MASTERING RESEARCH

Steps in research process:

1. Identify the issue to be studied. The issue should be worthwhile. State the problem
statement related to the issue. Provide evidence to support your problem statement
(Statistical report, Literature support, Public statement, etc.). At this stage, you are
establishing the problem to be studied.

2. Set the Research Questions to be addressed by your study. Research Questions are
interrogative statements regarding the issue or the ambiguities surrounding the issues
that need to be addressed by your study.

3. Review literature related to the issue. Identify the literature gap or knowledge gap
in terms of what has been researched and what have not yet been researched or
previous researchers have studied but the findings are still incomplete or new
issues arise. Thus, further research (your study) is required to refine the findings.

4. Based on information in literature, determine the variables/constructs involved in

the study. Examine the model employed by previous researchers and how the
constructs were modelled. More importantly, whether their findings supported the
proposed model.

5. Develop the conceptual model for your study. Theoretically determine how the
variables/constructs are inter-related in a schematic diagram. Obtain the theory and
literature to support your proposed model.

6. You may adopt the model developed by previous researchers. You may modify by
introducing new variables/constructs such as independent, mediator or
moderator. Provide the rationale to justify your amendments.
7. With reference to your proposed model, determine the Research Objectives that
your study is trying to achieve. The objectives must be related to clarifying the
ambiguities surrounding the problem. Think of the contribution of your study to the
body of knowledge in this specific area.

8. Formulate Research Hypothesis to be tested in the study. Research Hypothesis is a

declarative statement regarding the inter-relationship among the variables/constructs
involved in the model that your study intend to prove. It could be direct effect,
mediator effects and also moderator effect hypotheses.

9. Determine the instrument to measure the variables/constructs involved in your

framework. Your study could adopt or adapt the instruments from previous
researchers. You can modify the items to suit your study and you can also add certain
items which are not available in the adapted/adopted instruments.

10. Some instruments might have been established by previous researchers. However, if
the establishment was made in different cultural background, different field of study
and different socio-economic status of the population than your current study, the
instruments need to be validated again since the previous composition might not hold.
This is especially true if the time lapsed is too long. Think of validating the
instruments through Pre Test and Pilot Test.

11. Pre-Test the instruments. Obtain experts to verify the Content Validity (by content
expert), Face Validity (by language expert), and Criterion Validity (by measurement
expert) of your instruments. Also obtain comments from respondents regarding the
clarity of the wordings. Rewrite and refine the item statements based on the comments
obtained in the pre-test.

12. Pilot-Test the instrument. Select a minimum of 100 respondents and obtain their
responses. Run the Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) to assess the dimensionality of
items measuring every construct. Remove items having poor factor loading.
Determine the internal reliability (Cronbach Alpha) for the remaining items.
13. Field-Study. Determine sample size using the appropriate method. Select the
respondents using suitable method of probability sampling. Collect data using the
suitable method of data collection. Population must be homogenous (specific focus)
and selection of respondents must be random (no biased sample).

14. Run the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to validate the measurement
model of latent constructs. Report the Construct Validity, Convergent Validity,
Discriminant Validity, and Composite Reliability for all latent constructs. Also assess
the Normality Distribution for all items in the model.

15. Assemble the variables and constructs into the structural model and execute
Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Test the stated research hypotheses. Begin with
testing the direct effect hypothesis, followed by the mediator hypothesis, and ending
with the moderator hypothesis.

16. Discuss the results and conclude the findings. Compare and contrast the results
with the findings from literature. Provide your rationale should the results differ

17. Discuss the contribution of the present study to the literature in that particular
area. Discus specifically how the findings could added to the existing literature.

18. Based on the limitations experienced in your study, suggest the direction to be taken
by for future researchers in this area so that the wheel will be invented twice. The
next study will begin where the present study ends.