Library Guides: HCS204 Research Skills Guide: Assessment Item 1

What are you being asked to do?

In this assignment you need to show your understanding of qualitative and quantitative research by:

Demonstrating you understand these methods, with reference to their key features, principles and vocabulary.
Discussing the strengths and limitations of each research method.
Finding TWO research articles - one of each type - identifying how you determined which was quantitative and which was qualitative, and discussing how these different methods approach social issues.

For this discussion paper you are expected to reference various sources to help inform your discussion of these two methods: use the readings, your text book and the library databases.

Please note - the information here does not replace your Subject Outline. It is important to carefully read over and be familiar with all sections of the assessment details including task description, rationale and marking rubric.

Where should you start? Understanding Qualitative & Quantitative Research Methods

Watch the video on the right for a short and sweet introduction to quantitative and qualitative research.
SAGE Research Methods Online (SRMO) is an excellent database that contains information about research methods.
Look at your textbook to find information on different research methods and how they are used in your discipline. The reference lists at the end of your textbook chapters can lead you to more books and articles that discuss this.
When reading journal articles, keep a look out for the 'Methods' or 'Methodology' section that explains how data was collected.

Finding specific types of research

In this task you are looking for research articles, one representing quantitative research and one representing qualitative research. Here are a few tips you can use when searching for your articles:

Try searching in Primo with the search terms "research methods" AND ("social work" OR "human services") to get you started.

Research Methodology	Search Strategy	Search Example
Quantitative Research	You can find quantitative articles by searching in Primo Search or our Library databases using methodology terms as keywords. Some examples of methodology terms as keywords are: "data mining", survey, quantitative, statistical, or correlation.	*Homelessness AND (quantitative OR statistic OR correlation)**
Qualitative Research	When searching for qualitative articles, you can once again include terms that describe the qualitative methods used to collect data, such as questionnaire, ethnographic, "lived experience", qualitative, or "focus group" in your search, along with terms that indicate the social issue you are interested in.	Homelessness AND ("lived experience" OR qualitative OR "focus group")

Remember, these are just some of the many possibilities. You will need to try multiple combinations of keywords and search techniques throughout your research. The main thing is to be persistent! The search tools used in these search strings, such as *, ( ), OR & AND are explained in depth on the Primo Search page of this guide.