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Well I am finally at the end of the course. I must say it was very interesting, my first thought was that  it would have been a course that was more numerically based that worded. Which was a surprise to me. At this point, I am very happy to know that there isn't any final exam for this course, and passing was just based on course work.

At first it felt very overbearing and a bit weighty, with the various activities to be completed, since the course was new and trying to keep up us a bit challenging. Every week was two (2) activities, a padlet and a discussion question, or another graded item, which was a bit too much.

An area was provided for the group to indicate their issues with the course, which to me was just for voicing of an opinion, but not to make any changes on the issue, because nothing was changed with reference to the activities. I didn't make any comments on the area provided, but I hope this padlet's review will be considered.

I know the Course Coordinator - Ms. Mohammed and the E-Tutor Ms. Rampersad did very well in frequently communicating with the groups and informing on the various activities to be completed and what was to be expected, as well as their efficiency in answering questions asked by students. For that, thank you both very much.

Working with the two different groups for assignments was good, I enjoyed working with the persons I were connected with.

But overall, I gained knowledge on the processes, stages and various activities involved in research for business and otherwise. Any area of knowledge gained for improvement on oneself is credited as a major gain in their life. I have acquired knowledge which I can utilize later on in the future.

My recommendation regarding the course will be for the tutors to re-think the area of the weekly padlet, as it adds an extra burden for students trying to complete the graded discussion, and other graded activities for the course; as well as trying to balance doing activities for other courses that request the same from us. It's already very trying to balance work, home, family, school/education courses and not to mention, the factors that will contribute to good mental and physical health.

It will be commendable that a recommendation as such mentioned will not be just for this course, but for others being offered by the University.

Thanks very much and best regards.

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Wed 23rd Nov - I am coming to a close of the course, as the end is just around the corner. This week I am to prepare the presentation part of the final research report that was submitted before. I must admit, that although the padlet is due today, I have not completed my presentation as yet.

The power point part of my presentation is already completed, but the voicing part of it have not been done as yet, so my presentation is halfway completed. However, I am aware of the procedure of completing this task.

As I stated before, the power point part is completed. I laid out the presentation in accordance to the specifics indicated by the Course Coordinator and E-tutor. It is to be laid out as follows:-
* A Title slide – Your title slide should include:
the title of the assignment,  my name, the name of the course, the course number,
my tutor’s name, the course coordinator’s name and the date
• An Introduction – this section provides an overview of the research problem.
• The Body – the body is to be divided into two sections as follows:
o The preparation for field study – this section must address the actual preparations before the field study was conducted or it should address the preparations that would have been required before field study could have been conducted.
o The findings – this section must outline the findings according to the research paper with charts included.
• Summary – the summary provides the key points presented in your work.
• References – You are required to provide a list of references.

According to additional instructions, the presentation should not be longer than 5 minutes. It will be voiced using Screencast-O-Matic software, saved, then uploaded in the designated discussion forum. I have never used that software before, so I tried it out and it was actually fun to use.

From uploading, I am to make positive and negative critiques and questions to two of my peers on their presentations. The persons have already been assigned to me by my tutors, and I am to answers the same coming from two other persons, also assigned by my tutors.

I will be meeting the respected deadlines for submission of my presentation, and the questioning, critiquing and answering segments for myself and two other peers, but firstly, I will be working on the final part of my presentation from tomorrow Thursday.

Thur 24th Nov  - Today I did a trial of my presentation using the Screencast-O-Matic software. I eventually created it just a few seconds short of the 5 mins timeframe.
Once it was created and saved, I uploaded the presentation in the discussion forum. I will await to receive from my peers their questions and critique, and to do the same for two other persons

Mon 28th Nov -  Today, I completed my presentation assignment,  by making contribution and questions to two of the peers that were assigned to me, and I also answered the question that was asked to me by one of my peers.

Mohammed, K. (Nov 2016) Individual Presentation. Class News and Announcements. UWI Open Campus. Semester 2016/2017. Research Methods for Business - Introduction to Qualitative & Quantitative Methods. Retrieved fromhttp://201610.tle.courses.open.uwi.edu/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=84820

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THE UNIT - Qualitative data analysis is “the non-numerical examination and interpretation of observations, for the purpose of discovering underlying meanings and patters of relationships” (Babbie, 2014 p. 463). It allows the researcher to give a greater depth of description and understanding of the factors behind the people or phenomena being studied.

