DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.
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Section V. Methodology


There are lots of different types of research one can do. There are two in general that many people use, which are traditional research and participatory action research (PAR). Although they are both types of research, these two are different in many ways.

            In traditional research, the people who do the research may not necessarily live in a particular area that they are researching about, which may be a problem since they can’t address a matter to a full extent. For example, a person living in California might do a research about the living conditions in Boston. They wouldn’t exactly have experienced what they are researching. PAR research is done by people who live through the circumstances they are researching about. For example, someone in Florida might do research on how drug dealers are affecting their neighborhoods. Another difference is the goals of each type of research. In traditional research the goal of the researcher is to get knowledge for their own use. For example, a person might do a research just for the sake of writing a paper and getting a grade, but in PAR research, the researcher has a different goal. Their goal would be to collect information, and then do something about it. For example, a person might collect data on the number of people who are affected by HIV/AIDS, then create a fundraiser to create awareness. The methods of the two research types are also very distinct. Traditional research focuses on gathering data, background, and analysis while PAR’s method is similar but has a different technique. In PAR research, data is collected through people who are actually observing in the field they are researching about. For example, the person might go to Africa to find out about the living conditions and how people are affected by HIV/AIDS, while in traditional research, the person will only read about their field of research and collect information about it through books and previous studies. In order to participate in PAR research, I was placed in a site 
DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.