Research Assignment #21: Can exploratory research be the right kind of perspective for the emotions of others For the Departments of English & Media Studies by Prof Dr Sohail Ansari

Sherrie Campbell, the author of a book ‘Success Equations: A Path to an Emotionally Wealthy Life’ states:

‘The practice of perspective taking brings compassion to the emotional climate…’

Your perspective is the way you see something. If you think that toys corrupt children's minds, then from your perspective a toy shop is an evil place.

Similarly for you if you believe in an essay of the research Assignment #20 then for you a king and people with him are the dark, menacing and brooding presence in a country

.

The key to successful approach to the truth lies in our ability to take the perspective of another. Perspective taking is that all important skill of being able to look at things from a point of view other than our own. 

Perspective taking brings in the mindfulness or helps us to slot mindfulness of other opinion in evaluating situation or people.

                                                                         

Jen Nicomedes Stone in ‘20 Inspiring Quotes to Keep Things in Perspective’ states:

 ‘Do you recall hearing a song, phrase, or passage that resonated with you in some profound way that articulated exactly how you're feeling? As if the author was glimpsing into your mind.

Quotes, in particular, have the power to echo the state of your being with only a few words. The power behind quotes, I believe, is that they can offer just the right kind of perspective for whatever emotions you may be experiencing’.

We found a quote:

Know what you're doing, keep things in perspective.

But for our purpose, we modify it to have it offer just the right kind of perspective for emotions we are experiencing.

Quote runs as such:

Know what others are saying, keep things in perspective.

(Perspective has to do with point of view)

Because then, we can logically take into consideration the true measure of importance a situation poses, hopefully before we react. When we do not keep things in perspective, we run the risk of “blowing things all out of proportion,” overreacting owing to emotions rather than sound judgment.

Know what others are saying, keep things in perspective.

Because we can look at the whole "picture", seeing things in their proper relation/proportion to everything else. The idea is something like stepping back from the thing you are concerned about so you can see other things too.

Know what others are saying, keep things in perspective.

Because it is true that the word perspective means how far and how deep a picture looks to the eyes, exactly, in relation to what we perceive as familiar reality.

Therefore, we do not have the lopsided judgment.

In the assignement 20 we learn about a king and people associated with him through an essay.

 

But we want to know the other perspective.

 

Question: How we can know?

 

Answer: Through research.

 

But we have no idea of a research; therefore, we decide to read:

 

Understanding research

By Shruti Datt on September 8, 2015

Research in common parlance refers to search for knowledge. One can also define research as a scientific and systematic search for pertinent information on a specific topic. In fact, it is an art of scientific investigation. Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English, has defined as “a careful investigation or inquiry especially through search for new facts in any branch of knowledge”. Therefore, in simple terms it is a study undertaken by the researcher to gain new knowledge in their field of interest.

Different types of research

A study to gain knowledge and seek answers to questions with the application of scientific procedures and methods has specific objective which can be categorized into 4 main categories:

1. Exploratory: To gain familiarity of the research phenomenon or to achieve new insights.

2. Descriptive: To determine the characteristics of a situation, group of individuals, with respect to research phenomenon.

3. Diagnostic: To determine the frequency with which something occurs individually or when it is associated with something else.

4. Hypothesis testing: To determine the causal relationship between variables (independent and dependent variables) within the study.

General steps to follow while conducting a research

1. Formulate problems.

2. Conduct literature review.

3. Identify key concepts and define them.

4. Formulate research questions, objectives and hypothesis (if it is appropriate).

5. Identify the methodology which will be adopted in order to carry out the study.

6. Collect data.

7. Analyse and discuss data.

8. Draw appropriate conclusions.

9. Write the research report.

Here I would also be discussing about things to keep in mind while writing methodology chapter.

1. Rather than presenting definitions and explanations of the methods, emphasize more on justification as to why did you choose a particular method with respect to the particular research study.

2. Draw conclusions from previous studies while developing the measuring instrument i.e. questionnaire, so that you have an explanation about why a particular question is included in the research questionnaire.

3. During Literature review, identify factors which you will be testing in the primary analysis. These factors should be presented in the conceptual framework within Research methodology chapter’.

                                                                                    

We have to learn first ‘what is research’ therefore ‘general steps to follow while conducting a research’ are irrelevant to our purpose.

