Research process: Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches

Stages of the research process are as follows:

1. Select the topic

2. Determine the paradigm (positivism or interpretivism)

3. Determine the focus of the study.

4. Draft a research title

5. Make sure if the topic is researchable

6. Formulate the background of the study 

7. Formulate the research question(s)

8. Formulating theoretical perspective

1. Select The Topic

Research process requires a sequence of steps. The first step is selecting a topic, that is a general area of study or issue (i.e. divorce, crime, education, laws, management, language use, homelessness, etc). The selection of the topic is based on the program of the study, the area of the disciplines, the personal interest, the practical,   theoretical contribution, and the  institutional contributions).

2. Determine The Paradigm (positivism or interpretivism)

Selecting research paradigms is the next step. Paradigm helps us understand phenomena: it advances assumptions about social world, how science should be conducted, and what constitutes legitimate problems, solutions, and criteria of “proof” (Firestone, 1978; Gioia & Pitre, 1990; Kuhn, 1970; in Cresswell, 1994: 1). Paradigm encompasses both theories and methods.

Different paradigm determines different ontological, epistemological, axiological, rhetorical and methodological assumption.

Positivism is designed to be consistent with the assumption of QUANTITATIVE STUDY which is termed as:

1. the traditional,

2. the positivist,

3. the experimental,

4. the empiricist paradigm.

The quantitative thinkings come from an empiricist tradition established by such philoshopers as Comte, Mill, Durkheim, Newton, and Locke (Creswell, 1994: 4).

This study is defined to explain variables, to test theory or to determine   whether a certain predictive theory holds true or not (as done in surveys of which objective is to examine the relationships between two or more variables; or in experiments of which objective is to compare two or more different objects).

Quantitative study is based on testing theory composed of variables, measured with numbers, and analyzed with statistical procedures.

Interpretivism is designed to be consistent with the assumption of  QUALITATIVE STUDY which is termed as:

1. the constructivist or naturalistic approach (Lincoln & Guba, 1985),

2. the interpretive approach (J. Smith, 1983)

3. the post-positivist  or postmodern perspective (Quantz, 1992).

This study is defined  to understand a particular social or human problem, situation, events, role, group, or interaction, based on building a complex, holistic picture, formed with words, reporting detailed views of informants, and conducted in a natural setting (as done in ethnography, case studies, grounded theory, and phenomenology).

Besides, it is an investigative process where the researcher gradually makes sense of a social phenomenon by:

1. contrasting,

2. comparing,

3. replicating,

4. cataloguing, and

5. classifying the objects of the study.