Research Methodology For Studying Age Group Affected By Ubiquitous Media Systems

Selection of Research Methodology

Question:

Discuss about the Business Research Methodology.

The methodology of this research will take into consideration the methodological approach which will be used by the researcher for conducting the study. The success of a research study is primarily dependent on the selection and utilization of the appropriate tools and techniques associated with the subject of research methodology. In this chapter, the stress will be put on the depiction, findings and assumption of the brief research subject. For the given research topic, the researcher will be able to evaluate the different research methodologies such a s the research design, philosophy, techniques used in the research approach and the methods used for the collection of data. In the given subject of research, the researcher will also state the ethical considerations along with their significance. The researcher will also keep in mind the limitations faced while conducting this research and mention the same (Brinkmann 2014). This particular chapter will throw light upon the recognition of research methodologies with regard to the subject matter of the research. The topic of the research is- which age group will be affected by the use of ubiquitous media systems. The given topic refers to the fact that with the extension of technological development the increasing population has become mobile- connected to each other. This has led to the recent inventions and innovations of that have provided a lot of opportunities for the organizations. 

The structure of this particular research keeps in mind the research methodology tools and techniques that have been selected and implemented by the researcher (Bryman and Bell 2015). The researcher has tried to deliver sufficient justification related to the preference of the research methodology on the topic- which age group will be affected by the use of ubiquitous media systems. For the given subject of research, the philosophy will be interpretivism. Interpretivism is the methodology of research which involves the process in which the researchers interpret and evaluate the elements of the subject and incorporates human interest into the study. The researchers who follow the philosophy of interpretivism presume that reality is accessible only via social connections such as consciousness, language, instruments and shared meanings. The researcher will use a descriptive method of research design which describes the participants in a proper way (Carillo, Scornavacca and Za 2014). He will adopt the deductive approach of research which addresseses the development of hypothesis on the basis of the prevalent theory and create a design for the research strategy to evaluate the hypothesis. Both primary and secondary data will be collected for this research by the researcher which will include documents, census and previous findings along with the survey questionnaires and interview schedule. The collection of the census data, information from the government website and the data from database will be considered as the research strategy for the particular research (Creswell and Poth 2017).

Research Philosophy and Design

Research onion is the framework which pays attention to the fundamentals of the research and provides the opportunity for the researcher to carry out the research work in a systematic way. The process of research onion paves the way for a successful work in the direction of the provided subject. This would help the researcher to gain the outcome of the research in a proper way that has been assumed within the field of study as per the aims and objectives of the research. The research onion on the subject- which age group will be affected by the use of ubiquitous media systems will provide an efficient sequence by which the research methodology will be designed properly (De Massis and Kotlar 2014).

The commonly used philosophies in a research process are interpretivism, realism and positivism. In the study of a research subject, the researcher is concerned with attaining knowledge in an objective world by taking support of the scientific methods of enquiry. The methods that are pertaining to this philosophy involve the experiments and surveys where the followed custom is quantitative data (Eriksson and Kovalainen 2015). After the evaluation of the other two philosophies of research, interpretivism can be considered as the suitable research philosophy for the given field of study. By following this philosophy of research, the researcher will be able to state that the position of knowledge in reality involves the domain of human activities which is a social construction by the commoners and equal application on the researchers. The interpretive paradigm in this particular research is concerned about seeing and understanding the world from a subjective point of view. The meaning oriented methodologies are used in this regard which takes into account the interview and observation of the participants, which is dependent on the prejudiced association between the researcher and the subject (Gioia, Corley and Hamilton 2013).

There are two kinds of approaches which are used by the researchers in the process of gathering information. The qualitative researchers use the inductive approaches which refer to development of a theory or finding a pattern of meaning based on the data that they have collected. Although the process of data collection and analysis follows a methodical approach but still there lie a greater flexibility as compared to quantitative research.  On the other hand, the researcher while taking help of the quantitative methods put stress on the measurements, calculations, mathematical statistics and numerical analysis by means of questionnaires, surveys, polls and statistical data of previous findings. For the particular research on the given subject, the researcher will use the deductive approach because this kind of research involves the development of hypothesis on the basis of the prevalent theory and then find out an appropriate research design for evaluating the hypothesis. The subject of this research- which age group will be affected by the use of ubiquitous media systems will be explained on the basis of hypotheses derived from the proposition of the theory (Hair 2015). This approach will be will deduct conclusions from the information that will be collected from the survey participants and through other sources. There are plenty of sources in the deductive approach of research that are available within a short time span for conducting the study. This is an effective approach because there is no scope of risk involved in the process of research.

Data Collection Strategy

The research design for a specific research varies from descriptive, co-relational and semi- experimental to experimental, review and meta- analytic (Kolb et al. 2015). For this particular research, the descriptive approach is applicable which will use the three methods of observation, survey and case study. This approach is intended to find out the observational factors in the subject where the descriptive data can be collected by means of survey (Myers 2013). For the research on the given topic, the researcher will describe the characteristic traits of the population or phenomenon on which the study is based on. The characteristic traits which describe the situation and the phenomenon of the subject are also known as descriptive categories.

For the research on the given subject there are three questions which can be taken into consideration-

1. What is ubiquitous media system?
2. Which age group will be affected by it?
3. Why, particularly this age group will be affected by the ubiquitous media system?

By using the three questions while conducting the research the researcher will be able to gather information about the ubiquitous media system. He will also be able to understand that which age group will be most affected by this and why so. It can be assumed as a part of research hypothesis that mostly the young generation from the in the age group 15- 60 are influenced by this system.

