I would like to share my opinion and experience on business major research, which may be under the social science research category,like psychology. These are my review, opinion on the research and some of my university classmate who did their research also. I also worked in a subsidiary of multinational market research company, which is headquartered in the U.S. This gave me the chance to witness closely how they conduct a research as a company.
A norm in the academic environment for research paper in the university I studied at is as a requirement for conferral of first degree. This will be defended in front of testing lecturers. This is usually taken near the end of the study. Only in a successful defense of the research paper, a first degree will be conferred.
The quality of the Data collection process and result; company and student comparison
Data collection is the most sophisticated and complicated, part of the research. I would like to compare data collections carried out by research company that I worked for and student of university I studied at. To perform the data collection by distributing questionnaire, they task interviewers. They make an agreement with professional interviewers that they will work as associates , who will only get paid based on questionnaire that pass quality assurance. Doing so, Their purpose is to push the associate interviewers to work honestly; not reporting a fake questionnaire responses or the submitted questionnaire by interviewers will be turned down and they won't get their pay as a consequence of rejection. I was told by one of my bosses the company will even black list the interviewers who report questionnaire filled with response but it turns out after quality assurance process they are actually fake respondent. To encourage participation on the survey, The respondents are usually given away a small gift (like a Mug) after they participate in the survey. To check the quality of the filled questionnaire which are then submitted by interviewers, officers called field supervisor check randomly the respondents by calling them by phone to confirm whether it is indeed they themselves who have given response. The phone number of respondent must be inquired in the questionnaire in order to do so. It is important to underscore that The personnel who check the quality is different professionals with the interviewers, who look for respondents on the field. To be allowed to conduct the survey on the field, a permit from local government entity like must be obtained prior to survey. They hire another officer that deals with the matter that makes sure that the permit is obtained. During my three months short tenure, I was hired as the recruiter who recruit the field workers: like interviewers. After assured data is collected in the questionnaires, the data is subsequently inputted into to a computer for further analysis. They have another paid personnel : data entry to carry the job out. Paying the interviewers, and salaries of the officers related to it is considerably costly part of this data collection.
This is different with what I observed with my classmates back in University before I joined the company. They are not able to assure the quality of the data as the company are. While they are supposed to find respondents who are willing to participate in their survey, Some of them even confessed they fill some of their questionnaire on their own. But, I have heard my lecturer said that Statistics works in GIGO (Garbage in Garbage Out) principle and I agree with him. GIGO would loosely be interpreted as When the data collected are a low in quality as I observe during my study, the subsequent analysis, presentation, interpretation, etc of it will follow. But if data is collected with extreme care like the company I used to work for, we can plausibly expect any following statistical treatment will also follow.
Academic cheat: claiming outsourced statistical analysis work result as if it was the student's own
When the number of observed data are too many as it is always so, researcher student need to be able to operate statistical software, Since it is too cumbersome and time consuming to process a lot of data manually. Many small business provides the statistical analysis service and I notice they are some located nearby campus. This opens the opportunity for students who may be lack of statistical software operating skill to use their professional service to process their data. I have a friend who open the business after he graduated from statistics major. I was told that even some doctoral degrees students use their services, probably Since the doctoral degree students may not be well versed in operating the software also. This is the problem of academic cheating that I spot: Claiming statistical analysis result as student -researcher own work while they actually have others do it for them yet their academic mark is assessed based on it. In my view, they are just the "short cut" students who wants a degree without willingness to endure the hard, tedious, and cumbersome work of research.It seems that even the university cannot control the practice and just let it happen.
Dillematic between Academic Integrity and job
This is a dillematic problem. On the one hand statistics consultant is an entrepreneurial work that should be welcomed. They operate somewhat similar to market research company, in business perspective. The difference may be in client and range of service. Market research company 's client are usually large businesses while the statistical consultant serve smaller niche: student researcher. Another difference is the range of service. As far as I know, statistical consultant do not collect data by distributing questionnaire like what market research company do. Imagine if a regulator forbade their operation, for the sake of defending academic integrity, they would of course lose their job, which would create unemployment problem.
But on the other hand, The university that keep producing graduates like them might be soon or later lose their good reputation. Students may graduate and get their degree but will possess little or even no research skill as a result of it.
Student-researcher usually fund their research final assignment themselves
if the social science research conducted in the academic environment I was at was so good, they should be able to find at least a party who is willing to finance it or sell it to parties that need it like how the marketing research companies run their business. They find companies who purchases their research. The reason why is that because the findings of the research must be useful and helpful for their clients businesses that to the extent to which the parties should be willing to pay for. But I don’t find any practice of it yet, AFAIK. I strongly discourage myself to finance social science research by spending money from my own pocket, since the research result won't be useful for me as an individual anyway apart from fulfilling an academic requirement. Sometimes I think, it is the student - researcher is the one that is supposed be paid for because of the research undertaking.
Company as Researcher Vs Student as researcher
In the company, the research is conducted as a team work. In my view, the sole researcher is the company, an organization; not an individual person. Individual person may perform only one role: like field data collector associate (interviewers), that one who are tasked to find and having interview session with respondents on the field. One man's energy is not sufficient to conduct such a large scale research.
Hesitant to Continue to Next Degree
These are also the of academic reasons why I am hesitant to continue my study to a master degree in any social science field especially when research needs data collection by survey although the opportunity is open for me as I hold a first degree that should make me eligible.
My research
My research was in capital market. I did not collect data by distributing questionnaire as most of marketing students do theirs. I purchased historical stock price data from Indonesian stock exchange. The historical stock price data is classified as secondary data that may have been collected also in the past for other research purpose while Data that is collected by marketing research company described above is classified as primary data, which are usually collected to specifically answer a novel research question. I was willing to study statistical software to analyze the data although I didn't really enjoy it. I pushed myself to. I refrained from having statistical bureau consultant analyze it for me although my mother told me to. I learnt how to process data using software only time-series and a non parametric hyphotesis testing in Minitab, that was directly related to my research topic.
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Although A student may understand theoretically how to do the marketing research , They, as individual, still will not be able to carry it out as theorized in the actuality. They may not be able conduct the field data collections on their own as an individual since:1 the needed data may be too many; they may need to task it to interviewer like market research company while they may not have a sufficient fund to recruit and pay the field data collectors as the research company do.
The social sciences research is an expensive empirical method to gather scientific knowledge. It is probably feasibly executable correctly only by a company. Individual won't be able to do it. May be Because the research price is high, no wonder that scientific knowledge should be relatively slow in advancement. In addition, dissemination of new knowledge might be slower,since party who have the right to publish it, like project owner, who finance the research may be unwilling to publish it, keeping it their own.