Research Design

Thomas (1993) noted, “The object of research is to determine how things are as compared to how they might be” (p. 4). Research is also a disciplined inquiry approach to the study of the problems (Gay & Airasian, 2003). Therefore, research should be “a careful and systematic means of solving problems” (Tuckman, 1999, p. 4). Since there are different kinds of problems, different types of research are needed to solve these problems.

Research is usually divided into two broad categories: quantitative and qualitative research. In recent years, a third type of research, mixed methods research, has become very popular. Mixed methods research “employs data collection associated with forms of data for both quantitative and qualitative research” (Creswell, 2002, p. 208).

Quantitative research involves attaching numbers to relationships between variables (Hopkins, 2000). Quantitative research uses objective measurements and statistical analysis of data that is collected from a well-controlled setting. On the contrary, qualitative research is rooted in phenomenology. Qualitative research involves intensive narrative data collection in order to understand the way things are and to gain insights into how things got to be that way and how people feel about the way things are (Gay & Airasian, 2003). Qualitative data is collected in natural settings and “focuses on understanding social phenomena from the perspective of the human participants in the study” (Ary, Jacobs, & Razavieh, 2002, p. 22). Usually, qualitative research is for generating theory while quantitative research focuses on testing theory (Ary, et al., 2002).