The Qualitative Research Experience - Revised Printing

Question: Discuss the identification of a research project, research methodologies and techniques, data collection and analysis method and expected research outcome? Answer: Identification of a research project: Malnutrition is defined as the physical condition that is caused due to an intake of unbalanced diet that is the deficit of some essential nutrients (Padgett, D. K., 2004). Various forms of disorders of nutrition can take place based on the over or under abundance in the diet. The World Health Organization (WHO) announced malnutrition as one of the greatest threat to the health of the public of the world (Who.int, 2015). Thus, the main focus should be put on this specified matter and effective and emergency measures should also be taken regarding this. This can include the provision of various micronutrients to the public through the distribution of sachet powders of peanut butter or it might also take place through direct supplements. Now a day, international civic groups provide cash vouchers in the famine relief operation program to the hungry population present in the every part of the world. The WHO also invested in the modern agriculture in countries that suffers due to lack of irrigation and fertilizers that are the main causes of malnutrition and hunger in the developed countries. Though many experts of environment prevent the farmers to use and spread fertilizers in the field as these might cause harm to the crop and the human health also. According to a special reporter in United Nations, the mortality rate has increased due to malnutrition since the year 2006 (Barker, L. A., Gout, B. S., Crowe, T. C., 2011). About 62 million people have died due to deficiency of proper food nutrition. Even the World Health Organization announced that the mortality rate of the children has increased due to malnutrition and in a year about six million children have died due to hunger. Due to malnutrition about 2.2 million newly born babies have died mainly due to lack of or poor system of breastfeeding from their mothers which results into underweight (Moy, R. J. D., Smallman, S., Booth, I. W., 2009). There are many children in the worldwide who are found to have a d eficit of nutrients in their daily food and the nutrients are Vitamin A, Zinc and many more (Snap Survey Software, 2015). The children who mainly suffer due to malnutrition grow up with a worse health condition and also lower educational achievements. When these malnourished children become parents, their own children also tend to become smaller. Therefore, it can be said that malnutrition exacerbates the various problems of diseases like Pneumonia, measles and diarrhea. It in actual causes diseases as well as can be fatal to everyone. Malnutrition increases the chance or risk of infection and also is the major cause of tuberculosis. The communities that lack safe drinking water cause additional health problems. Impaired function of the brain and lower energy is also caused due to malnutrition. Malnutrition also takes place when there is a lack of iodine or iodine deficiency takes place. The iodine deficiency in people, especially among the children, infants, and the pregnant women leads to lower intelligence by about 10 to 15 I.Q. points, which leads to the decrease in the rate of the development of the nation ('Infrastructure and Economic Growth', 2013). The severe deficiency of iodine leads to dwarfism, cretinism, and goiters. Thus, to investigate such problem in the society the particular research is done regarding the malnutrition in under-five children in rural areas of Rwanda, South Africa with the aim to solve the problems by some probable recommendations. Research questions: Malnutrition has become the major problem or issue in the rural areas of the country, which affects the common people worldwide. This issue thus affects both the health of the peoples and also the development of the country (Explorable.com, 2015). The aim of this study is to bring awareness among the peoples regarding the said issue and also stressed over the fact to address and develop the various ways to resolve these. The questions which might help to guide the researcher for this specific investigation process are as follows: What is the status of the country regarding the development of the people? What is the household income and expenditure of the common people of the country? What is the daily food provided by the parents to their children? What obstacles are encountered by the peoples in the particular country in providing nutritious food to their children? Research methodologies and techniques: The process of designing the needs of some specific equipment is mainly performed with the aim to control the environment (Bowling, A., 2014). Thus this process is referred as the laboratory science. The entire process of searching the cause for malnutrition in the rural areas of the country can be divided into segments (Zwillinger, D. (Ed.)., 2014). In the first half of the segment, the particular plan to stop malnutrition is designed and in the second half that how well the newly designed process for preventing malnutrition would fulfill the requirements of the common people and what would be the limitations of this procedure and how these expected limitations would be addressed Saunders, (M. N., Saunders, M., Lewis, P., Thornhill, A., 2011). The main aim of this research proposal is to understand the two segments so that the appropriate process should be identified which would help the people to reduce the malnutrition in the country. The research process is laboratory oriented t hus all data and information is gathered from the laboratory regarding the stoppage of malnutrition. It is the process of development as the sample survey is conducted with the aim to analyze the problem (Kandala, N. B., Madungu, T. P., Emina, J. B., Nzita, K. P., Cappuccio, F. P., 2011). The reason for malnutrition might vary from one country to another due to various factors. Thus, according to the country, remedial measures should be taken. Research process: This research study is based on the descriptive statistics. The current condition