Research Paper on "Abundant Research Conducted on Humans and Animals"

Quoted Instructions for "Abundant Research Conducted on Humans and Animals" Assignment:

1. Appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of qualitative research methods as forms of data

collection and analysis.

2. Appreciate the value and use of qualitative research in specific research projects.

3. Appreciate the practicalities and problems of organisation and fieldwork.

he *****˜tools***** of research will also feature: sources of primary/secondary data; excavating archives; considering spaces, changing ethical considerations, collecting, sifting and disseminating information in a coherent and sensible manner. Case studies of qualitative research will be assessed, as well as strategies, samples etc.

Key texts to be bought by the student:

Silverman, D (2005) Doing Qualitative Research. London: *****

Suggested secondary material:

Boynton. PM (2005) The Research Companion: a Practical Guide for the Social and Health Sciences. Hove: Psychology Press

Chamerlayne, P Bornat, J & Wengraf, T (2000) the Turn to Biographical Methods in the Social Sciences. London: Routledge.

Denzin, N and Lincoln, Y (eds) (2000) Handbook of Qualitative Research. London: *****

Gilbert, N (ed) (2001) Researching Social Life. London: *****

Kendall, G & Wickham, G (1999) Using Foucault*****s Methods. London: *****

Parker, J (2003) Social Theory; A Basic Toolkit. London: Palgrave-Macmillan

Plummer, K (2001) Documents of Life 2: An Invitation to Critical Humanism. London: *****

Silverman, D (2005) Doing Qualitative Research. London: *****

Smart, B (1985) Michel Foucault. London: Routledge.

Walliman, N (2001) Your Research Project. London: *****

Section 1. Choosing an area to research

1.Find a general area of the subject that you are interested in. Look through previous notes, textbooks, your interests or hobbies or something that you have always thought would be interesting to research.

2.Once you have decided on an area you will need to focus on a particular area, as it is likely to be too general to successfully research, i.e. Feminist perspectives on advertising may become a feminist deconstruction of the male shaving advert. Find a particular aspect of your chosen area which you would like to concentrate on, some thing that interests you and some thing you can have fun doing.

3.This topic is probably still too wide to base research on so focus on one question or problem that you wish to investigate in more detail; a feminist deconstruction of the female form portrayed a Gillette shaving advert.

4.Turn this question or problem into a research aim. A research aim is a possible answer to, or an explanation of, a question. You should develop an aim which you think might be true and use your research to try and find out whether or not it is.

5.Using research question gives your research a clear aim and helps you keep to the point. However, you may prefer to develop an aim as your research progresses and you discover more about the topic under investigation, this is perfectly acceptable. Many researchers either change or adapt their hypothesis over the course of their research. Be prepared for this possibility.

Hints on choosing a research project:

Do choose something you are interested in. Your research is likely to take up quite a lot of your time and if you are not interested in it you won*****t work as hard.

Do choose something that is relevant to the subject. Topics such as the life story of your pet dog are to be avoided, although a project into why pets are kept could be used.

Do choose something that it is possible for you to find out about. This will make life a lot easier. Although extra-terrestrial life is very interesting, do you know where to find the relevant background theory?

Do choose something you already know a little about. You could focus your research on an aspect of your local area, your peer group or a club that you belong to. This is likely to make your results more original and be in a topic area that interests you. However, be careful not to offend or upset those close to you, and be aware of ethics and confidentiality.

Do choose a research project you can relate to. Some times it is issues that are affecting us directly that creates the most in-depth work because you are researching something for deepen your own understanding.

Don*****t choose a topic just because your friend has chosen it or someone you know has done it before so you think you can have an easy time and use their notes findings, etc. You will become very bored if you do it this way and it will be reflected in your writing.

Don*****t write everything you know about the topic, you will not have the word count. Use your research aim to keep you focused and relevant to your actual research question.

Do be reflective. This is about the personal, it is subjective, you are NOT trying to prove causality- this is not an experiment.

