The research that I am going to undertake attempts to make a study about the issues that are likely to take birth in the families where there is a drug abuse. This study will make a comparative study between the families where there is high drug usage and the family with no drug abuse. So, the ultimate objective of this research is to find the relationship between the abuse of the substance and its impact in the family development.
The variables that are dependent on others to derive their meaning or value are called dependent variables while the variables, which are self-descriptive, are independent variables (Booth, Colomb, & Williams, 1995). In this research paper, the type of family (e.g., families where members abuse substance and families where members do not abuse substance) will act as the independent variable. On the other side, this research takes the quality of family life and family relation as dependent variable for the research. This motive of taking the type of family as independent variable is that it is self-explanatory and the quality of family life and family relation depends upon the type of family.
The intended research will be of non-experimental. Since the research intends to study about the impact on the quality of family life because of drug abuse, the non-experimental research will be the best match for this purpose. Non-experimental research is that type of research in which research just studies about his/her topic in the situation given without being involved in manipulating the situation, participant’s experience or the manipulation of the circumstance (Newman & Benz, 1998). As the researcher is focused on identifying the impact of drug abuse on the family relation, the researcher will take the existing families as the subjects of the research. There are three types of non-experimental research method viz. correlation, comparative and longitudinal study. In non-experimental research, this research will be more focused on the comparative study while the efforts are equally made to find correlation study between drug abuse and the impact on the family life.
The researcher believes that comparative research method will be very helpful for this research because it provides a clear picture about the issue that the research attempt to study. As the research is focused on finding whether or not there is an impact of drug abuse on the quality of family life and relationship, this can be proved with a comparative study. The use of comparative research method have a long history, and it has been used to find, examine and elaborate the resemblances and variances among subjects of the research (University of Surrey, 1995).
I think comparative method of research is very appropriate for this research because this helps us to find the similarities and differences among the families that have the issue of drug abuse and the one that do not have. As indicated by the name, comparative research method studies about the research subject by identifying the contrasting points between the subjects (HERNON, 2004). In this research, the subjects will be the different kinds of families. If the research is able to find some differences in the family life and relation among different kinds of the families then, the hypothesis of the research can be proved. This comparative research method will be assisted by the qualitative data that will be collected using questionnaires. The comparative research method is based on the comparison of two different subjects that are similar in many ways yet they differ in few aspects (Routio, 2007). In this research also, we will be taking two different type of family, one where there is a use of substance material and the one where there is no use of substance material. Even though these two types of families will be similar in many ways, they differ in the aspect of using material substance.
However, this research will not be focused on comparative method. This research will also make its attempt to use correlation method to study the impact of drug abuse on the quality of family life. The use of correlation method will strengthen the conclusion of the research. It is clear that the comparative method will highlight the difference between the two types of families; the use of correlation method will strengthen the finding. This method will justify whether there exist any kind of relationship between the use of substance material and the quality of family life. If this correlation method do not show any relation between the use of substance material and quality of family life, then from the use of comparative method, we can still identify other reason for this. So, the use of both the methods will enhance the quality of the research.
References
Booth, W. C., Colomb, G. G., & Williams, J. M. (1995). The craft of research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
HERNON, P. (2004). The Sage Encyclopedia of Social Science Research MethodsEdited by Michael S. Lewis-Beck, Alan Bryman, and Tim Futing Liao. 3 vols. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2004. 1305 pp. $450.00. ISBN 0-7619-2363-2.Library & Information Science Research. doi:10.1016/S0740-8188(04)00032-5
Newman, I., & Benz, C. R. (1998). Qualitative-quantitative research methodology: Exploring the interactive continuum. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.
Routio, P. (2007, August 3). Comparative Study. Retrieved from http://www2.uiah.fi/projekti/metodi/172.htm