Analysis qualitative data can be tedious due to the number of text data involved, but a model have been developed by John Seidel (1998) to make the task a bit easier for researchers. The model have three basic steps which involves: (1) Noticing Things – which is looking for things of interest and naming them. (2) Collect Things – putting things into categories so they can be manageable. (3) Thinking about Things – examining what have been collected and making discoveries from them by identifying any patterns and relationships.

The processes for analyzing qualitative data are:
(1) Transcription – converting data from audio to text. This can be time consuming as the researcher usually captures word for word information.
(2) Organising data – is the use of techniques and use of codes that makes the data more easily retrievable.
(3) Familiarisation – this is going through the data and becoming familiar with it before formal analysis.
(4) Coding – words and short phrases are assigned to parts of the data.
(5) Finding themes – involves identifying emerging concepts and recoding data into clearly defined categories (Lacey & luff, 2001).

Quantitative Data Analysis is data that is presented in numerical form and can be analyzed using statistics. There are two branches of statistics, descriptive and inferential. Descriptive statistics describes the features and characteristics of the data and indicates what it shows. Inferential statistics draws conclusions about a population based on the data from the sample.

Descriptive Data Analysis can be done using univariate and bivariate analysis. Univariate Analysis is used when the researcher needs to examine a variable one at a time, and have three major characteristics: Distribution or frequency distribution - is the summary of individual values or ranges of values (Bhattacherjee, 2012). Central tendency – an estimate of the centre of the distribution values, such as mean, median and mode. Dispersion – is the spread of values around the central tendency, such as range and standard deviation.

Bivariate Data Analysis is used when the researcher needs to examine the relationship between two variables. Correlation is an example of the statistic.

Inferential Statistic gives information about the immediate group or sample and is invaluable in making generalisations about the population. It is broken into two main types. Estimation Statistics and Hypothesis Testing.

Estimation statistic are used to make inferences about a population based on the sample data. Two types of this statistic are Confidence Intervals – used to establish a range that has a probability of capturing the true value of a population. Parameter Estimation – used to make inferences on how a model might describe the relationships between variables within a population.

Hypothesis Testing is used to determine if there is sufficient evidence stated in the hypothesis of a population. There are five steps when conducting a hypothesis test. (1) State the null and alternative hypothesis (2) Select the appropriate test statistic (3) Determine the p-value associated with the statistic (4) Decide between null and hypotheses and (5) State the conclusion.

Reference:
The University of the West Indies Open Campus. Semester 1 2016/2017. Introduction to Business Research Qualitative and Quantitative Methods. Unit 8. Data Analysis

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THE UNIT - A questionnaire is an instrument used in research, that consists of questions in order to gather information from interviewers.

It is useful for communication between researcher and respondent, which can take place through interviewer-administered modes such as telephone and personal face-to-face interviews, or self-administered modes such as mail and via on-line. The difference between the two is the with interviewer-administered, the two personnel have direct connection so there is better interpretation of questions and answers. With self-administered modes the respondent can complete questions on their own time and reserves the right of anonymity.

The design and structure of the questionnaire is important in retrieving data that will be accurate and relevant in meeting the objectives of the research. However, before this is done, the researcher should have already identified the problem and know exactly what needs to be investigated in order to make decisions from the study. The questions phrased should be clear, using simple language, specific, not heavily loaded that will be taxing on the minds of respondents, and the sequence flow should be able to capture respondent's interest. This ensures clarity and proper interpretation of questions.

Questionnaires are hardly without any errors. Interview errors refers to those made by the interviewer such as cheating, incorrectly completing questions and influencing respondents answers and decisions. Respondents errors relates to those made the responder such as giving false information. But errors can be minimized with a proper design and structure of the questionnaire.

THE PRESENTATION - My group "Working Class Stimulation" had our group presentation on Tuesday 11th. The group consists of myself and my two other team mates Keneisha and Yetosha. It was based on "Determinants of Employee Motivation and its impact on Knowledge Transfer and Job Satisfaction", which was submitted before. We were the second group to submit and did very well, based on the comments from the e-tutor. In addition to the assignment, we were required to submit a question to another group and answer questions that would have been submitted to us.

