BASIC EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

School Year 2020-2021

2nd QUARTER
Subject: Practical Research 1 Module Number: 003
Topic: Gathering Relevant Information with Intellectual Honesty Module Durations: 2 weeks
Learning Competency:
1. The learners shall collect data through observation and interviews.
2. The learners shall infer and explain patterns and themes from data and relate their findings with
pertinent literature.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of the module, the students are expected to:
1. Collect data through observation and interviews.
2. Infer and explain patterns and themes from data; and,
3. Relate the findings with pertinent literature
Learning Materials:
 Module
 Laptop/ PC with internet connection (when submitting files)
 Ball point Pen/ Pencil

I. REVIEW OF THE PREVIOUS LESSON

Activity 1: Reflect Upon

DIRECTIONS: Answer the following question below by giving your reflection and insight about
the statement. Write your answers on your LMS through Microsoft Word. (Note: Deadline shall be until
the next meeting or as per advised by the teacher.)

 What is the significance of the research methodology?

 Why do you think establishing a friendly atmosphere while conducting an interview or an
observation is an important aspect of the research process?

My Reflection

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 II. INTRODUCTION/ PRESENTATION OF THE NEW LESSON

In a qualitative research, your interest lies in people’s thoughts and feelings about a certain
subject matter. Your curiosity about such topic bombards your mind with several questions. Finding
answers to your questions is possible through these theoretically based data-collection methods:
observation or interviews. Obtaining data through these methods requires you to perform necessary
skills or strategies and to follow the right procedure in interviewing and observing.
After completing your research proposal, you are now ready to collect data for your study.
As you have learned in the previous modules, the common methods of gathering or collecting data
for a qualitative research are observation and interviews.
Observation, according to others, is not so your presence as the researcher in the area where
the subjects are situated, give authenticity to everything you get to observe among subjects.
Watching and listening to your subjects then recording what you have observed about them are the
reasons many consider observation the foundation of all research methods. Realistically speaking,
this is logical, for sensation precedes perception (Letherby, 2013; Snort, 2013).
On the other hand, interviewing, as traditionally viewed, tells that this data gathering
technique occurs between you, as the researcher, and your respondent/s in a face-to-face situation.
In this case, you speak directly with your respondent, individually or collectively. On the other hand,
by using electronic and technological communication devices like Internet, mobile phones, e-mail,
etc., interview can be considered as a modern tool of research. All in all, be it a traditional or a
modern type of interview, it is a “conversation with a purpose” that gives direction to the question-
answer activity between the interviewer and the interviewee (Babbie, 2014; Rubin, 2011).
However, using a certain method of collecting and analyzing data, you get to gather varied
world perceptions from different people. Through all these diverse opinions coming from a set of
people, you are able to discover a certain idea or pattern governing the entire data collected. Geared
toward a common theme, idea, or pattern, the collected facts and information are capable of
guaranteeing evidence-based conclusions, Factual data and logically collected ones are meaningful
data to yield valid and credible solutions.
After going through this module, you are expected to identify the different information
necessary on starting and creating a research paper.

III. MOTIVATION

Ask Yourself…
 How should I gather relevant information with intellectual
honesty?
 How will I collect data from either observation or interviews?
 How should I infer and explain the patterns and themes from
the data that I gathered?
 How will I relate my findings to various supporting details?

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IV. LESSON PROPER/ DISCUSSION

GATHERING RELEVANT INFORMATION WITH
INTELLECTUAL HONESTY
1. Observation
Some research questions can be best answered by seeing for yourself what is happening or
how things look. For example, if you want to find out how students behave in a particular subject,
it would be best to go to their classroom and observe them in the actual lecture to get more reliable
data. As can be remembered, this technique has for types, namely, participant observation, non-
participant observation, naturalistic observation, and simulation.

In a participant observation, the researcher assumes two roles – observer and participant.
The researcher participates as much as possible in the daily life of the subjects while also carefully
observing everything he or she can about it. This gives the researcher the opportunity to learn
things directly from his own experience. In a non-participant observation, the researcher does
not participate in the activity/ies being observed but rather, he or she “sits on the sidelines” and
watches the subject/s. The naturalistic observation techniques involves observing the subject/s
in their natural environments. This technique allows the research to study things that cannot be
manipulated in a laboratory due to ethical constraints. Simulations allow the researcher to observe
what is happening in certain kinds of situations, including those that occur infrequently, by creating
the desired situation.
Observation entails the systematic noting
and recording events, behaviors, and artifacts in
the social setting chosen for study. This helps
ensure accurate, complete, and honest
descriptions. The observational record is
frequently referred to as field notes. Field notes
are simple, detailed notes of the researcher while
conducting observations in the field. This is the
written account of what the researcher has seen,
experiences, felt, or thought during the actual
observation.
Field notes can be reflective or descriptive. Descriptive field notes describe the actual
setting of the study (which may include the appearance of the people, their mannerisms, and
gestures during an event being observed) and the accounts of actual events (what happened, where
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 Page 4 of 12

