RESEARCH METHODS – TV RATINGS1
Research Methods – TV Ratings
Following the American Psychological Association Style Guide
Name
Professor
Abstract
Which type of method will you use to study this topic (qualitative or quantitative)? Who will be your chosen participants? What considerations must be undertaken in choosing your participants? What sampling method will you use for your study? What considerations must be undertaken in choosing a sampling design? What challenges can occur in choosing the wrong design? How will descriptive statistics be important for your study? How will inferential statistics be important for your study? What challenges can you face when it comes to generalizability, validity, and reliability? Why are these concepts important to a research study? The type of methodology that I would use to study TV and movie ratings would be both qualitative and quantitative, resulting in a mixed methods approach (Creswell, Klassen, Plano Clark & Smith, 2011). The qualitative research (Stern & Simes, 1997) would be introduced in terms of conducting focus groups with a large and diverse multicultural group of English-language speakers who would view the same three TV programs as mentioned in the Nielsen Ratings Report assignment and also the same three movies that were mentioned in the Nielsen Ratings Report assignment. The quantitative research methodology (Riff, Lacy & Fico, 2014) would be introduced by gathering more in-depth statistical data based on a two-month period of time of the overall American population’s viewership of the three TV shows and the three movies at select periods of time when these shows are at their most popular in order to compare and contrast the statistical data.
Introduction
For this essay the following questions will be addressed using the study of TV and movie ratings as the focus: Which type of method will you use to study this topic (qualitative or quantitative)? Who will be your chosen participants? What considerations must be undertaken in choosing your participants? What sampling method will you use for your study? What considerations must be undertaken in choosing a sampling design? What challenges can occur in choosing the wrong design? How will descriptive statistics be important for your study? How will inferential statistics be important for your study? What challenges can you face when it comes to generalizability, validity, and reliability? Why are these concepts important to a research study?
Type of Methodology
The type of methodology that I would use to study TV and movie ratings would be both qualitative and quantitative, resulting in a mixed methods approach (Creswell, Klassen, Plano Clark & Smith, 2011). The qualitative research (Stern & Simes, 1997) would be introduced in terms of conducting focus groups with a large and diverse multicultural group of English-language speakers who would view the same three TV programs as mentioned in the Nielsen Ratings Report assignment and also the same three movies that were mentioned in the Nielsen Ratings Report assignment. The quantitative research methodology (Riff, Lacy & Fico, 2014) would be introduced by gathering more in-depth statistical data based on a two-month period of time of the overall American population’s viewership of the three TV shows and the three movies at select periods of time when these shows are at their most popular in order to compare and contrast the statistical data.
Chosen Participants
Based on the statistical nature of the population of the America, I would include 30 White Americans, 16 African Americans and 16 Hispanic Americans. The gender make-up of each group would be 50% women and 50% men. The sexual orientation of the group would include 3% Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual, Trans-sexual and Queer (LGBTQ) folk, plus religiously I would like to have 80% Christians, 15% Jewish people and 5% Muslims. Based on scales of age groups, I would keep the age range between 18 years old to 80 years old with 30% of the participants being between 60 to 80 years of age, 30% of the participants between 30 years old and 50 years old and 40% of the participants between the ages of 18 years old to 29 years old.
Considerations
The considerations that must be undertaken in choosing participants involve ensuring that the participants have the time to be involved in such a research study. The issue of compensation and ethical means of compensation for the time that the participants spend for the study would also need to be considered. It would also be important that when the research study is written and published with the university that the actual and the real names of the participants are not revealed in the final version of the research paper. I would also need to ensure that I pass and I clear the Ethical Protocol that is involved with my university in order to receive permission to conduct a research study on any living creature to ensure nothing dangerous and/or harmful would occur to them or even to me as well.
Sampling Method
The sampling methodology that I will use for my research include interviews, focus group and research methods that would involve field work of visiting the Nielsen Enterprise and going through their archival information in order to discover the Nielsen rating information that is not accessible online.
Challenges
I believe by choosing a research design that involves both quantitative and qualitative research methods, essentially and commonly known as mixed methods (Creswell, Klassen, Plano Clark & Smith, 2011), will ensure that the challenges of my research design will be drastically minimized and my data results will help me to reach sound conclusions that will be helpful towards the academic community.
Importance of Descriptive Statistics
Descriptive Statistics will be important for my study in regards to the depth and breadth of knowledge and information that will help to enhance the larger scale qualitative research gathering.
Importance of Inferential Statistics
Inferential Statistics will also be important to add a strong frame and foundation to the knowledge that I will be gathering and sharing with the academic community.
Generalizability, Validity and Reliability
All research faces these challenges. The best I can do is to be an honest and hard-working researcher in order to surmount the challenges of generality, validity and reliability that are a threat to every single researcher on the face of this earth.
Concepts of a Research Study
The important concepts of a research study involve an abstract, a strong introduction, a literature review, a theoretical framework, a research methodology, the statement of data, the analysis of data and then introducing your findings through the analysis of data.
Conclusion
For this essay the following questions that were addressed using the study of TV and movie ratings as the focus: Which type of method will you use to study this topic (qualitative or quantitative)? Who will be your chosen participants? What considerations must be undertaken in choosing your participants? What sampling method will you use for your study? What considerations must be undertaken in choosing a sampling design? What challenges can occur in choosing the wrong design? How will descriptive statistics be important for your study? How will inferential statistics be important for your study? What challenges can you face when it comes to generalizability, validity, and reliability? Why are these concepts important to a research study?
Reference
Creswell, J. W., Klassen, A. C., Plano Clark, V. L., & Smith, K. C. (2011). Best practices for
mixed methods research in the health sciences.Bethesda (Maryland): National Institutes of Health, 2094-2103.
Johnson, R. & Kuby, P. (2012). Elementary Statistics: Eleventh Edition. Retrieved from
Riff, D., Lacy, S., & Fico, F. (2014).Analyzing media messages: Using quantitative content
analysis in research. Routledge.
Stern, J. M., & Simes, R. J. (1997). Publication bias: evidence of delayed publication in a cohort
study of clinical research projects.Bmj,315(7109), 640-645.