Reference:
The University of the West Indies Open Campus. Semester 1 2016/2017. Introduction to Business Research Qualitative and Quantitative Methods. Unit 6. Questionnaire Design

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"Data is referred to as the facts and statistics collected together for reference or analysis." Oxford Dictionaries (2016). There are three difference types of data. Primary, Secondary and Tertiary.
Primary Data is data that is know as first hand information, and it is data in its truest form. Some examples are interviews, personal letters and journals, audio recordings and results from research done. It holds advantages such as the researcher having a greater control over the quality of the information. The data can be kept as the property of the research and only obtainable through their permission, as well as the information being specific to the research itself and not having to use other sources in order to come to a conclusion. However, the disadvantage of Primary Data is that it is very time consuming and costly.

Secondary Data is data that was not collected originally by the researcher. These include articles, journals, search engines and many more. These mentioned are characterized as External Secondary Data as the information comes from outside of the organization requesting the research. Information stemming from financial records and letters are known as Internal Secondary Data. Secondary Data helps the researcher in understanding the problem better, so there can be steps put into place in solving problems, while saving time and money. A set back is that data can be in accurate due to incompletion.

Tertiary Data is information that comprises of both primary and secondary data that have been recorded into text form. Sources include encyclopedias and internet search engines. The advantages are that they are very easy to source and saves on time and money.

When any type of research is being done, the information that results from it is of vital importance to the stakeholder(s) who stand in need of it in order for decisions to be made. Hence the reason why data should always accurate, on time, competent and relevant. As such data must be treated properly. There should be competent management of the way data is processed. Which is the accurate method of collecting, the instrument being used as well as the gathering of the data.

Data collection also involves a system called field work. This is a form of primary data where by information is gathered from persons outside of the organization. Workers must be well trained in areas such as honesty, integrity, respectful of others, great listening skills, excellent interviewer and being able to carry out instruction given by superiors. Their work must also be managed by ensuring that workers submit their assigned task on time in order to ensure the integrity of the research being done.

Reference:
Data (2016). Oxford Dictionaries. Retrieved from https://www.bing.com/search?q=what+is+data&form=EDGNTC&qs=TPP&cvid=0c3331793dbf4214b9d94bd4f9a98e19&pq=what+is+data

The University of the West Indies Open Campus. Semester 1 2016/2017. Introduction to Business Research Qualitative and Quantitative Methods. Unit 5. Data Collection.

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This unit is about Research Design and it explains the following:
Qualitative, Quantitative and Mixed Methods Approaches
On the research continuum, qualitative and quantitative are on both ends, while mixed methods is in the middle. This means that a research can be purely qualitative of quantitative, or have a mixture of both. However mixed methods can be pure and does not have to have a mixture of the other two.
Qualitative Research Methods
* Phenomenology - This is based on people's behavior and experiences.
* Ethnography - In order to study a culture the researcher must be a part of it.
* Grounded theory - Systematic investigation on information already collected to arrive at a particular theory
* Case study - Going in depth on a particular area of study
Quantitative Research Methods
* Experimental - This method test cause and effect on variables
* Quasi-experimental - This explores cause and effect relationships
* Non-experimental - The researcher cannot determine cause and effect as he/she does not have any control
Conceptualization and Measurement
Conceptualization is the process of developing and clarifying a concept. The concept is explained and the key terms are define (pg 59.). Measurement is another way of describing a variable or result with numbers. There are four levels of measurements,  which are nominal: using numbers, ordinal: in the order of first, second etc., Interval: using range values, and ratio: which have absolute value. Every research should provide information that is reliable and valid as the result is vital to the business and can wrong information can have unfavourable results for the company.
Sampling Designs
Sampling refers to using a small portion of a population in order to have the research done. Sampling is usually done as there are no constraints on the research regarding cost, time, budget and human support. There are two forms of sampling techniques. Probability Sampling where each unit in a sample have the probability of being selected and Non-probability Sampling where not all of the units may be selected.
Some types of probability sampling are simple random, systematic, stratified and cluster. Non-probability sampling methods include convenience, judgement, quota and snowball.
Another sampling technique is internet sampling. With this method, a wider range of persons or sample and it is literally low cost since it reduces costs such as travelling expenses. Hindrances to this method are that some persons may not have access to the internet, so those without will not be accessible, and because of it's popularity some persons may be unwilling to participate.
Sampling Errors
As accuracy was made mentioned to in the area of measurements, no experiment is free from error. But this can be minimized by the researcher. The discrepancy between the  measure being used for the sample and the population is known as the sampling error.  Non sampling errors are those that do not occur as a result of the sample selection. (pg 67 & 68.).

