Research Methods --------------------------------------------------------------- Dr.

Ikbal Barzinji

Introduction
What is a research means?
Research: is a logical and systematic search for new and useful information
on a particular topic, based on scientific methods.

What Makes People do Research?

(1) to get a research degree (Master or Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)) with its
benefits like better employment, promotion, increment in salary, etc.
(2) to get a teaching position in a college or university or become a scientist in
a research institution.
(3) to get a research position in countries like U.S.A., Canada, Germany,
England, Japan, Australia, etc. and settle there.
(4) to solve the unsolved problems.
(5) to get joy of doing some creative work.
(6) to get respectability and recognition.
(7) curiosity to find out the unknown facts of an event.
(8) curiosity to find new things.
(9) to serve the society by solving social problems.

The Prime Objectives of Researches are:

(1) Discover new facts.
(2) Confirm and test important facts.
(3) Analyses an event or process or phenomenon to identify the cause and
effect relationship.
(4) Develop new scientific tools, concepts and theories to solve and understand
scientific and nonscientific problems.
(5) Find solutions to scientific, nonscientific and social problems.
(6) Solve the problems occurring in our everyday life.

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Research Methods --------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Ikbal Barzinji

Some of Research Importance

(1) Research on existing theories and concepts help us to identify there
ranges and applications.
(2) It is the source of knowledge and provides guidelines for solving
problems.
(3) It is important in industry and business for higher gain and productivity
and to improve the products quality.
(4) It leads to identification of new materials, new living things, etc.
(5) Inventions can be made only through research.
(6) Research leads to a new style of life and makes it delightful and
glorious.

Research Methods and Research Methodology

- Research methods are various procedures, tools and techniques used in
research. Research methods help us to collect samples, data and find a
solution to a problem.
- Research methodology: It is a science of studying how research is to be
carried out.

While ‘method’ describes what you as a researcher have done,

methodology is about your reasons for doing it.

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Some of Types of Researches

According to their types researches can be classified into:

I- Basic and Applied Researches:

1. Basic or Fundamental or Theoretical Research: is an investigation of
some natural phenomenon or relating to pure science or testing theories
and hypotheses.

Characteristics of basic science:

(1) It sometimes may not lead to immediate use or application.
(2) It helps build new frontiers of knowledge.
(3) The outcomes of basic research form the basis for many applied
research.
2. Applied Research (Experimental Research): It refers to a scientific
study and research that seeks to solve practical problems. This type of
research plays an important role in solving everyday problems that often
have an impact on life, work, health, and innovative technologies.

Characteristics of applied science:

(1) It is helpful for basic research.
(2) Its outcome has immediate application.

Most of the experimental research and case studies are essentially

applied research, such as research on pollution control, preparing
vaccines for a disease, etc.
II-Normal and Revolutionary Researches.

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III- Quantitative and Qualitative Researches

The basic and applied researches can be quantitative or qualitative or even
both.
1- Quantitative research: involves studies that make use of statistical
analyses to obtain their findings. It based on the measurement of quantity or
amount. The result of this research is essentially a number or a set of
numbers.

Some of the characteristics of quantitative research are:

1- It is numerical, non-descriptive, applies statistics or mathematics and
uses numbers.
2- The results are often presented in tables and graphs.

2- Qualitative research: involves studies that do not attempt to quantify their

results through statistical summary or analysis. It concerned with qualitative
phenomenon involving quality.

Some of the characteristics of qualitative research are:

1- It is descriptive, non-numerical, and uses words.
2- Its aim is to get the meaning, feeling and describe the situation.
3- Qualitative data cannot be graphed or tabled.

Explaining how digestion of food takes place in our body is a

qualitative description. It does not involve any numbers or data and
quantities.

Case study: It is an in-depth examination of one person, city or situation

which considered as a qualitative research.

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Paradigm: It is the set of rules, concepts and procedures that used to conduct
a normal basic or applied research in any particular field.

In normal researches sometimes unexpected novel results and

discoveries are realized which are unexpected with the existing
paradigm.

