How To Make A Research Project

CHAPTER ONE
RESEARCH APPROACHES

THE SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH PROCESS AND THE QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE RESEARCH: TOWARD AN INTEGRAL MODEL OF RESEARCHING

Scientific Research

Approaches

Qualitative research
Quantitative Research

is

Deductive

Data collection

It implies

Questions and hypothesis

Patterns Variable
relationshipsExperimentation

Surveys

And from the combination
Of both emerges the mixed approach

Mixed approach

Inductive

Data collection

Questions

Flexibility

Contextual
Interpretation

Field initial immersion

Theories of human development are often demonstrated through research and go beyond it. Although researchers of different theoretical perspectives used specific methods to study peoplein different settings, the scientific method refers to a general process that characterizes scientific research in any field. Monitoring of the scientific method allows researchers to draw firm conclusions about human development.

Even though, a dispute between two approaches to research has emerged in recent years: the quantitative and the qualitative. Each advocate arguing that yours is themost appropriate and productive for research. These two approaches are forms that have proven very useful for the development of scientific knowledge and none is inherently better than the other. Both get to mix and to be included in a study, which, far from impoverished research, enriches it; they are complementary views. Both the quantitative and qualitative research approach with theirdifferences have place in the process of scientific research.

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
Denzin and Lincoln (1994) define qualitative research:
Qualitative research is multi-method in focus, involving an interpretive, naturalistic approach to its subject matter. This means that qualitative researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of or interpret phenomena in terms ofthe meanings people bring to them. Qualitative research involves the studied use and collection of a variety of empirical materials case study, personal experience, introspective, life story interview, observational, historical, interactional, and visual texts-that describe routine and problematic moments and meaning in individuals' lives.
Cresswell (1994) defines it as:

Qualitative researchis an inquiry process of understanding based on distinct methodological traditions of inquiry that explore a social or human problem. The researcher builds a complex, holistic picture, analyzes words, reports detailed views of informants, and conducts the study in a natural setting.
 Characteristics of Qualitative Research
 An exploratory and Descriptive focus
1. Emergent Design
2. DataCollection in the natural setting
3. Emphasis on ‘human-as-instrument’
4. Qualitative methods of data collection
5. Early and On-going inductive analysis

Cresswell (1994) divides qualitative research into five main Qualitative Research
Types and identifies the key challenges of each mode of inquiry.
1. The Biography
2. Phenomenology
3. Grounded Theory
4.Ethnography
5. Case Study
The design of a research study begins with the selection of a topic and a paradigm. A paradigm is essentially a worldview, a whole framework of beliefs, values and methods within which research takes place. It is this world views within which researchers work.

According to Cresswell (1994) "A qualitative study is defined as an inquiry process of understanding asocial or human problem, based on building a complex, holistic picture, formed with words, reporting detailed views of informants, and conducted in a natural setting.

 Alternatively a quantitative study, consistent with the quantitative paradigm, is an inquiry into a social or human problem, based on testing a theory composed of variables, measured with numbers, and analyzed with statistical...