Compare Two Research Articles: Philosophical, Ethical, And Methodological

IntroductionThis paper will compargon the major characteristics of both explore obliges which are different in philosophical and modeological surfacees but are both related to the service of civilise favorable wreakers and start to show the differences and standardisedities in ontology, epistemology, morals, systemology and the methods of both pieces of investigate.The first enquiry piece is a paper c altogethitherd Managing schooling hearty work come ins print in 2012 in which Garrett examines the results of a survey on the disc care practices of 73 school societal workers. This sample of school neighborly workers belonged to the naturalize Social Workers Association of the States (SSWAA). Based on the duodecimal interrogation and survey method, the look intoer explored three relevant issues for school mixer workers, these were virtual(a) issues, ethical issues and legal mandates. The purpose of Garretts seek was to increase the school complaisant wo rkers practice of record keeping, improve their decision making skills, and to friend them choose suitable information to include in workers records. Garretts remark found that approximately 50% of entirely fond workers were unfamiliar with record keeping policy and most of the respondents had a poor understanding close what they should record. It also found that they struggled to find appropriate ways to achieve goals or to overcome bad situations. The results of this question were then apply to give the tribute that school tender workers needed more aid in their workaday record keeping. It was explained that professional organizations pitch to train the social workers by whirl workshops or classes that will teach them what information should be included or excluded, and the ethical and the legal policies that or importance to this recording.The second search article that will be functiond for this essay is called Empowering school social work practices for positive jejuneness development, which is soft research carried out by To in 2006 in Hong Kong, China. Tos study investigates the way in which school social workers engage with 3 major dimensions of empowerment the personal dimension the school and community dimensions and lastly, the institutional dimension. The sample utilize in Tos research consisted of 15 social workers, 10 of which were female and 5 universe male. any of these had wide service bewilder in the schools and most of them had Masters degrees. The purpose of this study was to explore the way in which school social workers dealt with different situations and how they influenced youth development by victimisation diverse strategies with the students, and deep d have the school, community and the relevant sectors of education. This was titanicly with the view of encouraging students to participate in volunteer works. The findings of Tos research indicated that, in the school setting, the research participants play an a ctive role in achieving empowerment. The relevant results provided insightful information for all separate social workers who contribute services in the schools.PhilosophicalDuring lying-in social research, it is important to consider matters of both philosophical approaches, such as ontology and epistemology, and different research figures. These toilet affect the research technique and boot as it is launched from design through to its conclusion (Flowers, 2009). Hatch and Cunliffe (2006) draw charge to the fact that different paradigms encourage tecs to study phenomena in different ways.The two chosen pieces of research are related with different research paradigms wiz of which is related with positivist and the other with interpretivist. Positivist is based on set of reason, truth and validity and there is a focus purely on facts, gathered through direct observation and experiences and measured empirically development quantitative methods, surveys and experiments and st atistical analysis (Flowers, 2009). In addition to this, this paradigm is line up with deductive or theory testing. However, in the case of interpretive it is argued that individualistics and groups return an important role within situations that are based on their individual experience and expectations (Flowers, 2009). Interpretive consider that there is no single mankind but that there are multiple realities. This paradigm is more aline with inductive or theory building.OntologyBlaikie (1993) defined ontology as the science or study of being and adopts this definition for social science, explaining that what embody is either an butt single reality (objectivism) or it is not single reality, only a subjective reality (subjectivism). The ontological approaches behind the two researches seem all told different.With regard to Garretts focus on statistical selective information, it kindle be considered that Garrett believes that there is an objective reality that allows for meas urement. Ontological objective result intend that it does not depend on the researcher. This is because the research only described mathematical results which were received from the sample of respondents who faultless the survey. This language is defined as phonation of the reality. On the other hand, Tos study, which used qualitative research, merchantman be seen to focus on a subjective reality where the researcher taken narrative info that was derived from a semi-structured discourse.EpistemologyEpistemology is the theory or science of the method or ground of association and explains that what exists may be known, what can be known