Research Methods

Research Methods

University Affiliation

Student’s Details

Research Methods

Research is an important exercise to support claims or evaluate phenomena. In order to createauthoritative and well-founded statements about a phenomenon, there needs be a data collection exercise and analysis of the datato arrive at an informed conclusion based on the obtained results. Theexercise of evaluating a phenomenon comprises the research, and the approaches are the research methods.

A study article by Jadranka Ivandić and Vlado Jukić,titled“Familial risk factors favoring drug addiction onset”waspublished in the 2012 Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, vol. 44, issue no.2. The research was conducted in the year 2008 through 2009. The authors sought to answer several questions, among them, to ascertain whether the onset of drug addiction was in any way related to certain risk factors in families. They also pursued to answer at what stage were the familial risk factors more significant in influencing drug addiction among addicts.

There are two major research methods applicable to a research undertaking; that is, qualitative and quantitative research methodologies. Quantitative research is whereby the researcher(s) have specific objectives they seek to evaluate. This research method tries to explain a certain phenomenon by use of mathematical approaches. In quantitative research method, numerical data about the studied phenomenon is collected, analysed by the use of statistics principles and meaningful conclusions derived from the results obtained. Therefore, quantitative research is often employed where the research questions necessitate numerical data collection and answers. Conversely, qualitative research method entail observational study of human experiences and behaviours in relation to their environment. This research method involves no numerical data collection, and largely involve use of open-ended questionnaires among other techniques. The article “Familial risk factors favoring drug addiction onset”(Jadranka&Jukić, 2008) employs the use of qualitative research method.

Judging from the data collection methods and the nature of the collected data, qualitative research method was employed in this study. Other than the admission by the au.............