OBJECTIVES
The learner should be able to:
•
Widen your vocabulary;
•
Express your worldviews using newly learned words;
•
Explain how qualitative studies take place in other areas of
knowledge;
•
Differentiate hard sciences from soft sciences concerning
research studies; and
•
Specify the data collecting technique for a certain area of
knowledge.
ACTIVITY 1: MAKING WORDS MEANINGFUL
Directions: INDIVIDUAL WORK. Using the other words in
the cluster as clues, give the meaning of the underlined
word in each set.
1. granted, yielded, given, imparted
2. real, true, certain, actual
3. ethical, decent, moral, righteous
4. essential, basic, necessary, indispensable
5. dichotomy, opposition, separation, division
6. mutual, symbiotic, reciprocal, complementary
7. believed, derived, concluded, deduced
ACTIVITY 2: USING NEWLY LEARNED WORDS
Directions: Do the KIM (Key, Information, Memory).
Complete the following grid with ideas or pieces of
information indicated by the headings.
Key Terms Information/Meaning Memory Clues (sentence expressing your experience about
the key term)
1.yielded 2.actual 3.ethical 4.indispensable 5.dichotomy 6.symbiotic 7.deduced
STIRRING UP IMAGINATION
What course would you like to take after finishing high
school? Are you interested in becoming a businessman,
engineer, a nurse, a lawyer, a doctor, a teacher, or other
professions? How do you think is research done in these
areas of discipline?
SUBJECT AREA RESEARCH APPROACHES
Research studies happen in any field of knowledge.
Anthropology, Business, Communication, Education, Engineering, Law, and Nursing, among others, turn in a big number of research studies that reflect varied interests of people. Don’t you wonder how people in these areas conduct their research studies?
Belonging to a certain area of discipline, you the option to choose one from these three basic research approaches: positive or scientific, naturalistic, and triangulation or mixed method. The scientific approach gives stress to measurable and observable facts instead of personal views, feelings, or attitudes. It can be used in researches under the hard sciences or STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering,
Medicine) and natural sciences (Biology, Physics, Chemistry). The positive or scientific approach allows control or variables or factors affecting the study. (Laursen 2010)
To become positivist or scientific in conducting your research study, you must collect data in controlled ways through questionnaires or
structured interviews. For instance, in the field of medicine, to produce a new medicine, a medical researcher subjects the data to a controlled laboratory experiment. These factual data collected are recorded in
numerical or statistical forms using numbers, percentages, fractions, and the like. Expressed in measurable ways, these types of data are called quantitative data.
The naturalistic approach, on the other hand, is people-oriented. Data collected, in this case, represent personal views, attitudes, thoughts,
emotions, and other subjective traits of people in a natural setting. Collecting data is done in family homes, playground, workplaces, or schools. In this places, people’s personal traits or qualities naturally
surface in the way they manage themselves or interact with one another. The naturalistic approach focuses on discovering the real concept or
meaning behind people’s lifestyle and social relations.
Unlike the scientific approach that makes you express and record your findings quantitatively, which means in numerical forms, the naturalistic approach lets you present things qualitatively through verbal language. Using words rather than numbers as the unit of analysis, this second research approach concern itself with qualitative data – one type of data that exists in abundance in social sciences, which to others exists as soft sciences. Considered as soft sciences are Anthropology, Business,
Education, Economics, Law, Politics, and all subjects aligned with
business and all those focused on helping professions such as, Nursing, Counseling, Physical Therapy, and the like. (Babbie 2013)
Having the intension to collect data from people situated in a natural setting, social researchers used unstructured interviews and participant observations. These two data gathering techniques yield opinionated data through the use of open-ended questions and participation of the
researcher in the results in the gathering of qualitative data.
All in all, from a social science researcher’s view point, these
qualitative data resulting from naturalistic approach of research serves as the basis for determining universal social values to define ethical or
unethical behavior that society ought to know, not only for the benefit of every individual and community but also for the satisfaction of man’s quest for knowledge. (Sarantakos 2013; Ransome 2013)
In the field of Humanities, man’s social life is also subjected to
research studies. However, researchers in this area give emphasis not to man’s social life, but to the study of meanings, significance, and
visualizations of human experiences in the fields of Fine Arts, Literature, Music, Drama, Dance, and other artistically inclined subjects.
Researchers in these subjects happen in any of the following humanistic categories:
1. Literature and Art Criticism where the researchers, using
well-chosen language and appropriate organizational pattern, depend greatly on their interpretative and reflective thinking in evaluating the object of their study critically.
2. Philosophical Research where the focus of inquiry is on knowledge and principles of being and on the manner human beings conduct
themselves on earth.
3. Historical Research where the investigation centers on events and ideas that took place on man’s life at a particular period.
HARD SCIENCES VS. SOFT SCIENCES
Just like in other subjects under soft sciences such as marketing, man’s thoughts and feelings still take center stage in any research studies. The
purposes of any researches in any of these two areas in business are to increase man’s understanding of the truths in line with markets and marketing activities, making more him intelligent in arriving at decisions about these aspects of his life. Research types that are useful for these areas are the basic and applied
research. (Feinberg 2013)
A quantitative or qualitative kind of research is not exclusive to hard sciences or soft sciences. These two research methods can go together in a research
approach called triangular or mixed method approach. this is the third approach to research that allows a combination or a mixture of research designs, data collection, and data analysis techniques.
Thus, there is no such things as a clear dichotomy between qualitative and quantitative research methods because some authorities on research claim that a symbolic relationship, in which they reinforce or strengthen each other, exists
between these two research methods. Moreover, any for of knowledge, factual or opinionated, and any statistical or verbal expression of this knowledge are
deduced from human experience that by nature is subjective. ( Hollway 2013; Letherby 2013)
ACTIVITY 3:
Directions: Directions: PAIR WORK. With your partner,
think of the correct expression to complete each sentence.
1. Numerical data are true for the __________ approach.
2. For the naturalistic approach, __________ is the unit of
analysis.
3. The focus of social research is __________ for the
common good.
4. __________ is the focus of a humanistic research.
5. Quantitative is to scientific approach; __________ to
naturalistic approach.
ACTIVITY 3:
Directions: PAIR WORK. With your partner, think of the
correct expression to complete each sentence.
6. A researcher in Humanities studies his subject with the
use of his __________.
7. Playgrounds, classrooms, workplaces make up the
__________ to yield qualitative data.
8. Laboratory experiments give way to a __________ way
of collecting data.
9. Hard sciences present research findings in __________
forms.
10. __________ is to hard sciences; subjectivity is to soft
sciences.
ACTIVITY 4:
Directions: With the same partner, check the right column
representing your decisions about each statement in the
first column. Accomplish the last column too..
Statements Agree Disagree Reasons/Reactions/Comments 1. Reasons happen in just one field of
knowledge
2. All research types apply to all data collecting techniques.
3. Sticking to one data collection technique is the best research method.
4. Subjectivity exists in any social science research.
5. Subjectivity and objectivity are inseparable
ACTIVITY 4:
Directions: With the same partner, check the right column
representing your decisions about each statement in the
first column. Accomplish the last column too..
Statements Agree Disagree Reasons/Reactions/Comments 1. Quantitative research tends
to be more objective than subjective.
2. Past events in a person’s life are the focus of
triangulation.
3. Biology and Chemistry are hard sciences.
4. It necessary for the qualitative researcher to conduct his or her research in a laboratory.
5. The mixed method of research happens only in a quantitative research
