Research Design 5e by Creswell, Creswell

Research Design 5e by Creswell, Creswell is the 5th edition of the Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches textbook authored by John W. Creswell, Department of Family, Medicine University of Michigan, and J. David Creswell, Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, and published in 2018 by SAGE Publications, Inc.

• Abstract in a literature review is a brief review of the literature (typically in a short paragraph) that summarizes major elements to enable a reader to understand the basic features of the article.
• Attention or interest thoughts in writing are sentences whose purposes are to keep the reader on track, organize ideas, and keep an individual's attention.
• Big thoughts in writing are sentences containing specific ideas or images that fall within the realm of umbrella thoughts and serve to reinforce, clarify, or elaborate upon the umbrella thoughts.
• Case studies are a qualitative design in which the researcher explores in depth a program, event, activity, process, or one or more individuals. The case(s) are bounded by time and activity, and researchers collect detailed information using a variety of data collection procedures over a sustained period of time.
• Central phenomenon is the key idea or concept being explored in a qualitative study.
• Central question in qualitative research is a broad question posed by the researcher that asks for an exploration of the central phenomenon or concept in a study.
• Code of ethics is the ethical rules and principles drafted by professional associations that govern scholarly research in the disciplines.
• Coding is the process of organizing the material into chunks or segments of text and assigning a word or phrase to the segment in order to develop a general sense of it.
• Coherence in writing means that the ideas tie together and logically flow from one sentence to another and from one paragraph to another.
• Computer databases of the literature are now available in libraries, and they provide quick access to thousands of journals, conference papers, and materials.
• Confidence interval is an estimate in quantitative research of the range of upper and lower statistical values that are consistent with the observed data and are likely to contain the actual population mean.
• Construct validity occurs when investigators use adequate definitions and measures of variables.
• Convergent mixed methods design is a mixed methods strategy in which a researcher collects both quantitative and qualitative data, analyzes them separately, and then compares the results to see if the findings confirm or disconfirm each other.
• Deficiencies in past literature may exist because topics have not been explored with a particular group, sample, or population; the literature may need to be replicated or repeated to see if the same findings hold, given new samples of people or new sites for study; or the voice of underrepresented groups have not been heard in published literature.
• Deficiencies model of an introduction is an approach to writing an introduction to a research study that builds on gaps existing in the literature. It includes the elements of stating the research problem, reviewing past studies about the problem, indicating deficiencies in the study, and advancing the significance of the study.
• Definition of terms is a section that may be found in a research proposal that defines terms that readers may not understand.
• Descriptive analysis of data for variables in a study includes describing the results through means, standard deviations, and range of scores.
• Directional hypothesis , as used in quantitative research, is one in which the researcher makes a prediction about the expected direction or outcomes of the study.
• Effect size identifies the strength of the conclusions about group differences or the relationships among variables in quantitative studies.
• Emphasis placed on each database in mixed methods is the priority given to the quantitative or qualitative data (or equal priority).
• Ethnography is a qualitative strategy in which the researcher studies an intact cultural group in a natural setting over a prolonged period of time by collecting primarily observational and interview data.
• An experimental design in quantitative research tests the impact of a treatment (or an intervention) on an outcome, controlling for all other factors that might influence that outcome.
• Experimental research seeks to determine if a specific treatment influences an outcome in a study. Researchers assess this impact by providing a specific treatment to one group and withholding it from another group and then determining how both groups score on an outcome.
• Explanatory sequential mixed methods is a mixed methods design that involves a two-phase project in which the researcher collects quantitative data in the first phase, analyzes the results, and then uses a qualitative phase to help explain the quantitative results.
• Exploratory sequential mixed methods is a mixed methods strategy that involves a three-phase project in which the researcher first collects qualitative data and analyzes it, then designs a quantitative feature based on the qualitative results (e.g., new variables, an experimental intervention, a website), and finally, tests the quantitative feature.
• External validity threats arise when experimenters draw incorrect inferences from the sample data to other persons, other settings, and past or future situations.
• Fat in writing refers to words added to prose that are unnecessary to convey the intended meaning.
• Gatekeepers are individuals at research sites who provide access to the site and allow or permit a qualitative research study to be undertaken.
