The Research Process Analysis Template
The research process is a chain of interlinked steps that should be followed to the later to ensure consistency and a factual conclusion. The steps allow the researcher to progress from problem identification or a general idea to rigorous research findings that lead to new developments in the area of study. Researchers should follow these guidelines because they are benchmarks for validating results of research.
The first step is formulating the research question. Baker (2014) argues that a research question should be relevant, ethically sound, of no interest to the researcher, and feasible. Depending on the project, research may have one question or a series of questions. Formulation of the research question is also known as problem identification step. This phase provides a tentative, testable proposition that requires validation.
The second step is the literature review, where the researcher analyzes similar works by other researchers in the same field. The process enables the researcher to know whether prior studies provided convincing evidence to the problem at hand. Baker (2014) states that, in cases where previous results were not conclusive, it is important to replicate other studies, but in a different setting and with different participants. Therefore, literature review gives the researcher profound knowledge of the research problem.
The third step is research design. This step analyzes what to examine under what conditions in the study, the type of information to collect, the participants of the study, the time-frame, and the actions after data collection (McDonald, Gan, Fraser, Oke, & Anderson, 2015). The study’s design must also be related to the hypothesis or the research question. The choice of research design depends on what the researcher wants to test, and
they include qualitative, quantitative, and experimental research designs.
The fourth step is getting approval to access or collect data. Before the researcher can begin the research, ethical approval has to be granted by either the relevant authorities or the participants who wish to be
involved in the study (McDonald et al., 2015). In line with research governance, the researcher should first describe the proposed research to the participants and ask for their written consent. The relevant research
bodies also determine whether the proposed research is ethically sound, or if amendments are necessary (McDonald et al., 2015). The researcher can only proceed to the next step after approval.
The fifth step is data collection. The collection of data is a significant step in the process because it provides the information needed to answer the research question (Choy, 2015). The type of data collected depends on …
