The Researchers Toolkit: The Complete Guide to Practitioner Research

✍ Scribed by David Wilkinson, Dennis Dokter

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2023
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 179
• Edition: 2
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Designed for those undertaking research for the first time, this fully updated edition of The Researcher's Toolkit is a practical and accessible guide for all those partaking in small-scale research. Jargon-free and assuming no prior knowledge, it covers the entire research process, from defining a research topic or question through to its completion.

This second edition has been fully revised by a collaborating team with a wealth of knowledge and practical experience in research project work. Including activity boxes to highlight key concepts and short summary boxes to indicate fundamental elements of various research areas, the chapters cover

The importance of research and framing your research question and research ethics
Practical elements associated with planning and executing your research activity
The application of survey-based research methods and the value provided by social media as data collection devices
Deploying both quantitative and qualitative tools and techniques to analyse research data
Writing up your research work and preparing it for wider access and consumption
Examining the effect of your research work through assessing or measuring its impact
The Researcher’s Toolkit is a must-read guide for students and budding researchers as well as educators seeking to explain academic research and writing to their pupils. It will benefit anyone looking to complete a research project whether inside academia or beyond.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of figures
Preface
Chapter 1: Why research?: What to look out for and what to think of
The purpose of research
The focus of research
To expand knowledge in a discipline or area
To create impact
Traditions and methods
Underlying elements: Ontology, epistemology, methodology
Some examples of traditions: positivism, constructivism, pragmatism
Positivism
Constructivism
Pragmatism
Approaches to collecting data – methods and tools
Quantitative methods
Qualitative methods
Mixing quantitative and qualitative methods
Action research
Ethics of research
Consenting to participate (informed consent)
Voluntary participation
Anonymity
Confidentiality
Potential for harm
Accurate reporting
Summary
References
Chapter 2: Planning the research
Planning your research and the messy research journey
Stages in the process
Things to think about before you start
Resources
Amount of time available
Accessibility of research sample (your participants or respondents)
Framing your questions
Being realistic about what you can do
The hypothesis
Exploring the literature
Developing a strategy
An example research plan
A visual plan – the GANTT chart
Timing and planning
Collecting data
Analysing data
Drawing conclusions
Writing and submitting your report
Methodology
Ethics as part of your planning
Informed consent
Summary
References
Chapter 3: Collecting your data: Literature and other forms of data
The importance of data – finding out what is already out there
Collecting data through a literature review
Types of literature review
Literature review as a list
Literature review as a search
Literature review as a survey or scan
Literature review as a knowledge enhancer
Literature review as a steering instrument
Literature review as a report
Locating the literature
Developing a review strategy: search terms and lists
Selecting appropriate literature and maintaining literature notes
Aggregating literature material
Critically analysing the literature
Being aware of bias
Collecting other research data
Fundamental types – quantitative and qualitative
Which tools or instruments?
Experiment-based research
Survey-based research
Research interviews
Before the interview
Setting up the interview ‘space’
Conducting the interview
Focus group interviews
The focus group checklist
Observation as a data collection tool
Types of data collected: passive and contextualised
A note on using social media as data collection tools
Summary
References
Chapter 4: Analysing your data
Dealing with data
Coding and classifying data
Analysing qualitative data
Content analysis
Concept-driven and data-driven coding
Guides to help you code
Qualitative data analysis software
Narrative analysis
Digital narrative – digital storytelling
Discourse analysis
Critical Discourse Analysis
Grounded theory
Analysing quantitative data
Quantitative data analysis software
Descriptive tools and techniques
Describing data
The mode, the median, and the mean
Standard deviation
Associating data
Formula for correlating data
A note on inferential analysis
Statistical significance
Testing for significance
Presenting your data
Dealing with ever-increasing amounts of data – the role of data visualisation
Summary
References
Chapter 5: Writing it all up
Getting started: preparing your writing
Tips for getting started
An example for organising the write-up
Time management
Formatting and structuring your writing: an example
Preliminary part
Title
Abstract
List of contents
Lists of figures and tables
Preface
Acknowledgements
The main text
Introduction
Literature review
Methods
Results
Analysis and discussion
Conclusions and recommendations
The end matter
Fallacies (mistakes) to avoid when writing
Thinking about your audience when writing
Presenting your work to others
A note on ethics when writing up
Submitting your research report to others
Styling your report
Social media and publication
Storytelling
Visualising your data
Tone and voice
Summary
References
Chapter 6: Research impact
What is impact?
The development of impact
Examples of impact
Academia
Industry
Public sector
Society
Sharing impact (and research) findings with others
Different interpretations of impact
Co-production as impact
Example of co-production across the sectors
Assessing impact
Limitations of assessing impact
Dissemination
A dissemination identifier
Limitations to dissemination
Contextualising research impact (by using Merton’s norms)
Summary
References
Index