Respond to student’s post with significant comments that demonstrate critical thinking by asking additional questions or adding to the body of knowledge started. If you argue, controversial issues use a reference to support your argument that adds credibility to your position. Your response to your peers work should be engaging and informative with good substance. Your responses should contribute in a meaningful way to helping advance our knowledge of the topics the class explores.

All follow-up responses should require 250-300 words.

In Research Methods: The Basics, author Walliman describes research as finding out things you did not know, that others did not know, or “advancing the frontier of knowledge,” (Walliman pg 7, 2010).  According to this week’s lesson, in order to advance academic knowledge, scholarly research is conducted. In addition to advancing academic knowledge, scholarly research can also be conducted to challenge certain phenomena. While bias may still play a part in conducting scholarly research, due to peer review to determine accuracy, reliability, and validity, it is often more accurate than consumer research. On the other hand, consumer research usually has a set agenda and is often used to determine specific needs or attitudes (APUS, 2016). 

Freelance researcher Zarah agrees that developing knowledge is one of the purposes of research and adds informing actions or proving a theory as the other main purposes. In total, she lists seven reasons why research is important. Others include nourishment for the mind, as a tool to facilitate learning, and a way to find and seize opportunities (Zarah, 2018). In order to conduct research, it is important to understand research methods. Research methods help you reach conclusions by providing ways to collect and analyze the data you are researching (Walliman pg 7, 2010). 

In order to decide which research method is best to utilize, you need to decide the nature of your research project. After you have framed the nature of your research, you need to figure out how to obtain your data, which will inform which research method you use (Walliman pg 13, 2010). Understanding the different research methods will make your research more successful. Understanding the different research methods will also help decide which research methods are bad and therefore are likely to lead to a bad outcome (Greener, 2011).

Inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning are two methods that have been used to acquire knowledge throughout history. Inductive reasoning starts with an observation and the draws a conclusion from that observation. Generally speaking, this conclusion must be seen through a large amount of observations and if any observation does not support the conclusion, than it must be false. Deductive reasoning takes two premises and draws a conclusion from those premises through logical arguments. With deductive reasoning, you must make sure there are no assumptions that would cause your conclusion to be logically false (Walliman pg 17-19, 2010). Another research method that is used is the scientific method. The scientific method has become commonly used by researchers, of which there are seven basic characteristics or components. The seven components include empirical data that can be sensed or inferred, the data should be verifiable by other researchers, cumulative in nature from other research, self-correcting, deterministic, ethical, and statistically generalizable (Ellis, 2009).  

Finally, you need to evaluate your sources when conducting consumer research. When deciding to use articles or books in your research, you must consider hierarchy of evidence as described by Greener when he discusses research methods. This includes peer-reviewed articles all the way down to general online sources (Greener, 2011). 

References

Walliman, N. (2010). Research methods: The basics. November 2010. Abingdon, Oxon. Routledge. Taylor and Francis Group.

Research Methods in Social Sciences. (2016). Retrieved December 4, 2018 from https://edge.apus.edu/access/content/group/security-and-global-studies-common/Universal/SSGS/300/elf/lesson-1/elf_index.html

Zarah, L. (2018). 7 reasons why research is important. Owlcation: Academia. December 6, 2018. 

Greener, I. (2011). Reviewing what other people have said – or how can I tell if others’ research is any good. Designing social research: A guide for the bewildered. (pp 22-37). London, England. Sage Publications

Ellis, L, Hartley, R.D., & Walsh, A. (2009). Research methods in criminal justice and criminology: An interdisciplinary approach. Lanham, Maryland. Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. 15-19