 What are variables?

 What are the basic types of variables?

Differentiate.
 What are the other types of variables?
 What variables are to be controlled by
the researcher?
 Recall the research process.
 What are involved in the first phase
of the research process?
 What comes to your mind when you
hear the words: Problem and
Question?
 Compare and contrast the two.
Present your answer by making an
appropriate graph.
 In what condition are you now?
(Happy, anxious, contented, confused,
problematic)
 What made you experience such
condition?
 What do you mean by problem?
 How do you solve your problem?
 Sparked by your curiosity or interest, you
get to ponder on a problem needing
answers. You resort to thinking of what to
solve, whom to ask, where to go, and how
to do all the things you want to happen to
find answer to the problem.
 Behaving this way, you are then
confronted with a research problem.
 The first challenge of any researcher
is the identification of a research
topic.
 A research topic or problem is an
intellectual stimulus calling for an
answer in the form of scientific inquiry.
 Topics or problems are general questions
about relationship among variables, or
characteristics of phenomenon which a
researcher needs to undertake.
 A research problem is something that
nurtures the mind with a difficulty or
uncertainty, enough to push you to do an
empirical investigation whereby you
search for answers to a problem by
collecting and analyzing data or
information through which you can find
the right answer or solution.
 Requiring you to adopt an empirical
attitude toward your problem in a way
that you depend on your sensory
experience, conduct experimentation, or
perform a scientific method in arriving at
the truth about something makes your
problem a researchable problem.
 Being researchable, your research
problem becomes a quantitative research
problem, not a qualitative research
problem that people consider not
researchable because it is more inclined
to explaining or describing people’s views,
values, attitudes, opinions and other
subjective traits.
 Unlike a quantitative research problem
that is not only characterized by
precision, specificity, or stability, but also
geared toward a possible result,
qualitative research problem is described
as expansive, widespread, and
developing, and it is focused more on
processes rather than on outcomes.
 Agencies of the government, or any non-
government institutions
 Your own experience or genuine interest in
something
 Previous research findings which you want to
validate or consider as studies suffering from
some inconsistencies or discrepancies.
 Present political, social or economic
issues in the society
 Review of related literature
 It should be something new or different
from what has already been written
about.
 It must be original.
 It should be significant to the field of
study or discipline.
 It must necessarily arouse intellectual
curiosity.
 It should be a modest one for a beginner
to be carried on within a limited period of
time.
 It should be clear, not ambiguous.
 It should be specific, not general.
 It should consider the training and
personal qualifications of the researcher.
 It should consider the availability of the
data involved in the study and the
methods and techniques to be employed
in gathering them.
 It should consider the availability of
effective instruments for gathering the
data and their treatment.
 It should consider the financial capacity
of the researcher to support the project.
 It should consider the time factor
involved in the undertaking.
 The title must contain the following
elements:
 Subject matter or research problem;
 Setting or locale of the study;
 The respondents or participants;
 The time or period when the study was
conducted
 The title must be broad enough to
include all aspects of the study but
should be brief and concise as possible.
 The use of terms as “Analysis of” or “A
Study of”, “An Investigation of” and the
like should be avoided.
 If the title contains more than one line, it
should be written in inverted pyramid.
 When typed or encoded in the title page,
all words in the title should be in capital
letters.
 If possible, the title should not be longer
than 15 substantive words.
 Avoid a long, detailed title that gives too
much information
 To shorten the title, delete the terms
“assessment” or evaluation” if these are
already emphasized in the text.
 A title should give readers information
about the contents of the research and
preferable to one that is vague or general.
 Titles do not need to be stuffy or dull but
they should generally give readers some
idea at the outset of what the research
paper will contain.
 Choose a title that is a phrase rather than
a complete sentence
 Select a straightforward title over other
kinds
 Use no punctuation at the end of a title
 Do not underline the title of the research
or enclose it in quotation marks.
 Several reasons prod you to define or
finalize a research problem or a research
topic. But this does not mean that after
spending time thinking about a research
problem, immediately, you plunge into
carrying out an investigation or collecting
and analyzing data.
 Thinking of a research problem or topic
to research on is a beginning act in
research.
 Another initial research act is asking a set
of specific questions or identifying sub-
problems about your research problem.
 These specific or subquestions, called
Research Questions to specify the
scope and the method in collecting
and analyzing data, you give the right
direction in your research.
 In addition, they are questions to give
further definition or explanation of
the research problem by stressing the
fact that they elicit answers to clarify
or solve the research problem, which
is the main problem of the research.
 Here are examples of statements to
show the relationship between a
quantitative research problem and
research questions:
 Research Problem
 Interrogative Statement: What
percentage of Manila private
universities consider the use of
grammar textbooks as the most
