Examples of thinking frameworks discussed here are conveyed through illustrations so that it is easy for readers to understand how to make a frame of mind. Before getting there, it is necessary to first understand what a frame of mind is.
In short, the frame of mind is a logical guide that the researcher will apply in his research process. The research process includes problems that will be researched, analyzed and concluded to become research findings.
Why do we need a frame of mind?
The thinking framework is able to show what variables will be involved in the study. The variables that appear in the frame of mind are conveyed explicitly so that reviewers or readers can easily understand how the problem to be studied is worthy of research and in what direction the research will be carried out.
Independent and Bound Variables
Thinking frameworks can also help researchers provide some sort of guide for data analysis. With a framework of thinking, the research process is protected from the possibility of complexity of issues that mislead the direction of research.
A framework of thinking is very common in research proposals, especially descriptive and experimental research with quantitative designs. However, it does not mean that quality research is irrelevant, depending on whether or not researchers and reviewers or readers need guidance for thinking.
In order to easily understand what a frame of mind is and how to create it, we will immediately discuss through an example illustration:
Example of a frame of mind
Think of it as doing research on building social solidarity in the midst of a flu outbreak. This epidemic is a problem for people in a city because many have become victims. Transmission of this plague takes place through the air and bacteria through the hands when touching objects contaminated with flu fluids.
The problem now is that the city government has no experience dealing with outbreaks. In fact, at first they underestimated the city to be sterile from the plague until the number of victims in the city began to fall.
When the government leaves its hands, people who are aware form communities to minimize the risk of increasing the number of victims, even stopping the spread of the epidemic. Therefore, efforts are needed to build social solidarity in order to win the fight against the plague.
Then the frame of mind that you can make in the proposal is like this:
The thinking framework above is made as simple as possible so that you can practice making it yourself. From the example frame of mind above, the proposal reader and of course the researcher has a guide regarding the focus of the issue being studied.
First, the research problem is clear, namely the existence of a life-threatening epidemic transmission, but the city government is off guard. Therefore, the researcher looks at what needs to be done in a situation like this, namely seeing how other actors actually respond.
It did not stop there, researchers also thought about the roles that alternative actors could play. The alternative actors referred to here are non-government. The focus of the researcher is to see the extent to which social solidarity is built by non-government actors in an effort to solve the problem of the outbreak.
In the aspect of social solidarity, researchers focus on two main elements, namely awareness to create solidarity and the actual role it can play. With this example of a frame of mind, the reader of the proposal can easily understand the direction of the analysis proposed by the researcher in the proposal.
Research Methods: Types and Examples
Of course, the above framework can be made even more complex. For example, you can detail two elements of social solidarity that will be discussed. The principle is, the framework is a guide for researchers to think about their research.
It should be remembered that the framework in the research proposal comes from the researcher himself. In other words, the frame of mind does not refer to literature or other references. The frame of mind is not a quote from a previously made frame of mind.
