Research Methods Quick Guide

An Overview of Methods of Research for Midterm and Final Exam

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• Quantitative Research: is data-driven, objective, used in science experiments, surveys/ questionnaire, structured interviews, and observations, review of records or documents for numeric info

How to Design a Survey

1. Ask yourself the purpose of the survey? How will this fuel your research? What is the BIG IDEA? how does it connect to your research inquiry? What questions can you make a connection with your main objective? As you're looking for data you probably won't use open-ended questions. Likert questions may be more helpful (strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree,

2. Pinpoint target demographic (age, gender, economic), Who are your main subjects

3. Identify the number of respondents you need

4. Pick the right moment to conduct a survey

SurveyMonkey & GoogleForms

• Qualitative Research: subjective (values, feelings), field research, participant observation, interview (structured, semi-structured, focus groups, in-depth interviews) smaller numbers/targeted audience, historical-comparative research (reviews of documents for types of themes)

• Ethnography and Autoethnography, Participatory action research

• i.e. How do the people of London feel or look at Banksy's street art

• Small group interview, larger interview

• structured interview: a set of questions that are all the same semi-structured interview: organic interview go off of natural conversation

Case Study: How do people from four different major cities look or feel about Bansky's street art, information from several areas is one case study (multiple case study: cross country cultural comparisons)