RESEARCH is a scientific, experimental or inductive manner of thinking.

According to Cristobal & Cristobal (2013), quantitative research utilizes a deductive reasoning to
generate predictions that are tested in the real world.

Quantitative researchers gather empirical evidence - evidence that is rooted in objective reality and
gathered directly or indirectly through senses. The evidence for a study is gathered according to the
established plan though structured instruments.

Characteristics of a Quantitative Research

• Standardized instruments guide data collection.

• Figures, tables, or graphs showcase summarized data collected.

• A large population yields a more reliable data.

• Puts emphasis on proofs, rather than discovery.

Kinds of Quantitative Research

1. Experimental - Research design that allows the researcher to control the situation; the
approach provides the highest level of evidence for single studies.

2. Non Experimental - A study when a researcher cannot control, manipulate or alter the
predictor variable or subjects, but instead, relies on interpretation, observation or interactions
to come to a conclusion.

The background of the study is basically an overview of the research study and explains why you, as
researcher, are doing the study. It provides information that is essential to understand the main body
of the research investigation, which could be an offshoot of any of the following:

1. Historical development

2. Cultural development

3. Academic development

4. Scientific findings

5. Debates or arguments
Background of the study requires research and proper interpretation of the research as well as
citation backing the research done. A way to write a background study is shown below:

1. First you should give a general overview of the thesis topic and introduce the pivoting ideas
you will be using throughout the thesis. This should take a paragraph.

2. Then you provide detailed, precise information about the methodologies researched
depending on individual and thesis topic. This could take several paragraphs.

3. To avoid plagiarism, cite your sources and resources.

4. Introduce your experiment after this by briefly describing the methodology used and the
objective of this methodology. In other words, why this method and not the other?

Characteristics of a Research Problem.

The characteristics of a good problem possess the acronym S-M-A-R-T. This means that
problems should be:

1. Specific - the problem should be specifically stated.

2. Measurable - It is easy to measure by using research instruments in collecting data.

3. Achievable - the data are achievable using correct statistical techniques to arrive at
precise results.

4. Realistic- real results are not manipulated

5. Time-bound - timeframe is required in every activity because the shorter the completion of
the activity is better.

Consideration in Formulating the Research Problem

In the book A Research Guide in Nursing Education, Barrientos - Tan (1997) discusses the
different criteria for choosing a problem for research. These are as follows.

1. External Criteria

a) Novelty - this refers to the practical value of the problem due to its “newness” in the field of
inquiry.

b) Availability of the subjects - this refers to the people with the desired capability and
willingness to participate in the study. The sample of the study participants must be representative
enough to ensure reliability and validity of the results.

c) Support of the academic community - this refers to the assistance given by the members of
the institution, like the principal, teachers, staff, students, and the parents, in the gathering of data
and defraying the cost of the study. Permission of those concerned for the participation in the study
of staff members, children the aged, and the mentally challenge should be secured.

d) Availability and adequacy of facilities and equipment - devices such as computer and
telephones used in undertaking the study must be considered.
 e) Ethical consideration - these include the avoidance of research problems that pose
unethical demands on the part of the research participants.

2. Internal Criteria

a) Experience, training, and qualification of the researcher - these constitute the researcher’s
knowledge and expertise as a result of experience and study.

b) Motivation, interest, intellectual curiosity, and perceptiveness of the researcher - these are
essential attitudes that bring anticipated satisfaction or enjoyment in the completion of research
tasks.

c) Time - Factor - this considers the fact that studies must be pursued within a given time
frame.

d) Costs and returns - these factors matter in choosing a research problem. Research is an
expensive undertaking. The amount of funding needed, after all.

- depend on the size of the sample, the place where the research is to be conducted, the
treatment of data, and the kind of research design.

e) Hazards, penalties, and handicaps - these depends upon the researcher’s physical and
intellectual capacity and moral judgment.

Classification of Research Questions

Dickoff et al. (as cited by Wilson, 1989) provide further classification to research questions.
These are as follows.

A. Factor - isolating question - These ask the question “what is this?” these question are
sometimes called factor - naming question because they isolate, categorize, describe, or name
factors and situations.

