ITECH 5500 Professional Research and Communication: Week 5-6 Report

This assignment, completed for ITECH 5500, encompasses the tutorial exercises and reflections from weeks 5 and 6. The first part of the assignment focuses on understanding and defining research paradigms, including ontology, epistemology, and methodology, as discussed in a provided YouTube video. The student lists and defines key terms, identifies their associations within the research paradigm framework, and reflects on their own philosophical assumptions. The second part delves into statistical analysis, including identifying variables (dependent and independent, nominal, ordinal, ratio), and performing calculations for mean, median, and mode on provided datasets. The assignment also explores the application of these concepts through a case study. Part B focuses on formulating objectives and hypothesis. The student formulates sub-objectives and a hypothesis for a research problem, identifying the independent and dependent variables. The student reflects on their learning, highlighting key takeaways from the week's activities and exercises.

ITECH 5500
Week 05
PART A
1. Click on the following link to watch the YouTube video attentively on “Ontology
epistemology and methodology - research methodology course (self-study) -
session 1” and then respond to the question/s below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xvpxBVCo0c (11:40 minutes)
a. List and define, in your own words, all the terms mentioned and discussed
in the video.
b. Also identify the other terms mentioned in the video that associates with
the primary categories of Research Paradigm- Ontology, Epistemology
and Methodology and include how these associate.
Refer to Lectures and research on the Internet for more information. You may
repeat watching the video for further clarifications.
Answer
As per the video description, the three research paradigm are suited for the
studies, such as:
Ontology: critical realism, truth exists but cannot be accurately detected
Epistemology: Modified, objective and dualist.
Methodology: Modified interpretive and experimental research.
2. Birk and Mills (2011, p. 9) provided the following technique to identify your
underlying assumptions about the world. It is worth setting aside a small amount
of time to ensure you are very clear how you see yourself philosophically. See the
figure below for details of how to identify your ‘underlying philosophical
assumptions’.

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Answer:
How do we define ourselves?
We can define ourselves as a combination of mind body and soul. All the three
components work together in a balanced way that enables us survive, feel, think, gain
knowledge, have an opinion and behave in a certain manner.
What is the nature of Reality?
The nature of reality can be explained in two ways that is physical and non-physical
reality. The reality that is constrained by the law of physics is called physical reality
which consist of all the material things around us. On the other hand non-physical
reality consist of things that are not constrained by the laws of physics such as
"mind", "Character", "behaviour". For me the nature of reality can be understood as
the dependency of both the physical and non-physical reality on one another. It is an
explanation or description of both the realities.
What can be relationship between researcher and participant?
The relationship between the research and the participant is the common aim for
which research is carried out. Whenever a research is done it directly or indirectly has
an effect on both researcher and participant.
How do we know the world or gain knowledge of it?
The knowledge in the world is infinite, and our life is too short to gain all of them. It
is only possible to gain knowledge of the world if we choose only one aspect of it, for
example, physical aspect. Although physical aspect of the world is infinite too, but if

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we move in the correct direction towards gaining it we can definitely achieve some
part of it. For example, physical world can be understood from many different
perspective such as science, religion and philosophy.
Look for the gap and reflect on what else we need to learn and consider?
Regarding knowledge and reality of the world every human being has distinct
perspective which cannot be pursued or understood completely. It is thus better to
work and understand things as per own analysis and should be not influenced by what
others say. However, respect to other people’s ideas and consideration should be
given and people should learn from experience and knowledge of others rather than
thinking of others.
Reflection for week 5 workshop
From the learning in this week clarifies the research paradigm including ontology,
epistemology and methodology and its importance in the research. First of all the
research paradigm is the alignment of the researchers on a agreements and common
beliefs to solve a research problem or carry out particular observation.
The concepts being little complicated took a while to understand them properly but at
the end translating these topics into easy language can greatly help in understanding
them properly.
The ontology and epistemology is important in providing a holistic view of seeking
knowledge and relationship with this knowledge whereas methodology provides
procedures or strategies to discover this knowledge. Understanding and awareness of
this assumptions improves the quality of the research (Patel, 2015) at the same time
increase the creativity of the researcher.
From the activity in this week, we learned to analyse how knowledge can be gained in
this world, definition of our own and the reality of our sustenance.

