How to Start Research: Topics, Gaps, Methods, and Tools (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Good morning, everyone. Good afternoon, everyone. Let me see. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, everyone. Good afternoon. Good evening. Good morning, everyone. Good evening, everyone. If you can hear me, if you can hear me, can you say yes? Type yes so that we can start. Where are you located? Are you in Nigeria? Anthony, good evening. Yes, Ibrahim, Nigeria. Oh, Ibrahim, you want to find out how do you want to let me turn off the music. OK, so how can I get questionnaire? You know, in terms of getting questionnaire, you just have to look into the existing literature. So you have to go online and get some articles related to your topic. And then you'll be able to identify some, you know, instrument that you can use to conduct your study. If you are doing quantitative study, if you are doing a qualitative study, you just have to develop interview questions that will help you to collect rich information from participants to address your research question that you have. Right. So any other questions? So today I'm just going to talk about getting started with your research. And I think yesterday I posted something about, you know, 10 things that you have to think about. You have to think about your topic. Right. Research always start with a topic. Right. What are you interested in? Then you have to find out what is why am I doing this research? What is the reason? What is the rationale? What are the significance of doing this research? And then you think about the specific problem that you want to address in your study. Right. Without identifying a problem, you cannot do research. You are doing research to identify to address a specific problem that you have identified. The problem can be practical, something that you have seen, experienced, but you also can go into the literature and find out what has been done concerning the issue so that we can identify a research problem. A research problem is like a gap in a study, something that has not been done that you want to do research to address or to fill that gap. Right. So Sammy is asking me, how do I analyze coded qualitative data? So you want to find out how you want to analyze your qualitative data. It's very simple. You know, you always have to think about first you have to choose the specific data analysis strategy that you have to use. Right. We have content analysis. We have thematic analysis. We have constant comparative analysis. So you have to first choose a specific data analysis strategy that will be helpful for you to analyze your data. Most of the time, you know, students choose thematic analysis because what you're doing is that with the research question in mind. Right. You are going through the transcript and identify significant information and then you'll be able to assign labels to those significant information. Right. You assign labels. Labels will be code. Right. Code is just a phrase representing the significant information that you have identified in the data. So it's like, what are participants saying? Is that information helping you to address your research question? Then if it's helping you, can I develop a phrase that's the code to help me to address my research question? So you end up developing a lot of codes and then you have to categorize and then develop things. So there are a lot of ways of analyzing the data, but there's one way, which is a thematic analysis. Right. So if you want more information, you can email me. I can send you some information. Let me put my email address here. And I have a lot of presentation on qualitative analysis. If you go to YouTube and set my name, you'll be able to get a lot of information concerning qualitative analysis. And you can also analyze it manually. Right. Or using a software. So we have free software that you could use too. Right. Question. Please, what is the difference between theoretical frameworks and conceptual framework? Okay. You know, look at the name. Theoretical framework. Right. Most of the time, theoretical framework means that you are identifying a specific theory related to your topic. Right. And then analyzing it and showing how the theory is connected to your study and how it's going to inform your study. Theoretical framework. Normally, when you are doing a quantitative study, you identify a specific theory that has a lot of concepts and then you try to talk about it and try to use those concepts as a way to inform the variables that you want to measure and find out maybe whether there's a relationship between them. Right. Conceptual framework, you are identifying specific concepts related to your topic and trying to discuss how they are related. You can also identify a model and then use those model and concepts to develop a structure that informs your study, informs your research question, informs your the kind of questions that you're going to ask participants, inform the way that you analyze your data. So that's all about conceptual framework. Some researchers use conceptual framework, theoretical framework interchangeably. The most important thing that you have to think about is what specific theory or concepts or model is related to your topic that you could use to inform your study. Right. Any other question. If you want to come online and join me and ask questions, you can do that when you go to my Facebook page. I have a link there that you can click on and then come and ask me questions that you want to ask concerning research and I'll be