was analyzed by the descriptive method to gather the relevant information (Corkins, M. R., Guenter, P., DiMaria-Ghalili, R. A., Jensen, G. L., Malone, A., Miller, S., ... Resnick, H. E., 2013). The main focus was provided on the description of the scenario, rather than the interpretation of the specified scenario. The main aim of the research is to confirm the assumptions which have been formulated to show the actual situation at the present. The research method was done to analyze the effects of malnutrition on the children who are under-five and the efforts taken up to solve this issue. As any questions arise during the process of research can be investigated, it can be said that the research process is flexible. In this research, the research would choose both the ways of collection of data that is, primary and secondary data. The primary data are collected by conducting interviews and questionnaire survey and on the other hand secondary data is collected from the books, articles, journal provided in the internet. Thus, both the qualitative and quantitative approaches are followed (stlund, U., Kidd, L., Wengstrm, Y., Rowa-Dewar, N., 2011). In the quantitative approach, the questionnaire survey might be performed by distributing the questionnaires to the common people of the rural area of the specified country of various age groups like 25 35 years, 36 46 years, below 20 years and many more (Creswell, J. W., 2013). The main characteristics are age, gender, civil status, and the economic condition. Various surveys might also be performed like household income and expenditure survey, child nutrition survey and many more. All these data would be related to malnutrition or deficit of nutrition in the daily food. Thus, the objectives of the research can be analyzed easily. In the qualitative approach, the interview of the head of the department of the rural development office can be taken and also of the 5 employees working in the office regarding the condition of the people of the rural area (Silverman, D., 2013). From the view points of the head and the employees of the department, the analysis can be made regarding the issue. It can be said that the people facing the daily problem in their life would better explain the issues and the reasons behind the problem. Thus, quantitative approach is better than the qualitative approach for this particular research proposal (Green, J., Thorogood, N., 2013). Data collection and analysis method: According to the complete information gathered from the questionnaire survey, the results were then formulated in the form of a table (Williams, A., 2014). The methods which were used for collection of the primary data were information from the friends, other sectors, questionnaire survey, interview of the local people and the secondary data was collected by the use of Google Scholar and various websites of internets and also books (Gelman, A., Carlin, J. B., Stern, H. S., Rubin, D. B., 2014). The Likert scale was used to interpret the condition. Then the weighted means were calculated for the individual questions. The outcome should be multiplied by the weight to find out the mean. Then finally the total value is divided by total weight. Expected research outcome: The research outcome show that ten respondents of the age range of 25 35 showed that they suffer from proper quantity of food. The percentages of the ten respondents are equal to 33.33. 30 % of all overall respondents were within the age range of 28 40. The percentage of the age range or group below twenty was zero percentage. The sample population that was gathered had unequal distribution of sexes. References: Padgett, D. K. (2004) the qualitative research experience, revised printing (1st Ed.). Read Chapters 1, 2, and 3 Moy, R. J. D., Smallman, S., Booth, I. W. (2009). Malnutrition in a UK children's hospital.Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics,3(2), 93-100. Barker, L. A., Gout, B. S., Crowe, T. C. (2011). Hospital malnutrition: prevalence, identification and impact on patients and the healthcare system.International journal of environmental research and public health,8(2), 514-527. Saunders, M. N., Saunders, M., Lewis, P., Thornhill, A. (2011).Research methods for business students, 5/e. Pearson Education India. Kandala, N. B., Madungu, T. P., Emina, J. B., Nzita, K. P., Cappuccio, F. P. (2011). Malnutrition among children under the age of five in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC): does geographic location matter?.BMC public health,11(1), 261. stlund, U., Kidd, L., Wengstrm, Y., Rowa-Dewar, N. (2011). Combining qualitative and quantitative research within mixed method research designs: a methodological review.International journal of nursing studies,48(3), 369-383. Creswell, J. W. (2013).Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Sage publications. Silverman, D. (2013).Doing qualitative research: A practical handbook. SAGE Publications Limited. Snap Survey Software,. (2015).Survey Software Analysis Tools Feedback Management Research Services. Retrieved 9 September 2015, from https://www.snapsurveys.com/ Explorable.com,. (2015).Explorable. Retrieved 9 September 2015, from https://explorable.com Infrastructure and Economic Growth in Asia. (2013). doi:10.1007/978-3-319-03137-8 Who.int,. (2015).WHO | Water-related diseases. Retrieved 9 September 2015, from https://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/diseases/malnutrition/en/ Green, J., Thorogood, N. (2013).Qualitative methods for health research. Sage. Gelman, A., Carlin, J. B., Stern, H. S., Rubin, D. B. (2014).Bayesian data analysis(Vol. 2). London: Chapman Hall/CRC. Williams, A. (2014). How to Write and analyse a questionnaire.Journal of Orthodontics. Bowling, A. (2014).Research methods in health: investigating health and health services. McGraw-Hill Education (UK). Zwillinger, D. (Ed.). (2014).Table of integrals, series, and products. Elsevier. Corkins, M. R., Guenter, P., DiMaria-Ghalili, R. A., Jensen, G. L., Malone, A., Miller, S., ... Resnick, H. E. (2013). Malnutrition diagnoses in hospitalized patients United States, 2010.Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition, 0148607113512154.