J380 Research Methods

Students will be required to complete a research paper of a quality for submission to review for publication. The paper should derive from an implementation of the research proposal previously submitted. The research paper should include:

 

1) An Introduction, where you  present you research objectives and the rationale for the study,

 

2) a Review of Literature, where you present analysis and critique of related literatures;

 

3) Methodology, where you discuss the following: Setting, Population, Sample and Sampling procedure, Design and Instrumentation, and Data Analysis;

 

4) Results, where you present your findings backed by statistics;

 

5) and Discussion, where you analyze the implications of your results (i.e. discuss its social significance) and provide a plausible explanation for your most important results (You can include limitations here or in methodology). 

Methodology

A Research design is the organization of circumstances for data gathering in a way that is applicable the aim of the study. (Creswell, 2013). This also includes testing the hypothesis as well as answering the question at hand. It is used extensively and widely to describe attitudes, behaviors, values, and characteristics. This study adopted a descriptive research design which aimed at ascertaining whether people in the Indian Society preferred love marriages or arranged marriages.

Target Population

Neuman, & Robson (2014) defines target population as the widespread research of all the subjects of the actual area of interest, occasions or purposes to which a researcher desires to generalize the outcomes. This survey was carried out in two different states in India to get diverse socio-cultural and geographic setting and not to be biased in the data collection from a specific state. This includes Maharashtra and Bihar. The target population was 1000 people. The population target was not achieved because not all turned out for the interview and some questionnaires were misplaced or wrongly answered by the respondents.

Sampling Design and Procedure

A sample is a small number of elements that are selected to represent the entire population size (Christensen et al., 2011). Stratified Random sampling was used because the team was heterogeneous and the researcher wanted equal participation. The sample size was 500 and was arrived at using the stratified method with the strata being divided with the population in each level. However, 350 responses were analyzed after checking for validity and reliability. The total number of respondents from the two states was 350 which included 50 unmarried men of age 16 to 30, 110 married men of age 20 to 35 and 40 unmarried women age 16 to 30 and 150 married women of age 20 to 35

Data collection

During the data collection, both primary and secondary sources were employed. In primary first semi-structured questionnaires were used. They were circulated to different people, randomly selected from the sample to reduce subjectivity as well as minimize the systematic error and give respondents ample and private time to answer the questions (Time, 2012) freely. Also, interviews were carried out on some illiterate respondents. For the secondary sources of data, it was obtained from textbooks, journals, online articles and related case studies, bulletin and even magazines.

Data analysis

This research used quantitative method for data analysis. The data collected was edited correctly, recorded, coded and grouped about the degree of relationship among the variables Bernard (2011). After coding, it was analyzed using Statistical Program for Social Sciences (SPSS). The information was then presented using bar charts, pie charts, graphs for graphic presentation as well as frequency distribution tables and means.

References

Bernard, H. R. (2011). Research methods in anthropology: Qualitative and quantitative

approaches. Rowman Altamira. Accessed on 11 October 2017.https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e145/acdc9b70f0052326502db5f1692d64b44f80.pdf 

Christensen, L. B., Johnson, B., Turner, L. A., & Christensen, L. B. (2011). Research

methods, design, and analysis.

Creswell, J. W. (2013). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods

approaches. Sage publications.

Neuman, W. L., & Robson, K. (2014). Basics of social research. Pearson Canada.

Time, C. (2012). Data Collection Methods. Review of Sociology, 17, 225-249. Accessed on

11 October 2017. http://si.isr.umich.edu/sites/default/files/SURV%20623%20Summer%2016_tentative.pdf