• Grounded theory is a qualitative strategy in which the researcher derives a general, abstract theory of a process, action, or interaction grounded in the views of participants in a study.
• Habit of writing is scholarly writing in a regular and continuous way rather than in binges or in on-and-off again times.
• Inferential questions or hypotheses relate variables or compare groups in terms of variables so that inferences can be drawn from the sample to a population.
• Informed consent forms are those that participants sign before they engage in research. This form acknowledges that participants' rights will be protected during data collection.
• Institutional review board (IRB) is a committee on a college and university campus that reviews research to determine to what extent the research could place participants at risk during the study. Researchers file applications with the IRB to approve their project and they use informed consent forms to have participants acknowledge the level of risk they agree to by participating in the study.
• Intercoder agreement (or cross-checking) is when two or more coders agree on codes used for the same passages in the text. It is not that they code the same text but whether another coder would code a similar passage with the same or a similar code. Statistical procedures or reliability subprograms in qualitative computer software packages can be used to determine the level of consistency of coding.
• Internal validity threats are experimental procedures, treatments, or experiences of the participants that threaten the researcher's ability to draw correct inferences from the data about the population in an experiment.
• Interpretation in qualitative research means that the researcher draws meaning from the findings of data analysis. This meaning may result in lessons learned, information to compare with the literature, or personal experiences.
• Interpretation in quantitative research means that the researcher draws conclusions from the results for the research questions, hypotheses, and the larger meaning of the study.
• Interview protocol is a form used by a qualitative researcher for recording and writing down information obtained during an interview.
• Joint displays are tables or graphs that array the quantitative or qualitative data collection and analysis side by side so that researchers can view and interpret their comparison or integration in a mixed methods study. Researchers can develop specific displays for each type of mixed methods design.
• Literature map is a visual picture (or figure) of the research literature on a topic that illustrates how a particular study contributes to the literature.
• Manipulation check measure is a measure of the intended manipulated variable of interest.
• Mediating variables are variables in quantitative research that "stand between" the independent and dependent variables in the causal link. The logic is that the independent variable probably causes the mediating variable, which, in turn, influences the dependent variable.
• Memos are notes written during the research process that reflect on the process or that help shape the development of codes and themes.
• Mixed methods case study design is the use of one or more core designs (i.e., convergent, explanatory sequential, exploratory sequential) within the framework of a single or multiple case study design.
• Mixed methods evaluation design consists of one or more core designs added to the steps in an evaluation procedure typically focused on evaluating the success of an intervention, a program or a policy.
• Mixed methods experimental design (or intervention design) occurs when the researcher collects and analyzes both quantitative and qualitative data from core designs and embeds them within an experiment or intervention trial.
• Mixed methods integration occurs in mixed methods designs when data are merged, connected (used to explain or build), or embedded in a design.
• Mixed methods notation provides shorthand labels and symbols that convey important aspects of mixed methods research, and they provide a way that mixed methods researchers can easily communicate their procedures.
• Mixed methods participatory-social justice design is a mixed methods design in which the researcher adds a core design within a larger participatory and/or social justice theoretical or conceptual framework.
• Mixed methods purpose statements contain the overall intent of the study, information about both the quantitative and qualitative strands of the study, and a rationale of incorporating both strands to study the research problem.
• Mixed methods research is an approach to inquiry that combines or integrates both qualitative and quantitative forms of research. It involves philosophical assumptions, the use of qualitative and quantitative approaches, and the mixing or integrating of both approaches in a study.
• Mixed methods research question is a special question posed in a mixed methods study that directly addresses the mixing of the quantitative and qualitative strands of the research. This is the question that will be answered in the study based on the mixing.
• Moderating variables are variables in quantitative research that moderate the effect of independent variables in a study. They are variables created by the researcher who takes one independent variable times another (typically a demographic variable) to construct a new independent variable.
• Narrative hook is a term drawn from English composition, meaning words that are used in the opening sentence of an introduction that serve to draw, engage, or hook the reader into the study.
• Narrative research is a qualitative strategy in which the researcher studies the lives of individuals and asks one or more individuals to provide stories about their lives. This information is then often retold or restoried by the researcher into a narrative chronology.
