Question

Utilizing the ideas parts of your proposed design Proposal and other associated assignments, consider the following scenario: An academic researcher wants to conduct a study on the distribution of various medications over the past 10 years.

1. what steps are required before the researcher can obtain any data?

Answer 1

There are multiple steps before data collection during a research process.

Such as,

1. Find the problem or an objective
2. Plan a research design or protocol
3. Identify the correct research method
4. Data collection

In the given scenario, a researcher wants to study about various medicines, which all has effects in people for over 10 years. In this case, the objective is to find what the medicines does to the people. So, the first step is already done by the researcher.

And, it is also mentioned that he or she has received the proposal of a design or framework of how the research is going to go, over the period. So, the second step is also completed.

So, the step before data collection is that, the academic researcher need to identify the correct methodology to proceed with the research. This is because, it's going to involve humans and their medical history over a very long period. There are probability and non probability methodology of research process, but when it comes to humans as samples, then the types are simple random, systematic, snowball, cluster, purpose, stratified random and multistage sampling etc.

After finding the correct method to do the research, the researcher can start collecting the data from the humans or samples, to proceed with other steps of a research process like evaluation of data, analysis, conclusion or interpretation and report the results.