Chapter No. 3:Research
Methodology
3.1Philosophy, Methods and
Approach of Research
Philosophical direction is used to define the purpose of the
research. Method of data collection process shows how the data was handled,
collected and used for analysis for the purpose of satisfying the particular
research aims defined by the researcher Bryman (2016); Hughes and Sharrock
(2016); (Johnson & Clark, 2006). There are four research philosophies which
are usually used by researchers; interpretivist, positivism, realism and
pragmatism. Interpretivism is the main philosophy adopted by researchers using
qualitative methods of inquiry while positivist philosophy is preferred by
researchers that use quantitative research analysis. In the positivism research
philosophy, the scientific rules and regulations are followed strictly to
ensure that authentic data and information is produced and to ultimately avoid
the creation of any partiality in the data (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill,
2009), while self-interpretations are used to produce the results in
interpretivism research philosophy. Therefore, it can be clearly said that
positivism accounts presents a conventional procedure of conducting research
which allows the researchers to draw objective inference from the data free
from the issues created by personal beliefs. Hence, in this particular
research, the researcher has opted to use Positivism research philosophy to
ensure minimal prejudices in results and generation of original data from the
participants for the generation of genuine data and results.
The degree of logical approach in the theoretical perspectives
of a research and the design of the research can be explained in terms of two
kinds of research approaches; deductive approach and inductive approach
(Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2009). When a researcher starts from a
general theory and goes on to deduce specific inferences about the theory this
is called as the deductive approach i.e. developing a theory at the very start
of the research by going through past literature and then designing a plan to
test the theory in a selected specific population so as to obtain the results
from the particular participants of that population to justify the hypotheses
of research (Collis & Hussey, 2013). While the researcher goes from
specific to general in the case of inductive approach i.e. start is taken from
the collection of data and the researcher goes on to generate theory based on
this data that will be applied on the entire population (Saunders, Lewis,
Thornhill, & Wilson, 2009). Research approach can be Research approach
should always be in line with the objectives of a study. The objectives of this
study were to find out how the revenue that is generated from oil exports can
impact the growth of economy and the wellbeing of the consumers living in Chad.
Therefore, the aim of this study was not to propose a new theory but instead
explore the factors or ways with which the export revenue affects the economic
and well-being aspects in Chad. Therefore the deductive approach has been
applied. The researcher didn't aim to introduce any new concept rather existing
concepts and theories were used and enhanced to be included in this research
study.
Research methods are the processes or procedures that are
carried out by a researcher to complete a study (Creswell & Creswell,
2017). Three types of research methods exist; qualitative method, quantitative
and the mixed method approach. Quantitative approach is a research method that
deals with numeric, quantifiable data and results are basically generated using
primary data i.e. first-hand information that has been collected for the first
time. While the qualitative research design has usually been associated with
the theory and research philosophy of interpretivism i.e. of non-numeric
natures. In mixed methods, a mix of both kind of researches is carried out
which gives an in depth and more comprehensive knowledge regarding the research
problem (Almalki, 2016). The present study uses quantitative method. The study
uses existing literature and a survey design to attain the objectives of the
study. The objectives of the research study support the use of quantitative
methods. In addition to collecting primary data through questionnaire, the
researcher has also collected secondary data from the reports generated in the
past.
| 