B. Factor - relating questions - these ask the question ‘what is the happening here?” The goals
of this question are to determine the relationship among factors that have been identified.

C. Situation - relating questions - these questions asks the question “what will happen if…?
These questions usually yield hypotheses testing or experimental study design in which the researcher
manipulates the variables the variables to see what will happen.

Situation - producing questions - these ask the question “how can I make it happen?” these question
establish explicit goals for action, develop plans or prescriptions to achieve goals, and specify the
conditions under which these goals will be accomplished.

FINER Criteria for a Good Research Question

Feasible - Manageable in scope

Interesting - Getting the answer intrigues the reader or the community

Novel - Confirms, refutes or extends previous findings

 Ethical - Amenable to study that institutional review board will confirm

Relevant - To future research

Learning from Others and Reviewing the Literature

Sources of Literature Review

The term sources refer to print, electronic or visual materials necessary for your research.
a. Primary sources - The term primary source is used broadly to embody all sources that are original.
Primary sources provide first-hand information that is closest to the object of study.
b. Secondary sources - A secondary source is a source that provides non-original or secondhand
data or information. Secondary sources are written about primary sources.

The critical evaluation of each work should consider:

Provenance -- what are the author's credentials? Are the author's arguments supported by
evidence [e.g. primary historical material, case studies, narratives, statistics, and recent scientific
findings?]
Methodology -- were the techniques used to identify, gather, and analyze the data appropriate to
addressing the research problem? Was the sample size appropriate? Were the results effectively
interpreted and reported?
Objectivity -- is the author's perspective even-handed or prejudicial? Is contrary data considered or
is certain pertinent information ignored to prove the author's point?
Persuasiveness -- which of the author's theses are most convincing or least convincing?
Value -- are the author's arguments and conclusions convincing? Does the work ultimately
contribute in any significant way to an understanding of the subject?

Types of Literature Reviews

Literature reviews are designed to provide an overview of sources the researcher has explored while
researching a particular topic and to demonstrate to the readers how the research fits within a larger
field of study (Faltado, et al, 2016). The following are the basic types of literature review:
1. Argumentative Review - This form examines literature selectively in order to support or refute an
argument, deeply imbedded assumption, or philosophical problem already established in the
literature. The purpose is to develop a body of literature that established opposite perspective a
body of literature that establishes opposite perspective. Given the value laden nature of some social
science research (e.g., educational reform; immigration control), argumentative approaches to
analyzing the literature can be legitimate and important form of literature.
2. Integrative Review - This is considered a form of research that reviews, critiques, and synthesizes
representative literature on a topic in an integrated way such that new frameworks and perspectives
on the topic are generated. The body of literature includes all studies that address related or
identical hypotheses or research problems. A well - done integrative review meets the same
standards as primary research in regard to clarity, rigor, and replication. This is the most common form
of review in the social sciences.
3. Historical Review - The purpose of historical review is to systematically examine past events to give
an account of what has happened in the past events. Historical reviews are a flowing, dynamic
account of past events which involves an interpretation of these events in an attempt to recapture
the nuances, personalities, and ideas that influenced these events. The main focus of this is to
communicate an understanding of past events.
4. Methodological Review - A review does not always focus on what someone said but how they
came about (method of analysis). Reviewing methods of analysis provides a framework of
understanding at different levels (i. e. those of theory, substantive fields, research approaches, and
data collection and analysis techniques), how researchers draw upon a wide variety of knowledge
ranging from the conceptual level to practical documents for use in fieldwork in the areas of
ontological and epistemological consideration, quantitative and qualitative integration, sampling,
interviewing, data collection, and data analysis. The approach helps highlight ethical issues which
you should be aware of and consider as you go through your own study.
5. Systematic Review - The purpose of systematic review is to attain conclusion regarding the chosen
topic. This form consists of an overview of existing evidence pertinent to a clearly formulated research
question, which uses pre -specified and standardized methods to identify and critically appraise
relevant research, and to collect, report, and analyze data from the studies that are included in the
review.
6. Theoretical Review - The purpose of this is to examine the body of theory that has accumulated in
regard to an issue, concept, theory, and phenomena. The theoretical literature review helps to
established what theories already exist, the relationship between them, to what degree the existing
theories have been investigated, and the to develop new hypotheses to be tested. Often this form is
used to help established a lack of appropriate theories or reveal that current theories are inadequate
for explaining new or emerging research problems. The unit of analysis can focus on theoretical
concepts or a whole theory or framework.