and when it happened, who are involved). On the other hand, reflective field notes refer to the
researcher’s thoughts on what he/she has observed during the observation period. The reflective
field notes detail the researcher’s reflections on his observations.
Field jottings refer to quick notes on
something the researcher would like to recall
later. This actually provides some kind of
stimulus for the researcher to recall on details of
the interview or observation. For example, you
are conducting an observation in the waste
management or practices in a school. As you
observed, you noticed that one teacher quickly
grabbed a litter and placed it in a nearest trash
bin. This would serve as your quick note.
Field diary refers to the personal statement of the researcher’s thoughts, feelings, or
opinions on others whom he has close encounter with during the course of the study. For instance,
“I was happy to see that all the students and teachers took part in the cleanup drive conducted by
the school. It is nice to see that everyone participated in maintaining the cleanliness of the school
and its surroundings.” This can be one good example of your personal statement in your field
diary.
Field log refers to the schedule of your daily activities while conducting interview or
observation in the actual field. This is usually your plan as a researcher for collecting the data
systematically. This contains two columns: the left column contains what you will do on the day
such as what to observe, where to observe, and whom to observe or interview while the right
column contains a detailed list of what you actually did on that day. This is an important aspect in
your study because by looking at your field log, you can actually check the progress of your study.
Below is an example of a field log:

What I will do today What I actually accomplished

I will observe two classes today and will I only observed one class today.
interview five students The other class was excused for a
school activity.
I was not able to interview students.

When using the observation method, the researcher must take into consideration the
problems of observer effect and observer bias to maintain honesty and integrity. The term
observer effect means that the act of observing will influence the phenomenon being observed.
This is because people may not behave or act normally or naturally when aware of being watched
while doing an activity. A professional researcher, therefore, considers this reality in the
interpretation of his/her idea.
Observer bias, on the other hand, refers to the possibility that certain characteristics or
ideas of the researcher may “affect what they observe” (i.e., bias). While it is true that the
observations of a researcher will have some degree by our experiences in the past, which in turn

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 Page 5 of 12

affect how we see the world and the people around us – a researcher of honesty and integrity should
do his or her best to become aware of and control his/her bias/es.
2. Interview
Another common method of data
collection in a qualitative research is the use
of interview. By definition, an interview is a
conversation between two or more people
where the interviewer asks questions to gather
specific information from the interviewee.
While you may think that interviewing is a
standard part of journalism and media
reporting as you can see on news reports,
interviewing is also one of the most
convenient and primary methods of gathering
data in a qualitative research.
In the previous lessons, you learned the different types of interview that you can use in
gathering data for qualitative research: structured, semi-structures, informal, and retrospective.
a. Structured Interview
In a structured interview, the researcher
prepared a specific set of questions and reads the
questions exactly to individuals an understanding of their
ideas on a topic. This would be appropriate to use when
interviews require that the participant should give a
response to each ordered question, which are often shorter
in nature. The questions in a structured interview are like
those in a job interview where the employer asks the same
set of questions for consistency. Since the questions are routinely asked, a larger number of
participants are typically in these studies.
According to Denzin and Lincoln (2011), there are five guidelines to keep in mind when
using the structured interview method:
 Stay consistent with the introduction of the study, sequence of questions, and wording of the
questions.
 Do not let another person answer for the participant or offer his/her opinion about the question.
 Do not suggest an answer, agree, or disagree with an answer. You do not want to give the
respondent any idea of your personal views on the topic.
 Do not interpret the meaning of a question. If the participant does not understand the question,
you should just repeat the question and ask him or her to give the best response or choose to
skip the question.
 Do not improvise, such as adding answer categories or making word changes.