happy to address them for you. So if you can go to my Facebook page. Let me see what I can get the link here for you. I think I have another link here. Let me share. So you can click on this link and come and have a let's have a discussion. Right. Let's have a discussion. Right. Are you having difficulty identifying the topic for your study? Are you having difficulty thinking about the rationale behind your research? Are you having difficulty identifying a problem that you are addressing your study, thinking about how to collect data, how to analyze, how to present your findings? What is the problem that you want to face? What's the problem that you are facing that you want me to help you to address? Husseini, I think you said your question is above. Let me see what I can find your question. Oh, okay. So your question is about please any software I can use to format my reference to APA 7 automatically. There are a couple of software online. You just have to search for it. Right. You go on Google. You Google. You can say free APA of free reference builder and you'll be able to get information how you can get a software to build. But another thing that you can think about. I've forgotten. There is a reference system that you could use where you can upload all your articles into the system and then you can you be able to generate APA reference list. First, let me see what I can find that it is Zotero. I'm checking online to see whether I can find that for you. Zotero. So let me, I think, and I think it's free to use. So let me put in the chat box. So this one, you can upload all your articles in the system and then you'll be able to Yes, you'll be able to generate references. Right. Whether you want it in APA or you want it in any other format. Right. Yeah. Mandali is also one of them that you could use. Right. So you could use this one too. Right. So So somebody's asking is what is the difference between regression analysis and ANOVA. Okay, so let me give you a little bit of my background so that you understand my expertise. So my focus is more of qualitative studies. Right. Qualitative methods. So I have a limited understanding of statistics, but I can give you some basic information about statistics. But my expertise is more of qualitative research. So regression. Regression is all about trying to predict something. Right. You want to identify a variable or a group of variable that can predict a specific outcome. Right. So what kind of specific variable like independent variables that can predict an outcome variable or dependent variable. So one example is can anxiety level predict the exam scores. Right. So in this case, you can use regression to find out the predictive power of anxiety. So how much anxiety can explain the variability in the exam score. Right. ANOVA is more of trying to find out whether more than one group, more than one independent variable have an effect on the dependent variable. Right. So if you want to use t-test you have one independent variable with two groups. Right. Affecting the dependent variable. ANOVA is all about if you have more than one independent variable or if you have one independent independent variable with more than two groups, then you can use ANOVA. Right. And you can, you know, when you go to YouTube and type that what's the difference between these two concepts or statistical analysis, you can get more information. Right. Yes, you are right. So Zotero is free. But, you know, if you It has a limit. Right. If you want to go beyond that, you have to pay. Right. So thank you. I hope I've mentioned your name. Right. And also, you know, if you have any question and you want to speak, you can join me. I put a link there so that we can have a discussion. Any question for me. Anything that you want to know. So, Let me, let me give you a little bit about what I do. Right. I think that will help you to know how I can help you. So I am a methodology experts at a center for research. Method consulting. So what we do is we help Students and also clients to Concentrate on do their research in terms of helping them to come up with their research question, how to collect data, how to analyze, how to present their findings, especially if they are doing a qualitative research or program evaluation action research, we are there to provide support. So we provide consultation. You meet and ask one-on-one, and then we can address all the questions that you have. Let's say you have your data, qualitative data you want to analyze. You don't know what to do. You can contact us, and then we'd be happy to, you know, provide all the needed support. Besides that, we have online courses there that if you want to gain skills in qualitative research, research methodologies, not mixed-method research, and other related qualitative issues, you know, you can take some of our courses. That will be very helpful for you. I also organize webinars to help a group of clients to learn about a specific skill. Let's say if you want to know more about how to use a specific qualitative software, I can provide that information. I can do a webinar and provide all the needed information that you need for you to be successful in analyzing your qualitative data. So I also have, you know, a Facebook page that I share resources, so you can also join me or go to the Facebook page, and then you can access all the resources that you have. So I have Anita here. Let me see whether she can. Hello, Anita. What are you doing? I cannot hear you. Maybe you have to unmute yourself. I'm not hearing you. Oh, maybe it's, I think it might