We feel more detail is needed so we can decide the right kind of research; therefore we read exploratory research further:

Exploratory research

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Exploratory research is research conducted for a problemthat has not been studied more clearly, intended to establish priorities, develop operational definitions and improve the final research design.

Exploratory research helps determine the best research design, data-collection method and selection of subjects. It should draw definitive conclusions only with extreme caution. Given its fundamental nature

Exploratory research often relies on techniques such as:

·         secondary research - such as reviewing available literature and/or data

·         informal qualitative approaches, such as discussions with consumers, employees, management or competitors

·         formal qualitative research through in-depth interviews, focus groups, projective methods, case studies or pilot studies

When research aims to gain familiarity with a phenomenon or to acquire new insight into it in order to formulate a more precise problem or to develop a hypothesis, exploratory studies (also known as formulative research) come in handy. If the theory happens to be too general or too specific, a hypothesis cannot be formulated. Therefore, a need for an exploratory research may be realized and instituted to gain experience that may help in formulating a relevant hypothesis for more definite investigation.

The results of exploratory research are not usually useful for decision-making by themselves, but they can provide significant insight into a given situation. Although the results of qualitative research can give some indication as to the "why", "how" and "when" something occurs, they cannot reveal "how often" or "how many".

Exploratory research is not typically generalizable to the population at large.

Social exploratory research "seeks to find out how people get along in the setting under question, what meanings they give to their actions, and what issues concern them. The goal is to learn 'what is going on here?' and to investigate social phenomena without explicit expectations."

This methodology is also at times referred to as a grounded theoryapproach to qualitative research or interpretive research, and is an attempt to unearth a theory from the data itself rather than from a predisposed hypothesis.

Earl Babbie identifies three purposes of social-science research: exploratory, descriptive and explanatory.

·         Exploratory research takes place when problems are in a preliminary stage.

 Exploratory research is used when the topic or issue is new and when data is difficult to collect.

Exploratory research is flexible and can address research questions of all types (what, why, how).

Exploratory research is often used to generate formal hypotheses. 

 Skeptics, however, have questioned the usefulness and necessity of exploratory research in situations where prior analysis could be conducted instead.

There are three types of objectives in a marketing research project:

·         Exploratory research or formulative research

·         Descriptive research

·         Causal research (also referred to as explanatory research)

Exploratory research or formulative research: The objective of exploratory research is to gather preliminary information that will help define problems and suggest hypotheses.

Descriptive research: The objective of descriptive research is to describe the characteristics of various aspects, such as the market potential for a product or the demographics and attitudes of consumers who buy the product.

Causal research: The objective of causal research is to test hypotheses about cause-and-effect relationships. If the objective is to determine which variable might be causing a certain behavior, i.e. whether there is a cause and effect relationship between variables, causal research must be undertaken. In order to determine causality, it is important to hold the variable that is assumed to cause the change in the other variable(s) constant and then measure the changes in the other variable(s). This type of research is very complex and the researcher can never be completely certain that there are not other factors influencing the causal relationship, especially when dealing with people's attitudes and motivations. There are often much deeper psychological considerations, that even the respondent may not be aware of this is not true.

 

We decide to take help from John Dudovskiy:

Exploratory Research

Exploratory research, as the name implies, intends merely to explore the research questions and does not intend to offer final and conclusive solutions to existing problems. This type of research is usually conducted to study a problem that has not been clearly defined yet.

Conducted in order to determine the nature of the problem, exploratory research is not intended to provide conclusive evidence, but helps us to have a better understanding of the problem. When conducting exploratory research, the researcher ought to be willing to change his/her direction as a result of revelation of new data and new insights.

Exploratory research design does not aim to provide the final and conclusive answers to the research questions, but merely explores the research topic with varying levels of depth. It has been noted that “exploratory research is the initial research, which forms the basis of more conclusive research. It can even help in determining the research design, sampling methodology and data collection method”.

Exploratory research “tends to tackle new problems on which little or no previous research has been done”. Unstructured interviews are the most popular primary data collection method with exploratory studies.

