Question

Three types of descriptive research are

Observation

Case study

Survey All three of these have their pros and cons and have to be used according to circumstance. Though if I were to choose one it would be case study.

According to me case studies are more comprehensive and holistic for studying a phenomenon, especially in organisations. Case study is a brilliant way to study

corporate decision making and what factors affect it. It looks at the phenomenon on a case by case level and is not prone to fallacies such as self disclosure errors.

There certainly are pros and cons of each of these methods. What are some of the pros and cons of each of these?

Answer 1

OBSERVATION

This method involve an experimenter who will enter into the field and observe the act as it is present in the natural setting. Observation method is very useful in cases where the behavior we need to measure is observable. there are generally two type of observation, participant observation and non participant observation. In participant observation the observer ( one who carry out the act of observation) will directly be part of the group and then observe the activity. And in non participant the observer observes as an outsider.

PROS

• direct interaction with the field gives more understanding.
• this is very helpful during the primary stages of a research

CONS

• researcher bias will be high
• poor generalisability
• the act of being observed can make changes in the way the behavior is portrait.
• expensive and time consuming

CASE STUDY

case study is a method in which any particular case is chosen and studied for an extended period of time, to identify the changes that they make through out the time period.

PROS

• comprehensive and holistic understanding of the topic
• give detailed information of the case
• case study give access to different dimension of the problem and the causes.
• helps in formulating solution for the problem, as the problem is well defined.

CONS

• generalisation is difficult
• non representative sample collection
• time consuming
• possible biases in data collection and interpretation.

SURVEY

Survey method is a method of data collection from a pre-determined group of people to know their interests and liking towards different areas of research. Surveys can be contected in different means depending on the data collection method chosen, as manual, through e-mails etc.

PROS

• collect large amount of data in small amount of time
• good statistical significance
• high representativeness
• easy to generalize, as data is collected from large group of people.

CONS

• lack of anonymity
• required well trained  people to convey the correct interview questions
• chances of error due to poor expression of the items in the questionnaire.