be my side here. Let me check. Let me check. Can you all hear Anita? Anita, can you speak and see whether they can hear you? Maybe it's only me that. If you can hear her, can you type yes? If you cannot hear her, can you type no? So that I can see whether it's from my side. Um, oh, OK. They said they cannot hear you. So I think it might be from your side. I don't know why. Let me see. Let me, um, let me go here and change my audio to a different one and see whether it's open. OK. So can you speak again? Yeah, I think it's from your side. So, um, very sorry. Oh, I think somebody said, OK, so they cannot hear you. So, um, yes, if you can check your side and come back again, that would be great. Any other question? Let me see here. Let me go back. Yes, and also you can, you know, you can share your, whether you're doing a research, what research are you doing? What kind of approach are you using? What are your difficulties? Yes, you can share here and then I'll be happy to address any concern that you have. So let me put the link to join me again here in case you want to join me. Oh, there's a question here. Somebody's asking, how do you use narrative analysis? What is the difference between narrative studies and also normal qualitative studies? OK, so narrative analysis is normally used, you know, narrative is all about stories, right? You are trying to tell a story, right? So this means that you first have to collect stories from participants, right? You, maybe they have passed through some experience and then they want to share that information with you. So collecting their stories, then you have to analyze. So this is where the narrative analysis comes in, where you are trying as much as possible to, you know, you know how a story is told, right? You have the beginning, the end, the beginning, the end of the story, right? You know how a story is told, right? You have the beginning, the middle, and also the end. And also you have the setting, you have the actors, you have the characters, right? So the same thing, when you are going through participant responses, you are trying as much as possible to be able to identify all these elements of a story so that at the end of the day, you can tell the story that reflects the overall, that is like an overall story that reflects the individual stories that you have. I have an article on that. If you email me, I can send you that information. It's very, so narrative study is part of qualitative study, right? But also the difference is that, you know, narrative means that it's about stories, right? You are trying to tell stories. It's very different from other approaches like phenomenological approach, where you are capturing participant experience and trying to make sense of their experience, right? And it's also different from granite theory, where you want to develop a theory based on the data that you have, right, to explain a process. So that's the basic information that I can give you. But if you want more information, you can contact me. Anita, I think you came and then I was, if you can come back again, that would be great. Okay, so there's a question here. Naomi is asking how can you identify a theory that fits your study? You see, you just have to go into the literature, right? And then you, there might be, if you are focusing on learning, like there are a lot of learning theories that you can identify and then you choose the one that fits, that explain better, right, concerning what you are focusing on, right? Maybe the one that you're going to identify might not be perfect. You may have to also think about identifying more than one theory. Maybe a theory can explain one aspect of your study or your topic and another theory can explain another aspect. So it's all about going into the literature based on your topic, looking at the conversation that is happening, looking at the theories that the researchers are using, then you can identify one that you think that best fits, right? So it's all about searching into the literature. And you always have to ask yourself, how is this theory related to my topic, right? If it's not related, then you don't have to use that theory. You have to look for another one. You can borrow a theory from another field to help you to make sense of your data. So it's sometimes challenging, but you just have to go look into the literature. If you don't find a theory, you may find a model, right? So a model is just a group of concepts that have been put together to explain something, right? So you may not identify a specific theory that can explain your focus. You can also look into a model. Another thing is that if you don't find a theory or a model, you can think about concepts, right? Looking around and it's like looking for pieces of a puzzle and bringing all the pieces together to form the image that the piece can help you to form, right? So looking around, identifying concepts and bringing them together, right? So it takes time, but you just have to look into the literature and see and identify one that best fits your study. There's no WhatsApp group. The group that I'm trying to think about doing, we call it Research Mindset Group. If you want to join, let me go and look for the link and send you. Let me see what I can share my screen so that you can see what I'm doing. Share screen. Let me select maybe screen one. Oh, I think it's not all that clear. Okay. So let me share screen two and see. Let me pull this one. Okay, so I have a group. We call it Research Mindset Group. I don't know whether you can see, right? So Research Mindset