Critical Evaluation of Research Methods in the Services Sector

RESEARCH METHODS
FOR THE SERVICES
SECTOR

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................2
CRITICAL EVALUATION AND IDENTIFICATION OF THE METHODS AND
METHODOLOGY..........................................................................................................................2
RECOMMENDATION & CONCLUSION....................................................................................8
REFERENCE..................................................................................................................................9
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INTRODUCTION
Methodology can be defined as a kind of system of methods used within a particular area
of study. Methodology helps in explaining methods used by researcher for conducing a study
(Segovia-Pérez and et. al., 2019). It is one of the most important part of a research study because
it helps in providing guidance to researcher about ways in which they can achieve main aim of
the research in an accurate and appropriate manner. for using appropriate methodology within
are search it is important to understand different types of methods that are used within a study.
One of the best ways of gaining understanding of methodology used within studies is critically
evaluating methodology and methods used within different studies (Psaltoglou and Vakali,
2021). This report will focus upon critical evaluation of methods and methodology used in
selected two journal articles. For these evaluations of paradigm of research underpinning the
methods used will be done. This report will furrier help in understanding ways in which methods
selected by researcher have been used, data analysis techniques used. Not only this, in this report
appropriateness, strength and weakness of all the methods and approaches used by researcher
and lastly recommendations on the basis of this critical evaluation will further be provided.
CRITICAL EVALUATION AND IDENTIFICATION OF THE METHODS
AND METHODOLOGY
First Article: Incorporating a gender approach in the hospitality industry
Methods and techniques used in article with their strengths and weaknesses
There are various kinds of methodologies and methods or approaches that were used by
researcher in this article for answering all the three main research questions in an appropriate
manner (Reiter, 2017). Each of these methods has an appropriate reason to be selected and were
selected as per their strengths and weaknesses. Some of the main methodology, methods and
approaches used by researcher in this article have been explained in this below:
Design of the research, data collection and approach: In this article researcher has adopted
exploratory approach because this approach helped the researcher in using qualitative methods so
that they can evaluate experience of women in leadership positions within this industry. For
qualitative analysis researcher had focused upon using semi- structured interviews for collection
of primary data collection. But for this interview and data collection Risman’s model was
focused upon so that interview and data can be designed in an accurate manner and critical or
crucial elements of research study can be analysed in an appropriate manner. So, as per this
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discussion it can be identified that main method chosen for data collection was semi- structured
face to face interview, approach used for this was exploratory approach. Both of these methods
have their own strengths and weaknesses because of which researcher opted to choose these
methods.
 Exploratory approach: one of the main strengths of this approach is that it directly helps in
providing flexibility to researcher that further helps them in leading progress within research.
It is one of the most appropriate method that can be used with qualitative research as it helps
in building a foundation of research that can further lead to further research (Evans and
Lewis, 2018). But this approach has its own disadvantages as well such as: even though it
can help in leading research to correct direction but this approach can be inconclusive. His
approach is more suitable is sample size is small and for larger sample size it is not at all a
suitable approach. As in this research article researcher had selected only 21 participants and
it is a qualitative research article so therefore it was one of the most suitable approach that
could have been used with this research article.
 Semi- structured interview: one of the main strengths of semi-structured interview is that it
helps in providing a scope to researcher so that they can prepare interview questions before
hand. It further allows participants to respond and providing more in- depth information
about a particulate question. Usage of this method of data collection directly help in gaining
in depth knowledge about research topic that can further help in answering research question
in an adequate manner (Ghaljaie, Naderifar and Goli, 2017). But this method has its own
disadvantages as well such as: it is a time- consuming method of data collection and there is
a possibility that one question can lead to bias interview. But as in this research all the
participants chosen were from relevant field who had sufficient knowledge about this field so
this method was an appropriate method that helped the researcher in collecting sufficient
information and in addition to this there was enough time to conduct this semi-structured
interview so time constrict was not a problem for researcher and therefore it was appropriate
to be chosen as per researchers.
Sampling method and Participants: In this research participants selected were female
executives in top positions in the hospitality sector. All the selected female executives were
asked to participate in semi-structured face t face interview of collection of primary data. For
recruiting appropriate people for this research ‘snowball’ technique of sampling was selected by
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