Every research must contains:

What (what is the research we want to conduct)

Why (why conducting this research)

When (when conducting the research)

Where (where conducting the research)

How (How conducting the research)

Who (conducting the research)

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Research Methods --------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Ikbal Barzinji

Various Stages of a Research

In order to solve a scientific problem and to conducting most researches,
there are several important steps to follow:

1. Selection of a research topic (research problem or research question).

2. Literature survey and references collection.

3. Assessment of current status of the chosen topic.

4. Re-define research question (hypotheses).

5. Design research methodology.

6. Apply for funding.

7. Apply for ethics approval.

8. Actual investigation (the experiment).

9. Collect and analysis the data.

10. Interpretation of results.

11. Draw conclusions and related findings.

12. Report (writing and publishing).

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Figure 1. Diagram of stages of scientific methods

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Research Methods --------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Ikbal Barzinji

Stages of Conducting a Research

1. Identification of a Research Topic and Problems

Some sources of identification of a research topic and problems are the following:
(1) The field of one‟s interest.
(2) Daily problems, such as the air pollution, afforestation and deforestation
and child work, etc.
(3) Technological changes.
(4) Recent trends.
(5) Unexplored areas.
(6) Discussion with experts and research supervisor.
(7) Studying advanced level text books and latest research articles to identify
problems.

In choosing a topic one should take care of the possibility of data

collection and quantity of gain and so on. The topic should not be too narrow,
the problem here is that we do not find cases to study so we will not get data
(or enough) data to analyze.
If you are new to research, how can you get a research idea?

1. Listen to your instructors and discuss research areas.

2. Attending conferences.

3. Brows the journals and periodicals that available in your library, in order to
find interesting topics.

4. Look through the tables of contents for interesting chapters of a textbook,

and then scan for ideas.

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Research Methods --------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Ikbal Barzinji

2. Literature Survey
Literature survey is a collection of research publications, books and other
documents related to the defined problem.

One can survey:

(1) the journals which publish abstracts of papers,
(2) review articles related to the chosen topic,
(3) journals which publish research articles,
(4) books on the chosen topic,
(5) proceedings of conferences, workshops, etc.,
(6) Internet.

Literature survey helps us to:

(1) Sharpen the problem and reformulate it.
(2) Get proper understanding of the chosen problem.
(3) Get proper theoretical and practical knowledge to investigate the problem.
(4) Show how the problem under study relates to the previous research studies.
(5) Know whether the proposed problem had already been solved.

3. Assessing the Current Status

A study of the current literature in the chosen topic explores the current
status of it.

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Research Methods --------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Ikbal Barzinji

4. Hyothesis
There are many definitions of a hypothesis. According to Kerlinger,
1986 „A hypothesis is a conjectural statement of the relationship between
two or more variables’
In most cases, hypothesis specifies a relationship between two or more
variables, and it is uncertain proposition, so its validity is unknown.

The functions of a hypothesis

1. The hypothesis provides a study with focus. It tells you what specific
sides of a research problem to investigate.
2. A hypothesis tells you what data to collect and what not to collect.
3. It enables you to conclude exactly what is true or what is false.

The characteristics of a hypothesis

1. A hypothesis should be simple, specific and clear, where it should be
„unidimensional‟ (test only one relationship or hunch at a time), and for
develop a good hypothesis you must be familiar with the subject area
(through the literature review).
2. A hypothesis should be capable of confirmation (methods and techniques
must be available for data collection and analysis).
3. A hypothesis should be related to the existing body of knowledge.
4. A hypothesis should be operational (it can be measured), if it cannot be
measured, it cannot be tested and, hence, no conclusions can be drawn).

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Research Methods --------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Ikbal Barzinji

Types of hypothesis
In research there are two main types of hypotheses:
1. The null hypothesis or no difference hypothesis (usually designated
as H0): The null hypothesis represents a statement of no relationship
among the examined variables.

