Author: admin

Classification of Research Design

The research has a vast number of designs available for investigations of the research objectives. A lot of topologies can be adopted for their classification. The classification that is followed across the world and is the easiest to comprehend is the one that depends upon the objective or purpose of the research. There are largely … Continue reading “Classification of Research Design”

The research has a vast number of designs available for investigations of the research objectives. A lot of topologies can be adopted for their classification. The classification that is followed across the world and is the easiest to comprehend is the one that depends upon the objective or purpose of the research. There are largely two types of researches, Exploratory and Conclusive. The design options are separate for both of them.

Exploratory Research Design:  The research design for exploratory research has the most lose structure. It has a very flexible approach and the investigation of the research has a more qualitative perspective.. Because of its not so concrete structure, the sample size does not represent much and may depend upon unstructured interviews.

The main reasons why an exploratory research is conducted are:

  • Defining and conceptualising the problem to be investigated.
  • Evaluation and exploring of the different opportunities available.
  • Providing support in the conceptualisation and development of the hypotheses of the study.
  • Putting in place the variables of the study and putting them into operation.
  • Try to figure out the relationship that may exist between the dependant and independent variable that have been identified for the study.
  • Explore all the external factors that may in some way have an impact on the research.

In a situation where the findings of the exploratory research are interesting and offer some vision, they may become the basis for a more concrete and structured research which would be able to establish the efficacy of different methods. Whatever may be the scientific orientation and objective of the study, in the case of exploratory research, the researcher is always able to establish methods and techniques that can be adopted for doing exploratory research. These methods and techniques could vary from secondary data sources, observations both structured and unstructured), Delphi techniques, focus group discussions with the chosen group of respondents. All these methods and techniques have their own relevance and significance that can be put to use at different times during the course of the exploratory research.  Thus, it can be said that this type of research is the most simplest to administer with the most advantageous results.

Scope of the Study

Any time that a task of doing a research is to be undertaken, the essential guideline is to define explicitly the scope of the study. The question here is that how many students or researchers understand what is to be included in the scope of the study and what is the significance of the same. … Continue reading “Scope of the Study”

Any time that a task of doing a research is to be undertaken, the essential guideline is to define explicitly the scope of the study. The question here is that how many students or researchers understand what is to be included in the scope of the study and what is the significance of the same.

The scope of the study basically means all those things that will be covered in the research project. It defines clearly the extent of content that will be covered by the means of the research in order to come to more logical conclusions and give conclusive and satisfactory answers to the research.

The scope of the study has to be defined at a preliminary stage and that is very important. It cannot be done in the later phase of doing the research as it creates a lot of ambiguity about the research goals. If the researcher fails to define the scope at the initial stage itself it is indicative that the research would eventually not meet the expectations set by the dissertation committee.

A thorough understanding of the field of the study is very important so as to know specifically what the requirements from the research are. It is imperative for the writer/researcher to have unquestionable research and writing skills. In order to acquire high level of research and writing capability, to begin with, the researcher should seek the advice of the experts and thoroughly read papers written by other researchers.

In order to write a comprehensive and valuable scope, all the important things to be included are the outline of the limitations of the study, the specifications about the data that has been used for research and the various theories that have been put to use in the research to interpret the data. More than often, the scope of the study is included longer essays and the research reports, dissertations and thesis. The importance of the scope of the study is such that it explains the reasons why a certain kind of data has been excluded from the research.

In a typical situation when the research has been conducted on a kind of historical event or different key events in the past then the researcher needs to inform the readers that the scope of the study is confined to these events only and not more.

Introduction to R

There are a lot of statistical programmes that are available for use in the case of psychological research. They have multiple differences in their usage. The differences are on the basis of usage, generality and cost.  The most commonly used packages are SYSTAT, SPSS and SAS.  The good thing about these packages is that they … Continue reading “Introduction to R”

There are a lot of statistical programmes that are available for use in the case of psychological research. They have multiple differences in their usage. The differences are on the basis of usage, generality and cost.  The most commonly used packages are SYSTAT, SPSS and SAS.  The good thing about these packages is that they have the Graphical User Interface ( GUI) that have the relative ease of use. Though they offer a lot of convenience in use, they are expensive with certain limitations of usage. It is even difficult to communicate these results to others and explain in a more literary form. A widely used approach by practicing statistician is “R”

 

The R project has its basis on S and S + packages and is very powerful in terms of being able to operate on one programme. R is a very useful interactive package meant for data analysis. It has 3 distinctive advantages as compared to other packages that make it more advantageous. One big advantage of R is that it is completely free; it runs on multiple programmes and clubs multiple statistical programmes into a single quasi integrated programme. R is a free to install and use software as a part of the GNU project. It gives the liberty to the users to use, modify and distribute the programme within the set limitations.

