diff --git a/modules/m73941/index.cnxml b/modules/m73941/index.cnxml index 3f81214..7765479 100644 --- a/modules/m73941/index.cnxml +++ b/modules/m73941/index.cnxml @@ -62,7 +62,7 @@
Criteria for Evaluating Research Designs Before examining the five designs, it will be helpful to consider how a researcher selects from among the various designs. Clearly, no one strategy or design is superior in all cases. Each has its place, depending upon the research goals and the constraints placed on the research. However, when choosing among the potential designs, researchers generally must consider several things. For example, does the design require that you specify hypotheses a priori? If you specify appropriate hypotheses and are able to confirm them, then you can predict behavior in organizations. As a manager, being able to predict behavior in advance allows you to intervene and make necessary changes to remedy problem situations. The ability to accurately predict behavior is clearly superior to simply being able to explain behavior after the fact. -Other factors to examine are the method of measurement and the degree of control to be used. Does the method of measurement use qualitative or quantitative measures? Although qualitative measures may be useful for generating future hypotheses, quantitative measures add more perceived rigor to results. Also, if you are interested in demonstrating casual relationships, it is necessary to have a high degree of control over the study variables. You must be able to manipulate the primary study variable to determine the results of this manipulation while at the same time keeping other potentially contaminating variables constant so they do not interfere in the results. +Other factors to examine are the method of measurement and the degree of control to be used. Does the method of measurement use qualitative or quantitative measures? Although qualitative measures may be useful for generating future hypotheses, quantitative measures add more perceived rigor to results. Also, if you are interested in demonstrating causal relationships, it is necessary to have a high degree of control over the study variables. You must be able to manipulate the primary study variable to determine the results of this manipulation while at the same time keeping other potentially contaminating variables constant so they do not interfere in the results. In addition, a researcher must know to what extent they can generalize the results from the study to apply to other organizations or situations. Results that are situation-specific are of little use to managers. External validity is of key importance. And, of course, in practical terms, how much is it going to cost to carry out the study and discover a solution? Cost can be measured in many ways, including time and money. The analysis of the previous five criteria provides insight concerning the overall level of rigor of the research design. The more rigorous the design, the more confidence one has in the results. This is because more rigorous designs typically employ more accurate measures or interventions and attempt to control for contaminating influences on study results. With this in mind, we can now consider various research designs.