Question Bank on Research Methodology

QUESTION BANK ON RESEARCH METHODOLOGY UNIT-1: Introduction Q1. What do you mean by research? Explain its significance in modern times. Q2. Explain difference between research method and research methodology Q3. “A research scholar has to work as a judge and derive the truth and not as a pleader who is only eager to prove his case in favour of his plaintiff.” Discuss the statement pointing out the objectives of research. Q4. Briefly describe the different steps involved in a research process. Q5. Explain the criteria of a good research. Q6. “Research is much concerned with proper fact finding, analysis and evaluation.” Do you agree with this statement? Give reason in support of your answers. Q7. Explain the types of research in detail. Q8. “Empirical research in India in particular creates so many problems for researchers.” State the problems that are usually faced by such researchers. Q9. Why is it important to define research problem appropriately? Q10. Explain in detail techniques involved in defining a research problem. Q11. “The task of defining the research problem is often follows a sequential pattern.” Explain. Q12. Write short notes on following: a. Ex post facto research b. Motivation in research c. Pilot survey

UNIT-2: Research Design Q1. Explain the meaning and significance of research design. Q2. How does formulating a research design differ from developing an approach to a problem? Q3. “Research design in exploratory studies must be flexible but in descriptive studies, it must minimize bias and maximize reliability.” Discuss. Q4. Differentiate between exploratory and descriptive research. Q5. Write short notes on following: a. Extraneous variable b. Confounded relationship c. Research hypothesis d. Experimental and control group. Q6. Write short note on “experience survey” explaining fully its utility in exploratory research studies. Q7. a. b. c. d.

Explain and illustrate the following research design: two group simple randomized design Latin square design Simple factorial design Experimental design

Q8. What are the major purposes for which descriptive research is conducted? Q9. List the step involved in implementing the posttest-only control group design. Describe the design symbolically. Q10. What are the limitations of Latin square design? Q11. “For any research to be successful it must be well designed.” Justify this statement.

UNIT-3: Sampling Methods Q1. What do you mean by sample design? What points should be taken into consideration by a researcher in developing a sample design for this research project. Q2. How would you differentiate between simple random sampling and complex random sampling? Q3. Why probability sampling is generally preferred in comparison to non probability sampling? Q4. Explain the procedure of selecting a sample random sampling.. Q5. Distinguish between: a. Restricted and unrestricted sampling b. Convenience and purposive sampling c. Systematic and stratified sampling d. Cluster and area sampling Q6. Under what circumstances stratified random sampling design is considered appropriate? How would you select such sample? Explain with the help of an example. Q7. Under what circumstances you recommend: a. A probability sample b. A non-probability sample c. A cluster sample Q8. “A systematic bias results from error in sampling procedure.” What do you mean by such a systematic bias? Describe the important causes responsible for such a bias. Q9. What is the major difference between a sample and a census? Q10. Under what condition would a sample be preferable to a census? A census preferable to a sample? Q11. What is a sampling unit? How is it different from the population element? Q12. Describe the sampling design process. Q13. How should the target population be defined? Q14. Highlight various methods used in selecting a sample from the population. Point out their merits and demerits.

Q15. . "Random sampling owes its importance to the fact that we can assess the results obtained from it in terms of probabilities otherwise the reliability of the estimates remains a matter of individual opinion." Elucidate this Statement. Q16. . "A sample may be large yet worthless because it is not random; or it may be random but unreliable because it is small." Comment upon the above statement and explain the importance of sampling in daily life. Q17. What is the least expensive and least time consuming of all sampling techniques? What are the major limitations of this technique? Q18. Explain the difference between judgmental and convenience sampling. Q19. What is the relationship between quota and judgmental sampling? Q20. Explain the characteristics of a good sample design. Q21. Write short note on following: a. Need of sampling b. Sampling frame Q22. Define the appropriate target population and the sampling frame in each of following situation: a. The manufacturer of a new cereal brand wants to conduct product usage test in India. b. A local TV station wants to determine houshlds’ viewing habits and programming preference.