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Week 06
PART A
1. Read the following and perform exercises on statistics and variables-
It is believed that hunger is partly controlled by external (environmental) cues. To
investigate this a random sample of 60 first year students was selected and each
student was in turn randomly allocated to one of three groups. Each group of 20
students was put into a room with a large clock prominently displayed on the wall,
and asked to complete a questionnaire. In the first room, the clock on the wall
showed the correct time. In the other rooms the clock was either one hour fast or one
hour slow. The actual time, 5.30pm, was the usual evening meal time for all of the
students. While the participants filled out the questionnaire, some dry biscuits and
cheese were freely available. The weight of the biscuits and cheese consumed by each
student was calculated; the means were: 4.30 group, 200gm; 5.30 group, 300gm; and
6.30 group, 400gm. Identify the following:
a. The dependent variable: Time
b. The independent variable: Hunger
c. A population of interest: Students
d. A sample: Food
e. A statistic that was calculated: Weight of food
f. A variable measured on a nominal scale: Time
g. A variable measured on a ratio scale: weight
h. What did this study find? From this study it is clear that Hunger does not
depends on time. For all the students the time was same, it was there
thinking that varied the amount of snacks consumed by them. For the
students that thought they were eating early eat less, the students that
thought it was there regular time of eating consumer moderate, whereas
the group that thought they were eating late consumer maximum food.
2. Levels of Measurement of Data Types-
For the examples below, identify the data types (nominal, ordinal, interval, or ratio)
for each of the variables.
a) Job approval rating of the president (strongly approve, approve, disapprove,
strongly disapprove)
Ordinal
b) State of residence of presidential candidates
Nominal
c) The number of political parties participating in national elections in a sample
of countries
Ratio
d) Research subjects’ scores on an IQ Test
Interval
e) Whether a parliamentary candidate is an incumbent or a challenger
Nominal
f) The amount of money raised by the Liberal Party National committee during
the 2010 election campaign
Ration
g) Populations of countries categorized as less than 20 million, 20 million to 50
million, more than 50 million
Ordinal

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h) The percentage of seats held by the Greens in state legislative assembly from
1980-2010
Interval
i) Whether a country has a federal or unitary system of government
Nominal
j) Level of education obtained by survey respondents (less than high school, high
school, some college, college, more than college)
Nominal
3. For the following data sets, perform calculations of the Mean, Median and Mode.
a) A football fan records how many goals his team scored in their last 15 football
matches. Here are the results: 2, 3, 0, 0, 1, 3, 4, 2, 5, 0, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1
Median: To find out we should first sort the value in increasing order, as shown
below:
0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5
The median of the above set is 1
Mean: (0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 3 + 3 + 4 + 5)/ 15
1.73
Mode: 5 since 1 appears 5 times in the given dataset
b) The weekly salaries of six employees at McDonalds are $140, $220, $90,
$180, $140, $200.
Median: To find out median of the given dataset we would first sort it as shown
below:
$90, $140, $140, $180, $200, $220,
The median of the above set is ($140 + $180)/ 2= $160
Mean: $161.6
Mode: 2 since the $140 appears twice in the set
4. The following questions are on understanding descriptive statistics-
a. In what way does the median represent the middle of the distribution?
When a dataset has odd number of values the median represents the middle one of the
distribution.
b. In what way is the mean the balancing point of a distribution?
The mean can be said as the balancing point of the distribution because the total
distance of the mean to the starting point below the mean is equal to total distance of
the mean to the end point above the mean.
PART B
1. Objectives are the goals you set out to attain in your study. They inform a reader
what you want to attain through the study. It is extremely important to word them
clearly and specifically.
Objectives should be listed under two headings: Main objectives (aims) and Sub-
objectives.
The main objective is an overall statement of the thrust of your study. It is also a
statement of the main associations and relationships that you seek to discover or
establish. The sub-objectives are the specific aspects of the topic that you want to
investigate within the main framework of your study.
The objectives should start with words such as- ‘to determine’, ‘to find out’, ‘to
ascertain’, ‘to measure’, ‘to explore’ etc.

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By now you already have formulated your main objectives of your research topic.
You are now required to formulate a number of sub-objectives for the specific aspects
of your research topic.
Answer:
The main objective of the research we have chosen is to find the challenges faced by
old homeless people as compared to the Homeless youth in Melbourne Australia.
The sub-objective of the research topic are:
a. To find if the homeless old people get the required secure accommodation and
medical facilities during their homelessness?
b. Is age is the factor that makes the survival challenges and physical and mental
illness of the homelessness tougher?
2. The hypothesis is a clear statement of what is intended to be investigated. It
should be specified before research is conducted and openly stated in reporting the
results. This allows to:
 Identify the research objectives
 Identify the key abstract concepts involved in the research
 Identify its relationship to both the problem statement and the literature
review
Now that you have already written up a problem statement for your research in week
3 and formulated objectives in Question 1 above, watch the following video on ‘How
to Formulate a Hypothesis’ at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp2fbzWZDmA
Then, formulate hypothesis for your own research problem and identify the
independent and dependent variables in your hypothesis. Also state whether there are
any other types of variable in your case, discuss why/why not.
Answer
The hypothesis of the research is
a. The older homeless gets lesser secured housing and medical facilities in
Melbourne.
b. The homeless people with more age faces increased chances of mental and
physical illness.
From the above two hypothesis, we can conclude, our dependent variable is homeless
people of Australia. The independent variable is Age, Medical Treatment, Secure
Housing, Mental illness and Physical Illness.
Reflection on week 06 workshop and learning:
From this week’s learning, the concepts of mean, median and mode are very much
clear. I use to consider Mean and median both as average of the dataset or given
values. However, mean can be said average but median is not an average value in the
dataset instead it is the middle value of the distribution. We further learnt that the
mean is the balance point of any distribution. The sum of distance of data points from
the mean, called deviations, is always zero.
From the levels and type of measurement variables such as nominal, ordinal, ratio and
interval, it is understood that nominal variables are categorical variables where the
assigned scores are category labels as seen in the workshop questions such as
“Whether a country has a federal or unitary system of government?” this divides the

