Summative Essay
Research Questions
A research question is an important aspect of research, and it represents an answerable inquiry into an issue or concern raised by the researcher.
Research questions help explore an existing uncertainty in the areas of concern and point to the need for conducting a deliberate investigation. After a researcher has identified the research topic, the first active step in conducting the research project is to develop the research questions.
Research questions are often developed by professional and student researchers since they influence the researcher’s steps in conducting the research (Korstjens & Moser, 2017). When developing the questions, the researcher must ensure that they possess the characteristics expressed by the acronym FINERMAPS expanded as “feasible, interesting, novel, ethical, relevant, manageable, appropriate, potential value, publishability, and systematic” (Ratan et al., 2019).
When developing the research questions, the researcher needs to identify the subject of interest, conduct preliminary research on the subject, and narrow the research subject’s focus and scope. When writing a research paper or an essay, the individual often writes a single research question that would help guide the individual reading and thinking.
In bigger research projects such as thesis, the researcher can develop multiple research questions that need to be connected and focused on solving the research problem (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2011). Research questions are an asset to a research project.
They detail the problem statement, further describe and refine the issue under study, set the research context, guide data collection and analysis, and focus on the problem statement. The research questions for the research project include:
• What are the impacts of deforestation on climate change?
• Does the expansion of farmland within the community lead to deforestation?
• What are the major causes of deforestation in Ghana?
• What is the initiative proposed to combat deforestation in Ghana?
• What are the initiatives undertaken by international players to combat deforestation in Ghana?
• How has deforestation affected the lives of living things across the globe?
The Data Collection Tools for the Research
Data collection is important in research as it helps in capturing quality evidence that seeks to answer the research questions developed by the researcher.
As a methodological process of gathering and analyzing information to proffer solutions to research questions and evaluating research, data collection helps the researcher find out all that there is to a subject matter. Data collection often assists a researcher in deducing quality information, which is a prerequisite for making an informed decision to attain the research objectives.
Improving the researcher’s quality of information, it is expedient that data is collected to enable the researcher to draw inferences and make an informed decision on information that is considered factual (Cohen et al., 2013). A researcher can use different methodologies for data collection and analysis, and the methods are based around a set of basic tools.
The key purpose of data collection is to put the researcher in a vantage position, which would enable the individual to make predictions about future probabilities and trends (Smithson, 2000). The core forms that a researcher can collect data include primary and secondary data, with the former collected through first-hand sources and the latter collected by any other individual other than the user.
The research would integrate primary data where information to be used for the research would involve original data collected from the research participants. As stated earlier, the research would involve a qualitative research approach; therefore, the data collection tools would include the use of in-depth interviews and open-ended questionnaires.
The strengths of the in-depth interview are in its flexibility, which allows the interviewer to tailor the order of questions, establishes rapport with the participants, and enables the researcher to monitor changes in tone and word choice.
The in-depth interview’s weaknesses are that it is time-consuming, requires the interviewer to be highly skilled and experienced, and participants must be carefully chosen to avoid bias (Boyce & Neale, 2006).
The strengths of open-ended questionnaires are that a researcher can collect a big amount of information, the results of the questionnaire can be quantified easily by the researcher, and they can be analyzed scientifically and objectively.
The weakness of questionnaires is that it is difficult to tell whether the respondent is truthful, lacks the data’s validity, and the respondent might forget or not think within the full context (McGuirk & O’Neill, 2016).
Data Analysis for the Research Study
Qualitative data analysis involves non-numeric information such as interview transcripts, notes, video and audio recordings, and text documents. The two approaches to analyzing qualitative data include deductive and inductive approaches.
The deductive approach involves analyzing qualitative data based on the researcher’s predetermined structure, and the inductive approach is based on the existing predetermined structure.
The research would use the excel method of data analysis to examine information collected from the participants through the questionnaires. The research study would also use the content data analysis method to analyze the participants’ responses that were collected through in-depth interviews.
The research would also use the grounded theory of data analysis to explain the reason for a certain phenomenon, such as the reasons behind deforestation (Charmaz & Henwood, 2017).