UNIT-4: Methods of Data collection

Q1. What are the different methods of data collection? Which one is most suitable for conducting enquiry regarding employee welfare programme in India? Q2. How would you differentiate between primary and secondary data? Q3. What do you understand by secondary data and why is it important to obtain secondary data before primary data? Q4. Differentiate between internal and external secondary data. Q5. What are the advantages and limitations of secondary data? And also list the sources of published secondary data. Q6. “It is never safe to take published statistics at their face value without knowing their meaning and limitation”. Elucidate this statement by enumerating and explaining the various points which you would consider before using any published data. Q7. What do you understand by primary data and explain its advantages and limitation. Q8. What do you mean by observation and also list its advantages and limitations Q9. What do you understand by the term “survey”? Name the major modes for obtaining information via survey. Q10. Explain the difference between: a. Survey and observation b. Survey and case study c. Survey and experiments Q11. Describe some of the major projective techniques and evaluate their significance as a tool of scientific social research. Q12. Describe the case study method. And analyse the merits and limitations of case study methods. Q13. Explain why questionnaires are popular tools for Data Collection in Research. Discuss qualities of a Good Questionnaire. Q14. Explain the procedure of designing a good questionnaire. Q15. Explain the difference between collection of data through questionnaire and schedules.

Q16. Explain the following terms: a. Open ended question b. Multiple choice question c. Dichotomous question Q17. Design a Questionnaire to study Customer’s Satisfaction towards services provided by State Bank of India. (Make necessary assumptions) Q18. Describe the issues involved in pretesting a questionnaire. Q19. What are the reasons that respondents are unable to answer the question asked? Q20. Explain about structured and unstructured questions with their advantages and limitations. Q21. Design an open ended question to determine whether households engaged in gardening. Also develop a multiple choice and a dichotomous question to obtain same information. Which one will most desirable? Q22. Discuss interview as a technique of data collection. Q23. What are the main aspects of a questionnaire? Q24. Write short note on: a. Pantry and store audit b. Holtzman Inkbolt test.

UNIT-5: Attitude Measurement and Scales

Q1. What is the meaning of measurement in research? What are the different types of scales? Q2. Point out the possible sources of error in measurement. Describe the test of sound measurement. Q3. Discuss the relative merit and demerit of: a. Rating vs. Ranking scale b. Summated vs. cumulative scale c. Scalogram analysis vs. factor analysis Q4. Differentiate between nominal and ordinal scale. Q5. What are the implications of having an arbitrary zero point in an interval scale. Q6. What are the advantages of a ratio scale over an interval scale? Are these advantages are significant? Q7. Write short note on a. Comparative rating scale b. Paired comparison. Q8. Describe the constant sum scale. How is it different from the other comparative rating scales? Q9. Describe the Q-sort methodology. Q10. What is a semantic differential scale? For what purpose is this scale is used? Q11. What are the differences between staple scale and the semantic differential? Which scale is more popular? Q12. What are the major decisions involved in constructing an itemized rating scale? Q13. Develop a likert and semantic differential scale for measuring store loyalty. Q14. Develop a likert scale for measuring the attitude of students towards the internet as a source of general information. Q15. “Scaling describes the procedure by which numbers are assigned to various degrees of opinion, attitude and other concepts.” Discuss. Q16. What are the bases of scale classification?

Q17. Write short note on following: a. Arbitrary scale b. Multidimensional scaling Q18. How would you select a particular scaling technique? Q19. Explain in detail Thurstone type scale. Q20. What do you mean by validity? How would you assess the validity of a multi item scale? Q21. Explain the term reliability and also explain the relationship between reliability and validity. Q22. Describe the term association technique. Give an example of a situation in which this technique is especially useful. Q23. What do you understand by sentence completion test? Explain its advantages. Q24. Write a short note on Thematic Apperception Test. Q25. Suppose Baskin Robbins wants to know why some people don’t eat ice-cream regularly. Develop a sentence completion test for this purpose.

