Monthly Archives: June 2014

Importance of Meta Analysis

Any research based study starts with a research objective, and that objective comes out from a research gap in any context. The research gap comes out of the careful scrutiny of the literature on several contexts, and when the researcher finds out that a particular piece of study is missing in any particular context, a research gap is established. Now in order to fill up that particular research gap, a research based study has to be carried out, and that is how a particular research based study is started.

However, in most of the cases, researchers simply start off with a research based study, without validating the research gap, and that is the reason, those studies fail to gain significance among the community of researchers. Those studies are nothing but a mere replication of any previous studies, with a mere extension in the dataset, or a change in methodology, and as soon as those studies come to conclusions, which have already been established by previous researchers, those studies lose their significance automatically. That is why literature review has to be carried out extensively using Meta analysis process. This process is actually a top-down approach to find the research gap, and it is considered as one of the best ways to establish a research gap. In this process, based on the theme of the study, nearly all of the pieces of literature are reviewed, and their objectives, spans of study, data, methodologies, and results are recorded. In this process, researcher can observe a clear picture of the existing body of knowledge regarding that scope of study, and therefore, establishing a clear research gap becomes easier. One of the major advantages of this analysis is that the gap established by this process can hardly go wrong, as this analysis is the most extensive one considering literature review. For more information about various aspects of Meta analysis, kindly browse through the pages of www.scoringhigh.co.uk.

Common problems while writing for journal publication

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No theory: it involves a lack of explanation of variable relationships.

Concepts and operationalistaion not being in alignment with each other: this problem surfaces when the research design is not reflecting the variables under current study which could be because of differences in analysis level.

Insufficient definition: when the authors are not explaining the meaning of their concepts, moreover when enacting a definition becomes a part of development of theory.

Insufficient rationale-design: there are times when the manuscripts fail to explain the methods or procedures which have been used in the study. This could be size, rate of response and insufficient detail.

Macrostructure-flow and organisation: it is important that various parts of the paper like theory, section, conclusion, methods fit into a coherent whole. Problems may arise if this does not happen.

Not relevant to the field: when the papers are inappropriate for the type of journal they are submitted to and can better be placed in another discipline.

Inadequate research design: the research question that is posed by the study is not being able to be addressed by the current use of methods.

Over engineering: there is so much concentration on methodology sometimes which becomes an end itself.

Conclusions not in alignment: this kind of problem can occur when manuscripts where conclusions are either too short or lack complete interpretation of the findings.

Cutting up the data: when one paper under review for one journal overlaps with another paper by same writers under review for another journal, another problem of this kind comes up

Criteria for evaluating research questions

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Research questions should meet the following criteria for a dissertation:

Questions should be clear: questions framed should be understandable to the researcher, supervisor and the research fraternity.
Questions should be researchable: questions should be capable of development into a research design, so that data could be collected in regard to the. This implies that extremely abstract terms are unlikely to be suitable.
Questions should connect with established research and theory: there has to be a literature on which the researcher can draw to assist in highlighting the framing the research questions. Making connection between research and theory would also let the researcher reveal how the work contributes to understanding and knowledge.
Questions should be linked to each other: questions that are not related would not be acceptable as an argument develops in the dissertation. The researcher would not readily be able to construct one argument in relation with research questions that are not related.
Questions should have potential for making a contribution to knowledge: questions should be holding the prospect of being able to impart contribution in some form to the topic.
Questions should be neither too narrow nor too broad: the questions should not require huge grant to understand them nr too small as one would not be able to make important contribution to the area of study.

Classic experimental design and validity

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The purpose of the control group in an experiment is to control the various possible effects of rival explaining a causal finding. We may then be in a position to take actual view that the study is valid internally. The random assignment of subjects to the control and experimental groups and the presence of a control group enable to eliminate rival explanations and eliminate internal validity threats.

The threats include the following:

The threat of testing implies the possibility that subjects may become sensitive to the objectives of the experiment.
The threat of history refers to the possibility that events in the experimental environment may have led to the changes.
The threat of maturation says that people change and the ways they change have implications for the dependent variable
Another threat is that if differences exist between the two groups because of selection by a non random process, there would be variations between the control group and experimental groups. This could be attributed to pre-existing differences in their membership.
A direction of causality would be there if there is the notion of an independent and dependent variable. There may be situations when the temporal sequence becomes unclear which makes it difficult to establish which variable affects the other. The presence of a control group helps to clear this feature.