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b. Semi Structured Interview

In a semi-structured interview, the
researcher sets the outline for the topics covered and
prepares mostly open-ended questions such that the
responses of the interviewee determine the direction
of the interview. This is the most commonly used type
of interview in qualitative researches. The semi-
structured interview guide provides a clear set of
instructions for interviewers and can provide reliable,
comparable qualitative data.
Semi-structured interviews are often preceded by observation and informal and
unstructured interviewing in order to allow researchers to develop a keen understanding the topic
of interest necessary for developing relevant and meaningful semi-structured questions.
c. Informal Interview
Informal interviews are less formal than
structured or semi-structured interviews. They resemble
casual conversation as they do not involve any specific
type of sequence of questions or any particular form of
questioning. The primary intent of an informal interview
is to find out what people think and how the views of one
individual compare with those of another. In the first
glance, it is easy to conduct, but in reality, informal
interviews are the most difficult of all. Here, the researchers often need to make sense sensitive
decisions as the interview progresses.
d. Retrospective Interview
Retrospective interviews can be structured,
semi-structured, or informal. A researcher who
conducts a retrospective interview tries to get
respondent/s to recall and then reconstruct from
memory something that has happened at the past. It is
the least likely in the four interview types to provide
accurate reliable data for the researcher.
Whatever the type of interviewing method a researcher chooses, he or she is expected to:
 Respect the culture of the group being studied.
 Respect the individual being interviewed.
 Be natural.
 Develop an appropriate rapport with the participant.
 Ask the same question in different ways during the interview.
 Ask the interviewee to repeat an answer or statement when there is some doubt
about completeness of a remark.
 Vary who controls the flow of communication.
 Avoid leading questions.
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 Page 7 of 12

Drawing Patterns and Themes from Data

One of the most important aspects of any research is the data analysis. In qualitative
researches such as ethnography, case studies, and historical researches, many techniques can be
used to analyze data. Some of these techniques are looking for patterns or themes, identifying key
events, preparing for visual representations, and statistics (Fraenkel and Wallen, 2010).

1. Patterns
This is actually the utmost concern of a qualitative research – to look for patterns, themes,
or constructs. You can generate concepts or constructs by comparing and contrasting the data
collected and sorting out until you can be able to find patterns and dividing them into themes.

To look for the patterns in the data that you have collected, it is important to sort out
common themes transcribed in the interview or to code common responses in the observation you
have made. Patterns and themes can be obtained of a particular construct is being repeated in
interview or being observed or in using metaphors and analogies. Recognizing patterns can help
in drawing phenomena or in predicting trends. Let us take a look at this example:
A research is conducted to investigate the migration of medical
doctors in public hospital to private hospitals. Based on the interviews
that you conducted to around 15 doctors, many of them cited the
following reasons: better pay, good working conditions, career growth,
and flexible time.
This is derived from the interviews or observations conducted. It is important to transcribe
the interview and summarize all the responses of the participants. From there, you can identify
trends, patterns, or themes.
2. Key Events
These are specific and prominent events or
phenomena occurred in a certain group. If your study is
aiming to describe and analyze a culture of a group, key
events that occur in a group you are studying can provide
the necessary information. This can also provide an
understanding of the group and can help you to relate the

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culture of the group to others. Examples of these key events are a fire in a school building, a new
teaching method in an all-boys school, or the use of computers in a math classroom. Let us say for
instance. You are investigating the cause of fear of a certain group of students when performing a
science experiment involving with fire. The results of investigation show that this group of students
witnessed a fire in their previous school. So, performing a science experiment helped the
researcher to trace back the cause of their fear.
3. Visual Representations
This is a very useful tool in presenting and
understanding the results in a qualitative research.
This better presents any system, patterns,
interaction, or relationships that could be
generated from the data. Visual representation can
be done in the form of maps, graphic organizers,
organizational charts, matrices, and flowcharts.
4. Statistics
The use of numbers in a qualitative is not the primary data that you can get. However, there
are some responses or data in which statistics is needed such as percentage and frequency. This is
useful if you want a summary of the frequency of the responses. Inferential statistics is not
expected to be used in qualitative research. This is because most of the data in qualitative research
results from observations and interviews. Let us take a look on how statistics was used in the
following example of 15 doctors who were interviewed.
Cause of Migration from Number of Interviewees Percentage of Interviewees
public to private hospitals who cited the reason who cited the reason
Better pay 15 199
Good working conditions 12 80
Career growth 14 93
Flexible time 13 87

Looking at the given example, only frequency and percentage are used to present the profile
of the responses made from the interview.
Triangulation of Data
In research, establishing the validity of the data collected using various techniques is
essential. This process is called triangulation. Triangulation establishes the validity of the data.
The data that you have collected usually come from at least three perspectives – observations,
interviews, and document analysis:

Personal interviews

Triangulation
of data
Document analysis Actual observation

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 Page 9 of 12

Writing the Conceptual Framework

Once you are done with the data
analysis, the next step is for you to form your
conceptual framework. Conceptual framework
is a network of themes or constructs which
shows its interrelations among these themes. In
a qualitative research, conceptual framework
can be written before data analysis as part of the
literature review, or at the end of data analysis to emphasize the patterns that you have found in
your study. Unlike in a quantitative research, conceptual framework must be developed at the start
of the data collection process for it provides the direction of the study.
Writing Report on Data Collected and Analyzed
After you have done your data analysis, the next step
is writing the results and discussions. To write this chapter,
you need to go back to your statement of the research
problems. The manner of writing the results and its
corresponding discussions is anchored on the order of the
statement of the problems. You have to ensure that every
problem has corresponding results and discussions. To
reinforce your discussion, you may include supporting
literature.

V. ENRICHMENT

Activity 1: Online Tool

Directions: For further readings, an example of a conceptual framework in a qualitative research
can be seen in the following link:

[Link]/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/48274_ch_3.pdf

Afterwards, study Example 3.2 (pages 47-48) in the link and answer the following
questions. Write your answers on your LMS through Microsoft Word. (Note:
Deadline shall be until the next meeting or as per advised by the teacher.)

1. What is the study all about?

2. What are the constructs and patterns identified in the study?

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VI. SITUATIONAL ESSAY

Activity 1: It’s Your Turn!

DIRECTIONS: The following is an actual picture taken in a train station. Study the picture and
answer the questions below. Write your answers on your LMS through Microsoft Word. (Note: Deadline
shall be until the next meeting or as per advised by the teacher.)

1. How would you describe the situation in the picture?

2. What do you think are the people doing?
3. If you were asked to observe the people in this place, what can you say about their attitude
toward this place?

VII. REFLECTION
Activity 1: Reflect Upon

DIRECTIONS: Answer the following question below by giving your reflection and insight
about the statement. Write your reflection in your activity notebook. (Note:
Deadline shall be until the next meeting or as per advised by the teacher.)

 What do you think is the importance of doing field notes when using the observation
method?
 How can you maintain integrity and honesty when conducting an interview?
 Why is it necessary to find out any patterns that you can generate in your data?
 What should be the attitude of the researcher when analyzing data?

My Reflection

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VIII. ASSESSMENT
Activity 1: Essay
DIRECTIONS: Answer the following questions concisely. Write your answers in your activity
notebook. (Note: Deadline shall be until the next meeting or as per advised by
the teacher.)

1. What is observation as a method of collecting research data?

2. How can you minimize observer bias in your own research study?
3. Why do you think establishing a friendly atmosphere while conducting an interview is an
important aspect of the interview process itself?
4. What is the significance of follow-up questions?

Activity 2: Essay
DIRECTIONS: Answer the following questions concisely. Write your answers in your activity
notebook. (Note: Deadline shall be until the next meeting or as per advised by
the teacher.)

1. What do you write in Chapter 4 of a qualitative research?

2. How do you present the results of the research?
3. What is the significance of visual representations in qualitative research?
4. Why is it important to triangulate the data in qualitative research?

IX. ADDITIONAL ACTIVITIES

Weekly Activity: (Group Work)

Continuation of the Chapter 4, Interpretation, Presentation, and Analysis of Data (Results

and Discussions)

Continue the fourth chapter by gathering all pertinent data from their interviews and start
creating their paper’s results and discussions. Analyze the data and explain each part by using
supporting details suited for each result.
Your output will be evaluated according to the structure. The outputs will be rubricated.

(Note: Deadline shall be until the next meeting or as per advised by the teacher.)

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Cited Books/ References:

Apolonio, J. (2016) Practical Research 1 – A Textbook for Senior High School – Grade 11
Avilla, R. A. (2016) DIWA Senior High School Series: Practical Research 1
Baraceros, E.L. (2016) REX Practical Research 1
Marquez-Fong, S.E. & Tigno C. (2019) Vibal Practical Research 1 – K to 12 Revised Edition

Prepared by: Reviewed by:

MR. JOSHUA A. APOLONIO, LPT, PhD (cand.) MRS. CHENEE A. NALUZ, MIT
Subject Teacher Subject Coordinator

Checked by: Recommended by:

MS. JENNY LIZ J. ANYAYAHAN, MIT DR. FEDELIZA A. NAMBATAC

Academic Coordinator Principal, Basic Education

Approved by:

Br. HUBERTUS GURU, SVD

Director, Basic Education

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