How to Define Your Project

Before you start to think about your research, you need to ask yourself a few questions.

ASKING QUESTIONS

Why have I decided to do some research?

If the answer to this question is because you have been told to do so, either by your tutor or by your boss, you need to think about how you’re to remain motivated throughout your project. Research can be a long process and take up much of your time. It is important to stay interested in what you’re doing if you are to complete your project successfully. However, if you want to conduct some research because something has fascinated you, or you have identified a gap in the research literature, then you are lucky and should not have a problem with motivation.

How can I remain interested in my research?

The obvious answer to this is to choose a topic which interests you. Most of you do have this choice within the limitations of your subject – be creative and think about something which will fascinate you. However, if you have had the topic chosen for you, try to choose a research method which interests you.

How do I choose a research method?

As you go on to read this book you will become more familiar with the different methods and should be able to find something in which you are interested.

The following questions will help you to start to think about these issues:

- Did you enjoy mathematics at school? If so, perhaps you might be interested in delving deeper into statistical software or other types of data analysis?
- Have you ever taken part in a focus group or been interviewed by a market researcher? Would you find it interesting to conduct your own focus groups or interviews?
- Have you been fascinated by a particular group of people? Would you like to immerse yourself in their culture and learn more?
-Do you enjoy filling in questionnaires? Would you like to design your own questionnaire and perhaps conduct a postal or internet survey?

What personal characteristics do I have which might help me to complete my research?

Think about your personal characteristics, likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses when you’re planning your research.

The following questions will help you to do this:

- Are you good with people?
- Do you prefer written communication or face-to-face interaction?
- Do you love or loath mathematics and statistics?
- Do people feel at ease with you and are they willing to confide in you?
- Do you like to number crunch?
- Do you like to conduct research over the internet?

What skills and experience do I have which might help in my research?

If your research is to be employment based, the chances are you will have work experience which you’ll find useful when conducting your research project. This is valid experience and you should make the most of it when planning your research.

Even if your project is not employment based, all of you will have other skills and experience which will help. For example, if you have been a student for three years, you will have developed good literature search skills which will be very useful in the research process. Some of you may have developed committee skills, organisation skills and time management expertise. All of these will be extremely useful in your research.

It is important to think about your existing skills in relation to your proposed project as it will help you to think about whether your knowledge, experience and skills will help you to address the problem you have identified.

THINKING ABOUT YOUR PROJECT

Many research projects fail because people don’t take enough time to think about the issues involved before rushing to start the work. It is extremely important to spend time thinking about your project before you move on to the planning stage. Through careful thought you should stop yourself wasting time and energy on inappropriate methods as your research progresses. Consider the following example:

EXAMPLE 1: JAMES

James wanted to find out about students’ experiences of housing in his university town. He designed and sent out a questionnaire to 1,000 students. When the replies started to come in, he realised that the questionnaires weren’t generating the type of information in which he was interested. When he talked through his concerns with his tutor, it emerged that James was really interested in attitudes towards, and experiences of, rented accommodation. Instead, he was only finding out about how many students lived in private rented accommodation and whether they had had ‘good’ or ‘bad’ experiences. The questionnaire left him unable to delve deeper into what these experiences were, how students coped with them and how these experiences affected their attitude towards private rented accommodation. His questionnaire had been poorly designed and was not generating this type of information.

James had to scrap the questionnaire and construct another which he combined with a number of one-to-one interviews to get more in-depth information. He had spent three months designing and administering a questionnaire which had not produced the type of information he required. If he had spent more time thinking about the research, especially coming to terms with the difference between qualitative and quantitative research, he would have saved himself a lot of time and energy (see Chapter 2).

UNDERSTANDING THE FIVE ‘WS’

When you start to think about your research project, a useful way of remembering the important questions to ask is to think of the five ‘Ws’:

- What?
- Why?
- Who?
- Where?
- When?

Once you have thought about these five ‘Ws’ you can move on to think about how you are going to collect your data.

What?

What is your research? This quest ion needs to be answered as specifically as possible. One of the hardest parts in the early stages is to be able to define your project – so much research fails because the researcher has been unable to do this.

Why?

Why do you want to do the research? What is its purpose? Okay, you might have been told to do some research by your tutor or by your boss, but there should be another reason why you have chosen your particular subject. Reasons could include the following:

- You are interested in the topic.
- You have identified a gap in the literature.
- You want to obtain funding for a particular service or enterprise and you need to find out whether there is a demand for what you are proposing.
- You need to conduct some research to aid decision making.

Whatever your reason, think very carefully about why you are doing the research as this will affect your topic, the way you conduct the research and the way in which you report the results. You should consider the following points:

- If you’re conducting the research for a university dissertation or project, does your proposed research provide the opportunity to reach the required intellectual standard? Will your research generate enough material to write a dissertation of the required length? Will your research generate too much data that would be impossible to summarise into a report of the required length?
- If you’re conducting research for funding purposes, have you found out whether your proposed funding body requires the information to be presented in a specific format? If so, you need to plan your research in a way which will meet that format.

Speak to as many people as possible about your research, including tutors, fellow students, colleagues or friends. Tell them why you have chosen the project and ask them for their thoughts. This will help you to reflect upon, and develop, your own ideas.

Who?

Who will be your participants? (In this book, people who take part in research will be called participants or respondents, rather than ‘subjects’, which is a term that I have never liked.)

At this stage of the research process, you needn’t worry too much about exactly how many participants will take part in your research as this will be covered later (see Chapter 5). However, you should think about the type of people with whom you will need to get in touch and whether it will be possible for you to contact them. If you have to conduct your research within a particular time scale, there’s little point choosing a topic which would include people who are difficult or expensive to contact. Also, bear in mind that the internet now provides opportunities for contacting people cheaply, especially if you’re a student with free internet access.

Where?

Where are you going to conduct your research? Thinking about this question in geographical terms will help you to narrow down your research topic. Also, you need to think about the resources in terms of available budget and time. If you’re a student who will not receive travel expenses or any other out of pocket expenses, choose a location close to home, college or university. If you’re a member of a community group on a limited budget, only work in areas within walking distance which will cut down on travel expenses.

Also, you need to think about the venue. If you’re going to conduct interviews or focus groups, where will you hold them? Is there a room at your institution which would be free of charge, or are you going to conduct them in participants’ own homes? Would it be safe for you to do so? Would you be comfortable doing so?

If you’ve answered ‘no’ to either of these last two questions, maybe you need to think again about your research topic. In 20 years I have encountered only one uncomfortable situation in a stranger’s home. It can happen and you must never put yourself in a dangerous situation. Think very carefully about whether your chosen topic and method might have an influence on personal safety.

When?

When are you going to do your research? Thinking about this question will help you to sort out whether the research project you have proposed is possible within your time scale. It will also help you to think more about your participants, when you need to contact them and whether they will be available at that time. For example, if you want to go into schools and observe classroom practice, you wouldn’t choose to do this research during the summer holiday. It might sound obvious, but I have found some students present a well-written research proposal which, in practical terms, will not work because the participants will be unavailable during the proposed data collection stage.