Compare and Contrast Research Methods Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 7

Compare and Contrast Research Methods - Essay Example Through observation, the researcher is able to identify particular aspects of the research (Poynter, 2010). Also, through observation, researchers learn more information about research aspects, thus being able to determine attitudes and behaviors. Both observation and in-depth interview methods are important because they will increase the objectivity of the study (Poynter, 2010). Informal and in-depth methods are largely qualitative. Researchers use in-depth interviews in collecting data, because it is a highly interactive, multivariate and objective method of conducting study, which makes it different from observation method (Wilson, 2010). Using interview, the interviewer seeks more explanation from the interviewees as opposed to observation, where the researcher simply looks at the objects of study (Wilson, 2010). Under this methodology of in-depth interview, the participants will be drawn from four departments within the research population (Wilson, 2010). Since there will be many prospective participants from each department, out of the available participants, the researcher will select a given sample for the study. This is similar to observation because in the latter, the researcher can chose from the available research items to carry out the study (Wilson, 2010). In addition, the selection of participants in informal and in-depth interview is done usi ng random sampling, which is representative and non-discriminative, a situation which makes the methods resemble observation. Under informal and in-depth interviews, the different categories under which the participants will be divided would be based on the management levels, where as in observation, the researcher carries the study alone (Wilson, 2010). Interviews will also increase the participation between the researcher and respondents. Indeed, using interview will increase the interaction and the researcher would get more relevant information about the topic, a situation that