Hi everyone,
• I am busy writing a research thesis on NAFTA comparing Canada and Mexico on their (1st) behaviours towards sustainable development (in each country), (2nd) their relationship to the concept of business case (iow – whether their motivation to sust. dev. (sd) is purely for the sake of the environment or because they expect some sorts of gains in engaging in sd) and last, comparing the relationship that each country has between 1st and 2nd. Anyway.. what's important to me is to be able identify whether those 2 countries are influenced by similar institutional forces pushing them into converging in their behaviours towards sd, OR whether they actually diverge in behaving differently towards sd because other forces (such as national particularities) influence them.
• My question is as follows : since my research is purely exploratory and based on an inductive approach, I do not have specific factors in mind with which to start for some ANCOVA test ? in other words, I want to compare the sample in each country, see whether they converge or diverge and eventually come up with some possible explanation(s) from the literature to explain my observations. My only hypotheses to begin with are that either : the countries converge, OR diverge OR crossverge.
• Is there anyone who would like to share his/her opinion on how I could go with ANOVAs with such research? That would be highly appreciated and extremely helpful.
Thank you so much in advance
Here is the scoop. You can't pick a statistical method first and do worthwhile research. Here is how research works:
1. get a research question that you really want/need to answer
2. Then do a literature search in the area and/or a pilot study
3. from this information set up what you need to do to answer the question well. these are most often testable hypotheses.
4. How are you going to get the information to test these hypotheses?
5 This leads to experimental designs, survey designs, instrument design, sample designs,etc
6 How can you get this information understood? this often leads to stat methods like ANOVA, REGRESSION, etc 4,5,6 are all related. work that way
7. REMEMBER: PROPER PRIOR PLANNING PREVENTS POOR PERFORMANCE
So go over and check everything again.
8 Collect Data
9 understand and interpret data, think and then graph your data any way you can think of, then graph it some more. We see patterns in graphs. Keep going.
10 think is there anything else that I need to do?
have you made sure you have done everything correctly? If not, redo it REMEMBER GIGO Garbage In Garbage Out
11. Write it up
12 Relax and add another line to your CV
A pilot study is an informal trial of 1-10 often with a smaller sample size and weaker answers to your research question. I probably forgot a few things but that is the idea. Best wishes, David Booth PPPPPP
Here is the scoop. You can't pick a statistical method first and do worthwhile research. Here is how research works:
1. get a research question that you really want/need to answer
2. Then do a literature search in the area and/or a pilot study
3. from this information set up what you need to do to answer the question well. these are most often testable hypotheses.
4. How are you going to get the information to test these hypotheses?
5 This leads to experimental designs, survey designs, instrument design, sample designs,etc
6 How can you get this information understood? this often leads to stat methods like ANOVA, REGRESSION, etc 4,5,6 are all related. work that way
7. REMEMBER: PROPER PRIOR PLANNING PREVENTS POOR PERFORMANCE
So go over and check everything again.
8 Collect Data
9 understand and interpret data, think and then graph your data any way you can think of, then graph it some more. We see patterns in graphs. Keep going.
10 think is there anything else that I need to do?
have you made sure you have done everything correctly? If not, redo it REMEMBER GIGO Garbage In Garbage Out
11. Write it up
12 Relax and add another line to your CV
A pilot study is an informal trial of 1-10 often with a smaller sample size and weaker answers to your research question. I probably forgot a few things but that is the idea. Best wishes, David Booth PPPPPP
Dear Cel
In research, the priority is the proposal.
Make sure that you have make a significiant litterature review on your topic and objectives, reseach question ans hypothesis were clear and realizable.
A good litterature review will be oriented you on which analysis to do and how to do.
@ David... What s fantastic explanation... Can't think of a better answer!
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