2. The alternative hypothesis or experimental hypothesis or hypothesis

of difference (usually designated as H1, H2, H3 , etc., depending on the
number of hypotheses). The alternative hypothesis represents the
predicted relationship among the examined variables in the study.

Errors in testing a hypothesis

A hypothesis is an assumption that may prove to be correct or incorrect.
It is possible to arrive to an incorrect conclusion about a hypothesis for a
variety of reasons, such as:
- The study design selected is faulty.
- The sampling procedure adopted is faulty.
- The method of data collection is inaccurate.
- The analysis is wrong.
- The statistical procedures applied are inappropriate.
- The conclusions drawn are incorrect.

In drawing conclusions about a hypothesis (testing of a hypothesis), two

types of error can occur (Table 2):

1. Type I error: It happens when we reject a null hypothesis where it is true.

2. Type II error: It happens when we accept a null hypothesis where it is false.

The second one is more dangerous

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Research Methods --------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Ikbal Barzinji

Table 1. Type I and Type II errors in testing a hypothesis

Hypothesis Accept Reject

Type I error
True Correct decision
(probability = α)

Type II error
False Correct decision
(probability = β)

Example: Suppose you want to test the effect of different combinations of

maternal and child health services (MCH) and nutritional supplements
(NS) on the infant mortality rate. To test this, a two-by-two factorial
experimental design is adopted.
There are several ways of formulating a hypothesis. For example:
1. There will be no difference in the level of infant mortality among the different treatment.
2. The MCH and NS treatment groups will register a greater decline in infant mortality
than the only MCH treatment group, the only NS treatment group or the control group.
3. Infant mortality in the MCH treatment group will reach a level of 30/1000 over five years.
4. Decline in the infant mortality rate will be three times greater in the MCH treatment
group than in the NS group only over five years.

Table 2. Two-by-two factorial experiment to study the relationship between

MCH, NS and infant mortality.

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In this example, the first hypothesis has been formulated indicates that there is no
difference in the impact of different treatments on the infant mortality rate. When you
construct a hypothesis specifying that there is no difference between two situations,
groups or outcomes, this is called a null hypothesis and is usually written as H0.
The second hypothesis in this example indicates that there is a different impact of
different treatments on infant mortality, though the extent of the difference is not
specified. A hypothesis in which a researcher agrees that there will be a difference but
does not specify its level is called an alternative hypothesis (H1).

5. Research Design
A research design: is the plan for a study, which is used as a guide in collecting
and analyzing the data, which it should indicate to various methods
to be used in the research, sources and information related to the
research, time frame, and cost budget.

Purposes of a research design:

 It creates the foundation of the entire research work.
 The design helps perform the tasks easily and in a systematic way.
 It makes the research providing maximum information with minimum
spending of effort, money and time.
 It learns the facts relating to the research project, particularly, theoretical
methods, experimental techniques and other data and tools necessary for the
present study have to be collected and learnt.

Characteristics of a good research design:

 Minimizes bias and maximizes the reliability of the data collected and analyzed.
 Gives the smallest experimental error.
 Yields maximum information.
 Adequate Information.

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 Generalizability.
 Being economic.
 Adaptability.
 Flexibility.
 Efficiency.

Types of research designs

I. Case study: Case-study research deals with unusual events.

II. Surveys: For most problems, it is difficult to ask all the relevant people, teams,
organizations, or whatever you studying, so the usual approach is to ask some of
them, and then measure their responses to give you an estimate of the total
numbers (sampling).

For example, if I knew that there are 10,000 poultry field in Kurdistan region, I
might decide to survey 100 of them, and see how many used the same drug for
Newcastle disease. If a fifth of the fields in the survey used the same drug, then I can
estimate that a fifth of the fields in Kurdistan Region used that drug, giving me an
estimate of 2,000 fields in the Kurdistan Region using that drug.

III. Field experiments:

 Field experiment gives you an answer about (What-if) question.
 Field experiments give you answers to a lot of questions that you can‟t answer
through case studies and surveys.

IV. The controlled experiment

 In a controlled experiment, all the stray variables are kept out of your
treatments.
 Any changes can then only be due either to chance or to the treatments.