Membership, right? It's a membership where you join and then, you know, it's $10.99 a month, right? So if you can afford, you can join this group and then we can. So what we do is that I provide you all the resources that you need concerning research. We have a discussion, especially if you are doing a qualitative research or program evaluation or action research, you can join or you are working on your dissertation, you can join, and then I'll be meeting you as a group and then addressing all the questions that you have. So if you are interested, you can join. But if you cannot afford, no worry, you can follow me on LinkedIn, follow my page. I always share resources. I share videos. You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel, right? That will also help you to gain knowledge. Now, what I always say is that now there's so much information out there, right? And you don't have to pay for that information. You just have to have time to look for the information. But if you want the easier way, then you have to pay somebody to help you to reach your destination on time instead of spending a lot of time looking for information that you need, right? So it's all about you and managing your time and getting the information that we need, right, to be able to be successful. Okay, so any other questions? If not, we are getting close at ending this live. If you have any questions, let me know. Okay, somebody wants my LinkedIn page link. Let me put it here. Let me look for that and share that information. So there's my LinkedIn information. So any other questions? I wish at least one of you will come and have a discussion with me. That would be wonderful because I just want to at least help somebody today in terms of understanding his or her study. So let me, again, put the link here if you're concerned in joining me. Let me hear from you, right? You don't have to have a perfect topic. I just want to listen to your thinking in terms of what you want to study, how are you going about the study, what problem that you want to address, how you're going to collect data and analyze. I just want to understand your process so that I can help to explain to you what you can do to improve, right? Okay, a question is asking, please, how do we critique a research article? Okay, so I think that, first of all, if you want to have a good article, you have to have an article that is peer-reviewed, right? It's reviewed by a group of researchers in terms of the quality, right? So if you want to critique an article, first of all, you should have a checklist, right? So when I'm looking at an article, these are the things I'm looking for. What was the topic, right? And what is the problem that the article or the study did, right? What was the problem that they identified that they did research to address, right? So first, have a checklist. What is the topic? What is the problem? What is the purpose? What is the significance of the study? What is the research question? If it's a quantitative study, what are the hypotheses that they want to test or they tested? What research approach do they use? How did they collect data? Where did they collect the data from? How did they analyze the data? How did they present their findings? And then how do they discuss their findings, interpret their findings, and link it to the literature that they provide to you or the conceptual or theoretical framework, right? What are their recommendations, right? First, you should have a checklist. You go through, check everything. Does this article have all these elements in it? Then if they have all the elements, you move on to consistency, right? Is the topic consistent with the problem? Is the problem consistent with the purpose of the study? Based on the purpose and the research question, looking at an approach, is the approach the best approach, right? What about the participant? Were they the best people that they have to collect data from, right? So you are looking into the consistency and also the information, the quality of the information that they are presenting. Then you look into the quality assurance, right? So if it's a qualitative study, you are looking into credibility, transferability, dependability, confirmability, right? All these are ways of ensuring the quality of the study. Did they do member checking and other things that, you know, I don't have time to explain everything. If it was a qualitative, quantitative study, what about validity? What about reliability? What about the validity of the instrument? Was the instrument validated before the instrument was used to measure the variables, right? So these are the questions that you can ask yourself to be able to determine whether this article is a good article or a good study, right? So these are the things that you have to look into. Okay. So I think that any other question, if not, we will end here. And one day I will come and have more discussion. Maybe I'll, you know, bring a topic that all of you may be interested in and that we have a discussion, right? Another way is to, one day I was also thinking about showing you how I do my consultation, right? By somebody coming and joining me in here, and then I ask them questions. And also based on their responses, I provide all their needed support and also answer all the questions that they have, right, for you to understand the process, right? In the comments section on my page, people are talking about they want me to be their mentor, right? You could be part of my research mindset group. I can provide you direct support. I can provide