Section 2. Heading

A title page precedes the report. The title should be short and descriptive; as a guideline keep it to a maximum of 15 words. It should, in this short space, convey to the reader the overall content of the report. Redundant phrases such as *****˜A study of ...***** or *****˜An investigation into*****¦***** should be avoided since they are generally understood. Ask yourself, *****˜Under what topic would I naturally look in a subject index of a journal if I were searching the literature on the subjects addressed in my report?***** The answer to this question should give you some idea of what keywords should go in your title. It is a good idea to look at published titles for ideas.

Section 3. Abstract

The abstract should be concise, providing a general summary of the entire report in a maximum of 150 words. It represents a sort of halfway house between the title and the report as a whole, and its purpose is to help researchers who are still unsure after reading the title to decide whether or not it is worth reading the entire report. Therefore, a good abstract will elaborate on the title, and condense the full contents of the report

The abstract should contain statements of:

The question addressed by the research, introduced perhaps by briefly mentioning the major piece of research which gives rise to the present research question. This should usually take no more than one or two sentences.

A summary of the method employed to answer the research question and the design used, including any necessary randomisation/control techniques (usually no more than one or two sentences). It is also highly desirable to state the number, and kind, of participants used, if any, or the format/ documents you are analysing. Don*****t adhere slavishly to a single mechanical format in setting out this information: look to see what published articles do, and try to copy the ***** rather than the letter of such examples.

A synopsis of the major results, detailing any numerical findings.

The major conclusions to be drawn from the reported finding.

Although the major aspects of the abstract have been presented above in point form for clarity, they should not be set out in numbered sections like this in your report. The abstract should be a well written integrated piece of work, so as to be easily read and understood, and should be self explanatory and complete in itself. You will find that you cannot afford to give more than a couple of sentences to each of the above components to stay within the word limit. Examine abstracts in published papers to see how the information mentioned above is smoothly integrated into the abstract as a whole. When you have written your abstract, always ensure that all the required information is included. Study the form and style of abstracts of published papers to get an idea of what your abstract should look like. Note that the abstract is numbered with Roman numerals (i.e. i). The abstract should be written last once everything else is done.

Section 4. Contents

This page should contain a list of all the headings and their page numbers in the report including the appendix contents but not a list of the separate appendices. (see section 9).

Learn how to use the Index and Tables tool on Word (Insert, References, Index and Tables) as this simplifies things immensely.

Section 5. Introduction

The function of the introduction is to make clear the object of the research reported. It should state the problem addressed by the research, incorporate it into its theoretical context (by briefly appraising relevant previously published research), and present the reasons for investigating. It should end with a clear statement of the research question.

NB: Referencing your source materials:

If you are using a direct quote from a source, ensure that you attribute the quotation to its author giving name, date, and page number, and present it within quotation marks. In a similar way, when referring to results of previous research always indicate the source of those findings. Never say, *****˜It has been shown that X is the case*****, without indicating where this has been shown. There are two acceptable ways to refer to the source of such statements, i.e.

1. Previous research has shown that recall for a passage is enhanced if background information is provided (Dooling and Lachman, 1970, pp.98.)

2. Dooling and Lachman (1970) pp.98, have shown that recall for a passage is enhanced if background information is provided.

Adhere meticulously to this format as poor referencing will be heavily penalised.

Use of *****˜et al*****:

If there are more than two authors of a particular study, it is acceptable to use the *****˜et al***** abbreviation. For example, instead of saying, *****˜Jones, Smith, and Brown, 1996*****, you could simply say, *****˜Jones, et al, 1996. pg 32*****. However, if you do this, you must cite the full set of names (Jones, Smith, and Brown, 1996. pg 32) the first time you mention the study. Only if you need to mention it later can you use *****˜et al*****.

All citations in the text MUST also appear in the Bibliography section at the end of the report.

Section 6. Method

This section is usually subdivided to make cross referencing easier.

