International Peace and Terrorism This section discusses the importance of primary data in completing the proposal. Different techniques to be used in collecting the primary data are discussed. The proposal also discusses the strategies that can be used in carrying out the qualitative analysis. The study suggests coding, triangulation and computer assisted program for the analysis of the proposal.

Primary Data

The section provides the importance of primary research in competing the study. The paper also discusses various techniques that the researcher can use to collect the primary data. The primary data are very critical in completing the proposal and the researcher will collect the primary data from various sources. Catino, (2014) argues primary sources are very critical to complete a research in security studies because without using the primary sources, a researcher will not be able to adequately gain an in-depth analysis on the subject. Thus, the proposal will use the primary sources to gain accurate, and fairness understanding on the terrorism and international peace . In essence, the primary sources will assist the researcher to gain a direct evidence as well as first-hand testimony about the international terrorism. The study will collect the primary data from government documents, serial publications of the newspaper, magazine as well as scholarly journals.

The study will collect primary data from various government documents based on the importance of the government publications for the research. The government documents consist of direct evidence of a government functions, activities as well as government policies. The primary data is very important for the proposal because the research topic relates to the working activities of the government. After the end of the cold war in 1990s, following the dissolution of the former USSR, the U.S. government has been preoccupied to end the act of terrorism within and outside the United States. For the past few decades, the government has published series of publications on the strategies it employs to combat and end the act of terrorism . Thus, the proposal will collect the primary data from series of the government publications, the hearings, as well debates of legislative bodies on the international peace and terrorism. Moreover, the proposal will collect primary data from the regulation and treaties, official text of laws, investigative reports, records of government finances and expenditures.

The benefit of using the primary source for the research is that it will allow the researcher to get access to the expert opinion, perspectives, thoughts and issues of leaders, players and individuals on the strategies that can be used to shape security environment. The primary sources will also allow researcher to accurately analyze issues, leaders opinion, and events that are shaping the security environment. (Catino, 2014). More importantly, the primary data will assist the researcher to understand the human perspectives of understanding the security environment. Additionally, the primary sources will assist the researcher to minimize bias, politicization, arbitrariness as well as inaccuracies of some secondary data.

Analysis and Findings

The study will use several techniques to carry out the data analysis. First, the researcher will explore the data in an analytical method, identify the important themes and concepts in the data and use the coding systems to identify the important statements from the document. Schutt, (2011) suggests that the first step in the qualitative data analysis is data reduction. The data reduction technique requires the researcher to go through the entire document and outlining important concepts from the document. The strategy will assist the research to refine the entire document and remove unnecessary texts from the document. Using this strategy, the researcher will be able retain the texts that are only relevant to the proposal.

Taylor-Powell, & Renner,(2003) support the argument of the previous author by pointing out that the first step to be employed when carrying out the data analysis is to understand the data by going through the entire texts. By following this advise, the researcher will read the text several times and identify patterns such as concepts, ideas, terminologies, and phrases used in the texts. Although, the tasks can be labor-intensive, however, this is the crucial part of the qualitative data analysis. After going through the texts and the next step is to select important themes from the document. It is very crucial for the researcher to select the themes that will assist in answering the research questions and achieve the research objectives. After completing this task, the next step is to assign the abbreviate codes to ideas and themes collected from the texts.

Coding is the major step in the qualitative data analysis. The strategy that can be employed for the coding is to segment the data or divide the data into analytical units . When the researcher locates meaningful segments in the text, the researcher...

Coding is the strategy of marking the units or segments of data with the descriptive words, and symbols. (University of Alabama, 2014). The strategy will assist the researcher to organize the data into categories. The benefit of organizing the data into categories is that it will assist in creating patterns and connection between categories as well as assisting in providing the research findings.
Despite the benefits that the researcher can derive from the data analysis discussed, it is still critical for the researcher to carry out the triangulation for the validity and reliability of the data. The triangulation is part of data analysis where the researcher will use the concept to check whether the findings can be confirmed from different sources. In other word, a triangulation is the use of more than one method of investigating a research question in order to enhance validity of the research findings. Guion, Diehl, & McDonald,(2011) point out that a triangulation assists the researcher to investigate whether the research is true or certain. A true research refers to a research finding that accurately reflects the situation. On the other hand, a research finding is certain if is supported by evidence. In a social research technique, the use of one method in investigating a research may suffer from some limitations such as bias and inaccuracies, which can affect the overall research findings. Rothbauer, (2008) argues that the triangulation facilitates a verification of data from two or more sources. While a triangulation can be used in both qualitative and quantitative research, and a triangulation is more appropriate in qualitative research because it is an effective strategy to enhance validity and reliability of the research findings. By combining the primary research, secondary research and case studies, the researcher will be able to cross check the data from the multiple sources, which will assist in producing accurate results. Moreover, the study will use the triangulation to analyze the research questions from different perspective. The proposal will use the data triangulation, and theoretical triangulation for the analysis.

The data triangulation is the strategy of collecting sources from different perspectives to enhance research validity. The researcher will use primary sources, secondary sources, case studies as a triangulation method. The benefit of the data triangulation is its cost effectiveness and it also saves time. The theoretical triangulation is the use of different theories draw up different theoretical propositions to arrive at the solutions to the problems.

The proposal will derive several benefits from using the triangulation for the data analysis. First, the triangulation is an innovative way to carry out the data analysis because the technique assists in understanding a research phenomenon. Moreover, the triangulation is a unique way of integrating theories as well as enhancing a greater understanding to the research problems. Despite the benefits the research can obtain from the use of triangulation, however the triangulation as a method of data analysis is time consuming because the triangulation will require the researcher to collect data from multiple sources. Other disadvantage of a triangulation is that there can possible conflicting data if the researcher does not collect data from reliable source. Despite the shortcomings identified with the use of the triangulation, the triangulation technique is very critical in enhancing the credibility of the research findings. (Golafshani, 2003).

Apart from carrying out the data analysis manually, the researcher will also the computer assisted software to do analysis. Typically, the software assists in creating, applying as well as refining categories of the texts. The software also assists in making linkages between the themes and concepts. The benefit of the software in carrying out the qualitative data analysis is to speed up the analysis process, and facilitate the preparation of the research findings. Some of the software package recommended for the analysis are as follows:

Program

Websites

AnSWR (freeware)

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/software/answr.htm

ATLAS

http://atlasti.de/

Ethnograph

http://qualisresearch.com

HyperResearch

http://researchware.com

Nvivo

http://www.qsrinternational.com

NUD-IST

http://www.qsrinternational.com

These computer assisted qualitative data analysis package will assist the researcher in a theory building and provide different possibilities of delivering data analysis and interpretations. Some of these software package can assist the research to create codes and make linkages with relevant texts in the thesis. Moreover, these computer packages are very helpful in carrying out the Boolean operations that can assist the researcher to carry out the complex search that could have been very time consuming if the researcher does manually.…