Objectives
Our key objective within this first main chapter is to explore what we mean by research, including the different perspectives that can be adopted when thinking about research and the different research designs, strategies and methods we can choose to employ.
Key Points
Research is a structured and methodological process of investigation through which we endeavour to understand some aspect of the world around us, and the things within it.
The way in which we approach the process of research, however, should be informed and guided by: (i) what we are seeking to investigate, and (ii) what the field and practice of research offers us in terms of robust and appropriate ways to investigate that which we are interested in.
This is a good discussion of the different research paradigms. The clip is a little over 5 minutes long and that there are some different terms used from those used by Creswell. Nevertheless, they broadly fit with Creswell’s worldviews. The power point slides that accompany it are good.
While this is a useful resource, it is a little ‘challenging’ in that the voices are highly artificial and not easy to listen to. The site also has some useful exercises and MCQs but you’ll need to register with TEDed and log in. There is a good debate between the characters in this resource about the relative merits or otherwise of qualitative and quantitative approaches.