Research
Methodology
Notes week 1-12
Chantal Matel
IBC, Faculty of Arts, Radboud University
,Research methodology
Week 1
Getting started: possibilities and decisions: key points
Research:
A systematic process of asking and answering questions, in our case about human communication.
Researchers specialize by:
- Interest area
- Research method(s)
Research methods reflect researchers’:
- Interest areas
- Assumptions about human communication
More detail: What is research?
A systematic process of:
- Posing questions
- Answering questions
- Demonstrating that your answers are valid
- Sharing your research results
What do communication researchers study?
Typically, one aspect of communication, such as:
- Social media 1
- Organizational or group communication
- Mass communication
- Interpersonal communication
- Rhetoric and persuasion
- Communication technology
- Health communication
- Nonverbal communication
- Intercultural communication
- Etc.
More detail: research methods reflect contestable assumptions about human communication
- Observations capture an underlying reality.
- Theories about human behaviour can be generalized.
- Researchers should distance themselves from research participants. (you shouldn’t involve
yourself in the research)
- Research should be done for a specific purpose.
- There is one best position form which to observe human behaviour.
These assumptions are related to major research decisions: theoretical, ethical, practical
- Field of study
o Wide or narrow?
- Researcher
o Dispassionate or involved?
- Approach
o Objective or subjective?
- Perspective
, o Your questions or participants’ answer?
- Sample
o Large or small?
- Reporting
o Objective or subjective?
- Data
o Qualitative or quantitative?
Quantitative → which you can count numbers
2
Qualitative → words not numbers
Some of the major approaches to communication research
- Empirical
Observe, measure form researcher’s perpecitve. – often quantitative
- Interpretive
Observe, interpret form participants’ perspectives. – often qualitative
- Critical theory
Ask whose interests are advanced by communication – assumption that communication
maintains and promotes power structures in society
PAGE 9-12 David Treadwell
, 3
Focus in this course mainly on:
- Empirical studies
- Narrow field of study
- Disappasionate researcher
Methodology
Notes week 1-12
Chantal Matel
IBC, Faculty of Arts, Radboud University
,Research methodology
Week 1
Getting started: possibilities and decisions: key points
Research:
A systematic process of asking and answering questions, in our case about human communication.
Researchers specialize by:
- Interest area
- Research method(s)
Research methods reflect researchers’:
- Interest areas
- Assumptions about human communication
More detail: What is research?
A systematic process of:
- Posing questions
- Answering questions
- Demonstrating that your answers are valid
- Sharing your research results
What do communication researchers study?
Typically, one aspect of communication, such as:
- Social media 1
- Organizational or group communication
- Mass communication
- Interpersonal communication
- Rhetoric and persuasion
- Communication technology
- Health communication
- Nonverbal communication
- Intercultural communication
- Etc.
More detail: research methods reflect contestable assumptions about human communication
- Observations capture an underlying reality.
- Theories about human behaviour can be generalized.
- Researchers should distance themselves from research participants. (you shouldn’t involve
yourself in the research)
- Research should be done for a specific purpose.
- There is one best position form which to observe human behaviour.
These assumptions are related to major research decisions: theoretical, ethical, practical
- Field of study
o Wide or narrow?
- Researcher
o Dispassionate or involved?
- Approach
o Objective or subjective?
- Perspective
, o Your questions or participants’ answer?
- Sample
o Large or small?
- Reporting
o Objective or subjective?
- Data
o Qualitative or quantitative?
Quantitative → which you can count numbers
2
Qualitative → words not numbers
Some of the major approaches to communication research
- Empirical
Observe, measure form researcher’s perpecitve. – often quantitative
- Interpretive
Observe, interpret form participants’ perspectives. – often qualitative
- Critical theory
Ask whose interests are advanced by communication – assumption that communication
maintains and promotes power structures in society
PAGE 9-12 David Treadwell
, 3
Focus in this course mainly on:
- Empirical studies
- Narrow field of study
- Disappasionate researcher
