How to prepare your research methodology?

[Alyssa024]

I am doing my research on “Employability skills required by young graduates for improved productivity and employment growth”. I am preparing my proposal and the third phase of my proposal is to prepare my research methodology. And this is where I have hit the rock! I simply DON’T KNOW! How should I select a research approach, inductive or deductive, positivism or interpretivism? Which research method would be best suitable, qualitative or quantitative or mixed? Then comes the research design, descriptive, explanatory, exploratory, causal! There are so many of them! I may understand their meaning but what should I choose, which method will best fit with which design? That’s the most tricky part! My guide tells me to do it on my own, read earlier researches and formulate a research plan. He makes it sound like it’s a piece of cake! But it’s not! I need to make a plan and I need help!

[Austin Buzacott]

Hey, why don’t you try reading the Sage Handbook? It comprises of everything, definitions and explanations of all the research methods and approaches, when to use which methods and which design is best suitable for different types of researches.

[ChloeBracker]

I echo the comment above. Sage handbook is really helpful. I used it as a reference too, all the methods are clearly explained with examples. And Alyssa024, why don’t you ask your supervisor if you can change your methods during the data collection methods? In my case, I could. If that’s same with you, then you can relax cuz you have an option of changing!

[Alyssa024]

Yeah, I can change my methods if they aren’t feasible during the data collection and analysis phase. I found a sage handbook and it’s quite helpful. I think I’ll go with the descriptive research design with positivism as the research approach.

As I have searched, quantitative research goes with positivism but I think that to really understand the employability skills required by the industries, I should conduct qualitative interviews with the HR teams. So, can I use qualitative questionnaire including quantitative questions also. Will it be considered as positivism?

[Austin Buzacott]

Which method you want to choose depends upon your research questions. What do you think is the best possible way to answer them? Questions such as ‘how can the companies impart employability skills among students?’ can be best answered by gathering opinions of the companies which is possible through open-ended questions i.e., qualitative. On the other hand, question such as ‘what is the relationship between employability skills and employability growth?’ can be answered by using quantitative method. So, study your questions carefully and then decide.

And as for your question, you can include both, qualitative and quantitative questions in one questionnaire and name it as mixed methods. And yes, positivism can comprise of both the methods. If you need more clarifications, visit your college library and ask the librarian’s help.

[Alyssa024]

Thanks a lot AustinBuzacott, that was quite helpful. My research questions are both starting with ‘what’ and ‘how’ and the main aim is to find the skills that companies search in final year graduates. So, I think mixed methods will be the most suitable approach.

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