Open Loop PID Control Response

UNIT 3: STEPS OF THE RESEARCH PROCESS

3.0 MAIN BODY

3.1 The Research Process

The research process requires a sequence of steps. The different approaches suggest somewhat different steps, but most seem to follow the steps in the figure below.

The process begins with a researcher selecting a topic- a general area of study or issues such as divorce, crime, homelessness, or powerful elites. A topic is too broad for conducting research. This is why the next step is crucial. The researcher arrows down, or focuses, the topic into the specific research question that she can address in the study e.g. “do people who marry younger have a higher divorce rate,”]. When learning about a topic and narrowing the focus, she usually reviews past research, or the literature, on a topic or a question.

After specifying a research question, the researcher plans how she will carry out the specific study or research project. The third step involves making decisions about the many practical details of doing the research (e.g.

whether to use a survey or observe in the field, how many subjects to use, which question to ask). Now the researcher is ready to gather the data or evidence (e.g. ask people the question, record answers).

Once she collects the data, her next step is to manipulate or analyze the data to see any patterns that emerge. The pattern in the data or evidence helps to research interpret or give meaning to the data (e.g. “people who marry young in cities have higher divorce rates, but those in rural areas do not”).

Finally, the researcher writes a report that describes the background to the study, how she conducted it, and what she discovered.

1. Chose a Topic. The topic of the study is the moral attitudes of college students. The authors asked how student attitudes had changed from 1948 to 1984. They saw students as the pacesetters of cultural change. Who modifies their older adults.

2. Focus the project. Media reports of student attitudes suggested that 1980 were a return to the consent in 1950s the authors asked whether the moral beliefs also shifted. The study on college student 1920 and 1970 found shifts in the strength of religious beliefs. The shifts parallel to conservatism and liberalism on general and political issues. The hypothesis religious and moral beliefs would become conservative in the 1930s than the 1950s following the shifts to more conservation on non religious issues

found in other students. The authors also wanted to see whether any changes had occurred since their publication of a similar study on students religious attitudes five years earlier.

3. Design the study in 1948. Philip hasting used questionnaires to ask a sample of 205 students at Williams collage about their religious attitudes.

Students were given approximately 20 questions regarding their religious beliefs. For example, one question asked whether belief that science and religion were irreconcilable. The students were also asked about religious upbringing and family income. And other back ground factors. The design was to ask student at the same college the same question in later years so that trends in attitudes could be detected.

4. Gather the data: The 1948 questionnaire was distributed to random samples of Williams college student in 1967, 1979 and 1984 questions on moral issues were added in 1974. an example of moral question is, “should laws against homosexual acts between consenting adults be repealed,”

5. Analyze the data: The author wanted to be sure that they were comparing similar students over time. Until 1970, Williams College admitted only men, so female student were exclude from the 1974, 1979, and 1984data; in addition, half of the 1948 student were veterans. To make comparisons, the response of veterans was removed. The author constructed percentage tables to show how student answered the religious questions for 1972 to 1984.

6. Interpret the findings: the author find that the percentage of student who retained their parent religion was high before 1967, dropped between1967 and 1979, as well as between 1967 and 1984. On most religious question, there was a decline in conservative attitudes between 1948 and 1947, but there was a reversal from 1947 to 1948. On moral questions, the questionnaires answer also showed increases in conservative attitude toward sex and drugs. The response also suggested that students has less moral obligation to society between 1974 and 1984. For example, in 1974, 83 percent of student agreed that American had a moral obligation to conserve resources: this dropped to 72 percent in 1984. The author concluded that the religious attitudes of Williams college student became increasingly liberal between the 1940s and early 1970s but became more traditional after the mid- 1970s. They concluded that the religious and moral attitude of college students follow the over-all political climate of the country.

7. Inform others: This part of the research was written and submitted to social force for publication.