Academic Writing and Research Skills
In observation, the researcher or investigators measure and observes the variables without assigning treatment to such subjects. The treatment given to each variable is beyond the researcher’s control. For instance, suppose an investigator wants to research on the effects of smoking in lung volume in men. The researcher looks for 80 men, 30 of whom have been smoking for a packet of cigarettes for the past eight years. The research will measure lung volume for all the 80 men. After that, the investigator analyzes, interprets, and makes inferences from the data.
Conversely, in experimentation, a researcher applies treatments to the subjects such as peoples or animal and then observe the impact of each treatment on each subject unit. Under experimentation, the investigator purely controls the assignment of treatment to subject groups. For example, suppose the researcher wants to find out the effects of smoking on lung volume in men. A researcher finds 80 men, aged 25 and doesn’t smoke currently. Randomly, the researcher assigns 40 men to smoking treatment and the other 40 to non-treatment. The individuals under the smoking group take a pack of cigarettes for eight years, and the other in non- smoking treatment remains smoke-free for eight years. After that, a researcher measures lung volumes, analyzes, interprets, and makes inferences of the results.
Major sources of secondary data information include research institutes, data collected by scholars, government publications, government semi-publications, international publications, magazines, and newspapers.
The nominal scale describes categories that lack ranking or natural order i.e., gender, blood types, and genotypes. In the ordinal scale, orders matter a lot but not the differences between the values. For instance, education level ranked as high school, bachelor’s, and master’s level. The difference between the high school level and the bachelors’ level is not the same as the difference between the master’s level and bachelor’s level. In the interval scale, the order and differences between the two values matter. For instance, temperature Celsius or pH values. Finally, on a ratio scale, the order and differences matter and additionally has a clear definition of 0.0 value. The ratio of two measurements has a meaningful attachment; for instance, a weight of 8 kg is twice heavy as 4 kg.
A sample is a portion of a population selected to represent the entire group, in their all characteristics. Sample enumeration is partial, and the sample results are less accurate and reliable due to the margin of error in collected data. Census, on the other hand, refers to a systematic method that gathers and records data about the entire members of the population. Census enumeration is complete, and the results are accurate and reliable.
Probability sampling is an approach where the members of the population or the subjects have an equal opportunity of being selected to represent the population. Conversely, non- probability sampling is a technique whereby the people or sample representing the population are predetermined.
Direct questions refer to questions that are asked to participants about their behavior, action and may provide bias respond from the respondent. On the other hand, the indirect question is the hidden questions in which the research respondent does not know the objectives of the study.