Question

List 2 examples of the seven-step research process?

Step 1- define the problem

Step 2- Review the literature

Step 3- Formulate a hypothesis

Step 4- Select a research design

Step 5 - Carry out the research

Step 6- Interpret your results

Step 7- Reporting the research findings

Answer 1

• 1.The first step in the process is to identify a problem or develop a research question. The research problem may be something the agency identifies as a problem, some knowledge or information that is needed by the agency, or the desire to identify a recreation trend nationally. In the example,the problem that has been identified is childhood obesity, which is a local problem and concern within the community. This serves as the focus of the study.
• 2.In the next step,the researcher must learn more about the topic under investigation. To do this, the researcher must review the literature related to the research problem. This step provides foundational knowledge about the problem area. The review of literature also educates the researcher about what studies have been conducted in the past, how these studies were conducted, and the conclusions in the problem area. In the obesity study, the review of literature enables the reseracher to discover statistics related to the long-term effects of childhood obesity in terms of health issues, death rates, and projected medical costs.
• In addition, the reseracher finds several articles and information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that describe the benefits of walking 10,000 steps a day. The information discovered during this step helps the programmer fully understand the magnitude of the problem, recognize the future consequences of obesity, and identify a strategy to combat obesity (i.e., walking).
  
• 3.Formulating Hypothesis-The knowledge gained through the review of literature guides the researcher in clarifying and narrowing the research project. In the example, the researcher has identified childhood obesity as the problem and the purpose of the study. This topic is very broad and could be studied based on genetics, family environment, diet, exercise, self-confidence, leisure activities, or health issues.
• All of these areas cannot be investigated in a single study; therefore, the problem and purpose of the study must be more clearly defined. The researcher has decided that the purpose of the study is to determine if walking 10,000 steps a day for three days a week will improve the individual’s health. This purpose is more narrowly focused and researchable than the original problem.
• 4.To minimize confusion about what the terms and phrases mean, the researcher must specifically define them for the study. In the obesity study, the concept of “individual’s health” can be defined in hundreds of ways, such as physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual health. For this study, the individual’s health is defined as physical health. The concept of physical health may also be defined and measured in many ways. In this case, the reseracher decides to more narrowly define “individual health” to refer to the areas of weight, percentage of body fat, and cholesterol.
• By defining the terms or concepts more narrowly, the scope of the study is more manageable for the researcher, making it easier to collect the necessary data for the study. This also makes the concepts more understandable to the reader.
• 5.In research terms, the group to involve in the study is always called the population. Defining the population assists the researcher in several ways. First, it narrows the scope of the study from a very large population to one that is manageable. Second, the population identifies the group that the researcher’s efforts will be focused on within the study. This helps ensure that the researcher stays on the right path during the study. Finally, by defining the population, the researcher identifies the group that the results will apply to at the conclusion of the study. In this example the researcher has identified the population of the study as children ages 10 to 12 years. This narrower population makes the study more manageable in terms of time and resources.
• 6.The instrumentation plan serves as the road map for the entire study, specifying who will participate in the study; how, when, and where data will be collected; and the content of the program.In the obesity study, the researcher has decided to have the children participate in a walking program for six months. The group of participants is called the sample, which is a smaller group selected from the population specified for the study. The study cannot possibly include every 10- to 12-year-old child in the community, so a smaller group is used to represent the population.
• The researcher develops the plan for the walking program, indicating what data will be collected, when and how the data will be collected, who will collect the data, and how the data will be analyzed. The instrumentation plan specifies all the steps that must be completed for the study. This ensures that the researcher has carefully thought through all these decisions and that she provides a step-by-step plan to be followed in the study.
• 7.Data can be collected in the form of words on a survey, with a questionnaire, through observations, or from the literature. In the obesity study, the researcher will be collecting data on the defined variables: weight, percentage of body fat, cholesterol levels, and the number of days the person walked a total of 10,000 steps during the class.
• The researcher collects these data at the first session and at the last session of the program. These two sets of data are necessary to determine the effect of the walking program on weight, body fat, and cholesterol level. Once the data are collected on the variables, the researcher is ready to move to the final step of the process, which is the data analysis.
• 8.The results of this analysis are then reviewed and summarized in a manner directly related to the research questions. In the obesity study, the researcher compares the measurements of weight, percentage of body fat, and cholesterol that were taken at the first meeting of the subjects to the measurements of the same variables at the final program session. These two sets of data will be analyzed to determine if there was a difference between the first measurement and the second measurement for each individual in the program.
• Then, the data will be analyzed to determine if the differences are statistically significant. If the differences are statistically significant, the study validates the theory that was the focus of the study. The results of the study also provide valuable information about one strategy to combat childhood obesity in the community.