DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH DESIGN
Descriptive research can be explained as a statement of affairs as they are at present with the researcher having no control over variable. Moreover, Moreover, “descriptive “descriptive research” may be characterized as simply the attempt to determine, describe or identify what is. Descriptive research is “aimed at casting light on current issues or problems through a process of data collection that enables them to describe the situation more completely. Descriptive studies are valuable in providing facts on which scientific judgements may be based. They provide essential knowledge about the nature of objects and persons. Descriptive studies also play a large part in the development of instruments for the measurement of many things, instruments that are employed in all types of quantitative research as data gathering instrument such as; tests, questionnaires, interviews, observation schedules, checklists, score cards and rating scale. The descriptive function of research is heavily dependent on instrumentation for measurement and observation (Borg & Gall, 1989). Researchers may work for many years to perfect such instrumentation so that the resulting measurement will be accurate, reliable, and generalizable. Once the instruments are developed, they can be used to describe phenomena of interest to the researchers.
TYPES OF DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH DESIGN 1. Descriptive- Survey Design Survey research is one of the most important areas of measurement in applied social research. The broad are of survey research encompasses any measurement procedures that involve asking questions of respondents. A ‘survey’ can be anything form a short paper-and-pencil feedback form to an intensive one-on-one in-depth interview.
2. Descriptive- Normative Survey Good and Scates ( 2002) 2002) stressed that “the term NORMATIVE is sometimes used because surveys are frequently made to ascertain the normal or typical condition for practice, or to compare local test results with a state or national norm”. in the descriptive-normative surveys, the results/ findings of the study should be compared with the norm. 3. Descriptive- Evaluative This design is to appraise carefully the worthiness of the current study. To illustrate: The researcher wishes to conduct a study on evaluation of an implementation of 4P’s Program in Mandaluyong City. He devises a questionnaire which evaluates the implementation of 4P’s program and requests the municipality officials and beneficiaries of the program as subjects of the study to respond on it. 4. Descriptive- Comparative This is a design where the researcher considers 2 variable (not manipulated) and establishes a formal procedure to compare and conclude that one is better than the other if significant differences exist. A researcher wishes to conduct a study on the effectiveness of teaching English using rhetoric and content-based approaches to Bachelor of Computer Technology students at RTU. He uses tests as research instrument. All things are held constant, except on the approaches of teaching used. The 2 variables are rhetoric and content-based approaches. The statistical tool used is the z-test. If significant difference exists it means an approach is better than the other. With no significant difference, the two approaches are almost the same. 5. Correlational Survey This is design to determine the relationship of 2 variables (X&Y) whether the relationship is perfect, very high, high, marked or moderate, slight or negligible.
Perfect positive correlation with a value of 1.0 seldom happens, same with perfect negative correlation. In perfect positive correlation, all the individual performances in X & Y have the same positions. If he tops in test X he also tops in test Y; if he is lowest in test X he is likely lowest in test Y. in perfect negative correlation, all the individual performances in X and Y have the opposite positions. If he tops in test X, he is lowest in test Y, if he is lowest in test X, he tops in test Y. 6. Longtudinal Survey This involves much time allotted to investigation of the same subject of two or more points in time. Ex. A researcher wishes to set up a Mathematics achievement pattern to secondary students, age 13 to 16. He takes a group of 13 y/o boys and girls and records their Mathematics achievement over regular intervals (i.e. every grading period). The researcher follows up this work until they reach 16 y/o. Based on the data gathered, the investigator sets up the Mathematics achievement pattern from the same group of students investigated over a long period of time.