and what criteria must be satisfied in dress to be described as knowledge (Flowers, 2009). In addition to this, Chia (2002) describes epistemology as how and what it is possible to know, while Hatch &038 Cunliffe (2006) characterise epistemology as cognise how you can know. Flowers (2009) discusses that, as with ontology, both objective epis temology and subjective epistemology views can exist. Eriksson and Kovalainen (2008) describe the way in which a world can exist in view of an objective epistemology, as long as this is unvarnished and theory neutral while, with a view of a subjective epistemology, no existence is possible to the apparent world beyond our subjective observations and interpretations.The two articles display a difference in their epistemological approaches. In the quantitative study, the researcher only described the results in relation to a paradigm of positivism however, the role of the researcher is not important in influencing the data of the research. On the other hand, regarding to interpretivist epistemology, the researcher gives a weight role which influences the research and the understanding of the situations from the researchers point of view.Ethical Issue clean philosophy is one of the essential aspects in many sciences, especially in social sciences. May (2011) defines ethics as concer ned with the attempt to formulate ordinances and principles of moral behaviour. All social researchers should pay attention to the social research ethics. lap (2005) believes that all social researches should include ethical issues because social researchers deal with societies and rafts insouciant lives fundamentally, all data derives from people. therefore, it is not easy to deflect ethical issues in both qualitative and quantitative approaches, especially qualitative approaches. Punch (2005) also highlights the way in which the qualitative method approach is more likely to study ethical issues as qualitative research focuses on the more sensitive issues in peoples lives.Tos study (2006) asked heads about the personal lives of the respondents for this reason he used a numerical code instead of actual names to give them independence and to call them bump more comfortable. However, To did mention the name of students who played roles in the social workers stories. Therefore, it can be argued that, on the one hand, that To mentioned a students name to try and show the school social workers achievements, in order to have positive effect on other social workers and encourage them to do the same. On the other hand, however, this could produce ethical issues for the researcher and the school social workers because they mentioned other peoples real names, when they could have used codes or false names. In the case of Garretts study, which used Survey rascal as method for compileing data, he does not mention anything ethically relevant to the respondent. However, this website has some(prenominal) ethical issues for example, regarding to questions design, the respondents should answer all questions before the survey can be submitted which means there is no right to avoid answering some questions (Buchanan and Hvizdak, 2009).During the period of research, it is important for the researchers to make ethical decisions and consider what is to benefit the respon dents or their research process. Furthermore, they have to judge themselves by asking a number of ethical questions (May, 2011). The articles of this essay are about school social work, so all behaviours and relevant ethics are necessary for the researchers and social workers to consider.MethodologicalBoth articles have severalize methodological approaches which are representative of their philosophical positions (ontology, epistemology). This part will attempt to compare both research methods one of which is a quantitative method approach and the other is a qualitative method approach and highlights the differences of the samples, data collections, data analysis and research findings. The two chosen pieces of research use different methods for data collection one used Survey Monkey and the other used a semi-structured interview.The Quantitative research survey method is defined by Burton (2012) as a techniques that uses a wide betray quantitative research provides valuable fig ures based on a large number of population that can be incredibly useful and authentic because statistic and numeric data give certain validity to the research.A Semi-structured interview is one of the types of interviews whereby the participants have more freedom and allows them to answer questions on their own terms, although it is still lay and questions are specified (May, 1997). However, the strategy of choosing the samples for both methods is different.Regarding the question of the samples, there are great differences that can be seen. In Garretts study the sample composed a small list of members of the domesticate Social Workers Association of America (SSWAA). They derived this list from 24 respondents from the United States of America and Canada, who were acceptable to represent the SSWAA. The researcher divided the list into even and whimsical members and randomly chose one of them to survey. Then the selected group participated in the survey after(prenominal)wards re ceiving an email that invited them to participate and explained the purpose of the survey. In total, 245 workers were invited to participate in the survey. well-nigh of the emails were undeliverable and some other members were not completed which meant only 73 respondents completed the survey. This number is about 