Search for Knowledge or Data

¶ … search for knowledge or data about a matter, investigating the subject via scientific methodology. The primary process of research is to discover, interpret, and (in the case of applied research) use certain methods that will lead to more reliable, evidence-based knowledge about our world.

The research process is based on the following steps: 1. Articulation of the topic and literature review or observations; 2. Researcher's hypothesis; 3. Conceptual definitions and operational definitions of investigated concept; 4. The scientific gathering of data; 5. The scientific analysis of data; 6. Modifying or support of hypothesis, and 7. Conclusion (Trochim, 2006).

Qualitative research is often best used when the sample under study cannot be analyzed in the laboratory and one wants richer information on that population sample. It is usually applied to people. Five examples are: (i) Margaret Mead's case study and observations of Samoa; (ii) the in-depth analysis and observations of a program in order to assess its operational success (e.g.. Of UNICEF); (iii) assessing individual people (e.g. children (as was done with Piaget's clinical method) to assess the way they work; (iv) naturalistic observation- studying a culture in an unobserved natural manner; or (v) investigating biographical details of an individual's life.

3. On one level, this may be called 'interviewing' either individually or through focus groups where the researcher (using open-ended or closed-ended questions or a mixture of both) elicits the opinions and particular perspective / experience, and so forth, from an individual on a certain matter.

On a deeper level, this may be described as phenomenological research (conducted through protocol methodology) where the participant is asked to record naive descriptions of his experience and the researcher closely assesses these (Breakwell, Hammond, & Fife-Schaw, 2000).

4. The arguments for quantitative research revolve around the fact that bias is more closely screened out when the study is conducted in a rigid laboratory-type methodology with statistical data and measurements used to quantify their significance.

The qualitative approach, however, maintains that many cases, especially those involving humans, cannot always be assessed in such a manner. Certain data (such as emotions of hostility, love etc.) are too abstract to be measured, and humans and events involving humans are too chaotic to be 'pinned down' and quantified in a laboratory environment.

6. The checklist here would involve operational definitions of the following variables: Concepts involved in 'caring': the range of activities that involve looking after the cat and the intensity to which individual does so. Life expansion would be defined -- i.e., the exact amount of years that would be used as measurement to indicate that caring for cat does prolong life; hypothesis would also consider the phraseology 'living alone' -- does he/she have close friends / immediate / extended family who care for individual; is he/she involved in community events and, if so, to which extent; does he/she receive social support in any particular manner and the extent of this social / family support would be considered. Furthermore, 'Northwestern region' would be defined.

Moreover, socioeconomic factors, and other variables of the individual's life (such as hobbies) would be entered into the equation, as well as other related variables that could provide individual with quality of life and may well contribute to longevity instead of the cat doing so. To this end, I would operationalize 'cat' (the type of pet); operationalize 'person' (assessing gender, hereditary (genes may cause longevity), cultural factors (culture intervenes too), work situation or retirement (this may affect longevity), and the person's history amongst other variables (stress or lack of it may confound the situation). I would also define 'living alone' and carefully assess the living environment and region (economic factors, demographic variables, geographic elements amongst other factors) of the environment (both immediate and mediate, i.e. home and region) that the individual occupies.

7. Caring for a cat pet prolongs life of a person over 65 to 75 living alone in the Northwestern region of USA?.

Variables would involve 'caring' (the type and intensity of caring acts employed); 'cat' the type of pet; 'person' (assessing gender, family history, cultural factors, work situation or retirement; level of education; history of disease and related factors (such as falls, hospitalizations and so forth); economic standard of living; and person's personal history (particularly history of stressors). Further variables include 'living alone'; quality of living environment and region; social factors (immediate / extended family; community; involvement in community activities; involvement in extracurricular activities and the extent and intensity of these connections); religion (intensity of commitment and involvement); and 'number of years of longevity'.

8. Literature Review. A well-structured literature review is characterized by a coherent, logically connected flow of ideas that are related, well sourced, comprehensive, current, and unbiased reflecting both perspectives of the matter (Dellinger & Leech, 2007).

9. The null hypothesis indicates that the reverse is the case to that expected by the reseacher, in other words that the treatment has had no effect or that a default position is indicated. The importance of the null hypothesis lies in the researcher knowing that he needs to direct his investigation to one or other elements that may be impacting the situation, and that this particular variable can be ruled out, or that the variable may, indeed, have a reverse effect. Errors are measured according to percentages of difference (or variation) that a sampled population reflects when compared to the actual population, and 'differences' are recording according to that result. Type 1 error exists when one rejects a true null hypothesis. This is more serious than the Type 2 error that occurs when one fails to reject a false null hypothesis.