Picture taken from Oxford dictionary
Research is something you conduct to find out about and understand a specific topic, object, place etc. It is used to answer questions. For example if you had to write a essay about "What films came out in the 80's and what was the most popular?" you would research to find the facts and information you need.
Why do we carry out research? We carry out research because it is behind everything which makes it important. There are many reasons why research is important, for example it helps us develop personally and professionally. Research helps us develop personally and professionally by expanding our knowledge and improving our understanding on the subject. It also helps us improve professionally by finding out how to make our work better by being aware of more then one perspective.
There are many different types of research:
Quantitative - Quantitative research is used to collect peoples opinions on a certain thing. It is usually conducted using questionnaires and surveys. It collects data in numbers and statistics.
Qualitative - Qualitative research is mainly used for market research. It is used to find out why someone thinks or feels this way about something.
Primary - Primary research is collecting the research yourself. It could be conducted using questionnaires, surveys or interviews.
Secondary - Secondary research is using information you have found from existing research. For example archives and information from the internet.
Research boards - Research boards such as BARB are used to collect data for other people. For example BARB collects television viewing figures for companies such as BBC, BSKYB and ITV.
Self-Generated - Self-Generated research is where you gather the information yourself through video, photographs or audio.
Audience - Audience research is where you get information from your demographic audience. For example if you are making a film for a specific age range you would present your idea to them and see what their opinions are.
Production - Production research is mainly used for plays. It is used to help you understand more about a play. For example you could research the influences and context of the play.
Primary vs Secondary research:
The differences between primary and secondary research is when you conduct primary research you ask the questions and find the answers yourself whereas with secondary the questions have already been asked for you. Some of the advantages of using primary research over secondary is that because you are conducting the research yourself you know that it will be reliable. However an advantage of secondary research is that because someone else has already conducted the research so you wouldn't have to necessarily leave your computer to get the information you need. Another advantage is that the person that has conducted the research may have had access to more and the persific type people you may not have.
Quantitative vs Qualitative:
The differences between quantitative and qualitative research is quantitative is based on collecting data to be able to turn into a numerical chart for instance a pie chart whereas qualitative research is gathering someones opinions and a full length answer rather than one word.
Quantitative or Qualitative questions:
You have just done a questionnaire looking into how often people
visit the cinema. In your opinion, would this be QUANTITATIVE research or
QUALITATIVE research?
For a questionnaire regarding how often someone visits the cinema a quantitative formatted questionnaire would be used. This is because the question is how often which would be collected in numbers from a multiple choice e.g 1-3 times a month, 4-6 times a month etc.
You have just done an interview looking into how often a single
person visits the cinema. In your opinion, would this be QUANTITATIVE research
or QUALITATIVE research?
An interview is usually used for qualitative research. Even though the question is similar it would generally be asked in an interview as on average how often do you go to the cinema in a month? which would be answered in a full sentence rather than ticking a box on a questionnaire as it is an interview rather than a questionnaire or survey.
