Introduction
The paper develops an understanding of how research is conducted in different fields. Articles from three peer-reviewed journals have been presented and give the salient facts that are presented in them.
Analysis
Rosenthal (May, 1994) has discussed some key scientific and ethical issues that need to be considered while conducting, analyzing and reporting psychological research. The author has argued that ethics and scientific quality are integral and cannot be separated from each other and a high quality research proves to be ethically defensible. The author has mentioned a number of issues that identify poor and unethical research from sound and ethical research. According to the author, some of the pitfalls that research must overcome include design issues where the experiment needs to be reliable and valid.
The author cautions about issues such as volunteer bias and therefore increasing the generality of the research; Hyperclaiming that is telling the prospective participants, fund granting agencies, colleagues, and administrators that the research is likely to achieve goals it is, in fact, unlikely to achieve and Causism that is closely related to hyperclaiming and refers to the tendency to imply a causal relationship where none has been established or where the data do not support it.
The authors also mentions factors that effect research such as poor quality of research design, poor quality of data analysis and poor quality of reporting that undermine research, data dropping, Outlier or extreme scores rejection, improper subject selection, exploiting research participants, Pseudocontroversies, misrepresentation of findings, intentional misrepresentation, unintentional misrepresentation, questionable generalizability, misrepresentation of credit and failing to report or publish.
McGahan (2007) has made some important recommendations for writing about various issues and problems that an author comes across when writing on management topics. To observe the accepted values and basis for research in strategic management, the author offer models for research and writing and these include the use of case studies, specialization, case analysis, and theory development. The article focuses on the implications of academic research for the specific management problems and they suggest that the research should be done with managers. The author argues that credibility is very important in management research and that managers do not care for disciplinary boundaries bit require solutions for specific problems quickly.
Other suggestions that the author makes include making the work relevant to an organization and the importance of integrating the work with business practices. The author has provided various approaches to proper management research and these include reexamining widely accepted current practices that are paradoxical or problematic and the author argues that ine should not be swayed by popular sentiment and feeling and urges restrain lest we walk off a cliff like Lemmings.
Edmundson (et all, 2007) writes about the key elements from management field research and organized them in a single framework. The article provides the language and advice for discussing and promoting a methodological fit. The authors have shown that methodological fit is achieved by logical pairings between methods and the state of theory development when a study is conducted. Explaining further, the authors argue that as an area of theory becomes more mature with greater consensus among researchers, most important contributions take the form of carefully specified theoretical models and quantitative tests.
In the article, the authors have shown that fit is a critical bit not exclusive input to high quality field research. The quality of the individual elements of research include the review of related literature and effective techniques for data collection and analysis. Fit is important and sometimes overlooked by inexperienced researchers who may fail to see larger patterns that create inconsistencies between their aims and methods.
Conclusion
The paper has presented a discussion from three journals on issues that relate to valid and acceptable research. The article by Rosenthal has discussed some key scientific and ethical issues that need to be considered while conducting, analyzing and reporting psychological research. The article by McGahan has made some important recommendations for writing about various issues and problems that an author comes across when writing on management topics. Edmondson writes about the key elements from management field research and organized them in a single framework. The paper would help researchers in using the correct methodology for conducting research.
References
Edmondson Amy C., (2007), Methodological fit in management field research, Academy of Management Review, Volume. 32, Number. 4, pp: 1155–1179.
McGahan Anita M (2007), Academic Research That Matters To Managers: On Zebras, Dogs, Lemmings, Hammers, And Turnips. Academy of Management Journal, Volume. 50, Number. 4, pp: 748–753.
Rosenthal Robert (1994), Science and Ethics in Conducting, Analyzing, and Reporting Psychological Research, Journal of American Psychological Society, Volume 5, Number 3, pp: 127-134.