This is a research website. The objective is to train students, lecturers, tutors or professors and other research workers on research and data analysis. To achieve this objective, two programmes have been developed. The first programme, known as Self-Enquiry Programme , is developed to take you round research and data analysis using Books to explain and illustrate practice. Four books have been written to achieve this objective.
A First Course in Research Methods
This book equips you with all that is needed to conceive a research project
and embark upon its conduct. After studying this book, you will be able to
plan a research project, write a working proposal to seek funding, embark
upon the project, and report the result for publication.
Core Message: Learn “the how” to plan a research project, package it
into a grant proposal, embark upon doing the real research work, and
structure the report for publication in reputable journals. Learn it; do it!
Project Writing and Presentation
This is a book on model project writing and presentation. The book serves the
purpose of learned journals, thesis or dissertation, not the lay audience. We
believe that there is a degree of logical structure in a report which can be
taught, though false, but essential as an act of communication. To us, the
report is not a narration of everything that was done or thought of during the
research. One need report only sufficiently as will allow the reader to
understand the research design, its purpose and its outcome and to be able to
repeat it if the reader so wishes.
Core Message: A model of research reporting and presentation.
Analysis of Research Data Using EViews
Data Analysis is part of Research Methods; so, if you learn Research
Methods, you must learn Data Analysis. Many think that we can design the
study, collect data, and dump the whole project on the lap of an analyst. If
you do this, you will get disappointing if not completely useless results. You
don’t have to be highly numerate to do analysis because the computational
simplifications have been programmed into statistical software. This book
teaches computational skills that have been programmed into EViews.
Although EViews comes with a guide, the illustrations do not follow the
storyline beneath the research process.
Many think that the EViews software is for economics and finance
disciplines but this is a parochial view, however. This perception is due to the
name of the software itself. EViews stands for econometrics views, and
econometrics deals with measurement in economics and finance. The truth,
however, is that EViews is a better software to handle the analysis of research
data, because over 90 percent of analysis required in research projects are
programmed for point-and-click.
Written with a lively pen, the book shuns the esoteric of econometrics, tease
out the basics, and apply them to a more general research setting. You will
find this book very meaty and hence a good buy as a research laboratory
manual of reference.
Core Message: An illustration of practice by examples.
Analysis of Research Data Using SPSS
SPSS is designed to implement the ANOVA family of tests. The ANOVA
framework requires one to suspend all intervening variables in the air in order
to discover causes and effects. A germane question is, “how many
intervening variables can one control while concentrating on the main
research variables?” One begins to fumble as the number of background
variables exceeds two. Even the most expert design juggler will attest to this
point as a major limitation of the ANOVA framework.
To overcome the limitation of the ANOVA framework, we use SPSS to
embark on analysis following the regression framework. This is the first book
exclusively written to apply SPSS to this framework. Many will prefer using
EViews to implement the regression framework, but we need to learn more
than one piece of statistical software. As an example, EViews cannot handle
correspondent analysis, cluster analysis, confirmatory factor analysis,
multidimensional scaling, and conjoint analysis. Researchers generally shy
away from these techniques even when it is apparent that they are most
appropriate. We handle all of these techniques in this book.
Core Message: An illustration of practice by examples.
The second programme, known as Data Analysis Seminar, consists of series of video programmes wherein a person can watch and listen to experienced analysts demonstrate the elements of research data analysis. We are motivated to add this programme because even when institutions commission staff training on data analysis, the staff, often, do not get what they want. Yet, staff are trained to train the students. With this programme, staff and students can consult on whatever they might want to learn at anytime and anywhere. High powered, research oriented institutes may subscribe to the Data Analysis Seminar for their staff and postgraduate students to encourage them do research and to turn out quality research graduates.
Blog
This site contains a blog that is designed to report on the quality of published articles and inform our visitors of upcoming projects. Our blog hosts two categories of articles:
Research Critique
At the beginning of every quarter, we feature a written review of a published article to critique the work, highlighting the journal in which the article was published. We provide the doi or link address for readers of our critique to access the original article.
Upcoming Projects
We inform visitors to our website about our upcoming projects, specifying stage of completion and timeline.