Research Design And Philosophy

Introduction

This section will discuss the research methodology that is applied to the present research. The research method used for this research is Systematic Literature Review. This section will explain the research method and discuss the protocol that was followed for applying this method for data collection in this research. This research is conducted with the help of qualitative research methodology. Research design is defined as “types of inquiry within qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods approaches that provide specific direction for procedures in a research design” (Creswell, 2013, p. 12). Qualitative approach is open and subjective and uses a low level of measurement (Opoku, Ahmed, & Akotia, 2016, p. 35).

Qualitative approach is generally associated with Interpretivism research philosophy as it is subjective and sees the researcher’s use of epistemology for interpretation (Collis & Hussey, 2009). Qualitative research is appropriate for research studies that involve the revealing of multiple narratives, and greater insight (Creswell, 2013). Qualitative research is flexible enough to involve complex studies as there is no predetermined and fixed methods that the researcher must follow in his research (Willis & Jost, 2007).

Research Philosophy

Identification of the philosophy that will guide the researcher in the research is the first and essential step in the process which becomes the basis for the research plan and design created by the researcher for the specific research (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2012; Wilson, 2014). Once the researcher chooses the research philosophy that will guide the research, this philosophy becomes the basis for the research design that is applied from the beginning to the commencement of the research (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2012). It is considered that identifying research philosophy is essential for determining how the researcher will approach the research design (Wilson, 2014).

There are four research philosophies in general: Realism, Positivism, Interpretivism, Post-modernism and Pragmatism (Creswell, 2013; Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2012). Each of these philosophies has a specific outreach and guide the researcher to design the researcher in a specific way. Realism is related to empiricism and is a part of scientific practice or research method and can be a critical approach (Bryman & Bell, 2015). Positivism is objective and scientific in its approach, where the researcher does not apply interpretative or critical perspectives and is not concerned with the world of the participant for the purpose of formulating judgement or final findings (Easterby-Smith, et al., 2002). Interpretivism focusses on the epistemological consideration of the views of the researcher (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2012). The interpretivist research philosophy is focused on deriving the correct meaning of the data from a theoretical or contextual perspective (Myers, 2013). Post-modernism research philosophy relates to the application of post-colonial perspectives to research subjects and is critical of dispassionate social scientists (Dickens & Fontana, 2015; Bryman & Bell, 2015). Pragmatism seeks to avoid the rigid distinctions between realism and anti-realism approaches and it relies more on experience for deriving meaning from the data (Morgan, 2007).

This research design is guided by interpretivist research philosophy. Interpretivism allows the researcher to derive the correct meaning of the data from a contextual perspective (Myers, 2013). In this research, the subject of research is complex and multilayered as the area of research is domestic violence in the context of Black and Ethnic Minority women. This area involves many contexts and layers, which will be open to subjective study by the researcher under the interpretivist philosophy.

Systematic Review

The principal method of data collection for this research is systematic literature review, which involves the researcher in a systematic review of the available quality peer reviewed research articles. A systematic literature review is defined as the summary of all the available and accessible and relevant literature that on the research question that is being considered by the researcher (Bettany-Saltikov, 2012). The systematic literature review is characterised by research that sees the researcher identifying, selecting, appraising and synthesising all available data from high-quality literature, which usually consists of peer reviewed journal articles and primary empirical studies (Bettany-Saltikov, 2012). As the systematic literature review sees a researcher collating and synthesising all relevant literature and empirical studies related to a research question, the findings of the research are credible (Bettany-Saltikov, 2012).

In this research, the researcher has chosen a systematic literature review because this would ensure that the most relevant and quality literature is selected by the researcher for data collection after following a protocol that will involve the consideration to all peer reviewed articles on the subject of domestic violence in context of Black and Ethnic Minority women in the UK. By using a systematic literature review, the researcher will ensure that all the articles are considered and after applying inclusion and exclusion criteria, the most relevant articles are selected for the research.