Examples of Exploratory Research Design

The following are some examples for studies with exploratory research design in business studies:

§  A study into the role of social networking sites as an effective marketing communication channel

§  An investigation into the ways of improvement of quality of customer services within hospitality sector in London

§  An assessment of the role of corporate social responsibility on consumer behaviour in pharmaceutical industry in the USA

Differences between Exploratory and Conclusive Research

The difference between exploratory and conclusive research is drawn by Sandhursen (2000) in a researches, whereas conclusive research design is aimed to provide final findings for the research way that exploratory studies result in a range of causes and alternative options for a solution of a specific problem, whereas, conclusive studies identify the final information that is the only solution to an existing research problem.

On other words, exploratory research design simply explores the research questions, leaving room for further.

Moreover, it has been stated that “an exploratory study may not have as rigorous as methodology as it is used in conclusive studies, and sample sizes may be smaller. But it helps to do the exploratory study as methodically as possible, if it is going to be used for major decisions about the way we are going to conduct our next study” (Nargundkar, 2003, p.41).

Advantages of Exploratory Research

1. Flexibility and adaptability to change

2. Exploratory research is effective in laying the groundwork that will lead to future studies.

3. Exploratory studies can potentially save time and other resources by determining at the earlier stages the types of research that are worth pursuing

Disadvantages of Exploratory Research

1. Exploratory studies generate qualitative information and interpretation of such type of information is subject to bias

2. These types of studies usually make use of a modest number of samples that may not adequately represent the target population. Accordingly, findings of exploratory research cannot be generalized to a wider population.

3. Findings of such type of studies are not usually useful in decision making in a practical level.

We take further help:

Instructor: Kimberly Winston

In this lesson, you'll learn about a type of research called exploratory research. You'll achieve a general understanding of the topic through examples that demonstrate the way in which it's used.

Definition of Exploratory Research

Even as children, we have a natural curiosity about the world around us. We ask questions like: Why is the sky blue? Why do birds fly? Questions like these are often the foundation of exploratory research because they reveal our desire to understand the world around us. Exploratory research (or ER) is an examination into a subject in an attempt to gain further insight. With ER, a researcher starts with a general idea and uses research as a tool to identify issues that could be the focus of future research.

Look at how ER is used in business. For instance, let's say you own a bakery called The Cupcake King. If you wanted to improve your sales, but weren't sure where to start, you might employ ER to find out the areas of your business that need improvement.

It's important to note that the point of exploratory research is not to gain a definitive answer, like you would with a math problem. For instance, you know that no matter how many different ways you look at the math problem 1 + 1, the answer is always 2.

Exploratory Research Methods

You may wonder how you can explore a topic if there is little information about it. There are several methods that are used in exploratory research. Researchers may use primary or secondary research, or a combination of both types of research.

Primary research is data that someone collects personally, usually from a group of people gathered specifically for the study. Primary research is collected through the use of interviews, focus groups, customer surveys, or any way that organizations are able to obtain feedback. For instance, social media and blogs are a great way for business owners to obtain customer feedback.

Secondary research is the analysis and synthesis of primary research that was compiled at a previous date. Secondary research can be gathered from marketing research data, magazines, old reports, or any other source where relevant information has been stored.

Once upon a time, someone had the idea that the world was flat and that if you went too far, you would surely fall off. We now know that is not true. We know this because of ER. When you conduct ER, you are an explorer, like Magellan or Lewis and Clark or even Dora the Explorer! Before explorers set out on a new adventure, they gather primary and secondary research. They look at similar expeditions, talk to others about their expeditions, and gather any data that will be helpful in guiding them on their journey. ER is the initial research conducted so you understand where you need to focus your efforts or where to point your compass.

Example of Exploratory Research

The owner of The Cupcake King has many, many ideas for improving the bakery's sales but isn't sure which will work. They think increasing the flavors of cupcakes the bakery sells will bring in more customers but know they need more information. They intend to conduct ER to investigate whether expanding their cupcake selection will lead to an increase in sales, or if there is a better idea.

The owner starts by examining prior research available on food business improvement methods. They hope that this will give them an idea on the types of questions and methods that were helpful to others. Next, they develop a list of open-ended questions, or questions that let respondents answer however they want.

The Cupcake King, for instance, asks respondents how they could improve the customer experience. The most common customer responses included comments regarding the location, the atmosphere, the length of time it took to be served, and wanting the ability to customize their their cupcakes.