• Nondirectional hypothesis in a quantitative study is one in which the researcher makes a prediction, but the exact form of differences (e.g., higher, lower, more, or less) is not specified because the researcher does not know what can be predicted from past literature.
• Null hypothesis in quantitative research represents the traditional approach to writing hypotheses: It makes a prediction that, in the general population, no relationship or no significant difference exists between groups on a variable.
• Observational protocol is a form used by a qualitative researcher for recording and writing down information while observing.
• Phenomenological research is a qualitative strategy in which the researcher identifies the essence of human experiences about a phenomenon as described by participants in a study.
• Postpositivists reflect a deterministic philosophy about research in which causes probably determine effects or outcomes. Thus, the problems studied by postpositivists reflect issues that need to identify and assess the causes that influence the outcomes, such as found in experiments.
• Pragmatism as a worldview or philosophy arises out of actions, situations, and consequences rather than antecedent conditions (as in postpositivism). There is a concern with applications—what works—and solutions to problems. Instead of focusing on methods, researchers emphasize the research problem and use all approaches available to understand it.
• A purpose statement in a research proposal or project sets the objectives, the intent, and the major idea for the study. To purposefully select participants or sites (or documents or visual material) means that qualitative researchers select individuals who will best help them understand the research problem and the research questions.
• Qualitative audiovisual digital materials take the form of photographs, art objects, videotapes, and sounds.
• Qualitative codebook is a means for organizing qualitative data using a list of predetermined codes that are used for coding the data. This codebook might be composed with the names of codes in one column, a definition of codes in another column, and then specific instances (e.g., line numbers) in which the code is found in the transcripts.
• Qualitative documents are public documents (e.g., newspapers, minutes of meetings, official reports) or private documents (e.g., personal journals and diaries, letters, e-mails).
• Qualitative interviews means that the researcher conducts face-to-face interviews with participants, interviews participants by telephone, on the Internet, or engages in focus group interviews with six to eight interviewees in each group. These interviews involve unstructured and generally open-ended questions that are few in number and intended to elicit views and opinions from the participants.
• Qualitative observation means that the researcher takes field notes on the behavior and activities of individuals at the research site and records observations.
• Qualitative purpose statements contain information about the central phenomenon explored in the study, the participants in the study, and the research site. It also conveys an emerging design and research words drawn from the language of qualitative inquiry.
• Qualitative reliability indicates that a particular approach is consistent across different researchers and different projects.
• Qualitative research is a means for exploring and understanding the meaning individuals or groups ascribe to a social or human problem. The process of research involves emerging questions and procedures; collecting data in the participants' setting; analyzing the data inductively, building from particulars to general themes; and making interpretations of the meaning of the data. The final written report has a flexible writing structure.
• Qualitative validity means that the researcher checks for the accuracy of the findings by employing certain procedures.
• Quantitative hypotheses are predictions the researcher makes about the expected relationships among variables.
• Quantitative purpose statements include the variables in the study and their relationship, the participants in a study, and the site for the research. It also includes language associated with quantitative research and the deductive testing of relationships or theories.
• Quantitative research is a means for testing objective theories by examining the relationship among variables. These variables can be measured, typically on instruments, so that numbered data can be analyzed using statistical procedures. The final written report has a set structure consisting of introduction, literature and theory, methods, results, and discussion.
• Quantitative research questions are interrogative statements that raise questions about the relationships among variables that the investigator seeks to answer.
• Quasi-experiment is a form of experimental research in which individuals are not randomly assigned to groups.
• Random sampling is a procedure in quantitative research for selecting participants. It means that each individual has an equal probability of being selected from the population, ensuring that the sample will be representative of the population.
• Reflexivity means that researchers reflect about their biases, values, and personal background, such as gender, history, culture, and socioeconomic status, and how this background shapes their interpretations formed during a study.
• Reliability refers to whether scores to items on an instrument are internally consistent (i.e., are the item responses consistent across constructs?), stable over time (test-retest correlations), and whether there was consistency in test administration and scoring.
• Research approaches are plans and the procedures for research that span the decisions from broad assumptions to detailed methods of data collection and analysis. It involves the intersection of philosophical assumptions, designs, and specific methods.
• Research designs are types of inquiry within qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches that provide specific direction for procedures in a research study.