 

R is an integrated environment meant for data manipulation and analysis. It includes the functions of descriptive statistics and many graphical tools for exploratory data analysis. In the context of inferential statistics, R has many variations of the General Linear Model which also incorporates Analysis of Variance, MANOVA and Linear Regression.

 

A significant reason why R is considered very powerful is that more than 5,000 packages have been contributed to R by statisticians around the world making it useful for all kinds of research related work. This enhancing collection of packages and the simplicity with which the interaction happens between the users is perhaps the greatest advantage and exclusivity of R. To add to it, R is also an amazing programme for production of graphics.

Parametric and Non parametric Procedures

The fundamental statistical concepts often work as pre requisites for a thorough understanding of the parametric and non-parametric tests. The fundamental of statistics include the understanding of random variables, probability distributions, parameters, population, sample distributions and the central limit theorem. The existence of statistics is largely because it is not possible to gather and compile … Continue reading “Parametric and Non parametric Procedures”

The fundamental statistical concepts often work as pre requisites for a thorough understanding of the parametric and non-parametric tests. The fundamental of statistics include the understanding of random variables, probability distributions, parameters, population, sample distributions and the central limit theorem.

The existence of statistics is largely because it is not possible to gather and compile data from the entire population. The solution, so as to ensure the generalisation of research is to collect data from a subset of the population so as to know the best possible truth about the population.

The different quantities such as mean, standard deviations and proportions are all significantly important values and can be termed as parameters in context to the study pertaining to the entire population. For the reason that it is not possible to get data for the population as a whole the estimated quantities from the chosen sample, with the aid of these parameters do help in generalising the analysis.

The parametric procedures assume and rely upon the distribution of the population being normal and also the form of the parameters being normally distributed, such as means and standard deviation). On the contrary, the non-parametric procedures in statistics do not depend upon any assumptions related to the shape of the population or the form of the parameters from which the sample has been extracted.

It does sound appealing and simpler to adopt the non-parametric procedures because of the few or no assumptions they make about the population distribution from which the sample has been extracted. However, they do have two main drawbacks. The main drawback is that much less powerful statistically as compared to their parametric counterparts. The term less powerful   means that there are lesser chances of the procedure being able to conclude that association between two variables when they are actually truly associated. A non-parametric test will call for a larger sample to be drawn out in order to have more concrete results.

The second drawback that has been associated with non-parametric tests is that the results of these tests are all the more difficult to interpret as compared to the parametric tests. Even a novice researcher may be able to analyse and interpret a parametric procedure analyse but it certainly calls for an experienced researcher to look into and analyse Non parametric results.

Tips for writing thesis on topics related to Marketing

The field of marketing is an interesting and a predominant area for students pursuing MBA or Ph.D. in this field of study. An MBA student needs to submit a dissertation before completion of the course, which is a very hectic and colossal task. This is a common problem for many students as it requires diligence … Continue reading “Tips for writing thesis on topics related to Marketing”

The field of marketing is an interesting and a predominant area for students pursuing MBA or Ph.D. in this field of study. An MBA student needs to submit a dissertation before completion of the course, which is a very hectic and colossal task. This is a common problem for many students as it requires diligence and knowledge. Like MBA students, a Ph.D. student also needs to submit a thesis, which requires more research and excellence. However, the task of writing a thesis or dissertation can become a bit easier if a student keeps in mind the following points:

*  Firstly, try to choose a topic from your area of interest as in that case, a student will not feel the burden and can explore the area and also gather knowledge in the specific topic.

*  A student must start writing thesis or dissertation much ahead of time because it involves data collection, analysis of the data, organization of the whole topic etc.

*  Avoid plagiarism because in that case, the whole research work can get cancelled, and the student may have to do it a second time which means loss of time and effort. So, it is advisable to put down the ideas in one’s own words.

*  After completion of the writing of the whole thesis or dissertation, it is sensible to edit or proofread the document as it improves the readability, and also gives the work a professional look.

If a student keeps the above point in his mind then writing a thesis or dissertation in the field of marketing will become easier. However, it will be a prudent decision in the case of a student, if he or she takes guidance from a learned person or an organization. www.phdthesis.in provides guidance, and help students in writing and completion of their research work.