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Chapter I THE NATURE OF RESEARCH

Chapter ITHENATURE OFRESEARCHR esearch involves original work in answering aquestion or solving a problem. Of the severaldifferent RESEARCH approaches available, thisbook focuses on those approaches which can beapplied to solve questions or problems that aredirectly related to everyday life. The techniqueof community involvement in practical issues isoften called action RESEARCH . In this Chapter , youwill find an overview of the steps needed todevelop an action RESEARCH plan. Common errorsthat are made in the RESEARCH process arediscussed, from the perspective of both insidersand outsiders to the Community-Based RESEARCH : A Handbook for Native AmericansResearchisbydefinition originalwork,asearchingtoansweraquestion .

An evaluation of a social service program • A survey of native language use to determine the extent of contin-ued use of the language A photographic project to document the pottery making process In the chapters that follow, methods that are presented for conducting needs assessments, evaluations, surveys, and culture and fine arts pro-

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Transcription of Chapter I THE NATURE OF RESEARCH

1 Chapter ITHENATURE OFRESEARCHR esearch involves original work in answering aquestion or solving a problem. Of the severaldifferent RESEARCH approaches available, thisbook focuses on those approaches which can beapplied to solve questions or problems that aredirectly related to everyday life. The techniqueof community involvement in practical issues isoften called action RESEARCH . In this Chapter , youwill find an overview of the steps needed todevelop an action RESEARCH plan. Common errorsthat are made in the RESEARCH process arediscussed, from the perspective of both insidersand outsiders to the Community-Based RESEARCH : A Handbook for Native AmericansResearchisbydefinition originalwork,asearchingtoansweraquestion .

2 The popular concept of RESEARCH can involve, for example, justlooking up some statistics in a book. A more formal definition of researchwould be:Studious inquiry; usually, critical and exhaustive investigation or ex-perimentation having for its aim the revision of accepted conclusions,in the light of newly discovered facts.(Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary)Let's look at what this definition implies on the community level. Itsounds as though RESEARCH requires a lot of work. Although RESEARCH us-ually is time consuming, it need not be dull. Particularly, if the work isgoing to be applied to a community need, RESEARCH can be very involves defining the topic, idea, or problem to be solved andforming a specific question about that topic.

3 The work of other people isexamined to see if the question has ever been researched, or if the work ofothers can contribute to the new question. The methodology, or waythe work will be done, is set out in steps. The data are collected, andanalyzed (or looked at in detail), and conclusions are reached. This is the"studious," "critical," and "exhaustive" part of data for RESEARCH can be from primary sources, where the RESEARCH -er observes directly and records events or data. This type of data has manyadvantagesasto reliability. The researcher knows the kind of effort putinto collecting the data, how the participants in the study were chosen,and something about the possible biases during the study.

4 The disadvan-tage of this type of data is that the process is time consuming and often ex-pensive. With secondary sources, the researcher uses data reported byothers. This approach is less time consuming, but sometimes also less reli-able. For many RESEARCH questions, both types of data are utilized and forsome questions there are no existing secondary sources of data. The meth-ods for RESEARCH described in this handbook focus on the direct collectionof data for is a time of enormous possibilities for applied RESEARCH . At onetime, people were brought into a system, and problems were definedaccording to the views of those who saw the "problem" and with theresources of a dominant culture.

5 Now, priorities can be determined by acommunity that lives the socio-economic conditions, rather than by anoutsider who studies the community for informational purposes. Andideally, insiders and outsiders can work together cooperatively, sharingknowledge and resources toward a common goal. Rather than assessingthe statistics of low income, educational levels, and health levels over andover again, RESEARCH can be used to evaluate the effectiveness ofinnovative and culturally-based techniques for alleviating Community-Based RESEARCH : A Handbook for Native AmericansCultural differences may affect the outlook of some persons towardresearch.

6 It has been noted' that the underlying NATURE of RESEARCH as aprocess that continually questions first and seeks to prove facts, may be atodds with cultural beliefs that express---in trust first, and question lateronly if there is a need. Tensions that develop during RESEARCH are some-times due to cultural differences. Or, people of the same culturesometimes hold different views about documentation or RESEARCH relationships are open to discussion and compromiseabout these TYPES OF RESEARCHT here are many different ways to approach a RESEARCH question. Re-searchers from different areas of study develop different methods to focusupon a particular aspect of the question.

7 These are a few of the things toconsider in choosing an approach:Topic/ issue/ concernPurpose of the project Resources (such as time, people, funds)In discussing the topic with a community group, it is sometimes helpful totake notes on these items as a topic is discussed. This process enables thegroup to reach agreement as to the purpose of the project and to assess theresources that will be needed to complete the project. Then, the methodsto accomplish the work must be chosen. The RESEARCH methods covered inthis handbook are descriptive in NATURE and may be applied forcommunity ResearchThe purpose of descriptive RESEARCH is to describe accurately situationsor events, such as the characteristics of a population, a social condition, ora particular topic.

8 In the process of descriptive RESEARCH , data arecollected and summarized, but relationships between sets of data andpredictions are not usually defined. Descriptive RESEARCH is one of themore basic types of RESEARCH , requiring fewer RESEARCH skills, yet is a veryvaluable tool for community development. Most of the techniquespresented in this handbook could be termed descriptive, in the broadestsense of the steps that are generally taken in a descriptive project include thefollowing:1. Defining the topic or the goals of the projectThe NATURE of work that has been already done on the topic, to decide ifthe particular topic has been researched or if existing material cancontribute to the present the objectives of the project, or steps to the project in aclear, straightforward upon the methods that will be used to accomplish theobjectives, such as how the data will be collected, how theparticipants will be chosen, training of the personnel needed tocollect the data, and how the data will be the data according to the plan, the data according to the plan, the the community level.

9 Descriptive RESEARCH techniques such as sur-veys and needs assessments can be valuable in describing current socio-economic conditions, to identify conditions in need of improvement, andto document the opinions of community members as to how these changescan be put into effect. A few examples of descriptive RESEARCH projects are: A needs assessment conducted to determine unmet health care needsin a rural community An evaluation of a social service program A survey of native language use to determine the extent of contin-ued use of the languageA photographic project to document the pottery making processIn the chapters that follow, methods that are presented for conductingneeds assessments, evaluations, surveys, and culture and fine arts pro-jects, are descriptive in NATURE .

10 These same methods provide thefoundation for analytical RESEARCH , and can be taken further if the readerdesires to look into the additional sources provided for each ResearchThe purpose of action RESEARCH is to develop new approaches to solvequestions or problems that are directly related to everyday life. A verypractical approach, action RESEARCH is aimed toward applications of theresearch results through a constant exchange between the researcher andthe people or events being researched. Action RESEARCH differs from mostresearch approaches in that changes often occur in the original researchmethodology when these changes are documented as part of the steps that are generally taken during action RESEARCH the goals of the project, according to a needed change orimprovement,6 Community-Based RESEARCH .


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