Research Power
Why Should I Care?
The scientific strength, or power, of your research depends on several key traits of your methodology. The stronger the method: the more credible your results and conclusions.
This lesson has 2 parts
- Three Levels of Power
- Summary Table
What is Research Power?
Research power is an imprecise qualifying term which aims to classify scientific studies according to their empirical strength. There is not a definite measurement of power in the world of science. The main idea is that some studies can explain phenomena with great detail and accuracy, and even be used to predict outcomes. Other studies will aim to focus less on explaining relationships, and more on developing the ground work needed to understand a situation or group of people. Whatever the level of power, studies are equally important when they are well done, and aimed at an important issue.
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Three Levels of Power
Exploratory
The objective of exploratory research is to start the process by defining the variables, and designing an operational definition for each variable, which has never been done before. Since there is no previous science on this topic, everything must be defined and observed as a new phenomenon. The scientist here has to identify the 5 Ws from “scratch”: Who, What, When, Where, and Why. Many factors are taken into account, but we cannot say which is most important in explaining a situation. A typical tool is the Field Research interview.
Descriptive
Studies that go into more detail are called descriptive. They describe the 5 Ws: Who, What, When, Where, and Why. Then they identify, sort, classify, and analyze variables and sets of data. They help to establish temporal order between variables. They may establish correlation, or co-incidence, of observations. This is when two actions appear to be related. Descriptive studies are also important to start to build a theoretical model, a set of logical assumptions and relationships between variables. This model is used to write formal hypotheses. Content analysis of historical documents is a good example of this.
Explanatory
Finally, the third type of study is explanatory. It tries to establish reasons why and how things happen. These studies will try to establish statistical correlations and causality between variables. Laboratory experiments used in psychology are a good example of this. Control groups enable scientists to separate true causes from coincidence.
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Summary Table
|
|
Exploratory |
Descriptive |
Explanatory |
|
State of the literature
|
Inexistent to very small |
Small to Large |
Very Large |
|
Scientific Power
|
Low |
Medium |
High |
|
Methods
|
Field Work, |
Content Analysis, Survey, Field, Unobtrusive Measurement |
Laboratory Experiment |