LECTURE 1

INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH

What is research

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 • Why and how research matters to all of us
• Why is it important to us

Progress and Research –synonomous words

Making a pleasant experience in this world

Definition
“the process of asking questions and obtaining answers”, Keyton (2001:2)

2
Lets take an example
• the Covid 19 epidemic has posed so much challenges in the work environment. Its a challenge during this
epidemic of Covid 19 to be present at work physically. Lockdowns or commobidities have forced some employees
to be at home whilst some without commorbidities may have had to go to work. Technologies has enabled the
dispersal of the workforce and perhaps fuelled its growth, in ways that many people can easily recognise. So
employers and employees have experienced challenges in business operations thats either remote (dispersed
workforce) or on site (concentrated workforce).

• You may have identified other challenging areas to focus on. So whatever you are focusing on lets keep this area
of focus with challenges on mind as we talk more about research.

Research needs to be a formal, evidenced based and therefore it involves so many questions and steps.
So there are numerous steps in the research process for all of these assertions that
you wish to make, each with its own cycle of inquiry and justification. Each step
begins with a question and concludes with a question. As a result, we can make the
following research statements:

Take note of the elements below (It can be similar to a criminal case
under investigation)

• A query or an issue is the starting point for research.

• It entails inquisitive procedures — each response generates a new set of inquiries.
• It necessitates a strategy.
• You must gather data that can be utilized as evidence to back up your claims.
• Research should be founded on solid theoretical underpinnings.
• It must reach valid conclusions.
• It must be used for a specific purpose.
• It should generate relevant information
• It should lead to more investigation.

We can therefore define research

As a process of inquiry during which information is collected.

STAGES IN THE RESEARCH PROCESS
1. Identifying
and analysing
the problem
and thinking of
2. Finding
a topic
9. Writing your and reading
research report the literature
(review)

8. Analysing and 3. Formulating

interpreting your
informaiton RESEARCH your questions or
hypotheses

7. Sample 4.
and Choosing
collect an
your data approach

6. Pre testing
5. Writing
your research
your
data collection
research
methods or
proposal
instruments
1. Identifying and analysing the problem and thinking of a topic

Preliminary thoughts on your research topic

1 to choose an area of interest

2 Where to find Topics and challenges –
• first hand experiences
• Current literature

NOTE: You should choose an area of focus because you perceived there to be
problems and the problem can be reduced or resolved
 1. Identifying and analysing the problem and thinking of a topic continued

Remember the focus area we mentioned earlier about Lockdowns and

commobidities and technologies that fuelled the growth of dispersed workforce
during the current Covid 19 epidemic. So employers and employees are
experiencing challenges in business operations

• The above FOCUS AREA - wide range of prospective areas of interest

• Can develop a variety of topics
• We need to choose or limit the amount of difficulties in the FOCUS AREA
• We need to limit / narrow down the broad area of interest
1. Identifying and analysing the problem and thinking of a topic continued

TASK 1 What should my group members do

Each Individual in the group should read an article on the focus area of
interest. It can help the group to develop the problem and the topic.

When searching for journal articles , newspapers, books etc each member in my
group will key in the following search words:

challenges, concentrated and dispersed workforce

Depending on your focus area the search words (key terms or variables or phrases) will be
different
A IDENTIFYING AND ANALYSING PROBLEM - THE QUESTION AND THINKING OF A
TOPIC

FROM FOCUS AREA TO A TOPIC

• After the reading of MANY journal articles my group suggested many possible topics:
• We eventually decided on the following topic from that broad focus area.

Challenges of a dispersed workforce at IT SOLUTIONS cc in KZN

• Remember Your topic is fluid (not in concrete). You may find that you will tweek (crystallise) your topic after reading more articles
OR OBSERVING OR EXPERIENCING an activity in the work environment
2. CONDUCTING A LITERATURE
REVIEW
• Seek relevant literature
• Helps you to more clearly formulate your research question and problem
• Also gives you the knowledge you need for your argument

Steps of a literature review

• Step 1 database search -look for publications relevant to your subject

• Step 2 Look for aricles with key words and content related to your search
• Step 3 Concentrate on publications to clarify research query or problem
 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
• Aim of the study
Is a general statement, reflecting the intention or purpose of your chosen area of research.
• Are broad statements of desired outcomes, or the general intentions of the research which paint a picture
of your research project.

Once the aim has been established, the next task is to formulate the objectives. Generally, a project should
have no more that two or there aims statement, while it may include a number of objectives consisted with
them.

• Objectives of the study:

Is a specific statement relating to the defined goal/aim of your research
• Emphasize how aims are to be accomplished
• Must be highly focused and feasible

Therefore, the aim is what you want to achieve and the objectives describe how you are going to achieve
that aim. They should be concise and brief
The Research Problem - statement
The research problem
In preparing to write your problem statement, mount an argument:

TASK 2

PROBLEMATISE your TOPIC to inform your studys background

What is the practical issue that your research topic
address , provide 2 concrete evidence of the problem
(documented instances that can and must be linked) to back up
your problem statements)
What is the theoretical issue that your study topic raises?
 Lets see an example of how to problematize my topic

The topic
Challenges of a dispersed workforce at IT SOLUTIONS cc in KZN

The problem How to Problematise your topic

1. Discuss Practical issues encountered:

These are negetaive outcomes of a specific event
These are problemsor negative outcomes encountered in a dispersed
workforce

Eg
include insufficient visibility and accessibility of good leadership, as well as
working while ill.