It's important to note that the point of exploratory research is not to gain a definitive answer, like you would with a math problem. For instance, you know that no matter how many different ways you look at the math problem 1 + 1, the answer is always 2.

Exercise

Question:

 Read a material below and tell that can we use an initial piece of information provided by an essay to make subsequent judgments?

 Maurice E. Schweitzer:  ‘The anchoring effect is a cognitive bias that describes the common human tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information offered

The anchoring effect is a cognitive bias that describes the common human tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information offered (the “anchor”) when making decisions. During decision making, anchoring occurs when individuals use an initial piece of information to make subsequent judgments. Once an anchor is set, other judgments are made by adjusting away from that anchor, and there is a bias toward interpreting other information around the anchor. For example, the initial price offered for a used car sets the standard for the rest of the negotiations, so that prices lower than the initial price seem more reasonable even if they are still higher than what the car is really worth.’

‘Therefore, in simple terms it is a study undertaken by the researcher to gain new knowledge in their field of interest’.

Question:

Do you think we intend to gain new knowledge or different knowledge? How do we define ‘New’?

Read material below for help

 Dr. D. J. Hill, assistant secretary of State says in his inspiring address, dealing with the influence of universities upon national life, delivered at the Johns Hopkins University at the last commemoration day: ‘Students of human history well know that the pursuit of knowledge has been the fundamental factor of progress through many centuries’.

The pursuit can lead to the extension of knowledge but ‘New’ can be the fact or condition of knowing hitherto unknown  with familiarity gained through experience or association

Can we ask question?

Why has a king unleashed a reign of terror?

Why the associates of his have no moral qualms and scruples?

Clue:

Questions like these can help to gain further insight; and as implied by ‘further’ one must have….. Complete the sentence

‘And question like these mean that an essay is a starting point for our research or in other words the starting for our research is an assessment of the essay that the author of an essay regards as true’ explain what it means.

Do you think questions like these establish context for our investigation? Therefore a biased beginning?

‘Winston Churchill's "Sinews of Peace" address of 5 March 1946, at Westminster College, used the term "iron curtain" in the context of Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe.

The Iron Curtain was the name for the physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas. 

The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union to block itself and its satellite states from open world’.

We use this term, however, in a bit different way: for us a term iron curtain is a metaphor for the strict separation between inhabitants of kingdom and foreigners; though there is no physical boundary but the laws of state and the security apparatus that creates the physical boundary between foreigners and people of kingdom.

Read material below to have a better idea of the security apparatus.

Security apparatus

Each country creates its own security apparatus. In doing so it aims to validate the fundamental attributes of a sovereign and independent state as a subject of international law. This apparatus is not only supposed to defend the territorial integrity of the state, but also to help the state administration to enforce the legal state as well as the observance of law and order. In democratic societies, the structure of the security apparatus is transparent, being based on adopted legislation and subjected to independent evaluation.

In totalitarian societies the security apparatus not only fulfils the role of the supervisor and guardian of adopted legislation, but it often gets abused by the totalitarian power for deliberate interventions against opponents of the regime. Such a repressive apparatus plays one of the most important roles within the set totalitarian system of the state. It is controlled by; it receives orders from and is fully subjugated to the interests of the governing establishment. It is fully under control of the state party and its decision making positions are occupied by faithful party members.

In Communist Czechoslovakia, the repressive security apparatus was composed of the following forces: the National security corps (Public security and State security), the People’s militia, units of the Czechoslovak people’s army and the Corps of correctional education. After the collapse of the totalitarian regime in the ČSSR at the end of 1989, parts of this security apparatus were either directly dissolved, or they were purged and transformed into a new, democratic form’. 

Read what John Dudovskiy says of secondary research and

Read an article below:

Soviet censorship: How did the USSR control the public

HISTORY

JUNE 27 2017

OLEG YEGOROV

The Bolsheviks seized power in Russia in 1917 while championing freedom, yet one of their first decisions was to limit free speech through harsh censorship. In early November 1917, the Soviet government signed the Decree on Press which prohibited publishing any “bourgeois” articles criticizing the Bolsheviks’ authority.