Reference:
The University of the West Indies Open Campus. Semester 1 2016/2017. Introduction to Business Research Qualitative and Quantitative Methods. Unit 4. Research Design.

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THE DEBATE – I was placed in another group of two other ladies for the debate. We called ourselves the Dynamic Trio, going against another trio group called Team Synergy. We were in agreement that “Quantitative data provides for a more sound analysis and interpretation of a research problem as well as less subjectivity in comparison to qualitative data”.

We made our first post on Monday 7th November, to which the other team responded the next day. We had to respond to our opponent’s first post as well as contribute a final post resounding our stand, making a total of 3 post for each team.  The debate was not done verbally, but was conducted via written communication posted on the discussion forum.

The other team did very well in providing information on why they disagree with the above statement, and since myself and other team-mates had to respond, we did excellently in proving  why quantitative data was more sound than qualitative.

All three members of the Dynamic Trio worked well with each other and equally contributed  to the debate assignment by providing information to support our argument, editing and proof-reading and submitting to the discussion forum.  A debate well accomplished.

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This unit still relates to the Research Process, and explains the area of communication. Communication is the conveying of information among two or more parties. When it comes to research it is very important as well as a form of practicing ethics, for communication to take place and more importantly, for it to be a two way process of giving and receiving information.  It is the responsibility of the researcher to provide all information whether good or bad on their findings.

All three steps in the research process are a form of communication. The research proposal explains the who, what, when, where and why, and should be structured in such a way that it convinces the readers on the validity of the research to be done.

The research report is the body of the research and communicates all information and results from the study. In preparing the report the researcher will be using information from primary, secondary or tertiary sources. Once used, references should be made to where, the date and who it came from. Failure to do so the researcher will be guilty of plagiarism, which can be costly at different levels.

The oral presentation is more in-depth as it helps the presenter to communicate more effectively through the use of pictures, charts, diagrams and any other visual that will better capture the attention of the audience. Listeners can ask questions and get a better understanding of uncertain areas. The oral presentation has three parts. The introduction – which sets the stage. The body which gives the information on findings. The conclusion which simply summaries the what went before.

Reference:
The University of the West Indies Open Campus. Semester 1 2016/2017. Introduction to Business Research Qualitative and Quantitative Methods. Unit 3. Communication in the Research Process.

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Unit 2 deal with the Research Process, and I realized that I wrote a bit on it in my week one, Unit 1 summary. Yes I did get a bit confused and mixed up there. But just to add a bit more from Unit 2.

The research process is the system or approach used to acquire data or information that can be used to make a decision. Then unto Problem Definition. The problem or opportunity must be identified first. This sets the foundation for the entire research, whether it is done accurate or incorrect, as the issue must be identified first before any research can be done properly. The literature review is examining the body of information that is in the research. Identifying questions that were and were not asked, as well as doing any other further research based on the topic.

As for the course itself. It may not be difficult, but its more time consuming that the others I am presently engaged in. A minimum of three activities for the week, so it was a bit too much to contain. I believe that may have caused my mix-up as I am trying to complete graded activities in time.

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My second week into the course, is surely different from my first week. The first week was excitement with just clearing up the orientation activities. the second week however, I actually felt a bit clustered and confused in getting an understanding of what needs to be done to complete certain assignments, although I see daily information regarding the course being submitted by the CC and e-tutor. Never the less, I do intent to work at being at the top of my game.

I met with members of my group and we started on the  group assignment by selecting a research article and submitted  it along with the  cover slide for out power point.

Some basic things I have gathered from reading Unit 2 is that, it deals with the steps and process of conducting a research, and that although the stages may have a particular order, not all researches are systematic, at times the researcher may have to go back to an earlier stage. Defining the problem is being able to have a holistic view of the business environment in order to determine what the problem is. While the literature review or search is gathering information from other sources that will enable one to have a better grasp of the information within the research.

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 Summary - Orientation
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 Summary - Orientation
Week - Unit
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