you consultation. If you can, you know, contact me, we meet and have a discussion and identify a specific problem that you want me to address, I can provide you all the needed service, right? You can also look at all the resources that I provide to you so that you will learn and gain the needed skills, right? I have provided support to a lot of people for the past 10 years, so it takes time to build that expertise, right? But always there's a first step, right? If you want to be a methodology expert like me, we can meet, and I can give you all the information that you need to be able to be successful, but as I always tell you, it takes time to reach your destination, but you have to take the first step, right? You have to think about all the steps that you have to take, all the resources that you need, all the needed skills that you will be able to get to be able to be successful, right, in life. Life is all about being determined and working hard to be able to accomplish your goal, and in terms of research, I'm here to help you to reach your goal, right? So thank you for... Ibrahim is asking, I need your... Okay, so he wants me to recommend a good research book. You can... Chris Wall's book is very good, so let me go to Amazon and send you the link, especially if you want to learn about qualitative research. So let me send you this link. So this is the book that I used to... You know, I first used to understand qualitative research, so if you want to know more about qualitative research, this is the best book for you. If you want to learn more about how to analyze your data, qualitative data, my book will be also helpful for you, so let me put my book there. A Step-by-Step Guide to Qualitative Coding. That will be very helpful for you if you want to get a basic understanding of how and a practical way of analyzing the qualitative data. If you want to learn about phenomenological approach, our book will be also helpful for you. If you want to do research and gather people's experience about a phenomenon, this book will be very helpful for you. So that's what I have for now. Okay, somebody has a question. I have a question, please. How can I make a good research? So a good research is all about a research that is solving a specific problem, right? So as I said, you have your topic of interest. You have to think about, okay, what is a specific problem that I want to address, right? And then you think about the purpose of the study. So the problem that you want to address should be consistent with the purpose of the study, right? So if the problem is there's a lack of studies about this issue, your study could be focusing on exploring that issue to add knowledge to existing gap, right, or to fill the existing gap. A good research is all about choosing the right research tool, right, research methodology, to help you to collect rich information from participants and analyze and address your research question. A good research is a research that the researcher is transparent in terms of how they conducted their research, right? You want to show the process, the decision that you made, how you collected your data, how you analyzed and the presentation of the findings, the consistency, how it makes sense of your findings. That is what I see about a good research, right? A good research is a research that is adding to the existing knowledge, body of knowledge, right? I hope I've addressed your question. So I want to end. Oh, there's another question here. So can one use granite theory methodology with mixed method research? Yes, because mixed method research is combining two methodologies, right, qualitative and quantitative. So the qualitative portion could be a granite theory methodology, right, and quantitative portion could be any of the quantitative research methods, right? Yes, so you'd be able to combine. But the most important thing is that you have to make sure that you are addressing your research question. Do you think that using granite theory will address your qualitative research question, right? Granite theory is used when you want to develop a theory to explain a process, a behavior or an event or a situation. So if you think that's what you want to do, then granite theory will be the best for you. Okay, so somebody is asking how does one know he or she is using the right research method for a particular research question on a problem? That is a little bit challenging, but this is what you have to think about, right? The research tool that you have identified, right, it has a function, right? So let's say if you identify, you know of phenomenology, what is phenomenological approach used? It's used when participant has passed through some experience and you want them to talk about the experience or give you information about their understanding of the experience. So first you have to know the functions of the research approach, the potential research approach. And also you have to know what exactly do you want to find out in your study. If you want to find out or explore participant experience of something, then phenomenological approach will be the best. You see, analyzing the function of the research method and also making sure that it's consistent with the purpose of the study, what exactly you want to find out in a study and the research question that you want to address, that's how you identify the right research approach, right? So imagine that you have no knowledge about the existing research approach. You might not be able to use, choose the right approach for your study, right? So you always have