6.1. Participants. Here, you should state the number of participants used, their age and sex, and how you obtained their participation (i.e. the method of sampling - random or opportunity). Sometimes it will also be necessary to include other characteristics which might affect the results (e.g. gender, socio-economic status, ethnicity, etc.). Don*****t feel you have to put this in unless it is reasonable to believe that it might be important

6.2. Apparatus/Materials. Any apparatus/materials used should be included here with sufficient details to allow the reader to make or purchase the equivalent items. It is only necessary to mention specialised equipment (e.g. questionnaires, pictures, magazine articles, videos, music CDs, etc.).

6.3. Design. Here you should state the type of design used, and any randomisation used.

6.4. Procedure. Here you should give a detailed, step-by-step account of what happened to the participant from start to end of the experiment. You must include sufficient detail to allow the exact procedure to be repeated, how performance was measured, etc. Instructions to participants should be reported verbatim and should be placed in an appendix along with any consent forms, materials used, results, etc.

6.5 Ethics. Here you must detail and argue any ethical considerations encountered during the design and implementation of your study.

Section 7. Results

In many ways this is the most important section of your report, since a well presented results section gives a *****˜well polished***** feel to a report. You will have found something in your research, even if not quite what you expected at the start. The results section is the place where you present what you have found in such a way that other people can understand them. When doing certain forms of qualitative research (discourse analysis, semiotics, interview deconstructions, etc.) the results and discussion sections can merge into one large discussion section. This is perfectly acceptable practice and you will not be penalised for doing this.

Section 8. Discussion

This is the last major section of your report, and here you have your chance to interpret your results in relation to relevant theories, compare your results with those in previous research, discuss any shortcomings of the research and apply reflective practice.

You start off discussing your research, and then widen the area of discussion to include the earlier research (e.g. does it add anything to the previous literature; does agree with/contradict the earlier work, etc.).

As mentioned above, you should start the discussion by restating the main results of the research, and then discuss these in relation to your research question. Many students appear to feel *****˜guilty***** or *****˜embarrassed***** when they have obtained negative results. It is not appropriate to include long *****˜alibis***** for negative results. It is reasonable, however, to speculate about why they were obtained. If the findings are contrary to the research question, is it possible to advance a modified research question to be tested in a further study? Try to relate your findings to the theoretical framework you presented in the Introduction, and relate your findings to previous RELEVANT work. You should have a good idea of the scope of this part from the references used in your introduction,

Always ask and state what additional questions were uncovered that merit further research?

If you can see any methodological shortcomings in the current study, describe these and (if you can) suggest ways in which future investigations may benefit from your experience. Do such shortcomings account for any anomalies in the Results? This is where you should be reflective and confess your own personal bias in interpreting your findings. You are trying to convince the reader about how useful your research is, rather than how badly designed it was!

Try to think of implications of your results for future research, and how you might extend the present paradigm to consider additional research questions. Similarly, you may also consider the extent to which the results may be generalised. To what populations may you safely generalise?

Section 9. Bibliography

1.Please refer to City College Norwich library help Sheets

2.Remember that you must acknowledge your source every time you refer to someone else*****'s work.

Failure to do so amounts to PLAGIARISM!

Section 10. Appendices.

The final section should be a series of Appendices, containing all material which would otherwise damage the flow of the main report. Include your raw data here and just use examples in the main body. Tabulate all material in appendices, for clarity. Each appendix should be given a separate page, and should be clearly labelled and numbered and should start with its own contents page that lists all the appendices. For example:

Contents page.

Appendix 1: Stimulus material

Appendix 2: Interview transcription code

Appendix 3: Interview transcription

Appendix 4: Coding criteria

Appendix 5: Coding results

Appendices should be in logical order

Section 11: Mark Scheme

Your qualitative report MUST be in the following format:

Title �*****" no more than 15 words

Abstract �*****" 5%

Contents page

Introduction �*****" 25%

Method �*****" 10% - MUST use the correct layout �*****" participants, materials, design, procedure

Results �*****" 10% - includes appropriate method of analysis, any charts

Discussion �*****" 40%

Bibliography �*****" 5% - includes quality of bibliography, in-text referencing and relevance, quality and range of sources

Appendix

There is also 5% for the structure �*****" this includes title page, contents page, and appendix, general presentation of material, spelling, and grammar and for following the correct layout.

It has to be 2000 words