Format of a Literature Review

In writing the literature review, the researcher can be flexible in utilizing different related literature.
However, as stated earlier, the literature review is not merely a restatement of facts; thus, the
organization of thought should be duly considered when writing the review.

1. The Introduction
a. The general problem and the variables should be defined.
b. Every important data should be highlighted to effectively discuss the problem or the variables such
as the theory, methodology, evidences, conclusion or even gaps.
c. The criteria in selecting the literature should be considered to assess which resources are pertinent
and should be included, and which are irrelevant and should be removed.
2. The Body
a. Chosen approaches, conclusion of authors, specific objective, and the like should be included.
b. Studies and literature should be summarized. For the studies, primary consideration must be given
to the result of the studies that includes the variables. In choosing the literature, the following should
be considered.
i. Provenance - this refers to the author’s credentials and empirical basis of the article or literature.
ii. Objectivity - This refers to the rationality of every data or facts cited.
iii. Persuasiveness - this refers to the degree of credibility of the data.
iv. Value - this refers to the degree of the contributions of the literature to clarify variables.
3. The Conclusion
a. Major contributions of the studies or articles should be summarized
b. Current developments and new information should be evaluated
c. The review should be concluded by relating the gathered data to the central theme or problem.

Citing Related Literatures

A citation is a way of giving credit to individuals for their creative and intellectual works that you
utilized to support your research. It can also be used to locate particular sources and combat
plagiarism. Typically, a citation can include the author's name, date, and location of the publishing
company, journal title, or DOI (Digital Object Identifier).
There are many different ways of citing resources from your research. The citation style sometimes
depends on the academic discipline involved. For example:
 APA (American Psychological Association) is used by Education, Psychology, and Sciences
MLA (Modern Language Association) style is used by the Humanities
Chicago style is generally used by Business, History, and the Fine Arts

APA (American Psychological Association) Style originated in 1929, when a group of psychologists,
anthropologists, and business managers convened and sought to establish a simple set of
procedures, or style rules, that would codify the many components of scientific writing to increase the
ease of reading comprehension.

Research ethics are standardized rules that guide the design and conduct of research (Dempster
and Hanna, 2016). The term ethics refers to questions of right and wrong.
According to Resnik (2007), in his article “What is ethics in Research & Why is it important?” explain
importance of ethics in research. These are as follows:
1. Ethics promotes the pursuits of knowledge, truth, and credibility. It also fosters values that are
essential to collaborative work. Research often involves a great deal of cooperation and
coordination among people in different filed or disciplines. The important values include trust,
accountability, mutual respect, and fairness.
2. Many of the ethical norms ensure that researchers are held accountable to the public.
3. Adhere to ethical principles helps build public support for research. People are more likely to fund
research studies that promote a variety of important moral and social values such as social
responsibility, human right, animal right, and health and safety.