1. Discuss Theoretical issues encountered,

Established Theoretical issues emerging from the negative outcome of a
specific event

Eg
such as job inefficiency, lower production, and poor health quality
3. Formulating your Research questions or hypotheses

As I said Research starts with questions. So let us at this point create a question for this topic before we proceed to
gather information related to those questions

WHY DO YOU NEED A RESEARCH QUESTION

• Points to the direction of relevant literature, How to limit your bibliographic search
• Gives you a place to start collecting data – keeps you focused

HOW ARE RESEARCH QUESTIONS DIFFERENT TO INTERVIEW / SURVEY QUESTIONS

The broad, generic question to which you seek answers is referred to as a research question.
EXAMPLE
What are the Challenges of a dispersed workforce at IT SOLUTIONS cc in KZN
(this is the main question which is broad and general. It is different to the questions that you might put into an
interview schedule or questionnaire for the purposes of data collection. If the researcher decides to collect data
(information) on this question , she decides to interview 50 administrative workers at IT SOLUTIONS cc in KZN.
3. Formulating your Research questions or hypotheses
continued

With the research question in mind, the researcher will generate a few INTERVIEW
questions), such as:
 
1. What was your experience regarding effectiveness of leadership during productivity as a
dispersed workforce.
2. Describe the quality of productivity of a dispersed workforce and concentrated workforce.
3. How was your work productivity when you encountered health issues as a dispersed
workforce
 
 
These are interview questions (sometimes called field questions posed directly by the
researcher to their admin workers) These are not the research question which serves
to focus the broader research project.
 3. Formulating your Research questions or hypotheses continued
Topic - Challenges of a dispersed workforce at IT SOLUTIONS cc in KZN
  AIMS Objectives CRITICAL OR PRINCIPLE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
QUESTIONS
         
1 The aim of the study is To understand the challenges of a What are the Challenges 1. 1. What was your experience regarding
to understand the dispersed workforce at IT solutions of a dispersed workforce effectiveness of leadership as a dispersed
challenges experienced cc in KZN at IT SOLUTIONS cc in workforce.
by dispersed workforce   KZN  
and provide     2. Describe the quality of productivity of a
recommendations to     dispersed workforce and concentrated
reduce the challenges.     workforce.
   

2   To make recommendations to What recommendtions How can the experience of dispersed

improve the experience of a can be made to improve workforce be improved
dispersed workforce the experience of a
dispersed workforce

TASK 3 My group will create a table with sub headings as above and insert our own
Topic and create the Aims, Objectives and Critical Questions . Do not create the interview
questions for this task as yet as your project may not be qualitative that needs such
questions. In the week to follow a section on Research instruments will guide you on
creating interview or survey questions depending on the research approach .
Rationale for your study
This is an example of the rationale for my topic

• There has never been a study on Challenges of a dispersed workforce

at IT SOLUTIONS cc in KZN, according to the researcher. The research
study will provide light / data on the challenges experienced by
dispersed workforce. The researcher will use the data analysis to
provide recommendations to improve the business operations at IT
Solutions.
• The researcher will share this data by publishing her research
internationally which can assist similar corporates to improve their
business operations .
 CONCEPTIONS, CONCEPTS AND CONCEPTUALISATION

It may be defined as an end result of bringing together a number of related

concepts to be used I the study, their relationship to each other and how they will
be used in the study.
The goal of Conceptual framework is to categorise and describe concepts relevant
to the study and map relationships among them.
CONCEPTIONS, CONCEPTS AND CONCEPTUALISATION

WHY DO RESEARCHES HAVE TO CREATE CONCEPTS FOR THE STUDY

• Specifies meanings of terms, like in our example,

Terms like: dispersed workforce, challenges, concentrated workforce
• They become working agreements about the meanings of above examples.
• They allow us to work on the question
CONCEPTIONS, CONCEPTS AND CONCEPTUALISATION

Indicators and dimensions

The product of conceptualisation is the specification of one or more indicators of what we have in mind indicating the
presence or absence of the concept we are studying.

Eg Poor network is an indicator of a challenge. Power outage with no generators is another indicator. If the unit of study were
the dispersed workforce, we can then observe the presence or absence of each indicator for each dispersed employee under
study.
the indicator , challenges - has many dimensions.
challenge having many dimensions - such as monetary challenges, health challenges, network challenges, supervision
challenges etc.

CHALLENGES CAN BE SUBDIVIDED into several sets of dimensions as

above. Therefore CONCEPTUALISATION involves both specifying
dimensions and indentifying indicators for each.
A concept - can be an object, an event, a relationship or a process.
Concepts are also regarded to be the building blocks of theories
CONCEPTIONS, CONCEPTS AND CONCEPTUALISATION

Eg What are the Challenges of a dispersed workforce at IT SOLUTIONS cc in KZN

Concepts Provides relationship, variables cause/effect relationships. Concepts are developed from the
problem, topic. challenges

CONCEPT - Challenges
Challenges
Indicators – Network availability

Dimensions – Service Providers MTN