CHAPTER 3 - RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

A. RESEARCH DESIGN
Research design is the detailed blue print used to direct a research study towards its objectives. The
procedural part of designing a research study, its appropriateness to the study, and some of the
disadvantages should be given attention and should be well discussed. The research design should be
constructed needs creativity and scientific expertise. A design to be efficient must be simple, easy to
administer and flexible.

It can be classified into historical, descriptive or experimental research.

Descriptive research embraces a large proportion of research. It is preplanned and structured in design
so the information collected can be statistically inferred on a population.

Two Division of Statistics

 Descriptive Statistics. Totality of methods and treatments employed in the collection,
description, and analysis of numerical data. It tells something about the particular group of
observation.
 Inferential Statistics. The logical process from sample analysis to a generalization or conclusion
about a population. It is also called statistical inference or inductive statistics.

EXPERIMENTAL CLASSIFICATION.
 INDEPENDENT VARIABLE (IV) are controlled variables by the researcher, and expected to
have an effect on the behavior of the subjects. Also called as explanatory variable.
 DEPENDENT VARIABLE (DV) is some measure of the behavior of subjects and expected
to be influenced by the independent variable. The DV is also called outcome variable

B. METHOD OF COLLECTING DATA AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE RESEARCH INSTRUMENT

After the research problem has been stated, the next step is to determine the methods of collecting
data. It must be explained. Here are the five basic methods in collecting data:
 Direct or Interview Method. Face to face encounter between the interviewer and the
interviewee.
 INDIRECT or QUESTIONNAIRE METHOD. Utilized questionnaire to obtain information. Through
mail or hand carried to the intended respondents.
 REGISTRATION METHOD. Governed by laws like birth certs, death certs and licenses.
 OBSERVATION METHOD. Pertains to behaviors of an individual or group at the time of
occurrence in a given situation.
 EXPERIMENTAL METHOD. Used to determine the cause and effect relationship of certain
phenomena under controlled conditions. Based on scientific research
C. SOURCES OF DATA
 PRIMARY DATA. Data that come from an original source, and are intended to answer specific
research questions, can be taken by interview, mail-in questionnaire, survey or experimentation.
 SECONDARY DATA. Data that are taken from previously recorded data, such as information in
research conducted, industry financial statements, business periodicals, and government
reports.
D. THE SAMPLING DESIGN
A Sample is a portion or part of the population of interest selected for the research study on which
information is obtained. A Population is a collection or set of individuals or objects or events to which
the results of the study are intended to apply.
There are two types of population in research: Target population (theoretical population) refers to the
entire group of individuals or objects to which researchers are interested in generalizing the conclusions.
Accessible population (study population) is the population in research to which the researchers can
apply their conclusions. It is a subset of the target population.
Other approach in determining the sample size is through Slovin’s formula.
𝑁
𝑃𝑜𝑝𝑢𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 =
1 + 𝑁𝑒 2
Where: N is the total population;
e is the margin of error (1%, 3%, 5% or 10%)
The sample should be large enough so that when it is divided into groups, each group will have a
minimum sample size of 100 or more. In almost every study, a comparison between groups provides
useful information and is often motivating reason for the study.

Sampling is one of the most important steps in the research process to select the sample of individuals
who will participate as part of the study.
 RANDOM SAMPLING. A sample is selected in such a way that every element in the population
has an equal probability of being selected. Also called, probability sampling.
 SIMPLE RANDOM SAMPLING. A process of selecting n sample size in the population via
random numbers or through lottery.
 SYSTEMATIC SAMPLING. A process of selecting kth element in the population until the
desired number of subjects or respondents is attained.
 STRATIFIED SAMPLING. A process of subdividing the population into sub groups or strata
and drawing members at random from each subgroup or stratum.
 CLUSTER SAMPLING. A process of selecting clusters from a population which is very
large or widely spread out over a wide geographical area.
 NON RANDOM SAMPLING. Samples were selected in a deliberate manner with little or no
attention to randomization. Also called non-probability sampling.
 Convenience sampling. Group of individual who are available in the study
 Purposive sampling. Selected on the basis of being typical or sound judgment.
 Quota sampling. Assigned number or quota of individuals
 Snowball sampling. One or more members of a population are located and used to lead
the researchers to other members of the population.
A survey cannot be planned or implemented without knowing the sample size. The sample size
decision is related directly to research cost, and must be justified. The sample size can be
determined either by using statistical techniques or through some ad hoc (used when a person
knows from experience what sample size to adopt) methods. The sample size depends on non-
statistical considerations and statistical considerations.
The following three criteria need to be specified to determine the appropriate sample size:
 The level of precision – also called sampling error, the level of precision, is the range in
which the true value of population is estimated to be.
  The confidence level – this is the measure of the number of times out of 100 that results
can be expected to be within a specified range. For example, if the confidence interval is
95%, it means that 95 out of 100 samples will have the true population value within range of
precision. It corresponds to the z-score. This is a constant value needed for this equation.
1–α α α/2 𝑧𝑎/2

0.90 0.10 0.05 1.645

0.95 0.05 0.025 1.960

0.99 0.01 0.005 2.576

 Degree of variability – depending upon the target population and attributes under
consideration, the degree of variability varies considerably. The more heterogeneous a
population is, the larger the sample size is required to get an optimum level of precision.