30% of the potential sample (Garrett, 2012). On the other hand, the samples of Tos research participants were derived from 13 various organizations of welfare in Hong Kong. There were different genders involved, 10 female and 5 male, with an average age between 30-39 years old only 3 of the participants were in their twenties and 1 was in their forties. On average they had about 7 years experience as school social workers, while most of sample had a Masters degrees (To, 2006).With respect to data collection, during the period of March to June 2005, Tos research (2006) was carried out and the method for data collection was one-to-one semi-structured interviews. separately interview was divided into parts and each part was 1.5 hour. In Tos research the first part of the interview targeted the micro- and meso-sphere services of school social work, meanwhile the second part of the interview targeted the macro-sphere. Furthermore there were some questions about participants own stories and their services which were offered in their daily practices. However, in Garretts study the quantitative research was undertaken in February of 2009 using Survey Monkey, which is one of the most common websites used for creating surveys. The questionnaire consisted 25 short-answer questions that cerebrate on the types of records kept, what was included, decision-making practices, use of the records, challenges, storage, disposal of closed records, access to records, and district policies (Garrett, 2012). However, the research had one qualitative question which was an open question that focused on the most challenging aspect of keeping records (Garrett, 2012).In the c ase of data analysis of Garretts research (2012), all 25 quantitative questions were analysed after downloaded into MINITAB 15. On the other hand, in the case of the qualitative question, this was analysed after being transcribed into word processing documents where it was defined and themes were coded, counted and summarized (Garrett, 2012). In spite of Tos Hong Kongs research, the researcher processed the data analysis, step-by-step after transcribing the narratives. At the beginning of this process, To read the transcripts twice to find meaningful units, and then born-again these units to codes and began an improvement level of data analysis. Next, To found that various stages of meaning were produced and arranged these as sub-themes. Finally, the researched sorted out similar sub-themes to the main themes of his study.Relevant with the findings of Tos research, it was mentioned that together, the narratives showed a comprehensive understanding of the multidimensional empowering practices of social workers in schools. To believed that these results would friend other practitioners to deal with issues of empowerment. However, in Garretts study the more remarkable findings are that more than half of the participants could not successfully record judicial decision information and more than 75% of participants could not make decisions about shutting a case. Therefore, the results of Garretts study should be organized with caution because there was a small size of respondents in relation to all the members of the SSWAA.In conclusion, this essay has essay to compare two social research articles which had similar topics but completely different philosophical, ethical and methodological perspectives. One of these studies used a quantitative research approach and the other a qualitative. severally study was they carried out in different places, America and China respectively, and in different period times. Garretts 2012 article focuses on the positivism para digm, which time-tested to find out about the knowledge gap about practices of record keeping by school social workers. The data in Garretts study was collected using Survey Monkey, and the numerical data was analysed. Tos 2006 research was based on a different reality and tried to investigate the role of school social workers in influence youth development and encouraging students to volunteer. The study used a semi-structured interview to collect data. The results showed that they had a live role in achieving empowerment. It can be seen, therefore, that it is evidential for all social researchers to concern their philosophical, ethical and methodological positions when undertaking research.ReferencesBlaikie, N. (1993) Approaches to social enquiry polity press, Cambridge uk.Buchanan, A. &038 Hvizdak, E. (2009) Online survey tools ethical and methodological concerns of gentleman research ethics committees, in Journal of empirical research on human research ethics an international journal, 4 37-48.Chia, R. (2002) The production of management knowledge philosophical underpinnings of research design, in Essential skills for management research, sage, capital of the United Kingdom 1-18.Eriksson, P. &038 Kovalainen, A. (2008) Qualitative methods in business research, Sage.Flowers, P. (2009) Research philosophiesimportance and relevance in Economic record, 3.Garrett, K. (2012) Managing school social work records, in Children &038 schools, 34 239-248.Hatch, M. J. &038 Cunliffe, A. (2006) nerve theory, Oxford university press Buckingham.May, T. (1997) Social research issues, methods and process, Open university press Buckingham.May, T. (2011) Social research issues, methods and research, Mcgraw-Hill International.Punch, K. F. (2005) Introduction to social research quantitative and qualitative approaches, Sage.To, S. M. (2006), Empowering school social work practices for positive youth development hong kong experience, in Adolescence, 42 555-567.