As systematic literature review is done with the view to collating “all empirical evidence that fits pre-specified eligibility criteria in order to answer a specific research question” (Green, et al., 2011, p. 6); this method is the most appropriate method for arriving at the most relevant data for this research. As Green, et al. (2011) specify, the purpose of systematic literature review is to collect, review and collate all the literature and empirical evidence related to the subject matter of research, the researcher following this method follows a protocol which ensures that no relevant literature or empirical evidence is left out of the scope for data collection. One of the advantages of following this approach is that the researcher ensures a decrease in bias as the method of review of available literature is explicit (Green, et al., 2011). This reduction in bias and consideration of all relevant literature and empirical evidence leads to the improvement in credibility of data and findings of the research. In qualitative research, this is especially significant because qualitative research is generally thought to be less credible than quantitative research (Perrin, 2015). It may be noted that qualitative research is particularly thought to be less credible because there is more subjectivity in the data, and possibility of researcher bias in data collection and analysis (Perrin, 2015). Furthermore, qualitative research is thought to be unsystematic as compared to quantitative research design (Perrin, 2015). Using a systematic literature review can help the qualitative researcher to create a research design that is free from bias in terms of data collection and analysis. Moreover, being a systematic review that follows a specific protocol, the qualitative researcher can avoid claims of being unsystematic (Green, et al., 2011).

Systematic research can be used by applying the PEO method (Population, Exposure, Outcomes), which is employed in research studies that see the researcher posing qualitative research questions at the beginning of the research study (Bettany-Saltikov, 2012). The present study will use the PEO method as there are specific research questions that are posed at the beginning of the research, which are sought to be answered through the systematic literature review. The following Table 1 depicts the components of the PEO method and the elements that will be included in this method.

The population consists of the population that will be considered in the research, in this case it being Black and Ethnic Minority women. This will have an implication for the inclusion and exclusion criteria (Bettany-Saltikov, 2012). Only Black and Ethnic Minority women will be included, and others will be excluded. Men will also be excluded from the research. The exposure relates to the specific variable factor that is being researched into, in this case this being domestic violence. Therefore, self-harm will be excluded from the research. Outcomes relate to the specific factors that are related to the experience of domestic violence for Black and Ethnic Minority women, in this case, these relevant factors being social and cultural factors.

To conclude this section, this research study will be conducted with the help of a systematic literature review, for which the focus will be on research for the identification of the most appropriate peer reviewed articles on the subject (Green, et al., 2011). This data will be collected through electronic databases. The focus of the researcher will remain the identification of high-quality literature with respect to domestic violence in context of Black and Ethnic Minority women in the UK (Bettany-Saltikov, 2012).

Eligibility Criteria

The eligibility criteria for the peer reviewed articles that will be included in this research are based on the link between the issue of domestic violence and the experiences of Black and Ethnic Minority women in the UK. This means that for the purpose of this study, the systematic literature review will include peer reviewed articles and primary studies that are related to experiences of domestic violence of Black and Ethnic Minority women in the UK. This is the eligibility criteria that will inform the making of the search string that will be used in the key word search on electronic databases. By using the eligibility criteria, the researcher will be able to identify the most appropriate studies and articles to be included in this research. Therefore, the researcher will use the inclusion and exclusion criteria for the purpose of identifying the most relevant articles to be used in the study (Bettany-Saltikov, 2012). The inclusion and exclusion criteria will be able to direct the researcher to identify the most high quality literature that is relevant to the research question posed by the researcher at the beginning of the research (Bettany-Saltikov, 2012). The advantage of the application of the inclusion and exclusion criteria is that it drives focus on the area of research and helps the researcher to weed out irrelevant articles. The following Table 2 depicts the inclusion and exclusion criteria that will be used in this research for the purpose of systematic literature review.

Databases

The databases that were systematically searched include, Cardiff Met search and Google Scholar. Cardiff Met search was systematically searched for appropriate articles that matched the inclusion criteria for systematic literature review. As recent peer reviewed articles were scarce, the search was expanded to include articles that were up to 6 years old. Cardiff Met search was used because it provides an accessible database for books and peer reviewed journals. Google Scholar search engine was also used for locating the suitable literature on domestic violence of Black and Ethnic Minority women in the UK. Google Scholar was used as it is a large database, including primary and secondary sources in the UK.

Search String

The core question that this research seeks to ask is: “What are the experiences of Black and Ethnic Minority women in context of domestic violence in the UK?” A search string is formed for the purpose of data search on the electronic databases. This search string allows the researcher to focus the research on the subject area. For the purpose of forming the search strong, the population and variable of interest in the core question are first identified and then these are used to break the string into two parts, the first covering the population, and the second covering the variable of interest. This gives the following two sections: (a) Black and Ethnic Minority women in the UK; (b) domestic violence. These sections yield the following search string, which will be used to search the electronic databases for relevant literature and empirical studies: Black and Ethnic Minority Women OR Minority Women OR BME Women AND (domestic violence OR domestic abuse). The synonyms for the population and variable of interests are used because at times, articles may include the synonyms in the names. Using synonyms allows the researcher to include all possible and relevant articles in the research.