Ethical Codes and Policies for Research (Cristobal & Cristobal, 2017)
Given the importance of ethics in the conduct of research, many professional associations,
government agencies, and universities have come up with the following codes and policies for
research.
1. Honesty - this must be maintained in all communication (e.g when reporting data results, and
procedures). Data should never be fabricated, falsified, or misrepresented.
2. Objectivity - biases should be avoided in the experimental design, data analysis, interpretation,
expert testimony, and other aspects of research.
3. Integrity - consistency of thought and action is the foundation of the credibility of any research
work. Promises and agreements should be kept and all actions should be made with a sincere
purpose.
4. Care - careless errors and negligence should be avoided. Your work and the work of your peers
should be critically examined. Records of research activities be kept in good order and condition.
5. Openness - the researcher should be open to criticisms and new ideas. Research data results,
ideas, and resources should also be shared with the public.
6. Respect for intellectual property - Proper acknowledgement should be given to all authors cited
and sources in your research. Patents and copyrights should be recognized. Any published data,
methods; result should not be used without permission. Credits should be given to where it is due.
7. Confidentially - Confidential communication or documents should be protected.
8. Responsible publication - the study should be done with the purpose of advancing research and
scholarship. Wasteful and duplicate publication should be avoided.
9. Responsible mentoring - the research should seek to educate, mentor, and advise students.
10. Respects for colleagues - all peers should be treated fairly.
11. Social responsibility - social good should be promoted and social harm should be avoided.
12. Non - discrimination - all those eligible to participate in research should be allowed to do so.
13. Competence - Professional competence and expertise should be maintained and improved with
the research.
14. Legality - A researcher should know and obey relevant laws, and institutional and government
policies.
15. Human subject protection - Harms and risks to human lives should be minimized. Human dignity,
privacy, and autonomy should be among the primary considerations of the research.

Rights of Research Participants

The main purpose of a research is to produce results that would benefits the stakeholders in the study.
Likewise, the participants are crucial elements of the research and they have the same right as the
research beneficiaries. Some of the rights of research participants are as follows (Trochim, 2006; Smith;
2003; Polit, 2006).
1. Voluntary participation - any person should be coerced to participate in any research undertaking.
2. Informed consent - prospective research participants must be fully informed about the procedures
and risks involved in the research. Their consent to participate must be secured.
3. Risk harming - participants should be protected from physical, financial, or psychological harm.
The principle of non-maleficence states that is the researcher’s duty to avoid, prevent, or minimize
harm to the participants of the study.
4. Confidentiality - participants must be assured that their identity and other personal information will
not be made available to anyone who is not directly involved in the study.
5. Anonymity - the participants must remain anonymous throughout the study even to the
researchers themselves.

Research Misconduct
Research misconduct means Fabrication, Falsification, or Plagiarism (FFP) in proposing, performing, or
reviewing research, or in reporting research results.
(a) Fabrication is making up data or results and recording or reporting them.
(b) Falsification is manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing or omitting
data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the research record.
(c) Plagiarism is the appropriation of another person's ideas, processes, results, or words without
giving appropriate credit.

Plagiarism
Plagiarism should not be tolerated as the unauthorized use of original ideas and works constitute a
violation of Intellectual property rights. The world Intellectual Property Organization has the following
definition of Intellectual property.
“Intellectual property refers to creations of the mind: inventions; literary and artistic work; and
symbols, names, and images used in commerce.” (WIPO, 2004).
Intellectual property covers two categories: Industrial property, which includes patents, trademark s,
and industrial designs, and copyright, which includes published works such as literary works,
textbooks, reference books, and other artistic works such as creative design, film, music, radio
broadcasts and performance art. Creators of such works and intellectual property are given rights
and protections and the unauthorized use of intellectual property is subject to legal sanctions.

In the Philippines, intellectual property is protected by Republic Act 8293 or the Intellectual Property
Code of the Philippines. Following are the provision of the Code regarding published works:
“Published works” means works, which the consent of the authors, are made available to the public
by wire or wireless means in such a way that members of the public may access these works from a
place and time individually chosen by them: provided, that availability of such copies has been
such, as to satisfy the reasonable requirements of the public, having regard to the nature of the
work…

Sharma and Singh (2011) list the following tips to avoid plagiarism.
1. Sufficient time should be allotted for writing
2. Hard copies of all relevant references should be cited.
3. All references should be read carefully and its important parts should be highlighted.
4. Sufficient attribution should be placed when using the ideas of others.
5. Lines with factual details are to be referenced.
6. The appropriateness of inserting references should be determined.
7. Written permission should be acquired text and figures coped from other sources.
8. All the text should be paraphrased - that is, written by the author in his or her own language.
9. Copying and pasting text from sources while writing should be avoided. If one is not good typing,
he or she can request from assistance from a typist.
10. Before submitting an article, all files, figures, and references should be prepared accordance to
the prescribed standards.