effective way to help college students
attain communicative competence?
 Research Problem
 Declarative Statement: The main
objective of this study is to find out
the percentage of Manila private
universities considering the use of
grammar textbooks as the most
effective way to help college students
attain communicative competence.
 Research Questions
 Interrogative Statements
 What is an English grammar textbook?
 What is communicative competence?
 What components of the grammar
textbook work for communicative-
competence development?
 Research Questions
 Declarative Statements
 To define an English grammar textbook
 To explain the meaning of communicative
competence
 To identify the components of the
grammar textbook work for
communicative-competence development
 Formulate a research problem that is
researchable; meaning, open to
empirical investigation.
 See to it that you state your
quantitative research problem clearly,
concisely, and possibly, if under APA
referencing style, not beyond 12
words
 Have your research problem focus on
a general understanding of your
research topic.
 Construct a research problem that
mirrors the importance of carrying
out the research for finding answers
or solutions to a problem.
 Let your qualitative research problem
state the variables and their
relationship with one another.
 Construct an introductory statement
to present your research problem,
which is the main problem of your
research.
 State your research questions or sub-
problems, not in the form of yes-or-no
questions, but in informative questions.
 Express your research problem and
research questions either in an
interrogative or declarative manner, but
some research books say that the former
is more effective than the latter form.
 In our previous lessons, you came to
know that quantitative research may
either be experimental or non-
experimental, and that the former
has types: quasi –experimental and
true experimental researches.
 In most aspects, both of these two
types have similarities, like both
include selection of subjects, pre-
and post-tests, and the use of
treatment and control group.
 Among these three key aspects of
experimental research, randomized
selection is its leading characteristic, so
much so, that the absence of
randomized selection denies its identity
as a true experimental and converts it to
quasi-experimental in which the
selection process takes place not by
chance but by the experimenter’s
purpose or decision.
 Regardless of several contrasting
characteristics of true and quasi-
experimental research, both tackle
research problems that require you to
deal with the four basic elements of
experiments.
 Four basic elements of experiments:
 Subjects or objects (people, places, things,
events, etc.
 The subject’s condition before the actual
experiment
 The treatment, intervention, or condition
applied on the subject
 The subject’s condition after the actual
experiment
 Descriptive research questions - ask
questions on the kind, qualifications,
and categories of the subjects or
participants.
 Relation questions - are questions about the
nature and manner of connection between
or among variables
 Casual questions - reasons behind the
effects of the independent variable on the
dependent variable is the focus of these
types of research questions
 Likewise, you may start asking research
problems or research questions based on
any of these two approaches:
Your questions begin from
“hunches or predictions” or
expectations about the outcome
of your research.
 Ask questions centering on a theory or
concept, discover the accuracy of the theory,
ponder on variables to represent the extent
of the application of the theory, and make
up your mind on which variable to study
through observation, interview or
experimentation.
 Explain the meaning of a variable based
on its involvement or role in the
research process, particularly, in the
measurement, manipulation, or control
of the concept application is giving such
term its operational definition.
 Deductive approach goes from bigger
ideas such as theories or concepts to
smaller ideas; conversely, inductive
approach starts from smaller and
simplest ideas to bigger or more
complex ones.
 Inductively formulated research
questions focus on description of things
to prove an idea, or a system.
 Central to this approach are specific
details to prove the validity of a certain
theory or concept.
A. Using numbers 1 to 5, rank the following
chronologically:
1. ___ collecting data
___ formulating research questions
___ stating a research problem
___ being interested in something
___ analyzing data
2. ___ pre-test
___ population issue
___ post test
___ sampling process
___ treatment or intervention
B. Check the column that speaks of
the quality of the given quantitative
research problem. Accomplish the
last column, too.
Quantitative Research Researchable Non- Comments,
Problem researchable reasons,
reactions
1. What are the viewers’
thoughts and feelings
about the ending of the
movie?

2. What percentage of
the movie viewers find
the ending tragic?

3. How many find the

movie unrealistic?
 Quantitative Research Researchabl Non- Comments,
e researchable reasons,
Problem
reactions
4. Does the movie reflect
Philippine culture?
5. What fractional
number represents the
extent of the movie’s
projection of Filipino
culture?
6. In the director’s attempt to
explain the cultural impact of
the movie, what reasons did he
give?
 Quantitative Research Researchabl Non- Comments,
e researchable reasons,
Problem
reactions
7. What kind of reasons or
causes did he give to clarify
the viewers’ questions on
Philippine culture in
relation to the movie?
8. In terms of frequency of
different causes given by
the director, in what rank
order is the reason on lack
of intercultural
competence?
 Quantitative Research Researchabl Non- Comments,
e researchable reasons,
Problem
reactions

9. How many causes are

attributed to globalization?

10. What value system of

the director did the movie
reflect?
Think of research topic to be a
subject of your research work.