Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Selecting a technology
or technologies
After determining what kinds of challenges are most crucial in the research
design,thenextquestioniswhichtechnologieswillenableyou,theresearcher,
tocompletethetasksathandwhilealsoaddressingyourresearchconcernsand
challenges.
Tips 'n Tricks
Typical questions to consider
regarding your choice of technology
•
What is most appropriate to my particular research need?
•
What will facilitate and ease the process of data analysis?
•
What will be easy to use and develop for research purposes?
•
What will be easy for participants to use?
•
What will be most cost effective (what's the cost/benefit analysis)?
Inselectingatechnology,advertisingandthehottesttrendsaretypicallyunhelpful
and even, possibly, unreliable. Technical support staff within your organization
will know all of the most exciting and cutting-edge technologies, but will often
lack the sophistication to understand data-analysis needs or be able to help in
thinking through a researcher's particular needs. For example, when it became
widelyknownthatFileMakerProcouldbeusedtodevelopanonlinesurvey,fac-
ulty members at our university would often consider using it to enhance their
research. There would be initial excitement generated by support staff about the
supposed“easeofuse”andthefacultymembers'deepdesiretoentertherealmof
online research. Few, however, considered the fact that they had to learn how to
configure the application (or hire someone, most often a research assistant), and
develop the survey instrument using the application. Few researchers took the
time to think through the ramifications of technical support and the need for a
serverto“host”thesurvey.Onceafacultymemberrealizedthatsomeoneneeded
thetechnicalskills,and/oraptitude,todeveloptheresearchinstrumentusingthe
application,managedatacollection,providetechnicalsupporttousers,andhost
theapplicationandsurveyonaserver(includingalloftheissuesrelatedtoman-
agingthroughafirewall,etc.),realityinevitablysetin.
In some cases, faculty members would be excited about finding and funding
atop-notchgraduateassistant,whowoulddiligentlyproduceaveryfashionable
survey instrument, writing useful macros for data management and download,
only to discover that students, being transient, were unable to sustain the
research efforts after graduation.
