The Research Process - Essay Example

The research process encompasses collecting data from various sources, and describing this data is essential to ensure that the data from different sources is summarized and presented in a way that its users can understand. Often, descriptive, numerical and graphical methods are used when describing data and this makes it easy for the user of this data to know if the results are in accordance with the hypothesis of the research (Clark-Carter, 2009). Various methods can be used to describe data because of the differences in data or variables being evaluated. There are two classifications of data; qualitative data, which is a non-numerical description of quality of something, for example, gender and quantitative data, which entails a representation of frequencies or measurements such as age and income. The methods used to describe data are a function of the data collected because there are different variables that can be researched and representing them requires different methods.

The research study I chose has the objective of describing the relationship between cigarette smoking and the quality of life of lung cancer survivors, which was measured using the lung cancer symptoms scale (LCSS). The design and method used were mailing the lung cancer symptoms scale to 1506 patients between the years 1999 and 2002 and using linear models to compare the LCSS scores among the different respondents (Garces, et al, 2004). The linear models were used to examine group differences ranging from age, gender, stage of cancer, and the time the assessment was made. The LCSS scores were then transformed between the scales of 0-100 and a high score corresponded to low quality of living. In my opinion, the appropriate method was used since the study produced results, which depicted the real scenario, where cigarette smoking increases the risk of cancer progression. However, other methods to describe the findings such as graphs and charts could be used, but the linear model was still appropriate for this study.