D. STATISTICAL TREATMENT OF DATA

Statistics is a branch of mathematics that examines and investigates ways to process and analyze the
data gathered. It provides procedure in data collection, presentation, organization, and interpretation to
have a meaningful idea that is useful to decision-makers. The vast application of statistics can be applied
in different fields such as astronomy, business, education, sciences, etc.

The kind of statistical treatment depends upon the nature of the problem, especially the sub problems
and the nature of the data gathered. The hypotheses particularly determine the kind of statistics to be
used.

A variable is a condition or subset that the data falls into. Data is gathered for the purpose of
answering a research question. There are two types of variables:

 QUALITATIVE VARIABLE (Categorical Variable). A variable that is conceptualized and analyzed as

distinct categories, with no continuum implied. Observations that are put in the same or
different classes, possessing some common characteristics that is not shared by those in other
classes. Ex: eye color, gender, occupation, religious preference, etc.
 QUANTITATIVE VARIABLE (Numerical Variable). A variable that is conceptualized and analyzed
along a continuum implied. It differs in amount of degree. Ex.: height, weight, math aptitude,
temperature

Frequency Analysis is an important area of statistics that deals with the number of occurrences
(frequency) and analyzes measures of central tendency, dispersion, and percentiles.

1. Measures of central tendency – it is a single measure that tries to describe the set of data
through a value that represents the central position within that data set. Most popular
measures of central tendency used for frequency analysis are mean, median and mode. Mean is
 the average value of the data set, the Median is the middle observation in the data set. Mode is
the value that occurs the most number of times in a data set.
2. Measures of dispersion – these reflect the spread or variability of data within a data set. Most
popular measures of dispersion used for frequency analysis are standard deviation, variance and
range. The standard deviation is the most commonly used measure of spread. With the mean
and standard deviation, it is possible to compute the percentile rank associated with any given
score. Variance measures the deviation of a set of data from the mean value. The variance of
the particular data set is always positive. Range is the simplest measure of dispersion and is
defined as the difference between the values of the extreme items of a series. Range is the
difference between the highest value of an item in a series and lowest value of an item in a
series.
3. Percentile values – It shows what percent of values in a data set fall below a certain percent.
Frequency analysis commonly uses percentile values like quartiles, deciles, percentiles, etc.

Hypothesis Testing is a statistical method that is used in making statistical decision using experimental
data. A test result is statistically significant if it has been predicted as unlikely to have occurred by
sampling error alone, according to a threshold probability which is the significance level.

Chi-square test is designed to analyze categorical data. The goodness of fit test is determine by
comparing the actual and expected counts for each level of categorical variable.

The Student’s t test (t test for independent samples) of difference of means is used to test the
significance of the difference between two sample means. It is a parametric test which assumes a
normal distribution and it is used for smaller samples. The t-test assesses whether the means of the two
groups are statistically different from each other, which is appropriate when comparing the means of
two groups.

Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) allows researchers to compare two or more populations of interval or
ratio data. It is extremely powerful and commonly used statistical procedure. The ANOVA technique
determines whether differences exist between population means.

The Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient (PMCC) is a measure of the strength of a linear
association between two variables and is denoted by r. It attempts to draw a line of best fit through the
data of two variables, and the Pearson correlation coefficient, r, indicates how far away all these data
points are to this line of best fit. It can take a range of values from +1 to -1. A value of 0 indicates there is
no association between the two variables. A value greater than 0 indicates a positive association. A
value less than 0 indicates a negative association.

VALUES DESCRIPTION

0 No correlation, no relationship

±0.01 to ±0.20 Very low correlation, almost negligible relationship

±0.21 to ±0.40 Slight correlation, definite but small relationship

 ±0.41 to ±0.70 Moderate correlation, substantial relationship

±0.71 to ±0.90 High correlation, marked relationship

±0.91 to ±0.99 Very high correlation, very dependable relationship

±1.00 Perfect correlation, perfect relationship

Spearman rank correlation or spearman rho (rs) is a non-parametric test that is used to measure the
degree of association between the two variables. It does not assume a normal distribution, it is
calculated by converting each variable to ranks and calculating the pearson product moment correlation
coefficient between the two sets of ranks.

Regression analysis is a statistical too that goes a step further than correlation. It is used to predict or
analyze the relationships between one independent and one dependent variable. It can provide insights
that few other techniques can. The key benefit of using regression analysis are the following: It indicates
the significant relationship between dependent variable and independent variable; and it indicate the
strength of impact of multiple independent variables on a dependent variable.

Note:

To test the differences of the two variables, we use:

1. T- test
2. Z-test
3. ANOVA

To test the relationships of the two variables, we use:

1. Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient

2. Spearman Rank

To test the effect or impact of relationships between an independent and dependent variable, we use:

1. Regression analysis