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category of variables into two labels that is ‘federal’ and ‘Unitary’. On the other hand
the other three variables are quantitative in nature. The ordinal variables focuses on
the order of the data, the ratio focuses on the variables that has ‘true zero’ means the
quantity can be completely absent from the data. Whereas the interval variable we
learned as the imperfect scales for measurement, where there cannot be a quantity like
true zero. This is the only difference between ratio and interval scales.
Finally, to learn formulation of research objective, question and hypothesis was the
main aim of the workshop, which is learnt quite effectively.
Week 09
PART B
How does curry defines qualitative analysis?
Answer: As per curry, the strategy used to perform systematic organization, collection
and interpretation of textual information is called Qualitative research or Qualitative
analysis.
What examples does she use of a research question that requires:
A qualitative approach
Answer: To perform qualitative research in medical scenario the question can be
articulated as explained by Curry is:
"how does medication shape the lives of people with epilepsy?"
A quantitative approach
Answer: To perform quantitative research in medical scenario the question can be
articulated as explained by Curry is:
"what proportion of people with epilepsy stop taking their medications for three
consecutive days in a six-month period?"
Main features of the qualitative research that differs it from a quantitative research
Answer: Following are the main feature of qualitative research that differs from
quantitative research:
It is systematic as well as strategic in nature.
It is never formed loosely in ad hoc manner instead it is performed on the basis of
well-defined articulated methods for the collection, analysis and organization of
qualitative data.
Qualitative research uses inductive approaches.
Products of qualitative research
Answer: The four major product of qualitative research as explained by Curry are:
1. Recurrent theme or hypotheses.
2. Survey instrument measure.
3. Taxonomy.
4. Conceptual models or theories.

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Meaning of Recurrent theme
Answer: Recurrent themes are the unifying statements or concepts which help the
researcher to identify and characterize the research aspects.
Quantitative research question in an organizational scenario
Answer:
How often people utilize mobile application for business purpose?
Qualitative research question in an organizational scenario
How the use of mobile applications workplace is justified in terms of its security?
Reflection for week 9 workshop
From the learning of this week highlights the importance of research analysis and how
you can determine which research method is best suited to your research problem.
Both the quantitative and qualitative research approaches have their own strengths
and limitations, however, carefully learning them in accordance with the area of
research can help us to understand the essence of research and we can carry out the
research successfully with desired results.
Another thing leant in this week is that the academic misconducts are developed not
only in favor of the research participants but for the students as well. Falsification and
misinterpretation of the research results or any other study is regarded as misconduct
as it may lead to dangerous consequences. Falsifying the data of the research is
possibly ignoring the margin of error or changing the data knowingly to support their
hypothesis (Explorable.com, 2010).
Plagiarism is another aspect of falsification. It is like falsely presenting other’s ideas
as your own work. Thus it has so much importance particularly in the academic field.
Referencing other’s work is thus an ethical practice as it does not falsify the audience
that the ideas presented are your own, instead provide required credit and dignity to
the work of others.
Overall the research ethics learned in this week should be remembered for the entire
professional life as well as personal life to ensure the rights of people in both the
domains of life.
Summary of reflections:
The ontology and epistemology is important in providing a holistic view of seeking
knowledge and relationship with this knowledge whereas methodology provides
procedures or strategies to discover this knowledge.
The mean can be said average value of the distribution but median is not an average
value in the dataset instead it is the middle value of the distribution. We further learnt
that the mean is the balance point of any distribution. Also, nominal variables are
categorical variables, ordinal variables focuses on the order of the data, the ratio
focuses on the variables that has ‘true zero’, and the interval variable we learned as
the imperfect scales for measurement, where there cannot be a quantity like true zero.
The ultimate aim of this ethics is to preserve the rights of participants such as
confidentiality, health, integrity and knowledge so that nobody can use them for their
own advantage without knowing them, this shows the importance of consent before
using any individual’s views, knowledge, and participation for the purpose of the
research. Falsification and misinterpretation of the research results or any other study

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is regarded as misconduct and so Plagiarism which can result in serious
consequences.
Overall through these 3 workshops many aspects of the research such as research
paradigms, importance of variables and ethics has been learnt.
References
Explorable.com (Aug 5, 2010). Scientific Falsification. Retrieved May 07, 2019 from
Explorable.com: https://explorable.com/scientific-falsification
Patel, S. (2015). The research paradigm – methodology, epistemology and ontology –
explained in simple language. Retrieved from:
http://salmapatel.co.uk/academia/the-research-paradigm-methodology-
epistemology-and-ontology-explained-in-simple-language/