Research Method

Well I think I talk about the problem too much, now is the time to move to the solutions. But then how? First we have to propose research methods in which we will further understand the problem better and the way to resolve it as well. Research method itself is "a process used to collect information and data for the purpose of making business decisions", reviewed by businessdictionary.com. Or in our case more relevant as the purpose of making better solutions.

For the common research methods we have literature research, surveys, interviews, focus groups, case study, and many more. A literature search involves reviewing all readily available materials. These materials can include newspapers, magazines, reports, on-line data bases, and any other published materials. Mostly finding data from the internet is the fastest and most convenient way to get information. It is a very inexpensive method of gathering information, although it often does not yield timely information.

For survey, it is basically giving a group of people series of same questions aiming for different answers in a large scale and short amount of time. Survey can be in form of telephone in which the interviewer already preparing for the questions but allowing for some opinion probing, mail, even though it takes longer time to complete, or the most famous one is email and internet survey. It is relatively new but the fastest and the most cost effective way.

For interview, it is a way to get-in-depth and comprehensive information. It involves or more interviewing other person for detailed information that they usually will not answer in other survey methods. Typically, an interviewer will ask questions from a written questionnaire and record the answers verbatim.

While a focus group is used as a preliminary research technique to explore peoples ideas and attitudes. It is often used to test new approaches (such as products or advertising), and to discover customer concerns. A group of 6 to 20 people meet in a conference-room-like setting with a trained moderator. The moderator leads the group's discussion and keeps the focus on the areas they want to explore. 

Lastly, a case study is an in depth study of a particular situation rather than a sweeping statistical survey. It is a method used to narrow down a very broad field of research into one easily research-able topic. Whilst it will not answer a question completely, it will give some indications and allow further elaboration and hypothesis creation on a subject.

Then a unique research method can be done by mixing some common methods together into a flexible yet useful way. For example, we can do mixing between focus group and personal interview to get a general sample and also in depth answers from several people. 

However for our particular problem of too many vehicles, me and my group decided to use literature research as the background data, and internet survey as well as case studies for further research. Why, because it required less effort yet encompassing broader sample.

So, until next time people! :)

References :

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/research-methodology.html

https://www.statpac.com/surveys/research-methods.htm

https://explorable.com/case-study-research-design

Who should we empathize on?

Back again to my precious journal :''. I CANNOT BELIEVE that im actually 6 blogs late. I do not know that i have to update it every week, or maybe i was just not listening to the teacher back then. HAHA. Anyway i have to catch up from week 2. THEN, here we go!

The topic for week 2 is empathizing the people who caught this problem. Yes, this problem, our problem, "too many cars". Ive been discussing this on few blogs before but i will do it more specifically in this blog. So, who should we empathize in this problem? The direct result of too many vehicles on the road is traffic jam, of course. And that would make the the user of the road as the one we should empathize on. However it does not signify greatly when they are not in urgent needs. Maybe they will late for work, or school, but it is already common nowadays and still counted as light disadvantages. But does it ever cross your mind if someone in a dying state need a fast medical assistance and every second counts? Well, it happens a lot. And yes, not few of them are died because of that. Here is one of the story.

Beijing woman dies because ambulance stuck in traffic, reviewed by the Urban Country from Shanghaisit in 13 December 2012. Here is the exact report :

“A woman has died in Beijing when the ambulance that was transporting her to hospital got stuck in traffic. 

An emergency physician working alongside the paramedics vented her frustration online, “The scene of the accident is no more than 3 kilometers from the hospital, yet it took us a good 40 minutes to arrive there! Barely any cars made way for our ambulance! So woeful!” The tweet, posted to Weibo by user ‘Monica-Xiaomo’, was shared over 30,000 times. 

Other Weibo users responded to the doctor’s frustration, some blaming the drivers for having “cold-blooded souls” that they would not move out of the way for an ambulance (though, to be fair, in very heavy traffic there is little one driver can do). Others pointed to the allegedly frequent abuse of sirens by police cars and ambulances which they said had led to a “loss of trust”. 

The driver of the ambulance told Sina News that about half the drivers on the roads typically do not move out of the way of an ambulance. Worse, some drivers “purposely slow down ahead of me if I signaled them to move to other lanes”.

It is a quite ironic remembering the distance was so close yet they cannot managed to bring her in time. It is absolutely because of the severe traffic jam led from too many vehicles. However it is also from the lack of care from the other driver that must have been stress as well being stuck in a long congestion.



From this case we are reminded again to care about out surrounding, about something happens even though it is not directly related to us. It makes us learn to step on other people shoes and imagine how if something similar happened to us. How if we become the family of the victim or the victim herself. In the end, it is the core of the problem that we have to fight, that is the exceeded amount of vehicles on the road. And it is our responsibility to take part! :)


References :
http://www.theurbancountry.com/2012/12/beijing-woman-dies-because-ambulance.html