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10 Types of Research Methodology That Work for Every Type of Researcher

Brook Abebe
Research Methodology
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Research methodology is how you decide where to focus your efforts for a specific type of research—for example, a quantitative study or a qualitative survey.

The goal of a research project is to gather the information that will aid you in accomplishing some specific objective. Whether you are a scientist looking for new ways to fight disease, or you’re a businessperson trying to find out which marketing strategies are most effective, you will find that the best research projects come from a combination of both quantitative and qualitative approaches. In this article, we’ll talk about the different types of research methodologies that work best for every type of researcher.

Type of research methodology

  1. Quantitative 

The Quantitative research method is the process of gathering and systematically analyzing data to produce a meaningful and consistent result. Quantitative research requires the use of quantitative methods (i.e. data collection techniques) to produce data and qualitative methods (i.e. interviews and surveys) to analyze that data and produce results. The quantitative type research methodology is more widely known as the scientific method.

The scientific method was developed by Francis Bacon, who published The Advancement of Learning in 1605. He said, “I will begin with experiments since these are the best evidence of truths.”

Quantitative research methods are used in the following situations:

Quantitative research can be used in many different areas. It is often used in social science, psychology, health, business, economics, education, political science, nursing, sociology, anthropology, and other disciplines.   

For example, in business research, Quantitative research methods allow businesses to make better decisions by gathering data, analyzing that data, and presenting it in a format that allows them to make informed decisions. They fall into three main categories: 1) primary research – gathering data through interviews or surveys 2) secondary research – collecting data from other sources 3) quantitative research methods – gathering data through statistical analysis

#Types reserach methodology: Quantitative

  1. Qualitative

Qualitative research methodology is based on the belief that a person’s perceptions and experiences can help us understand his or her motivations and values. There are several ways to conduct qualitative research, but all of them are grounded in the same premise—a person’s perception of a situation is the best guide to understanding the true meaning behind the behavior.

The majority of the data in qualitative studies are collected from people since the people’s responses to the questions are usually more honest and direct than the responses generated by quantitative methods. The goal of qualitative research is to understand what people think about a topic and how they feel about it, not necessarily what is true or false.

Qualitative research is most often used to understand the beliefs, attitudes, values, opinions, experiences, motives, needs, and behavior of people, groups, organizations, communities, or societies. This is done through direct observation (participant observation), interviews, focus groups, and other techniques.

#Types reserach methodology: Qualitative

  1. Narrative research methodology

A narrative research methodology is a qualitative approach to understanding human behavior. A narrative study is based on the stories people tell themselves and others. It’s all about the story you tell yourself and others about why something is the way it is.

People choose how to make sense of the world around them based on what they want to believe about it. Narrative research uses stories, images, video, audio, and even music to understand how people choose to see and live in the world around them.

Narrative research methods are the most popular because they’re easy to do and quick to implement. Because there are many different approaches to using them, the definition of narrative research can be hard to pin down.

Some people use the word narrative only for qualitative research, while others use it to describe all qualitative data collection methods. Regardless of how it’s defined, it’s a powerful research tool because it helps you learn the story of a product or service or a research object.

The reason we call this kind of research “narrative” research is that the questions asked and the answers received during the research process can be used to form a story that’s unique to your company, product, or service. Narrative research techniques often involve talking to people, which makes it a very useful tool for understanding customer behavior and needs.

#Types reserach methodology: narrative 

  1. Phenomenological Methodology

The Phenomenological Research methodology is a way of analyzing ideas, concepts, beliefs, and attitudes that was first proposed by Gustav Fechner and expanded upon by Carl Gustav Jung.

Fechner was a German psychologist who developed the term psychophysics, and Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist who developed analytical psychology and was considered the founder of depth psychology. Together, these two thinkers laid the foundation for the phenomenological approach to research, which is still used today.

“phenomenological” is a word that describes something that is seen, such as an experience, an emotion, or a memory. Phenomenological research studies these experiences.