to be knowledgeable. You have your toolbox of research, right? Research box. And then within the toolbox, you have a lot of knowledge about maybe five or six or 10 of the research approach, right? Then when you have the purpose of the study, you think about, okay, based on my purpose, which of these approach will be the best? Oh, I'm focusing on trying to understand a group of people who have experienced something in a particular time at a particular location. Oh, I think case study will be the best because case study is all about focusing on well-defined case to better understand the case or highlight the characteristics of the case. So in order to choose the right approach, learn more about your research approaches. And then when you learn more, you'll be able to know that, oh, I think this approach will be the best, right? But if you have limited knowledge about the existing research approach, then this is where the problem comes. You may choose the wrong one because you may choose the one that you are familiar with, right? Let's say you are familiar with qualitative approach and your study is more of a quantitative study, right? Because you are familiar with qualitative approach, you may choose the wrong one for your study. But if you are open-minded in terms of approach and then learn more about other approaches, you'll be able to know which one will be the best, right? So that's how you choose. And if you're having difficulties in choosing, if you are not sure, this is where my service come in. You contact me, we have a discussion, and we have to help you to address your problem. Or one day when I'm doing a live, I can invite you to come and then we have a discussion and then, yes, you will learn how to determine the right approach, right? Or you determine the right approach for your study. Okay, so there's a question. Hello, Doctor. Please, can one identify a research gap in an article and select a good research topic? Yes, you can do that, right? I always say that research is not always a linear process. Like, oh, I want to do research because I have an interesting topic. Then let me go and identify a problem. Then let me go and find a purpose. Sometimes you may not have a topic, but reading through the literature, you'll be able to identify a specific problem or a gap. Identifying the gap will help you to think about a specific topic that is consistent with the problem or the gap that you have identified, right? So research sometimes is not a linear process. Sometimes you may start with even the purpose of the study and then work back, right, the purpose. So this is my purpose of the study. What will be the problem that this purpose can, you know, help to address the problem that you're having? Then based on that, you can, you know, be able to identify the problem and then you think about a topic. So, yes, when you look at the literature and read, you'll be able to identify a gap, and that gap will help you to identify a very good research topic. Okay, so I think that we can end here. So thank you so much for your time, and I might do more live so that I will help you to be able to do your research in a stress-free manner and contribute to the body of knowledge, right? So thank you so much for your time, and we will meet another time. So thank you. Thank you. You're welcome, Ibrahim. You're welcome, Eugene. Thank you for coming. I really appreciate your time. Linux, yes, you'll be able to identify a gap. So there are multiple ways of identifying gaps. So we have, let me turn off the music. Yes, so in terms of a gap, we have methodology gap, right? The methodology gap is where the topic has been studied, but most of the studies focus on maybe qualitative or quantitative, right? And then because of that, you want to, maybe you can say that not a lot of qualitative study have been done related to this topic. So I don't want to do research to see how the findings will look like if we use a qualitative approach, right? So that is the methodology gap. And we also have population gap. So population gap is where the research has been done in a specific population, but not other population that you are interested in, right? So you want to do research to the same research, but in a different population. So that's where you are filling a population gap. We have empirical evidence gap where there's a lot of researchers that have discussed the specific topic, but there's limited study on the topic. So you want to do a study and then collect empirical data to help you to better understand what is going on with that topic, right? So that can be also used. So there are a lot of gaps, research gap that you want to focus on. I can send you, let me send you a quick, there's an article about research gaps that I can, let me search for it and give it to you right now so that you can get access to it. Research gaps. Okay, so this one will be helpful for you. So let me put it in the chat box so that you'll be able to learn about research gaps. I don't know when the class, so if you want to take, I have a lot of courses online. You can take them and that will be helpful for you. In terms of life, I don't know when I'm going to do another life, but you just follow my page. And when it's there, you will know when I'm doing my life. And since it's recorded, you can play back and learn more. Right, so. Okay, so if you don't have any questions, I'm ending the live. So thank you for your time. I really appreciate you being here. And then I look forward to helping you to be able to be successful in doing your research. So thank you.