‘Research Led or Data Driven?’

So you may be thinking is this even a question? Is there even a distinction? Surely all research is research led and data driven. But is it?

 

Firstly lets consider what research led and data driven means. Research led is fairly self explanatory but what does it look like. When research is research led is means that the origins of the hypothesis or question posed is from research in that field already. Research never pops up from no where an is more about development of theories than to completely start from scratch. This in itself is very objective because it means someone has considered a significant about of research before from which to base their current think. Data driven research however is also very objective because development of research is based upon what the measures find and the results. This sounds very close to research led because surely there is data in research?

 

The distinction lies then not in them as separate entities but the order in which they are considered and done when carrying out research. A lot of research is carried out by coming up with a fairly vague hypothesis that is chosen to try and be falsified. The research is done to see who has done it before and what method were used. These methods, or slightly adapted ones, are then used to gather results and see what is found. Conclusions are then drawn based on previous research but what research is chosen is completely down to the experimenter and limited by the experimenters knowledge. This is more data driven research. Other research is carried out by research around a general theme is done and hypothesis develop from interest in the reading. From this a experiment is developed and is a dominant part of the experiment as its also looked at in the conclusions of the study, this is more research led. The key difference is not the research considered but at what point and therefore the influence on the study it has. So which one of these is more objective? And which method of research will give robust results from which to develop further research?

 

I would say that research led style of research is a lot more objective and certainly is less likely to lead to experimenter bias. Furthermore this concept is not really considered by the APA because the regulations are upheld in both styles however they are fundamentally different which has an affect on the objectivity of the outcome. I feel this needs to be look in to further to keep science objective.

 

 

Resources used in this blog:

 

• Research methods for the behavioral sciences book- F. J. Gravetter & L. B. Forzano
• Research methods lectures
• Discussions with researchers