Process of Sifting the Articles

The sifting process comes after the initial search results are yielded in the electronic databases. The initial results may reveal a large number of articles, many of which will be irrelevant to the current research study. A sifting process is used by the researcher after the initial results come through for the purpose of identifying the most relevant articles out of the articles generated in the initial research (Bettany-Saltikov, 2012). The sifting process sees the researcher applying a quality analysis test to the initial results of the electronic database search for the articles. Applying a quality analysis test allows the researcher to identify the most persuasive articles by considering the methodology, arguments and evidence that is presented in the abstracts of the articles (Bettany-Saltikov, 2012). By applying the sifting process, the researcher can find the articles that are the closest to the research question posed in the beginning of the research (Bettany-Saltikov, 2012). The PRISMA protocol can be used for ensuring that the most relevant articles are selected on the basis of the quality of the articles. The PRISMA protocol involves definition of search terms, identification of databases and search engines and journals, and application of appropriate filters for inclusion and exclusion criteria (PRISMA, 2015). The quality of the articles at the sifting process stage can be ensured by reading through the abstracts and considering the methodologies and processes involved in the research (Bettany-Saltikov, 2012).

Reduction of Bias

This is one of the most important considerations in qualitative research studies. As discussed above, qualitative research studies are at times considered to be lacking in credibility and for this bias reduction is an important consideration for the researcher (Perrin, 2015). There are possibilities of bias even in the most rigorous of systematic reviews due to the selection of articles being subjective on the part of the researcher (Bettany-Saltikov, 2012, p. 11). However, this bias can be reduced if the researcher uses a protocol for the sifting process that allows him to reduce bias by a systematic approach. In this research, the bias is reduced by the researcher using quality assessment techniques. Other possibilities of bias may include language selection (Bettany-Saltikov, 2012). In this research study, language bias is reduced because the research itself is based in the UK, wherein the language is English. Moreover, only peer reviewed English articles are selected and for this the reduction of bias is done by ensuring that no relevant article from the English language peer reviewed journals is excluded from the data search.

Extraction of Data

After the application of the sifting process, the data extraction process is applied. This process sees the extraction of data from the selected research articles by reading and re-reading the articles selected to highlight the parts of the articles that are related to the research question involved in the current research (Bettany-Saltikov, 2012, p. 106). In the current research study, data extraction saw the researcher highlighting the parts of the articles that related to the experiences of the Black and Ethnic Minority women in context of domestic violence.

Analysis of Data

Once the data is extracted from the articles selected for the systematic literature review, the extracted data is subjected to analysis. In qualitative research, data analysis can be demanding because of the layers of data and at times its copious quantity that needs to be analysed as well as meta-synthesised (Jones, 2004). One way of analysing qualitative data is through a method of thematic analysis (Bearman & Dawson, 2013; Thomas & Harden, 2008). Thematic analysis of the data can be done by applying a repitive process of reading the data and identifying the key themes in all the data, which are repeated themes in all the data (Bearman & Dawson, 2013). Organising the data into key themes is useful in qualitative research as this allows the researcher to finally focus analysis on these key themes, and finally reporting on these key themes. This helps the researcher to remain focused on those themes that are common to the data or have been reported in rigorous research studies.
It is also important that the researcher is able to remain objective in analysing the data, even when an interpretivist method is being followed. Too much subjectivity may rob the findings of the research of their potential for generalisable effect to the subject area, as explained:
“Making judgements about qualitative research requires a deep engagement with ‘rich, thick, description’ and the context of the study. Qualitative synthesis is by its nature a subjective process. The themes presented in qualitative work may be summarisable, but their meaning is sometimes inseparable from the data and not usually generalisable beyond it” (Bearman & Dawson, 2013, p. 253). Therefore, there is a need to ensure that the researcher is able to reduce subjectivity so as to ensure that the findings are generalisable.

Search results

The search string generated 30,000 results in the first place. By narrowing the dates as per the inclusion criteria, the search results were narrowed down to 12000 articles. Considering the titles of the articles and whether these were appropriate for the literature review, the abstracts were read through if the titles reflected that the articles seemed appropriate for the study. Once the abstracts were read through, the search was further narrowed down to 250 articles. This final stage was the sifting process in which stage the quality and the relevance of the article was considered before deciding on including it in the final selection of articles for systematic literature review.

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