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Research Methods --------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Ikbal Barzinji

6. The experiment (The testing of a hypothesis)

To test a hypothesis you need to go through a process that comprises three
phases: (1) constructing a hypothesis; (2) gathering appropriate data; and (3)
analyzing data to draw conclusions.

Figure 2. The process of testing a hypothesis

7. Collect and data analysis

8. Results and interpretation (Discussions)

After performing the research work or the experiment on the chosen
problem the results and conclusion are prepared. We should analyze cause and
effect (interpretation the results), and pay attention to minute details. Interest
in observation is the goal of any scientific research.

Interpretation of results is important because it:

(1) Links the present work to the previous.
(2) Leads to identification of future problems.
(3) Stimulates the search for more knowledge.
(4) It shows the significance of the research findings.

9. Conclusion: is based on the study that achieved. It would highlight

relations and processes that cause the findings.

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Research Methods --------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Ikbal Barzinji

Research Report
What is a research report?
Research reporting is an oral or a written presentation of important and
useful aspects of a research work. It is the last but a major part of the
research study.
Scientific writing, a thesis or a paper, is intended to present the purpose
and outcome of a specific research investigation.

Characteristics of a good scientific report/paper and thesis are the following:

(1) Good presentation
(2) Good organization of various chapters/sections
(3) Accuracy
(4) Clarity
(5) Free from contradictions and confusion.

Layout of a research report or paper

Generally, a research report should consist of the following three
components:
(1) Preliminary pages
(2) Main text
(3) End matters

I- Preliminary pages include:

- Title of the report
- Acknowledgment
- Declaration
- Certificate page (for thesis)
- Abstract
- Table of contents.

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II- Main Text: The main text presents the details of the research work and
results. This part should provide the following:
1. Introduction
2. Actual research work achieved and the findings (material and methods,
results and discussions).
3. Conclusions and Recommendations.

III- End Matters: The end part of the report generally consists of references,
appendices, computer programs etc.

Referencing
What is referencing means? When you are writing a piece of work and use
someone else's words or ideas you must reference them. This means that you
need to include detailed information on all sources referred, both within your
text (in-text citations) and at the end of your work (reference list).

Why referencing is important?

- Is essential to successful research.
- Helps the reader to find the original source if they wish.
- Improves your writing skills.
- Adds authenticity to your argument.
- Shows that you have read widely.

Which referencing style should I use? There are several different referencing styles
used, therefore you must check your university or publisher handbook to clarify which
system to use. The most styles used are Harvard and Vancouver styles.

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What is plagiarism?
Plagiarism involves intentionally or unintentionally presenting someone else's
ideas as your own. It is cheating. It doesn't just apply to direct quotations but
summarized and paraphrased argument too.

Typing the Report: Typing should follows the set of requirements of the institution
that published the research work.

Presenting a Scientific Seminar (Oral Report)

What is an Oral Report?
Oral report is a presentation of one‟s research work for a 15–30 minute in a
scientific meeting, like conference, seminar, symposium, workshop,
departmental weekly seminar, etc.

For a 15–30 minute oral presentation one cannot find enough time to
discuss complete details of the work. In this case:
- Methods and techniques used can be presented very briefly without
going into technical details.
- Much time should be reserved for results and conclusion.

The success of a presentation lies in making it long enough to cover the

topic and short enough to create interest.

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Research Methods --------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Ikbal Barzinji

Points to be remembered in preparing an oral report

- Oral presentation can be made effective and attractive by using modern
visual devises, power-points and slides.
- Title of the report, author‟s name, plan of the presentation, very
important contents and conclusion can be printed in the slides or sheets
possibly point by point with bold and sufficiently large size letters.
- Merely reading out measured or computed data will never catch the attention
of the audience. They may be displayed in the form of histograms.
- Researcher should not read the content in the slides. That is, the
descriptive portion of the report should not be prepared on the slides.
- One should allow interaction.
- Modulate the voice as and when required.
- Don‟t interrupt the time frame.
- Logical continuity, move from the simple to the complex, from the known to
the unknown. Your statements should sound sensible and reasonable. Do not
speak too fast or speak too slowly and bore the audience.
- Make the session interactive by posing questions.
- Avoid repeated use of words or phrases such as “well”, “you see”, “you
know”, “I mean”, “I think”, “that is” and “basically”.
- You should also concentrate on your body language. Look relaxed and
comfortable. Eye contact should be maintained with the audience. Let
your eyes move uniformly around the entire audience and not focus on
any particular person or a particular part of the audience.

