Week 1: Introduction to Research and its Importance
In this reflective journal, I will be describing the knowledge that I gained from the 12-week course. Earlier, I have completed my assessment 1 and assessment 2 by focusing on the topic “Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Networks Usage in Business: A case of Wesfarmers limited, Australia”. Both of the earlier assessments were accomplished by gathering knowledge, ideas and concepts from the 12-week course. In this journal, I will highlight the ideas that were gathered in each of the weeks and the benefits that I will get in future, both in my professional and personal life.
Week 1
This was an introductory week where I came to know about a research and its importance for a study. I also came to know about the stages and phases of a research. it was understood that each of the chapters are interlinked with each other and there are various tools, techniques and methods for accomplishing a research. Based on the ideas, I thought of selecting my research topic and started gathering literature from secondary sources. I also understood the difference between literature review and research proposal, based on which I designed my methodology in assessment 2.
Week 2
In this week, I came to know about the various types of research methods and designs. The types of validity and alternative criteria that are required for both qualitative and quantitative methods were understood. I started getting the ideas of internal and external validity threats, comparative design, cross sectional design and other tools, which I never had any idea earlier. This week was extremely helpful for me as I was able to formulate my research aim, objectives and questions. I also got some brief ideas of research design, that helped me in preparing the assessment 2 proposal.
Week 3
In week 3, I started getting the idea of constructing a literature review. It was clear enough that based on the available secondary data, a literature review is prepared, which consists of theories, concepts, authors’ viewpoints and similar case ideas that would be necessary for developing my research literature review. Based on the ideas gained, I started preparing by literature review, assessment 1. I also came to know that some research limitations and gaps are to be identified based on which the research problem has be to be justified for proposal. Finally, I was able to create my research problem, research objectives, and research questions.
Week 4
By the end of 4th week, I gathered ideas of ethical considerations that are extremely required to be fulfilled while collecting data from the respondents, I came to know about the ethical issues, philosophies, dodging participant harm, privacy invasion, legal deliberations and ethical decision making. I got the ideas and ways of adhering to the ethical norms so that the sentiments of respondents are not hampered. Based on these ideas, I was able to design my research proposal data collection and sample selection and I had to comply with Data Protection Act.
Week 5
Week 2: Types of Research Methods and Designs
At the starting of this week, I understood that deeper research methods were to be analyzed and therefore I got certain ideas of qualitative research, where the data has to be collected from ground sources. I understood the difference between secondary data collection and qualitative source of data as the later method includes data collected from conversion analysis and documentary analysis, focus group, ethnography and qualitative interviewing. Moreover, I got the idea of trustworthiness and the importance of authenticity was understood, which depends on confirmability and authenticity, dependability, transferability and authenticity by credibility. Based on the idea gathered from this week, in was able to design my interview data collection procedure and the required respondents.
Week 6
The 6th week gave more details of qualitative research regarding the ways of data collection. I was able to understand that interview guide preparation, unstructured interviews, semi-structured interviews, question formulation and feminist approaches, which must be kept in mind before approaching any respondent. However, the ideas were extremely complicated as there were various forms of data collection and I barely got some idea of indexality and reflexivity that are required for conversion analysis. Therefore, I only selected semi-structured interviews for my research where there is least complication.
Week 7
Until now, I got the knowledge of qualitative data collection, however in this week I started getting the ideas of data collection. I came to know about the process of grounded theory, analytic induction and coding process. However, I failed to gather concrete knowledge of qualitative content analysis and document validation. Finally, I was confident enough that qualitative data is beneficial due to its tendency to produce huge datasets. Therefore, I thought of selecting analytic induction process for analyzing the interview responses.
Week 8
8th week gave the idea of quantitative data collection method. In this week, I came to know about the reliability, stability and validity of a research that is based on quantitative data. Moreover, it was clear that for collecting data through quantitative method, involves sample selection, who are mainly the respondents. Therefore, I got some brief idea of sampling such as non-probability sampling, probability sampling, sampling error, census and non-response. I was confident enough on the random sampling method, which I decided to select for my research proposal as it does not create any biasness and the most unfavorite data is collected.
Week 9
In this week, the most crucial methods of data collection were understood, which included questionnaire design and structured interview. I got some data collection ideas earlier in week 5 and 6, but now I understood telephonic interview and conducting structured interviews. Moreover, I came to about self-completion questionnaire, face-to-face interviews and the validity of response rates. Therefore, I decided to change my interview method to face-to-face interview by selecting five managers of Wesfarmers limited.
Week 10
Week 3: Constructing a Literature Review
10th week started describing the deeper methods of interviews such as content analysis, structured observation and structured interview. In this week I started understanding the drawbacks of the reliability and validity, probability sampling and survey method. By the end of this week, I collected enough idea of the various types of data collection procedures and the ways though which I would be able to reduce complexities and resource consumption. This week helped me the most in preparing my research methodology for research proposal as I was finally able to decide my research tools, techniques and methods.
Week 11
In the 11th week, I come some brief ideas of quantitative data analysis and secondary data analysis. Earlier I had the idea of collecting data from internet-based sources, however in this week I understood that importance of authentic data collection that can be collected only from scholarly based sources. Moreover, I understood that statistical data enriches the content and extends the scope of variable analysis. Therefore, I was able to understand that for my research business performance would be the dependent variable and social media usage would be the independent variable.
Week 12
12th week was the final section where I got the idea of mixed data collection technique. I understood that criticism and arguments that are related with multi variable strategy. By the completion of this final week, I came to know that the best suitable method for my research would be mixed method because both past records and current data can be collected through primary and secondary data. I designed my research by selecting both quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection, which would be later analyzed through statistical methods.
Conclusion
While concluding, I must say that this 12-week course has extremely helped me to gather ideas for accomplishing my research proposal as I was finally able to design the best suitable methodology. This experience will help me in future while working in any corporate sector. I can showcase myself as the data analysist in my professional career and help my organization to achieve competitive advantage by analyzing market data. On the other hand, in my personal life, if I decide to open my own business in future, even then also I can analyze the suitability, feasibility, adaptability and sustainability of my business my collecting data from market and analyze those by myself.
I must say that the main reason for accomplishing my assessment 1, literature review was to identify the scope of my research topic. I got the varying ideas of various authors and understood that their views were contradicting, due to which my research for Wesfarmers limited would be quite rational. Moreover, through completing my assessment 2, I got the ideas of methodology, data collection and data analysis that would be most suitable while accomplishing my final research program in future. Finally, I conclude that this 12-week leaning course gave me enormous ideas on research methodology tools, however in some of the weeks I failed to gather the best possible knowledge due to the complexity and varieties. However, I have successfully able to construct my research proposal, which will help me in my future course and program to complete my final business research.
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