Fair use
The Law, however, recognizes certain situation the use of copyrighted content is acceptable and
constitutes as “fair use” of intellectual property. The intellectual Property Code identifies the following
as acceptable use of intellectual property.
1. Use of works in the public domain. An intellectual property is considered to be in the public domain
once the rights of the author have lapsed after a period defined by law (50 years after the death of
the author).
2. Use of copyrighted work for criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching and classroom use,
scholarship and research, and other similar purposes.
3. Reproduction of works as parts of reports on current news which broadcast to the public.
4. Use of works and materials from the government and its various branches, departments, and
offices, provided that permission for use is acquired.

Conceptual Framework is the basic structure that serves as a mental window of the researcher
because it depicts the research design and the relationship of the variables involved.

Purposes of Conceptual framework

o To clarify concepts and propose relationships among the concepts in a study.
o To provide context for interpreting study findings.
o To explain observations.
o To encourage theory development that is useful and practical.

How to write a Conceptual framework

1. Choose your topic.
2. Do a literature review.
3. Isolate the important variables.
4. Generate the conceptual framework.

Hypothesis is a prediction about the relationship between or among the variables. Hypotheses are
declarative sentences stating expected relationships between the phenomena to which concepts
are referred.

Hypothesis may take one of several definitions as follows:

1. Hypothesis is a shrewd guess or inference that is formulated and provisionally adopted to explain
observed facts or conditions and to guide in further investigations (Sanchez, 1998).
2. Hypothesis is a statement temporarily accepted as true in the light of what is, at the time, known
about a phenomenon, and it is employed as basis for action in the search for new truth. When the
hypothesis is fully established it may take the form of facts, principles, or theories (Babbie, 1986).
3. Hypothesis it a proposition, condition or statement of principle which assumed, perhaps without
basis, in order to draw out its logical consequence and by this method to test its accord with facts
which are known or may be determined (Reyes, 2004).
4. Definition by Bailey (1978) a hypothesis is a proposition in testable form and predicts a particular
relationship between two or more variables. If a researcher thinks that a relationship exists, he should
first state it as a hypothesis and then test the hypothesis in the field.
5. Definition by Grinnell (1988) Hypothesis is written in such a way that it can be proven or disproven
by valid and reliable data.

Forms of Hypotheses
There are two ways of starting a hypothesis. A hypothesis that is intended for statistical test is generally
started in the null form. The null hypothesis (Ho) states no existence of relationship between the
variables under study. It is so stated for the purpose of being accepted or rejected.
If the null hypothesis is rejected, the alternative hypothesis (H1) is accepted. This is the researcher’s
way of starting his research hypothesis in an operational manner. The research hypothesis is a
statement of expectation derived from the theory under study.
The hypothesis may either be non - directional or directional. The null hypothesis is usually non -
directional since there is no stated direction. It is involves two -tailed tests while the alternative
hypothesis is directional which requires one - tailed tests. A hypothesis which just says that a
difference exists is still non - directional for the reason that nature of the difference is not stated.

Relevant theories
A theory is a set of systematically interrelated constructs and propositions intended to explain and
predict a phenomenon or behavior of interest, within certain boundary conditions and assumptions.
Essentially, a theory is a systemic collection of related theoretical propositions. While propositions
generally connect two or three constructs, theories represent a system of multiple constructs and
propositions. Hence, theories can be substantially more complex and abstract and of a larger scope
than propositions or hypotheses (Bhattacherjee, 2012).

Theory as defined by Kerlinger (1973) is “a set of interrelated constructs (concepts), definitions, and
propositions that presents a systematic view of phenomena by specifying relations among variables,
with the purpose of explaining and predicting the phenomena”.

In this part of theoretical framework, the researcher cites and discusses related theories that serve as
the foundation of the variables and their relevance to study. It prefaces the readers on what theories
are used as the basis of the research story.
In the discussion of relevant theories, the following parts are mentioned:
1. Name/s of the author/s
2. Title/s of their theory /ies
3. Theoretical statement or principles
4. Explanation of the theoretical statement
5. Relationship of the theory to the present study.