Quantitative Qualitative Research Or Both -Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Discuss About The Quantitative Versus Qualitative Research Or Both? Answer: Introduction The main aim of this research is to acknowledge all the stages involved in safety management and differentiating between the success and failure of the project in each aspect like history, behavior, environmental, psychological, and organizational and many others. This research provides a proper explanation of how the safety factors implemented in order to set the guidelines to be followed. The success or failure of the safety management in construction industry are functions of the implementation of the safety factors. The research rationale Health and safety management in the construction industry has a high importance within the industry professionals. It is considered against the rights of the planning authorities, clients, consultants and contractors. The health and safety management became an integral part of the organizational framework as well as other related organizations. According to Clarke et al. (2005), as cited in Chileshe Dzisi (2012) almost all of the workplaces (93%) reported employee sickness absence. About 94% of workplaces are aware of the accident cases. Obstacles to implementing health and safety management are represented mainly in the time restrictions, cost, low priority, small size, lack of knowledge and lack of information and guidance and support. The construction injuries have a negative direct impact on the workers and the work itself. The work is affected through construction delays, lower productivity and higher insurance premiums that result from injuries. The indirect impact includes loss of future revenue for the business and loss of future income for the injured workers. The most common causes of injuries are falls, being caught in or between objects, electric choke, affection by toxic gases, fire and many other reasons (Chileshe Dzisi 2012). Most of the subcontractors can predict the risks, as the construction of a building is much more than the skillful performance of the subcontractor. The health and safety management requires the all trades to work cooperatively during the project lifetime. Also, legislations have to consider the rights of workers for having health and safety standards (Wadick 2010). Risk is considered a probability of a favorable outcome that arises from a decision. In the construction management, risk is an exposure of economic loss arising from the involvement in a construction project. Many professionals in the construction sector do not realize the potential impact on other associated risks that may impact the business operations. The holistic risk management approach enables the organization to manage all sources of business risks. It will enhance the risk mitigation and ensure safety management at workplace (Sharma Swain 2011). There is a large amount of literature on health and safety on-site, but there is a lack of research on the confined construction sites and the increasing level of risks that workers face in the workplace. According to while Illingworth (2000) and Cooke and Williams (2004), as cited in Spillane et al., (2012), it is recommended that an organization make effective design site layout to maximize space on-site which results in lower risk. The research objectives Assuring proper implementation of safety factors helps in identifying the risks in construction projects. To provide safety standards as a result of the safety factor implementation. To improve the level of safety performance. Regular supervision of the related authorities is expected to change behaviors towards the more safe construction environment. To assure that safety standards are strictly followed without taking any shortcuts. To improve the training programs concerning the health and safety management. To be able to control the number of accidents which yield deaths and injuries. Improvement of the critical success factor with the complicated attributes. To change the workers' attitudes in response to the proper implication of the role and responsibilities of the contractor. The systems of inquiry The process of theory development may be conducted induction, deduction or abduction reasoning. Deduction is the process of stating conclusions about a phenomenon based on theoretical reasons or logical thinking and an initial set of assumptions. In deduction, the results of the analysis formed in terms of conclusion should be true if the initial premises and reasons are correct. But induction is the opposite of deduction, as it starts with observation of certain phenomenon or evidence, then facts or conclusions could be drawn. The inductive conclusions are only a hypothesis, and could be disproven. The deductive conclusions tend to be stronger than inductive conclusions in general, but if the deductive conclusion is based on an incorrect premise, it will also be incorrect (Bhattacherjee 2012). Abduction is considered a modern methodological interpretations. It took the interest of researchers in concern with the concerning grounded theory. Grounded theory argues that theories should be discovered from data by being close to the phenomena that is investigated. It suggests not to start from grand theories deductively. This means that the research process has to start from scratch. This approach has its proponents and opponents who argue that the theories could not be neglected totally and it is not logic to reinvent the wheel. Abduction provides means for understanding that research methodology could be conducted through the combination between theory and observed elements (Paavola 2014). Sequence of methods According to Fellows Liu (2015), the research in the field of the construction industry could be quantitative, qualitative or mixed method. This means that we have three alternatives to choose among them, as follows: First alternative: The quantitative approach is used in the construction industry research with 29.2% empirical research, followed by 25.95 of the formulations of simulation proposals and 5.6% of the performance of archival studies (Panas Pantouvakis 2010). The data collection techniques are used in the previous research to gather data required for verifying hypotheses formulated on the basis of a literature review. The numeric data collected could be analyzed by using statistical tools in two different ways, the first is the descriptive analysis, which describes the aggregation and presentation of the constructs of interest. The second is the inferential analysis, which refers to hypothesis testing, it could be conducted with software programs as SPSS or SAS (Bhattacherjee, 2012). Second alternative: The qualitative approach could be implemented to introduce some form of classification to the data. The qualitative content analysis is used in the construction industry research with 5.6% empirical research, followed by 4.5% of the formulation of simulation pro within the framework of exploratory surveys (Panas Pantouvakis 2010). Qualitative surveys tend to measure the effect of specific factors, by fitting the practitioners responses to their own perceptions. It analyzes text data through interviewing the respondents, it depends on the researchers' analytical skills and their personal knowledge of the phenomenon of interest. The qualitative analysis requires sense marketing rather than explaining. It also requires creative and investigative skills to conduct