do not follow an input-process-output flow) are
forced to suit to an input category and an output category. The so-called “theory” instead of
being the “root” of the research is made to serve as the “fruit”. It has become a “hit-and-fit”
model. Not all researches require a theoretical foundation especially pioneering endeavors.
Descriptive research proposals will need descriptive theories, correlational propositions will
have to employ correlational theories and experimental researches may need cause-effect
theories. Descriptive theory is one that simply contains variables or a variable that describe/s a
sample or population, such as “Most Catholics do not favour polygamy”. Correlational theory is
one that contains at least two variables whose strength of association (magnitude-directional
pattern) is communicated, the data of which may have arisen either from an ex post facto
design or from an experiment, such as “There is a relationship between status of employment
and employee performance”. Causal theory is one that contains a “treating”, “interventional”, or
“effecting” variable and a dependent, “affected” variable and shows that either the former
variable affects the latter or not, the data of which must have resulted from a an experiment,
such as “Regular supervisor observation improves rank-and-file employee performance”.

True experimental design is a type of research design that has control and experimental
groups the elements of which are randomly selected

Type of research refers to the kind of research such as quantitative (which could be
univariate descriptive, descriptive correlational, and experimental) or qualitative (such as
phenomenological, grounded theory, ethnographic, historical, philosophical, critical, social
theory)

Variable is something whose value or attribute is not known and may take on varying
Independent variable. One whose attributes or values do not depend on the values or attributes
of another variable. E.g. weather in Sales of pinangat is affected by weather