Phenomenology is a philosophy and research methodology that focuses on “phenomena” or “appearances,”. Phenomenology’s approach is holistic, rather than reductionistic or analytical. It emphasizes that our experience is always filtered through consciousness and cognition. Phenomenology is a method of inquiry that explores conscious experiences but isn’t limited to the experience of a single individual. It is based on three primary assumptions:

  1. Consciousness is the highest level of being
  2. Experience must be considered to understand human existence
  3. Individual experience and language are the only valid means of communication

This research method is more applicable in idea-based research.

#Types reserach methodology: Phenomenological

  1. Action methodology

Action research is a research methodology used to observe, explore, and understand an existing practice or behavior through active participation in the activity being studied. While it may seem like a long-winded name for a simple concept, action research is a highly effective method of gaining a deep understanding of a complex problem or issue.

Action research is a qualitative method that uses real-life situations to learn about them. It’s a method that can be applied in any field of study, but it’s often used in education. When you conduct an action research project, you start with a problem or issue. The goal of the project is to find out what causes the problem, and then come up with a solution.

The goal of action research is to gain new insights about a topic. This means that you must have some kind of starting point when conducting the research. In other words, you need to have an idea of what you want to learn before you start. 

Action research is a great way to get new insight into a topic. The best part about this method is that it’s easy to apply. Due to this reason, action research methodology has been used by academics and students for many years to gain new insight into any field of study. Action research typically includes an iterative process.

During the initial stages of action research, the research team focuses on understanding the problem and finding a way to fix it. The final stage involves analyzing the data and deciding how to apply the findings to the problem. In practice, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to this research methodology.

#Types reserach methodology: Action

  1. Historical research methodology

Historical research can be defined as the study of human behavior using data collected from past events. Historical research helps us understand how individuals act in specific situations, as well as how they’ve acted in the past. This research method involves collecting data and analyzing patterns that lead to an understanding of how things have happened in the past. There are several ways to do historical research.

The most common type of historical research is primary source research, which involves the collection of data from the people who were involved in the events in question. Primary source research involves collecting data from individuals who were directly involved in past events. For example, if you’re researching the Vietnam War, you could interview a soldier who was in the war to find out more information about it.

You can also ask the soldier’s family members about what they remember of the war. In this case, you would be collecting data from two sources: the individual who was directly involved in the event and the individual who was affected by the event. If you’re doing primary source research, make sure you understand what each person has to offer you. You may also be able to collect data through secondary sources, which are not as accurate as primary source data. Secondary sources are usually documents written by historians or other researchers.

You can also use historical research methodology to understand the current trend and predict the future. For example, consider the following scenario: Suppose your company had no customers, but you wanted to create a new product line. The next step would be to research the market for your product. That means you’d need to figure out what other products are currently available and which ones consumers like best. But how would you do that?

There are three key ways to conduct historical research. The first is by interviewing people who lived in the past. This method allows the researcher to gain a better understanding of their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. This method can be used to collect historical data. It’s also used to collect testimonials for product development. Second, you can use archival methods such as old books, maps, or other items to gather historical data. This is usually done through research, but sometimes it can be done through observation. Third, you can also rely on online sources of historical data.

#Types reserach methodology: Historical

  1. Structural research methodology

The Structural Research methodology sometimes referred to as a structural interview, is one of the primary methods for qualitative research. It can be used to get at the essence of how consumers make purchasing decisions, the factors that influence their decision-making processes, and the motivations that drive them.

The Structural Research methodology is a structured method used for market research. This method uses the scientific process of data gathering, collection, analysis, interpretation, and reporting to help decision-makers make well-informed decisions.  

Structural interviews can be conducted individually, or through focus groups, but the former offers several advantages: it is cheaper and less time-consuming. The researcher is allowed to sit and observe the people being interviewed, rather than trying to control and direct the interview. And it is easier to conduct in larger groups, such as entire organizations, rather than small groups of 5-10 people.

This is a popular choice among businesses. Structured research is an excellent method for businesses that wish to gather data and information from customers that they can use to improve the way they run their business. Businesses can gain a lot of valuable insights by simply asking questions, so structured research is an efficient way for companies to build their customer database.

