Wrap-Up
In this lesson, we’ve explored possible methodologies for your research, beginning with the type of outcomes you expect from your work, focusing on three major types of research outcomes: explanation and prediction, exploration and understanding, and critique. By considering the type of research outcome(s) you imagine for your project, you can focus on potential methodologies and make strong plans for data management The ways a researcher collects, organizes, stores, and accesses data they collect for research. Creating a data management plan allows a researcher to know what data they will be collecting and how they will store and organize it during the research project..
In addition to your own intentions for the research, we also considered the ways that our organizations and disciplinary communities shape our work. Throughout this conversation, we considered particular issues of data management that arise when we use different types of data and methodologies. If you choose to move on to the next lesson, you’ll begin Course 3 with Lesson 1: Identifying Collaborators.
You may also be interested in the following lessons:
Further Learning
1. Braun, Virginia, and Victoria Clarke. Thematic Analysis: A Practical Guide. Thousand Oaks: SAGE, 2021. (Braun and Clarke’s guide to their version of thematic analysis (TA), an approach to analyzing qualitative data, does an excellent job of explaining not just their own idea of what it means to do TA, but how thematic analysis of qualitative data can be used in different research paradigms. Chapter 6, “A Not-So-Scary Theory Chapter” is particularly useful. This book is useful for anyone new to qualitative research Research that aims to understand the whys and hows of human behavior through the gathering of non-numerical data., regardless of whether you decide to use the authors’ strategies in your own work.)
2. DeCarlo, Matthew, Cummings, Cory, and Kate Agnelli. Graduate Research Methods in Social Work. Open Social Work. doi.org/10.21061/msw-research. (While aimed at the social work discipline, this open methods text offers an accessible background on a wide range of research methods. The chapter on survey methods provides an extensive discussion The section of a research article where the researchers analyze and interpret the findings. This section provides the “so what” for the research conducted. of when to use surveys and developing surveys.)
3. Sage Research Methods. “Which Stats Test?” . https://methods.sagepub.com/which-stats-test (This short quiz suggests the types of statistical analysis you may want to use for different types of data sets and research questions. The results The section of a research article where researchers share the results from the research. This section takes the results and directly connects them to the research questions or hypotheses posed at the start of the article. Also can be called “Findings.” include links to additional information in the Sage Research Methods database)
4. Small, Mario Luis, and Jessica McCrory Calarco. Qualitative Literacy: A Guide to Evaluating Ethnographic and Interview Research. Oakland: University of California Press, 2022. (Anyone new to conducting or assessing research using qualitative data or methods of analysis would benefit from this short book that examines what is considered indicative of rigor in qualitative work.)
Fill out our post-lesson survey! This short feedback form is meant to assess the effectiveness of each lesson and its activities in the curriculum.
Wrap-Up
In this lesson, we’ve explored possible methodologies for your research, beginning with the type of outcomes you expect from your work, focusing on three major types of research outcomes: explanation and prediction, exploration and understanding, and critique. By considering the type of research outcome(s) you imagine for your project, you can focus on potential methodologies and make strong plans for data managementData management The ways a researcher collects, organizes, stores, and accesses data they collect for research. Creating a data management plan allows a researcher to know what data they will be collecting and how they will store and organize it during the research project..
In addition to your own intentions for the research, we also considered the ways that our organizations and disciplinary communities shape our work. Throughout this conversation, we considered particular issues of data management that arise when we use different types of data and methodologies. If you choose to move on to the next lesson, you’ll begin Course 3 with Lesson 1: Identifying Collaborators.
You may also be interested in the following lessons:
Further Learning
1. Braun, Virginia, and Victoria Clarke. Thematic Analysis: A Practical Guide. Thousand Oaks: SAGE, 2021. (Braun and Clarke’s guide to their version of thematic analysis (TA), an approach to analyzing qualitative data, does an excellent job of explaining not just their own idea of what it means to do TA, but how thematic analysis of qualitative data can be used in different research paradigms. Chapter 6, “A Not-So-Scary Theory Chapter” is particularly useful. This book is useful for anyone new to qualitative researchQualitative research Research that aims to understand the whys and hows of human behavior through the gathering of non-numerical data., regardless of whether you decide to use the authors’ strategies in your own work.)
2. DeCarlo, Matthew, Cummings, Cory, and Kate Agnelli. Graduate Research Methods in Social Work. Open Social Work. doi.org/10.21061/msw-research. (While aimed at the social work discipline, this open methods text offers an accessible background on a wide range of research methods. The chapter on survey methods provides an extensive discussionDiscussion The section of a research article where the researchers analyze and interpret the findings. This section provides the “so what” for the research conducted. of when to use surveys and developing surveys.)
3. Sage Research Methods. “Which Stats Test?” . https://methods.sagepub.com/which-stats-test (This short quiz suggests the types of statistical analysis you may want to use for different types of data sets and research questions. The resultsResults The section of a research article where researchers share the results from the research. This section takes the results and directly connects them to the research questions or hypotheses posed at the start of the article. Also can be called “Findings.” include links to additional information in the Sage Research Methods database)
4. Small, Mario Luis, and Jessica McCrory Calarco. Qualitative Literacy: A Guide to Evaluating Ethnographic and Interview Research. Oakland: University of California Press, 2022. (Anyone new to conducting or assessing research using qualitative data or methods of analysis would benefit from this short book that examines what is considered indicative of rigor in qualitative work.)
Fill out our post-lesson survey! This short feedback form is meant to assess the effectiveness of each lesson and its activities in the curriculum.