As the years passed political censorship grew stronger, reaching its peak under Joseph Stalin’s reign. After his death the state relaxed its stance but censorship remained until Mikhail Gorbachev declared glasnost in the late 1980s.

Disgraced politicians

As the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (GSE) puts it, Soviet censorship had “a different character than the one existing in bourgeois states and aimed only at protecting the interests of the working class.” This is a bold statement, especially given the fact the Soviet elite employed censorship for its own bloody gain, most notably during Stalin’s Great Purge.  

“The physical eradication of Stalin's political opponents was followed by their obliteration from all forms of pictorial existence,” British historian David King wrote in his book The Commissar Vanishes. Retouchers worked hard erasing traces of fallen leaders from all photographs and images. For instance, Nikolay Yezhov, an infamous chief of the NKVD (secret police organization, the predecessor of the KGB) who masterminded the mass political repressions in 1936-1938, fell out with Stalin and found himself in the hands of the secret police in 1940, before being executed. After that Yezhov disappeared from all photographs with Stalin.

The same happened to another notorious NKVD chief - Lavrentiy Beria. One of Stalin’s most trusted allies, he was left high and dry after his patron’s demise in 1953 and was also executed. This was followed by an insistent government request that all people who owned a GSE containing an article about Beria must replace it with a revised version, which had no mention of the ill-fated official.

Unwelcome books

In 1921, the young Soviet government created the Glavlit (General Directorate for the Protection of State Secrets in the Press) which for decades remained the main instrument of controlling literature. Glavlit’s censors decided if a book was published in the USSR, or if it was banned.

As a result, Soviet citizens could not read many books, some of which are now regarded as classics - including Mikhail Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita and Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago, not to mention most works by Alexander Solzhenitsyn that criticized the Soviet regime. The circulation of books written by émigré writers who had fled Soviet Russia were, of course, prohibited - robbing the public of Ivan Bunin and Vladimir Nabokov’s novels, to name just two authors.

Nevertheless, the Soviet government wasn’t able to completely eradicate literature it deemed “dangerous.” Through the ages, people opposing censorship have circulated handmade copies of banned literature. In the Soviet Union, this was called samizdat (self-published) and scores of illegal books were enjoyed by readers as a result.

Modern art

Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the USSR from 1953 to 1964, was more liberal than Stalin, whose repressive policies he condemned in his secret speech in 1956. According to the Russian historian Leonid Katsva, Khrushchev even thought of abolishing ideological censorship in art, but changed his mind.

One of the factors that influenced Khruschev’s decision was his encounter with the avant-garde. After witnessing the “New Reality” exhibition performed by young artists, Khrushchev became very angry with their unrealistic style of painting and started shouting: “Soviet people don’t need all this! We declare war on you!”

Under the rule of Leonid Brezhnev (1964 to 1982) the state continued to oppress artists working outside the realm of social realism. For example, in 1974 the government demolished an unofficial avant-garde exhibition in the suburbs of Moscow using bulldozers and water cannons. The event became known as the “Bulldozer Exhibition.”

Western radio waves

Throughout the Cold War both the West and the USSR were trying to influence each other’s population by providing “alternative points of view.” In 1946, the BBC started broadcasting radio services for Soviet citizens. Voice of America, Radio Liberty, and Deutsche Welle all followed suit a couple of years later.

Unsurprisingly, the Kremlin was not happy with Western media trying to meddle with Soviet citizens so it started blocking radio frequencies used by foreign stations. According to Rimantas Pleikis, a radio journalist from Lithuania, the USSR possessed the most powerful and wide scale “anti-radio” system in the world.

But even that system had cracks. Those who wanted to continue tuning in to the “foreign voices” and alternative opinions - along with jazz and rock music - found a way. Finally, in 1988 Mikhail Gorbachev officially stopped blocking Western radio stations.

Secondary research can be gathered from marketing research data, magazines, old reports, or any other source where relevant information has been stored’.

Question:

If essay is true then it is also true that in totalitarian rule, political paranoia ferments and consequently dissension is suppressed. 

Do you think we can have information relevant to king and people associated with him? Information that is not only relevant but also true?

Question:

Read how the owner of The Cupcake King uses exploratory Research; and tell can we use it for our purpose?

Question:

Read data collection method through primary research and tell its utility for our purpose?