L1- NATURE OF INQUIRY AND RESEARCH

• Came from the French word “cerchier”, which means “to seek”. The prefix “re” means “to repeat”.
• RESEARCH is to repeat looking for something.
• RESEARCH is a systematic process geared towards working on exhaustive inquiry, investigation or experimentation with the aim of finding new facts (knowledge) in explaining the problems associated with our day to day relations with our environments (social, natural, political, economics) and coming up with  solutions in facing them.
• Why study RESEARCH? –To become research literate–To develop critical thinking–To generate knowledge–To come up with solutions to a certain problem
• POSTPOSITIVIST (main concept)- Researchers in this category subscribes to the idea that everything should be quantified to produce meaningful concrete results.
• POSTPOSITIVIST (PHILOSOPHY)- “We cannot be positive in our claims of knowledge when studying behavior and actions of humans”
• CONSTRUCTIVIST (PHILOSOPHY)-“Individual develop subjective meanings of their experiences”
• CONSTRUCTIVIST (MAIN CONCEPT)- Researchers believe that experience expressed through words can paint a better picture of a certain phenomena.
• TRANSFORMATIVE (PHILOSOPHY)- “Research inquiry should be intertwined with politics and political change agenda”
• TRANSFORMATIVE (PHILOSOPHY)- “Research inquiry should be intertwined with politics and political change agenda”
• TRANSFORMATIVE (MAIN CONCEPT)- Researchers support the idea that research should be conducted to increase quality of life and produce better societies.
• PRAGMATIC (PHILOSOPHY)- “We need to look to many possibilities for collecting and analyzing data”
• PRAGMATIC (MAIN CONCEPT) - Researchers promote the use of both quantitative and qualitative data in expressing research findings.
• Qualitative Research- an approach for exploring and understanding the meaning individuals or groups ascribe to a social or human problem.
• Qualitative Research– A type of research that collects and works with non-numerical data.
• Qualitative Research- Most common Designs:

  Narrative; Phenomenological; Ethnography;  Case study; Grounded theory
• Quantitative Research – an approach for testing objective theories by examining the relationship among variables.
• Quantitative Research– An objective, systematic empirical investigation of observable phenomena through the use of statistics.
• Quantitative Research-Most common Designs:

  Evaluation; Correlational; Descriptive; Experimental; Survey
• Mixed Approach – inquiry involving collecting both quantitative and qualitative data, and integrating the two forms of data.
• Types of Mixed Approach:

  Convergent Parallel; Explanatory Sequential; Exploratory Sequential
• Types Of Mixed Approach

  Convergent Parallel – researcher merges quantitative and qualitative data; typically collects both forms of data simultaneously.

  Explanatory Sequential – researcher first conducts quantitative research and builds on the results to explain them in more detail.

  Exploratory Sequential – researcher begins with a qualitative approach and builds findings to develop a quantitative phase.