UNIT-6: Data Analysis Q1. What is a hypothesis? What characteristics it must possess in order to be a good research hypothesis? Q2. The procedure of testing hypothesis requires a researcher to adopt several steps. Describe in brief all such steps. Q3. Distinguish between: a. Null and alternative hypothesis. b. Simple and composite hypothesis c. Type I and type II error Q4. Explain the following with suitable examples: a. Acceptance and rejection (critical) region b. Best critical region c. Power of test d. Level of significance Q5. Write short note on: a. chi- square test b. z-test c. t-test d. F-test. Q6. What do you mean by parametric and non parametric test? Q7. What do you mean by one tailed and two tailed test? Q8. In an anti malarial campaign in a certain area, quinine was administered to 812 persons out of a total population of 3248. The number of fever case is shown below: Treatment Quinine No Quinine Total

Fever 20 220 240

No fever 792 2216 3008

Total 812 2436 3248

Discuss the usefulness of quinine in checking malaria. Q9. A certain drug is claimed to be effective in curing cold. In an experiment on 500 persons with cold, half of them were given the drug and half of them were given the sugar pills. The patient’s reactions to the treatment are recorded in the following table:

Helped 150 130 280

Drug Sugar pills Total

Harmed 30 40 70

No effect 70 80 150

Total 250 250 500

On the basis of data can it be concluded that there is a significant difference in the effect of drug and sugar pills? Q10. The number of defects per unit in sample of 330 units of a manufactured product was found as follows: No.of defects No. of units

0

1

2

3

4

214

92

20

3

1

Fit the poison distribution to the data and test for goodness of fit. Q11. 4 coins were tossed 160 times and the following results were obtained: No. of heads Observed frequency

0 17

1 52

2 54

3 31

4 6

Under the assumption that coins are balanced, find the expected frequency of getting 0,1,2,3 or 4 heads and test the goodness of fit. Q12. A manufacturer of TV sets was trying to find out what variables influenced the purchase of a tv set. Level of income was suggested as possible variable influencing the purchase of a tv set. A sample of 500 households was selected and the information obtained is classified as shown below: Have TV set 0 50 80

Low income group Middle income group High income group

Don’t have TV set 250 100 20

Is there evidence from the above data of a relation ownership of TV sets and level of income? Q13. Two random samples were drawn from two normal population and their values are: A B

66 64

67 66

75 74

76 78

82 82

84 85

88 87

90 92

92 93

95

97

Test whether the two populations have the same variance at the 5% level of significance. (F= 3.36) at 5% level for v1=10 and v2=8

Q14. In a sample of 8 observations, the sum of squared deviation of item from the mean was 84.4. In another sample of 10 observation, the value was found to be 102.6. Test whether the difference is significant at 5% level. You are given that at 5% level, critical value of F for v1=7 and v2=9 degrees of freedom is 3.29 and for v1=8 and v2=10 its value is 3.07. Q15. A typing school claims that in a six week intensive course, it can train students to type on the average, at least 60 words per minute. A random sample of 15 graduates is given a typing test and the median number of words per minute typed by each student is given below. Test the hypothesis that the median typing speed of graduates is at least 60 words per minute. Students A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O

Words per minute 81 76 53 71 66 59 88 73 80 66 58 70 60 56 55

WPM-60 +21 +16 -7 +11 +6 -1 +28 +13 +20 +6 -2 +10 0 -4 -5

Q16. The following data relate to the daily production of cement (in m. tones) a large plant for 30 days: 11.5, 10.0, 11.2, 10.0, 12.3, 11.1, 10.2, 9.6, 8.7, 9.3, 9.3, 10.7, 11.3, 10.4, 11.4, 12.3, 11.4, 10.2, 11.6, 9.5, 10.8, 11.9, 12.4, 9.6, 10.5, 11.6, 8.3, 9.3, 10.4, 11.5 Use sign test to test the null hypothesis that plant’s average daily production of cement is 11.2m. tones against alternative hypothesis µ< 11.2m. tonnes at the 0.05 level of significance. Q17. The following is an arrangement of 25 men, M, and 15 women , W lined up to purchase tickets for a premier picture show: M WW MMM W MM W M W M WWW MMM W MM WWW MMMMMM WWW MMMMMM Test for randomness at the 5% level of significance.

