Services Available To Meet Critical Research Needs

Research Goals is a small, private, independently owned and operated company that conducts qualitative research and offers a wide variety of research support services when those services are needed most. You or your organization may face one or more of the following scenarios in which Research Goals can fill those gaps and meet those needs.

• A Research or Evaluation Project: You need a pilot study or program evaluated, but your hours are booked solid and you cannot do it yourself.
• Overworked Staff : More tasks than staff can keep up with and hard deadlines are approaching. You could use a little extra help right about now.
• Tight Budgets : Increased workload but not enough in the budget to hire a new full or part time employee.
• Recruitment Time: Looking to hire a new full-time employee, but it will take time to find someone qualified, as the work awaits and continues to grow.
• Specialty Work : Non-traditional or specialized work is required and you do not have the right equipment, software, or skills required to complete the work.
• Sole Researcher : You are a student doing a thesis or dissertation while working a full-time job and simply cannot process all the data you've gathered alone.
• Research Professor: You have a full course load and no graduate assistant to help with the research and publishing to achieve or maintain good tenure status.

Any one of the above scenarios could arise, anticipated or not, and cause strain on you or your workplace and employees. A missed deadline could mean losing a client or poor customer reviews. As a professor or student, something as small as a broken recorder or corrupt data file could push back meeting a scheduled deadline with a publisher or dissertation committee.

Research Goals may be just the solution you need to conduct that pilot study, analyze that extra interview, or create that infographic for your conference poster presentation. Take a moment to look through the tabs on this page and explore the Services page in more depth to find that little bit of extra help you may need.

Listed here are categories of the types of people, job functions, places of work, and organizations or institutions with a potential interest in benefiting from what Research Goals can provide. While the lists are not exclusive or exhaustive, they are meant to give you an idea of the type of people and places served.

Academic & Educational Focus :
   University & College Level

• Professors & Deans
• Graduate & Doctoral Students
• Offices of Institutional Assessment
• Research Labs, Institutes & Think Tanks

   Community or Technical College

• Instructor & Individual Departments
• Special Workforce Training Programs
• Community Workforce & Resource Needs Assessment
• Public/Private Workforce Development Program

   Public & Private Schools

• Independent Private Schools
• Parochial Schools & Dioceses
• Public Schools & District Offices of Research
• State Departments of Education
• Individual Teachers & School Media Librarians

Business & Professional Organizations :

• Teachers' Unions
• Parent Teacher Organizations
• Advocacy Groups
• Family Councils
• Libraries
• Disease Prevention, Foundations & Health Outreach
• Political Action & Voter Rights Groups
• Individual Artistic &/or Performance Groups

Human Services & Nonprofit/Foundation/Philanthropic Focus :

• Child Welfare & Family Service Agencies
• Domestic & Sexual Abuse Organizations/Agencies/Shelters
• Physical & Mental Health Clinics & Outreach Efforts
• Literacy Societies, Agencies & Service Providers
• Civil & Human Rights Organizations & Activists
• Community Action Organizations & Networks
• Technology Advancement Projects

Social & Cultural Focus :

• Religious Institutions, Organizations, & Churches
• Historical Societies
• Cultural Equity, Equality, & Social Justice Outreach Groups
• Income Inequality Projects
• Writers — Fiction & Non–fiction

Research Goals engages in original small-scale qualitative research projects designed to honor the depth, complexity, and varied phenomena of the world we live in. The integrity of human experience is upheld through work that is field-focused, contextually situated, and culturally responsive. All phases of a research project are managed in-house from proposal to reporting.

Types of Research Engagements Include:

• Traditional Qualitative Inquiry
• Phenomenological Inquiry
• Grounded Theory
• Case Studies
• Needs Assessment
• Intervention Programs
• Program Evaluation
• Community-Based Ethnography
• Action Research.

Sample Research Activities Include:

• Identifying research problems or needs
• Generating research questions
• Developing research design and proposals
• Assisting with grant applications for research projects
• Constructing instruments and collecting data
• Completing data analysis and interpretations
• Writing reports on findings
• Creating traditional and digital materials for dissemination.

Sample Data Collection Methods Include:

• Individual & Key Informant Interviews
• Focus Group Interviews
• Case Studies
• Original Written Content - Journals & Logs
• Ethnographic Observations
• Video Ethnography
• Narrative Inquiry & Family History
• Hermeneutic Document & Record Analysis
• Surveys & Questionnaires
• Descriptive Statistics as Needed.

Research activities take on different forms depending on the type of research being conducted. While an ethnographic study may involve observations in the field of a given group's activities, a phenomenological study of PTSD would consist primarily of lengthy in-depth personal interviews that explore what the person experiences during an intense episode and how he/she reacts. The former generates extensive field notes, while the latter generates long interview transcripts.

What both of these examples have in common is data. That data needs to be collected, cleaned and processed, sorted through and analyzed before it can be interpreted or found meaningful. This type of data, frequently gathered from original sources, is invaluable, yet takes valuable time to achieve.

Research Goals can help with many of the activities necessary to achieve the data needed in qualitative research efforts. These service activities are listed and explained in more depth on the Services page. Below are broad categories in which services are available:

Planning Phase:

   • Research Designs & Proposals

   • Background Information & Literature Reviews

   • Evaluation Designs & Recommendations

Production & Processing Phase:

   • Data Collection & Instrument Creation

   • Data Cleaning, Management, & Processing

   • Data Analysis/Coding & Summary

Publication Phase:

   • Data Representations & Interpretations

   • Publication Production & Dissemination

   • Press Releases & Blog Posts

   • Additional Client Defined Services

Company Policies & Procedures

Attention to Details & Work Review: Projects and work services receive close personal attention from start to finish. All completed work is reviewed and checked for completeness and accuracy before being returned to you. Any missed errors or oversights will be promptly corrected.

Who Performs the Work: The majority of the work is performed by me, the company owner, and never sent out to any 3rd parties, such as bidding for hire websites. If an unusually large project is accepted, I hire from a small pool of local graduate students studying for a certificate in Qualitative Research. They work under the same strict IRB standards of privacy, security, and non-disclosure. If needed, I train the students myself in any new skill they may need or client procedures require to complete the tasks.

Appropriate Deadlines : Please consider using Research Goals as soon as possible once you find the need to hire temporary assistance. I take pride in the work I do and avoid, whenever possible burning the midnight oil to meet ridiculous deadlines. While some people and workplaces believe in and operate an environment of fast paced work and tight deadlines, forcing employees to juggle multiple projects at the same time – I do not. Nor do I ask or expect that of those I have the pleasure to work beside. I love working in all areas of Qualitative Research and value the work you entrust to me. However, Qualitative Research IS work intensive and time consuming, so please plan accordingly as I will only consider a frantic deadline under circumstances of a true unforeseen emergency.

Contracts & Agreements: All work will be completed under individual work contracts and confidentiality agreements. Once these are signed and exchanged, work can begin. If an institution or organization requires submission of a completed W9 Tax Form, that form will be submitted to the appropriate office of comptroller, budgets, or where funds are dispersed. If funds are dispersed from a grant, the name of the person overseeing the grant will be required on the work contract, including contact information, in addition to the name and information of the person requesting the work.

Disclaimer for Students: This company will NOT, under any circumstances, conduct original research or perform original writing for a theis or dissertation used to earn a terminal degree. These services are here to assist you in perfecting your own work — not to do the work for you.