Critique of a Research Study

Research is work undertaken in a systematic basis in order to gain deeper understanding about a subject. The scope of subjects that can be researched is only limited by the Human imagination. Throughout the ages, research has been crucial to the scientific and technological advancement of humanity. Research enables us to open new frontiers and to devise new applications. The general motives of research are to solve existing or new problems, reaffirm the results of previous work, confirm facts, develop theories, and support theorems among other reasons. There are many different methods of conducting research. This differentiation is necessitated by the need to have distinct ways of collecting and analyzing information. Generally, research methods fall into two categories, qualitative research, and quantitative research.

Qualitative research is primarily an exploratory form of research. Researchers use qualitative research in order to gain a deeper understanding of the underlying concepts, opinions, reasons, and motivations surrounding the issue under research. Qualitative research helps to provide insight about the problem and enables one to develop relevant hypotheses. Qualitative research is usually conducted as a precursor to quantitative research. In order to gain a deeper understanding of the topic at hand, qualitative research uses structured and semi structured data collection methods.

Quantitative research is another method of conducting research. This research method is concerned with generating numerical data, which is then used to create statistical information from which inference is gained. Quantitative research quantifies the opinions, behaviors, attitudes, and other defined variables. The main objective of quantitative research is the quantification of data.

Within qualitative and qualitative research, there are certain crucial concepts that apply to both methods of research. The predictor variable is the variable that is manipulated by researchers in order to observe its effects on the dependent variable. The predictor variable is important in an experimental research, the researcher gains inference on the nature of the research problem by directly changing the predictor variable. Thus, the results of this type of research are the changes observed in the dependent variable. In a non-experimental research, the researcher does not attempt to control the predictor variable. Instead, the nature of the relationship between the predictor and the dependent variable is obtained from observation and interpretation.

The first peer-reviewed journal on research methods pertains quantitative research it was published in the modern language journal in 2014. The journal article aims to build on a growing line of inquiry into quantitative methodologies in conducting research about second language. The article analyzes two previous research papers conducted and shows how to apply quantitative methods to the data collected in the previous researches. The article further posits that quantitative research helps researcher to derive further inference on the data they collect. The research design used in the article is quantitative. It quantifies data from the previous research conducted. As the journal article only analyses the data from previous work done, the authors do not manipulate any variables and thus the research design is non-experimental. The aim of the article is to provide clarity on the nature of quantitative research (Gass & Plonsky, 2011).

The second peer-reviewed source is also concerned with quantitative research. It is an empirical assessment of the methodological quality in the acquisition of second languages. The article posits that there is a strong correlation between the quality of a research and the results. A research conducted in the proper manner will yield proper results and vice versa. The journal article was written after an extensive analysis of 7951 research subjects. The researchers took a quantitative approach to tackling the research topic. The researchers simply tabulated the results into statistically significant information (Plonsky, 2014). The research design was non-experimental, as the researchers did not manipulate the predictor variable. The motive of this particular research was to provide direction to future research practices.

The third peer-reviewed source is titled, Definitions and Predictors of Successful Aging: A Comprehensive Review of Larger Quantitative Studies. The article is a review of previous Quantitative researchers conducted on the nature of aging in the American population. The researcher analyzed peer-reviewed reports of data studies about adults over age 60. The researchers then categorized the independent variables in the previous reports. The researchers found that the mean proportion of adults who are aging successfully is 35.8% (Depp & Jeste, 2006). The researchers actively collected information from the previous reports, which they organized into meaningful statistical information. The nature of their operation suggests that it was a quantitative research. As the researchers were obtaining their information from a secondary source of information, their chosen research design is non-experimental. The aim of the journal article is to analyze quantitatively, information about aging adults in order to determine how habits such as smoking affect successful aging.

The second batch of peer-reviewed articles are concerned with qualitative research methods, the first source is a treatise on the nature of qualitative research. It states that qualitative research should be divided into three stages. The first stage is the design cycle, in this stage research question are formulated, literature is reviewed, theories are incorporated and a conceptual framework for conducting the research is created. The second stage is the ethnographic cycle; this stage describes the core tasks of the qualitative research. The final stage of all qualitative research exercises is the analytic exercise cycle, in this stage the researchers analyze the data that they have collected in previous stages. The approach that the authors have taken in tackling the subject matter is qualitative. The authors, through their work, aim to impart the proper qualitative research methodologies. This will help future researchers who wish to gain a deeper understanding of qualitative research (Hennink, Hutter, & Bailey, 2011).

The second article concerned with qualitative research is titled, the foundation of qualitative research practice. In it, the authors outline the philosophical underpinnings of qualitative research. The authors of the book claim that there is no singular way of conducting qualitative research and as such, they only provide general guidance. The authors further state qualitative research is especially suited to social science researchers (Jane Ritchie, Nicholls, & Ormston, 2014). In elaborating research methodologies, the authors follow a qualitative approach. There are numerous different research examples given by the authors. They use a combination of experimental and non-experimental research designs in order to highlight the versatility of qualitative research. Like the first source on qualitative methodology, this source also provides guidance on qualitative research.

The third peer-reviewed source on qualitative research is titled the elephant in the living room, extending the conversation about the politics of evidence. It is an attempt by the authors to establish the importance of qualitative methodology in the evidence based research movement. It states that standards for the evaluation of quality are interpretive practices that should follow the rules of qualitative research (Denzin, 2009). The author has taken a non-experimental approach. The aim of the author is to provide ethical and moral criteria for judging qualitative research.

References Denzin, N. ( 2009). Qualitative Research, The elephant in the living room: or extending the conversation about the politics of evidence. University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. Depp, J. (2006). Definitions and Predictors of Successful Aging: A Comprehensive Review of Larger Quantitative Studies. The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. Gass, & Plonsky. (2011). Quantitative Research Methods, Study Quality, and Outcomes: The Case of Interaction Research. Journal of research in laguage studies. Hennink, M., Hutter, I., & Bailey, A. (2011). Qualitative Research Methods. SAGE publications. Jane Ritchie, J. L., Nicholls, C. M., Ormston, R., & Ritchie. (2014). Qualitative Research Practice: A Guide for Social Science Students and reserchers . SAGE publishers . Plonsky. (2014). Study Quality in Quantitative L2R esearch A Methodological Synthesis and Call for Reform. Modern lanuage Journal.