Which research methodology should i use

Is there a test that can predict Alzheimer's disease? How is Alzheimer's disease diagnosed? Diagnosis of dementia Disclosure of the diagnosis Facing the diagnosis Taking care of yourself Developing coping strategies Maintaining a social network Attending self-help groups Accepting help from others Dealing with feelings and emotions Changing roles and how you see yourself On a more positive note Organising family support Dealing with practical issues Financial and administrative matters Driving Safety issues Employment issues Healthy eating Contact and communication Speaking, listening and communication Signs, symbols and texts Personal relationships Talking to children and adolescents Changing behaviour Lack of interest in hobbies Disorientation Managing everyday tasks Keeping an active mind Services Caring for someone with dementia The onset of the disease Diagnosis: should the person with dementia be told?

Dealing with emotions Arranging who will be responsible for care Determining to what extent you can provide care How will Alzheimer's disease affect independent living? What progress so far? Acknowledgements References Intercultural care and support Introduction Understanding dementia and help seeking Diagnosis, assessment and treatment. Support and care Professional and informal carers Conclusions References Members of the expert working group Terms and concepts Dementia as a disability?

Why PharmaCog? Who are the PharmaCog partners? Academic Partners Pharmaceutical companies SMEs, patient group and regulatory authorities What do the partners bring to the project? Coordination Management approach Collaboration with other projects Who financially supports PharmaCog? How will PharmaCog benefit patients? Why do we need research?

Who can take part in research? Benefits of taking part in research Risks in taking part in research Questions to ask about research Tests used in dementia research Ethical issues Types of research Philosophies guiding research The four main approaches Research methods Clinical trials What is a clinical trial? What are the official requirements for carrying out clinical trials in the European Union? Types of clinical trials Phases of clinical trials Continence care Guidelines What do we need from service providers and policy makers?

Welcome Research Understanding dementia research Types of research Research methods. Research methods Types of research Experiments People who take part in research involving experiments might be asked to complete various tests to measure their cognitive abilities e. Surveys Surveys involve collecting information, usually from fairly large groups of people, by means of questionnaires but other techniques such as interviews or telephoning may also be used.

Interviews Interviews are usually carried out in person i. Case studies Case studies usually involve the detailed study of a particular case a person or small group.

In this type of research, the data collected is generally expressed in numbers and graphs to confirm theories and assumptions. The data collected are factual information on the topic.

Under the quantitative research method, the factual information can be collected in many ways such as:. In quantitative research, you can include information on:. An example of quantitative research approach.

Consider this scenario. You can perform statistical analysis on the data and draw a conclusion such as "On an average, students rated their professors 4. Qualitative research. This method is used to understand thoughts, concepts, or experiences of people via interviews, focus groups, case studies, discourse analysis, and literature review.

It is basically a survey done to gather people thoughts and experience. Let us look at the techniques in qualitative research. Qualitative research approach example.

Let us consider a situation where you conduct in-depth interviews with say 20 students and ask them questions like: "How content are you with your curriculum study? This includes a combination of in-depth exploration and numerical measurement. Let's say you conduct interviews to find out how satisfied the students are with their studies and their answers provide new insights. Later, you use the survey as a tool to test the insights on a large scale.

Another approach could be to start with a survey to find out trends or opinions or beliefs, followed by interviews to better understand the reasons behind the trends. Understanding differences between quantitative and qualitative research. Quantitative and qualitative research methods collect data in different ways, and they allow you to answer different kinds of research questions.

When to use qualitative vs quantitative research. A thumb rule for deciding whether to use qualitative or quantitative data is:. For most research topics, you can choose between qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods approach.

Which type you want depends on, among other things, whether you're taking an inductive vs deductive research approach; your research question s ; whether you're doing experimental, correlational, or descriptive research; and other considerations such as money, time, availability of data. Analyzing qualitative and quantitative data.

Once you obtain data using the quantitative method, you can analyze the combined data by using statistical analysis to discover patterns or commonalities in the data. The results can be reported in graphs and tables. This is carried out when we wish to understand meanings, look at, describe and understand experience, ideas, beliefs and values, intangibles such as these. This is a common approach and helps you to 'triangulate' i.

Look at the brief outlines of different methods below. Consider which you intend using and whether you could also find it more useful to combine the quantitative with the qualitative.

You will be familiar with many of these methods from your work and study already. Interviews enable face to face discussion with human subjects. If you decide to interview you will need to draw up an interview schedule of questions which can be either closed or open questions, or a mixture of these. Closed questions tend to be used for asking for and receiving answers about fixed facts such as name, numbers, and so on.

They do not require speculation and they tend to produce short answers. With closed questions you could even give your interviewees a small selection of possible answers from which to choose. If you do this you will be able to manage the data and quantify the responses quite easily.

The Household Survey and Census ask closed questions, and often market researchers who stop you in the street do too. The problem with closed questions is that they limit the response the interviewee can give and do not enable them to think deeply or test their real feelings or values.

This would give you a very good idea of the variety of ideas and feelings people have, it would enable them to think and talk for longer and so show their feelings and views more fully. But it is very difficult to quantify these results. The first practical constraint you need to consider is your access to data. For many statistical tests, a sample of a few hundred respondents is typically needed to develop convincing conclusions.

The next constraint is time. So, pay attention to your timeline, as the data collection and analysis components of different methodologies have a major impact on time requirements.

Also, keep in mind that these stages of the research often take a lot longer than originally anticipated. Another practical implication of time limits is that it will directly impact which time horizon you can use — i. While some research designs will cost near zero to execute, others may require a substantial budget. These are just a handful of costs that can creep into your research budget.

Like most projects, the actual costs tend to be higher than the estimates, so be sure to err on the conservative side and expect the unexpected. For example, you may need lab equipment to analyse substances, or you may need specific analysis software to analyse statistical data. The final practical constraint is a big one. Naturally, the research process involves a lot of learning and development along the way, so you will accrue knowledge and skills as you progress. However, when considering your methodological options, you should still consider your current position on the ladder.

The three major deciding factors we looked at were:. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below. This post is part of our research writing mini-course, which covers everything you need to get started with your dissertation, thesis or research project.

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