Q18. The mean height obtained from a random sample of size 100 is 64 inches. The standard deviation of the distribution of height of the population is known to be 3 inches. Test the statement that mean height of the population is 67 inches at 5% level of significance. Also set up 99% limit of the mean height of the population. Q19. An auto company decided to introduce a new six cylinder car whose mean petrol consumption is claimed to be lower than that of the existing auto engine. It was found that the mean petrol consumption for 50 cars was 10 km per litre . Test for the company at 5% level of significance, whether the claim the new car petrol consumption is 9.5 km per litre on the average is acceptable. Q20. A simple sample of height of 6400 Englishmen has a mean of 67.85 inches and a standard deviation of 2.56 inches while a simple sample of height of 1600 Australians has a mean of 68.55inches and standard deviation of 2.52 inches. Do the data indicate that the Australians are on the average taller than the Englishmen? Give reasons for your answer. Q21. Two samples of 100 electric bulbs each has a means 1500 and 1550, standard deviation 50 and 60. Can it be concluded that two brands differ significantly at 1% level of significance in equality? Q22. Find the students t for following variable values in a sample of eight: -4,-2, -2, 0, 2, 2, 3, 3 Taking the mean of the universe to be zero. Q23. A certain stimulus administered to each of 12 patients resulted in the following increases of blood pressure: 5,2,8,-1,3,0,6,-2,1,5,0,4 Can it be calculated that the stimulus will be, in general, accompanied by an increase in blood pressure given that for 11 degrees of freedom the value of t at 5% is 2.201 Q24. Two horses A and B were tested according to the time (in seconds) to run a particular track with the following results: Horse A Horse B

28 29

30 30

32 30

33 24

33 27

29 29

34

Test whether you can discriminate between two horses. You can use the fact that 5% value for t for 11 degree of freedom is 2.20.

Q25. In a test examination given to two groups of students, the marks obtained were as follows: First 18 group Second 29 group

20

36

50

49

36

34

28

26

35

30

44

46

49

41

Examine the significance of difference between the arithmetic averages of marks secured by the students of the above two group. (The value of t for 14 d.f. at 5% level of significance =2.14) Q26. Ten soldiers tour a rifle range once in a week for two successive weeks. Their scores in the first week were 67,24,57,55,63,54,56,68,33,43. Their scores in the second week (in same order) were 70,38,58,58,56,67,68,75,42,38. Is there any significant improvement?

UNIT-7: Interpretation and Report Writing

Q1. Write a brief note on the “task of interpretation” in context of research methodology. Q2. “Interpretation is a fundamental component of research process”, explain why so? Q3. Describe the precaution that the researcher should take while interpreting his findings. Q4. “Interpretation is an art of drawing inferences, depending upon the skills of the researcher.” Elucidate the given statement explaining the technique of interpretation. Q5. “It is only through interpretation the researcher can expose the relation and process that underlie his findings.” Explain by giving example Q6. Explain the significance of research report and narrate the various steps involved in writing such a report. Q7. Explain the layout of research report. Q8. Explain the documentation in context of a research report. Q9. Explain the different types of report. Q10. “Report writing is more an art that hinges upon practice and experience.” Discuss. Q11. Why is the limitation and caveats section included in research report? Q12. Describe the guidelines for research report. Q13. Write short note on: a. Title page b. Table of content c. Recommendations Q14. Describe a line chart. What kind of information is commonly displayed using such charts. Q15. Explain the technique and importance of oral presentation of research finding. Q16. Explain the characteristics of a good research report.

Q17. “We can teach methods of analysis, yet any extensive research… requires something equally important: an organization or synthesis which provides the essential structure into which the pieces of analysis fit.” Examine this statement show how a good research report may be prepared. Q18. Write short note on following: a. Bibliography and its importance. b. Rewriting and polishing of report.