Question

To be able to conduct research for a study about the question “Would a person that works out and live a physically active life tend to have a longer life span than a person that isn’t physically active?” Please answer the following questions:

1-List and label the dependent and independent variables

2-State the null and alternate hypotheses.

3-What qualitative methods could be used to address your research question(s)?

4-Describe any that could be applied.

5-Which would be the most appropriate? Why?

6-What are the advantages and disadvantages?

Answer 1

1. Independent variables are those variables which control the distribution. They are the variables which the researches want to manipulate to find any effect on the dependent variable.

Dependent variables are those variables which need to be measured by the help of independent variables.

In the above problem the persons are the independent variables. In this case they can be classified into two labels (i) persons living physically active life  (ii) Persons not living physically active life.

Dependent variable is the life span or life expectancy of a person.

2. Null Hypothesis: The life span of a person is not affected by the physical activities

Alternative Hypothesis: The life span of a person is affected by the physical activities.

3. Qualitative analysis deals with the meanings and terms. This form of research can be used to evaluate generalizable facts concerning a subject. The qualitative research can be applied in the above scenario. Different methods are phenomenological method, etnographic model, grounded theory method, case study model, historical model, narrative model.

4. Phenomenology is a qualitative research approach which focuses on the commonality of a lived experience within a community. By this process, the researcher will build up the basic sense of the case, circumstance or experience and come to a deeper understanding of the phenomenon.

5. Here the most appropriate is to go for case study research. A case study is a research technique and an analytical analysis that investigates a problem in its real-life context. Case studies are based on an in-depth inquiry into the causes of the fundamental concepts of a particular person, community or case. Here in the case study the researchers need to observe the indepenedent variables under two levels such as (i) persons living physically active life  (ii) Persons not living physically active life.

6. Advantages of Case study research method

(i) It will allow a lot of detailed to be collected regarding the units of study which is not possible in any other qualitative research method

(ii) Scientific experiments can be conducted within a case study

(iii) In this method researchers can frame hypothesis which can be tested later on.

Diadvantages of Case study research Method

(i) The data collected may not sometimes be generalised for entire population

(ii) It sometimes difficult to draw a definite cause/ effect from case study method