#Types reserach methodology: Structural

  1. Cultural research methodology

The Cultural Research methodology is very similar to qualitative research in that both approaches start by defining a hypothesis that you’re trying to prove. But where qualitative research starts with the research questions themselves, Cultural Research methodology begins with identifying the research problem, its context, and the stakeholders who will be affected by the results. Culture is hard to measure, but it’s just as real as any other variable. So it should be given equal weight when deciding how to approach a research project.

For example, in business research, the cultural research methodology is used to evaluate if the target market can be reached effectively through social media. A cultural researcher is someone who studies how different cultures use social media, the language they use, and other relevant information.

Culture is a complicated subject. It includes many of the same concepts as psychology, but also requires us to understand that people may have a different understanding of the world and the events taking place in it.

The main difference between the two is that psychology tends to be focused on the individual, while culture focuses on the community. While each discipline helps understand how people act and respond, it’s often not enough to understand why.

Therefore, I find that the cultural research methodology is a better approach to truly understanding why people do what they do. The cultural research methodology is used to explain why people behave the way they do.

#Types reserach methodology: Cultural

  1. Ethnographic Types research methodology

The ethnographic research methodology can be described as: “The research method used by researchers to explore a social group to discover their beliefs, behaviors, values, attitudes, and opinions.”

In the marketing realm, for example, it is often used to explore a specific market segment. A primary advantage of this approach is that it gives you insight into the lives of your target audience. You can then apply this knowledge to tailor your product, services, or messaging to resonate more effectively with your customers.

If you want to know how people think, don’t just ask them. Instead, see how they behave, what they do in reality, and how they express their opinions and emotions. Ethnographic research isn’t about telling people what they should do but rather about watching what they do and asking questions to understand why they’re doing what they’re doing. The more you know about your target market, the easier it will be for you to tailor your messaging to their needs.

It is an in-depth, participatory form of field research that uses a naturalistic approach to observe, document, and interpret the behaviors and actions of a group of people. It is often used to understand the behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, and emotions of a group.

An ethnographer can be a participant-observer or a nonparticipant observer. A participant observer is someone who joins the group being studied and becomes a part of it. An example of a participant-observer is an anthropologist. A nonparticipant observer is an individual who observes from outside the group.

#Types reserach methodology: Ethnographic

  1. Semiotic Types research methodology 

The Semiotic Research methodology is a research approach that is concerned with the nature of meaning in culture and society. In other words, it is an interdisciplinary approach that studies sign systems in their cultural contexts. This includes the study of their social and material contexts as well as the study of their symbolic production and the semiotic processes that generate them. 

The Semiotic Research methodology is a research approach that is concerned with the nature of meaning in culture and society. In other words, it is an interdisciplinary approach that studies sign systems in their cultural contexts.

In this method, researchers seek to understand the nature of meanings within the world. This method of research is particularly useful in understanding how culture and society affect us in both positive and negative ways. Semiotics is used to examine the social impact of media and communication.

To do so, semiotics uses a series of steps to study any given sign. The three steps are to examine the sign itself, the context in which it’s used, its intended audience, and its function within a system of signs. All of these steps contribute to the overall analysis. To put it simply, semiotic research is the science of understanding signs.

The semiotic research methodology consists of three steps:

1) Find a story that’s been told, retold, or re-enacted many times over

2) Analyze the story using semiotics, or interpretive methodologies, to find a pattern of meaning

3) Use the pattern of meaning to create a new message for the reader

The goal of the research method is to analyze the meaning of a particular subject in a specific context. In other words, researchers try to understand how something is communicated in a certain setting.

#Types reserach methodology: Semiotic

Final Reflections, Types of research methodology 

In conclusion, there are many different ways to collect data for research, including the old tried and true method of surveying your target audience or conducting interviews. The survey method is probably the most common because it’s cheap, fast, and easy.

However, it’s important to remember that there are limitations to surveys because they only tell you what your respondents are willing to share. Interviews are a bit more involved, but they provide much more information about your target audience. And, finally, you can also use one or more methods together. It’s all about finding the right balance between these methods and using them to get the most information for your research.

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