One or two practices of the report in the presence of colleagues, supervisor and
collaborators can be exercised in order to:
(1) Complete the presentation within the allotted time,
(2) Improve the quality of presentation and,
(3) Maintain the fluency of the presentation.

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Research Methods --------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Ikbal Barzinji

Sampling and Sample size

Population: a set which includes all measurements of interest to the researcher

(The collection of all responses, measurements, or counts that are of interest).

Sample: is a subgroup of the population you are interested in.

Sampling: It is the process of selecting a sample from the population of interest for
purposes of making observations and statistical inferences about that population.

Through sampling you can make an estimate or statistic for the population.

Rules of Sampling:

1- Homogeneity: The units included in a sample must be as likeness with

other units.
2- Adequacy: number of units included in a sample should be sufficient to
enable derivation of conclusions applicable to the whole data.
3- Independence: Every unit should be free to be included in the sample.
4- Economical in terms of time and money.
5- High level of reliability.

Characteristics of a Good Sample:

1- A good sample is the true representative of the population.

2- A good sample is free from bias.
3- A good sample maintains accuracy, which it yields an accurate estimates or statistics.

Advantages of sampling

1- Saves time, money and human resources.

2- It has reliability because it is based on probability theory.
3- Get information about large populations
4- Because the research process is sometimes destructive, the sample can save product.
5- Sampling is the only option, when accessing the population is impossible.

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Disadvantages of sampling:

1- Less accuracy.
2- Problem of representative sample.
3- Need of suitable researchers.
4- You do not find out the information about the population`s characteristics, but
only estimate or predict them. Hence, the possibility of an error in your
estimation exists.

When might you sample the entire population?

- When your population is very small

- When you have extensive resources
- When you don‟t expect a very high response
Sample size
Factors affecting sample size:
• The purpose of the study.
• Population size.
• The risk of selecting a “bad” sample.
• Data analysis plan.
• Whether the study is qualitative or quantitative.

Sample size in qualitative studies:

• The smallest number of participants should be 15 and should lie under 50
Sample size determination in quantitative study:
- Minimum suggested sample is 30 and upper limit is 1,000
It tends to be a general rule in quantitative research that the larger the sample
the more accurate your results.
For a new researcher in order to determine the sample size you can:
- Asking the statistician.
- See what sample sizes were used in papers in the literature on your topic.

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Research Methods --------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Ikbal Barzinji

Types of Sampling

There are three main ways of taking samples.

1- Random or Probability sampling: it is the one in which each sample has

the same probability of being chosen.
2- Non-random sampling or Non-probability sampling: do not follow the
theory of probability in the choice of elements from the sampling
population.
3- „Mixed‟ sampling

1. Random Sampling

Types of random or probability sampling:

- Simple random sampling.

- Systematic sampling.
- Stratified sampling.
- Cluster sampling.
- Other types of sampling techniques.

Simple Random Sampling:

- Where we select a group of subjects (a sample) for study from a larger
group (a population).
- Each member of the population has an equal chance of being included in
the sample.
- Applicable when population is small and homogeneous.
- Each element of the frame has an equal probability of selection.
Example 1: Drawing seven students from a class with 60 students.

