4.0 Introduction
This chapter examines the overall approach to the research framework. It describes the methods and tools chosen for this research. At the meantime, the reasons why particular methods were chosen and their appropriateness are critically evaluated. Also the limitations involved in the research methods as well as other problems encountered were highlighted.
4.1 Research Approach
At an early stage in a research, a choice must be made about the paradigm the research will adopt (Greenfield 1996). Because the choice of paradigm will impact on the research design and methodology because the type of methodology chosen should reflect the assumptions of the research paradigm, for an instance, there are a number of different types of research methodology, however some of which lend themselves more to one paradigm than anther, such as a survey is a positivistic methodology.
There are two main research paradigms labelled by Hussey (1997) as positivist and phenomenological, or quantitative and qualitative by Creswell (1994). Table 4.1 was summarized by Creswell (1994) showing the key features of two main paradigms.
Table 4.1 Features of the two main paradigms (Creswell 1994)
Positivistic paradigm Phenomenological paradigm
Tends to produce quantitative data Tends to produce qualitative data
Uses large samples Use small samples
Concerned with hypothesis testing Concerned with generating theories
Data is highly specific and precise Data is rich and subjective
The location is artificial The location is natural
Reliability is high Reliability is low
Validity is low Validity is high
Generalises from sample to population Generalises from one setting to another
There is some difficulty in mixing the two main...