The most common research strategies that are used in the field of research include surveys, interviews, and case study analysis and action research. For this particular research the researcher will take into account the strategies of interviews and questionnaires to understand the impact of ubiquitous use of media systems in the business organizations. This procedure will help the researcher to find out the solutions of the research questions. When the research problem is recognized and the specific design is selected, then the procedure for collecting data begins. There are two kinds of existing data- primary data and the secondary data. In the primary form of data collection, the original and authentic method should be followed while in the secondary form of data collection, it involves arranging and compiling data from the previous journals based on the subject of research and other articles and magazines (O’Gorman, Lochrie and Watson 2014). Primary data can be collected by means of interview, questionnaire, schedule and observation. In this particular subject of research, the researcher will use the questionnaires which would be sent to the respondents via mail, within a specific area of research where the researcher will find it suitable. Another strategy will be the interview which involves personal communication of the researcher with the respondents that include the users of the media system and the service providers.

Interview Strategy

Interview is the method of collecting data where a detailed discussion takes place in between the researcher and the respondent. The interview is conducted with the intention of conducting a survey and research at the same time where both the interviewer and the respondent take part in a face to face conversation (Panneerselvam 2014). As the communication takes place in both ways, so information can also be exchanged in a better way as compared to other methods. Since the process involves the face to face interaction of both the researcher and the respondent so there is no scope of hiding information or falsification (Saunders et al. 2015). There lies a transportation cost in the process of interview where the interviewer has to go to the respondent or vice- versa. In this given subject of research the researcher will take the interview of the media users and the service providers and the stakeholders of the business organizations and their response will allow the researcher to find out the actual insight of the situation in whole.

This strategy refers to the research where a series of questions are printed with options for the answers those are marked by the respondents in general. It takes into consideration the set of formal questions, in an unambiguous form which are either mailed or delivered by hand to the respondents. A pilot study is conducted for evaluating the questionnaires even before the researcher implements the techniques. This helps in initiating the study in order to get an idea about the effort, price and consistency involved in the all-round development. For this particular survey, the questionnaires will be given to the respondents which will have 10 questions where the information pertaining to certain facts would be delivered to the respondents (Schumann and Stock 2015).

When the process of gathering the data is completed, the researcher will have to look out for the best possible way in which the data can be analyzed. In this given subject of study, the researcher has collected both primary and secondary data. Therefore he has selected the process of thematic analysis for the evaluation of the gathered data.  This method of analysis will help him to generate new ideas for the research along with gaining relevant ideas and information from the collected data. Therefore this can be considered as the best way to analyze qualitative data as it puts stress on the strong descriptive approach (Sekaran and Bougie 2016).

Questionnaire strategy

It is important for the researcher to follow absolute ethics and moral value while conducting the research. He should not involve in any kind of biasness with the responses provided or do any kind of discrepancy with the questionnaires. He should not force the respondents to reply in a certain way that will be convenient for the research work. He must provide an environment of comfort and freedom so that the respondent can willingly provide the answers. He must also take care of the fact that no information will be disclosed without the consent of the respondents (Zhang et al. 2013).

In this particular subject of research which involves, which age group will be affected by the use of ubiquitous media system, the selection of the methods and approach has been appropriate for the analysis of data collection and gaining a suitable outcome for the study. This research methodology also considers the various ways in which data can be collected and the best among those pertaining to the topic of the study. The researcher has also mentioned that the importance of ethical considerations while carrying out the research work including the limitations that were faced by the researcher in the whole process. It is the responsibility of the researcher to keep the information confidential which was used from the government sites and other data which cannot be misused.

References

Brinkmann, S., 2014. Interview. In Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology (pp. 1008-1010). Springer New York.

Bryman, A. and Bell, E., 2015. Business research methods. Oxford University Press, USA.

Carillo, K., Scornavacca, E. and Za, S., 2014. An investigation of the role of dependency in predicting continuance intention to use ubiquitous media systems: combining a media sytem perspective with expectation-confirmation theories.

Creswell, J.W. and Poth, C.N., 2017. Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches. Sage publications.

De Massis, A. and Kotlar, J., 2014. The case study method in family business research: Guidelines for qualitative scholarship. Journal of Family Business Strategy, 5(1), pp.15-29.

Eriksson, P. and Kovalainen, A., 2015. Qualitative methods in business research: A practical guide to social research. Sage.

Gioia, D.A., Corley, K.G. and Hamilton, A.L., 2013. Seeking qualitative rigor in inductive research: Notes on the Gioia methodology. Organizational Research Methods, 16(1), pp.15-31.

Hair, J.F., 2015. Essentials of business research methods. ME Sharpe.

Kolb, D., Ivaturi, K., Henderson, S. and Srinivasan, A., 2015, June. Managing Ubiquitous Connectivity: Mobile Media Flow Service Systems. In Services (SERVICES), 2015 IEEE World Congress on (pp. 113-120). IEEE.

Myers, M.D., 2013. Qualitative research in business and management. Sage.

O’Gorman, K., Lochrie, S. and Watson, A., 2014. Research philosophy and case studies. Research Methods for Business & Management, pp.152-172.

Panneerselvam, R., 2014. Research methodology. PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd..

Saunders, M., Lewis, P., Thornhill, A. and Bristow, A., 2015. Understanding research philosophy and approaches to theory development. M. Saunders, P. Lewis, & A. Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, pp.122-161.

Schumann, L. and Stock, W.G., 2015. Acceptance and use of ubiquitous cities’ information services. Information Services & Use, 35(3), pp.191-206.

Sekaran, U. and Bougie, R., 2016. Research methods for business: A skill building approach. John Wiley & Sons.

Zhang, D., Huang, H., Lai, C.F., Liang, X., Zou, Q. and Guo, M., 2013. Survey on context-awareness in ubiquitous media. Multimedia tools and applications, 67(1), pp.179-211.