Research paper on study design

Qualitative research is a technique of enquiring in-depth knowledge of understanding human behaviour in their social environment and the factors leading to such behaviour. The approach to be used in this research will be the Grounded Theory. This theory aims at shaping a certain desire which is discovered in social and psychological processes. Moreover, this method comes with a number of merits such as development of new theories that will be accepted in the research when the research questions cannot be accurately answered. However, it also suffers from the following demerits; in that it requires a lot of labour as well as resources, the scope is also limited due to in-depth approach and it results to the procedural technicalities due to its subjectivity (Babbie, 2011). Conclusively, this research takes on to study how international students around Flinders University manage their nutritional needs. As an assistant director in the Ministry of Health and Nutrition, this is a research I plan to carry out as a requirement in my job place.
Nevertheless, ethical implications might arise, and these include issues on privacy and confidentiality. Many students may feel that the information they give when data is collected may be exposed with their identity and this makes many to avoid being recruited as sample sizes. Therefore, I will be required to assure the participants that all information collected will remain confidential under all terms.

Participants:

The research will include sampling which involves use of a small or a portion of the population to investigate the behaviour or the characteristics of the entire population. This strategy assists in the cutting down on the time to be spent in the research process, energy, and financial resources. A more precise and efficient sampling strategy will be the Stratified sampling, in which the population is made up of the sub-sets of specific size, where the subsets ( or strata) make different quantities of the entire population. The use of sub-sets enhances comparisons and correlation to be made between them making the technique flexible in regard to geographical enquiries. (Kothari, 2008)
This sampling strategy will be exercised around restaurants and eating places around the university as these are convenient places to meet with target population of my research study.
Since a qualitative research involves more research input, this will require recruiting a number of participants. The criteria will be based on international students who are over 18 years old and who hang around the eating places. The participants must also reside around the university and be willing to participate in the exercise. They will sum up to four participants.

The proposed participants include:

Matt: a second-year international relations student from Ireland.
Biddulph: a third-year business administration student from India.
Kimani: a third-year science major student from Kenya
Chi: a freshman lady majoring in Hotel management from Japan
Data collection:
I will collect data using the interview technique. This technique involves the use of one on one talk with respondents . The notes are recorded by the interviewer, and structured for future analysis. The information recorded from the respondent is based on the personal opinions, hence subjective. The interview will involve four students and will be based on open ended semi-structured interviews, which will be done on a one on one basis for a time limit of 20min per interview. The main aim will be to discuss how international students in Australia manage their nutritional needs. Furthermore, observation data collection technique will be relevant in noting the different types of food they prefer.

Data analysis:

Once the data is collected, I will summarize the data graphically and numerically. This initial analysis will provide insight into important characteristics of the data and can further provide guidance in selecting appropriate methods for further analysis.
Further, since the data obtained from the research will be quantitative. This will demand thematic analysis that helps in dealing with text in quantitative ways. That is, I have to struggle to fit concrete and specific text into typically abstract categories designed on the basis of my substantive and theoretical interests from the research, rather than intrinsic linguistic properties of the text. Thus, this will allow me to know what’s in the mind of the participants as based from my initial Grounded theory of study.

References:

Kothari, C. R. (2008) Research Methodology: Methods and Techniques. 2nd Ed. New Age International
Babbie , R. E. (2011). Social Research. 3rd Ed. Cengage Learning