Research Project / Workshop Case Presentation glossary

One that can actually be completed. Plausibility is assessed against four tests, and a topic failing any of them should be abandoned early rather than defended.

Taught in Introduction to research

Basic research seeks knowledge for its own sake; applied research addresses a practical problem. A CQP project is applied research: it investigates a quality problem in a real organisation or sector and produces recommendations that could be implemented.

Taught in Introduction to research

You must be able to obtain the data within the time, budget and access you actually have. Access is the constraint candidates underestimate most: a study requiring cooperation from thirty firms will not be completed if you have a relationship with two.

Taught in Introduction to research

It need not be wholly new. Originality may lie in the population studied, the context, the period, the method, or the combination, and for a professional qualification applying an established framework to a Kenyan sector where it has not been examined is sufficient.

Taught in Introduction to research

Quantitative research measures and analyses numerically, seeking to test relationships and to generalise. Qualitative research explores meaning, process and context through non-numerical data, seeking depth rather than generalisation. Mixed methods combine both.

Taught in Introduction to research

The systematic investigation of a question in order to produce new knowledge or to establish facts. The word systematic carries the definition: what distinguishes research from opinion is that the method is stated, defensible and capable of being repeated by somebody else.

Taught in Introduction to research

The proposal sets out what you intend to do and why, and is approved before fieldwork begins. The project is the completed work including findings. The proposal becomes chapters one to three of the project, so it is not discarded but rewritten in the past tense with what actually happened.

Taught in Introduction to research

The question must be answerable by evidence. A question of value, such as whether an organisation ought to prioritise quality over cost, is not researchable as posed; a question of fact, such as what relationship exists between quality investment and operating cost in a defined population, is.

Taught in Introduction to research

The answer must matter to somebody. A study whose findings would change nothing and interest nobody is not worth the effort even if it is well executed.

Taught in Introduction to research