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Systematic Sampling: Systematic sampling relies on arranging the target

population according to some ordering scheme and then selecting elements at
regular intervals through that ordered list.
- Sample easy to select
- Sample evenly spread over entire reference population
- Systematic sampling involves a random start and then proceeds with the
selection of every kth element from then onwards. In this case,
k = (population size/sample size).
- It is important that the starting point is not automatically the first in the
list, but is instead randomly chosen from within the first to the kth
element in the list.
Example: from the example 1, the k=60/7 which is = 8.57 = 8
So if the first student was the number 3 so the sample contains the students
with the rank (3, 11, 19, 27, 35, 43, 55).

Stratified Sampling: Population divided into different groups from which we

sample randomly. (every group will consider)
- Where population holds a number of distinct categories, the frame can
be organized into separate "strata." Each stratum is then sampled as an
independent sub-population, out of which individual elements can be
randomly selected.
- Every unit in a stratum has same chance of being selected.

Example: we suppose that the 60 students in example 1. Contains 35 male and

25 female, so we will take 4 random samples from the male category, and 3
random sample from the female category.

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Cluster Sampling: Population is divided into (groups) clusters - some clusters

are chosen at random - within cluster units are chosen with Simple Random
Sampling (some groups are not consider).
- Population divided into clusters of homogeneous units, usually based on
geographical contiguity.
- Sampling units are groups rather than individuals.
Difference Between Strata and Clusters
Stratified sampling:
- All strata are represented in the sample
- Sample more representative
- Good information on subgroups
- The best survey results occur when elements within strata are internally
homogenous
- A table of random number or lottery system or excel are used to
determine which units are to be selected.
Cluster sampling:
- Only a subset of clusters are in the sample.
- Cheaper
- Usually not representative of whole population
- The best results occur when elements within clusters are internally
heterogeneous.

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2- Types of non-random sampling or non-probability:

 Convenience or opportunity or accidental sampling: Volunteer
samples.
 Purposive or judgmental sampling: Involves selecting a group of
people because they have particular traits that the researcher wants to
study. e.g. patients with heart disease.
 Quota sampling: Widely used in opinion polls and market research.
Interviewers are given a quota of subjects of specified type to attempt
to recruit. eg. an interviewer might be told to go out and select 20 male
smokers and 20 female smokers so that they could interview them about
their health and smoking behaviors.
 Snowball sampling: Involves two main steps.
1. Identify a few key individuals
2. Ask these individuals to volunteer to distribute the questionnaire to
people who know and fit the traits of the desired sample.

Any sampling method where some elements of population have no

chance of selection, it involves the selection of elements based on assumptions
regarding the population of interest, which forms the standard for selection.

Example: We visit every household in a given street, and interview the first
person to answer the door. In any household with more than one occupant, this
is a nonprobability sample, because some people are more likely to answer the
door (e.g. an unemployed person who spends most of their time at home is
more likely to answer than an employed housemate who might be at work
when the interviewer calls) and it's not practical to calculate these
probabilities.

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Generating random numbers

1. Best way is to select numbered balls out of a bag (if the population is
small).
2. Random number table

How to use a random number table.

a) Let‟s assume that we have a population of 185 students and each student
has been assigned a number from 1 to 185. Suppose we wish to sample
5 students (although we would normally sample more, we will use 5 for
this example).
b) Since we have a population of 185 and 185 is a three digit number, we
need to use the first three digits of the numbers listed on the chart.
c) We close our eyes and randomly point to a spot on the chart. For this
example, we will assume that we selected 20631 in the first column.
d) We interpret that number as 206 (first three digits). Since we don‟t have
a member of our population with that number, we go down to the next
number 899 (89990). Once again we don‟t have someone with that
number, so we continue at the top of the next column. As we work down
the column, we find that the first number to match our population is 100
(actually 10005 on the chart). Student number 100 would be in our
sample. Continuing down the chart, we see that the other four subjects
in our sample would be students 049, 082, 153, and 164.

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e) Researchers use different techniques with these tables. Some researchers

read across the table using given sets (in our examples three digit sets).
For our class, we will use the technique I have described.

3. Use random number generators which many available online, e.g.

www.random.org/integers
4. Or use Excel: E.g. =randbetween(1,200) generates a random number
between 1 and 200

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