• Research methods involve the forms of data collection, analysis, and interpretation that researchers propose for their studies.
• Research problems are problems or issues that lead to the need for a study.
• Research tips are approaches or techniques that have worked well in research for authors.
• Response bias is the effect of nonresponses on survey estimates, and it means that if nonrespondents had responded, their responses would have substantially changed the overall results of the survey.
• Reviewing studies in an introduction justifies the importance of the study and creates distinctions between past studies and a proposed study.
• Saturation is when, in qualitative data collection, the researcher stops collecting data because fresh data no longer sparks new insights or reveals new properties.
• Script, as used in this book, is a template of a few sentences that contains the major words and ideas for particular parts of a research proposal or report (e.g., purpose statement or research question) and provides space for researchers to insert information that relates to their projects.
• Significance of the study in an introduction conveys the importance of the problem for different audiences that may profit from reading and using the study.
• Single-subject design or N of 1 design involves observing the behavior of a single individual (or a small number of individuals) over time.
• Social constructivists hold the assumption that individuals seek understanding of the world in which they live and work. Individuals develop subjective meanings of their experiences, meanings directed toward certain objects or things.
• Social science theory is a theory framework that researchers use in designs. This theory may inform many aspects of a study from the issue, to the problem, the findings, and the final suggestions for revising the theory.
• Statistical conclusion validity arises when experimenters draw inaccurate inferences from the data because of inadequate statistical power or the violation of statistical assumptions.
• Statistical significance testing reports an assessment as to whether the observed scores reflect a pattern other than chance. A statistical test is considered to be of significance if the results are unlikely by chance to have occurred, and the null hypothesis of "no effect" can be rejected.
• Style manuals provide guidelines for creating a scholarly style of a manuscript, such as a consistent format for citing references, creating headings, presenting tables and figures, and using nondiscriminatory language.
• Survey designs provide plans for a quantitative or numeric description of trends, attitudes, or opinions of a population by studying a sample of that population.
• Survey research provides a quantitative or numeric description of trends, attitudes, or opinions of a population by studying a sample of that population.
• Theoretical lens or perspective in qualitative research provides an overall orienting lens that is used to study questions of gender, class, and race (or other issues of marginalized groups). This lens becomes an advocacy perspective that shapes the types of questions asked, informs how data are collected and analyzed, and provides a call for action or change.
• Theories in mixed methods research provide an orienting lens that shapes the types of questions asked, who participates in the study, how data are collected, and the implications made from the study (typically for change and advocacy). They present an overarching perspective used with research designs.
• Theory in quantitative research is the use of an interrelated set of constructs (or variables) formed into propositions, or hypotheses, that specify the relationship among variables (typically in terms of magnitude or direction) and predicts the outcomes of a study.
• Theory use in mixed methods studies may include theory deductively in quantitative theory testing and verification or inductively, as in an emerging qualitative theory or pattern. It also has distinctive features of providing a framework within which researchers collect, analyze, and integrate both quantitative and qualitative data. This framework has taken two forms: (a) the use of a social science framework and (b) the use of a transformative framework.
• Timing in mixed methods data collection refers to the sequence of data collection in a study and whether the researcher collects the data concurrently at roughly the same time or collects the data sequentially with one database gathered prior to the other database.
• Topic is the subject or subject matter of a proposed study that a researcher identifies early in the preparation of a study.
• Transformative worldview is a philosophical position in which the researcher identifies one of the qualitative frameworks (e.g., indigenous populations, females, racial and ethnic groups, disabled individuals, and so forth) and uses the framework to advocate for the underrepresented populations and to help create a better, just society for them (Mertens, 2010).
• True experiment is a form of experimental research in which individuals are randomly assigned to groups.
• Validity in quantitative research refers to whether one can draw meaningful and useful inferences from scores on particular instruments.
• Validity strategies in qualitative research are procedures (e.g., member checking, triangulating data sources) that qualitative researchers use to demonstrate the accuracy of their findings and convince readers of this accuracy.
• Variable refers to a characteristic or attribute of an individual or an organization that can be measured or observed and that varies among the people or organization being studied. A variable typically will vary in two or more categories or on a continuum of scores, and it can be measured.
• Worldview is defined as "a basic set of beliefs that guide action" (Guba, 1990).