Research Methodology Strengths And Limitations

Research
2/18/2020

Research 1
Introduction
The research methodology chapter will provide the explanation related to the process for this
research and also justify the choices of the researcher in terms of methods, design, sampling and
more. The research methodology highlights the strengths and limitations of this research in order
to attain the aim of the research that is to investigate the link between social isolation and
loneliness among students with visual impairments in third-level education in Ireland.
Research Purpose
In the research, the purpose of the research is the statement of why the study is being conducted
or the goal behind the study. For this research, the purpose of the research is to investigate the
link among the social isolation and loneliness amongst students with visual impairments in third-
level education in Ireland. The purpose of the research is divided into three major categories that
are exploratory, descriptive, and explanatory. Exploratory research is an important part of any
marketing or business strategy (Research Methodology, 2019). The major focus of this research
depends on the identification of the ideas and insights as it is opposed to collect statistically
accurate data. On the other hand, the descriptive research majorly takes up the bulk of the online
surveying and it is also considered as the conclusive in nature because it is quantitative nature
(Kan and Gero, 2017, p. 53). Further, explanatory research is generally used by the researcher to
enhance the understanding of the researcher on a certain subject.
For this study, the researcher has selected exploratory research over the other two methods. The
researcher has selected this research purpose because they want to take the precursor to further
studies (Quinlan, Babin, Carr and Griffin, 2019, p. 149). This method will allow the research to
attain the new learning that encourages the learners to examine and also to investigate the new

Research 2
material about the link between social isolation and loneliness amongst students with visual
impairments in third-level education in Ireland.
Research Type
One of the major elements of the research is to decide the type of the research conducted by the
researcher for the investigation of the link between the visual impairments students in third level
education in terms of social isolation and loneliness. In social science, there are majorly two
types of research which includes applied research and basic research (Kumar, 2019, p. 198).
Applied research is research that seeks to get the answer to the questions in the real world and
also find ways to solve the problem. On the other hand, basic research tries to learn things that
aren’t considered as always right as it is directly applicable or even useful at the immediate level.
The researcher has picked the basic research over the applied research. The reason behind the use
of the basic research is that it is driven purely by curiosity as well as the desire with the motive to
expand the knowledge (Gray, 2019, p. 348). However, this has been found that this sort of
research tends not to be directly applicable in the real world in a direct manner but this is the fact
that this type of research contributes in to enhance the knowledge across the world. The
implementation of the basic research by researcher contributes to knowledge and understanding
of the problem with students with sight impairment (Silverman, 2016, p. 379).
Research Design
Research design is the framework of the research method as well as the techniques that are
selected by the researcher for the research area. In the social science, a cross-sectional study is a
type of observational study that contributes in analysing the data from a population, or a
representative subset at a particular point in time (Setia, 2016, p.261). On the other hand, a
longitudinal study is a research design that consists of the frequent observations of a similar

Research 3
variable over the long or short period of time. For this study, the researcher has selected the
cross-sectional research design over the longitudinal research design. The reason for selecting
the cross-sectional research design is that it is used to prove or disprove the assumptions (Cherry,
2019). These assumptions are linked to the investigation of the link between social isolation and
loneliness amongst students with visual impairments in third-level education in Ireland. The
cross-sectional approach is better than the longitudinal as it consists of the different samples
rather than the same sample (Walliman, 2017, p.65). It has been found that the cross-sectional
study leads to the changes at the societal level instead of the changes at the individual level
related to the research area. This means that the investigation about the link between social
isolation and loneliness amongst students with visual impairments in third-level education is
going to take place in entire Ireland with the help of the cross-sectional research design (Leavy,
2017, p. 164).
Data type
Collecting good data is the foundation on which you gather evidence and then make the sense
out of it. There are generally two types of data which are generally applied by the researcher for
conducting the research which is quantitative and qualitative and both are considered equally
essential for the researcher. In the field of the research, qualitative research is considered as one
of the scientific method of the observation to collect the non-numerical data (Cuervo‐Cazurra,
Mudambi, Pedersen and Piscitello, 2017, p. 235). This type of data consists of the different
examples that can be used by the researcher to collect the data like open-ended questionnaires,
documents, participant observation and many others. It has been determined that one of the
examples through which the researcher can collect the data is unstructured interviews that can
contribute in generating the qualitative data by offering the open questions to the participants and