the qualitative analysis (Bhattacherjee, 2012). Third alternative: The mixed-method approach analyzes the qualitative data derived from interviews with the respondents, it is also combined with quantitative data modelling and analysis. It aims to provide insight into the phenomenon of interest (Panas Pantouvakis 2010). The selected system of inquiry for the research This research follows the positivism paradigm. It assures the delivery of accurate knowledge and the elimination of any ambiguity, as it follows the natural science philosophy (Saunders et al., 2009). The researcher role is neutral, he neglects his cultural aspects, values and beliefs (Keele 2012). It ensures objectivity of the researcher. This research is a quantitative research it will depend on collecting numerical data to be analyzed by using statistical methods. The advantage of this methodology is the availability of generalization of the results to the population. Also the previous research illustrate that is widely used in the analysis of the phenomenon related to the construction industry (Paradis et al., 2016). In order to collect data about the phenomenon of the safety management in the construction sector, a field study will be done (Polisen 2013). It is important to identify the variables related with the research objectives to be studied. Also the level of correlation among the variables should be tested (Gogtay Thatte 2017). Data collection method In research, data represents facts to be collected and investigated. In order to get the required information about the safety management in the construction industry, the researcher could apply different techniques concerning, phenomena, people and objects and the settings in which they take place. Secondary data will be collected from formal documents to compare between the targeted performance and the current performance of the construction industry. A survey is a tool used by the researcher to collect data about the target population, it describes one or more characteristics of it (Norris et al. 2015). In this research, data will be gathered from a samples of the large, medium and small sized firms in the construction industry. Questionnaire technique The self-administrated or written questionnaire, is used to collect data by the researcher from the respondents. According to Iro (2013), the researcher should make sure of certain points before starting to distribute the questionnaires to the respondents, they are as follows: The relevance of the questions to the problem to gather the necessary data in relation to the phenomenon of interest. Precision in listing the information sources in order to achieve the desired objectives. Assuring that the respondents could easily answer the questions by making sure of unambiguity of the questions. Providing enough spaces so that the respondents can answer properly and express the situations he faces. Assuring that each question is associated with one element and no biasness takes place. This requires no duplication in the questions. To use a structured questionnaire to investigate the variables associated with the phenomenon. There are two main types of questionnaires that could be used in data collection. The first type is the close ended questionnaire, it allows the respondents to choose among 5 alternatives on the Likert scale ranging between (strongly agree- agree- neither agree nor disagree- disagree strongly disagree) (Zohrabi 2013). The questionnaire should be designed by a professional of the field of the study. Also, it has to be analyzed with the appropriate techniques. The method of analysis should be determined a prior, as it should emerge from the exact setting of investigation. The second type is the open-ended questionnaire which allows the respondents to express their opinions towards the phenomenon of research (Bhattacherjee, 2012). The researcher will use the close-ended questionnaire to allow the respondents to express and clarify different issues related to the safety at their workplace (Office of planning, assessment, research, and quality 2015). Accordingly, the researcher will personally administrate the questionnaire, which is proofed to be an efficient data collection method. The survey will take place in the large, medium and small sized firms in the construction sector and the researcher will be able to get the required data. Data analysis techniques The researcher should choose the proper data analysis technique among the different techniques to meet the research objectives (Onwuegbuzie Combs 2011). Data should be tested for its validity and reliability. Then the analysis technique should be adopted. According to (Bihani Patil 2014), the researcher will use the descriptive analysis technique to best describe the current business situation that declares the trends, patterns and expectations of the managers in the selected Research plan for 11 week research project Considering the research objective of assuring proper implementation of safety factors helps in identifying the risks in construction projects. The quantitative method will be used to gather a range of data on specific or closed questions. It allows the researcher to quantify and document the research material gathered from the respondents' opinions (Qambar 2015). The detailed description of the quantitative method The quantitative method is more scientific and involves empirical research that assist on providing the truth and records the reality about the phenomenon being researched. It depends on a main assumption of determinism, which means that the events are mainly driven by one or more causes. The interpretations of the results are relevant to the research perspective and the level of knowledge of the researcher. Although the reality cannot be subjective and the researcher has to be objective in conducting the quantitative research. The researcher should not change his opinion according to the situation, as the quantitative analysis tool is designed in an objective manner (Qambar 2015). The quantitative research uses methods to calculate the investigated variables and reach conclusions. It requires tools of data collection as the questionnaires or structured interviews, they could be self-administrated in a written format or the respondents could be questioned orally. The sample size should be large, to provide accurate results. It is usually larger than the sample size used in the qualitative search analysis. The results of the quantitative research analysis could be generalized to the population. The quantitative paradigm is used by the researcher to show the extent to which the results of the analysis are related to the real world situation. The results of the quantitative analysis are represented in tables and charts that supports the research results. Though, the quantitative research allows the researcher to be familiar with the studied concepts, and generates the research results of hypothesis testing (Qambar 2015). Accordingly, the questionnaire will be used as the most appropriate technique in gathering data relevant to this research. The questionnaires could be distributed to the respondents, then to be collected after they express their opinions in order to provide a high degree of anonymity and to let the respondents feel free to answer the questions. References Bhattacherjee, A 2012, Social science research: Principles, methods, and pactices, University of South Florida, USA. 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