Thursday 30 August 2012

Research Justification


RESEARCH JUSTIFICATION
YEAR ONE INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH STUDIES

Research Topic: Environment of Singapore

Chosen Area of Focus: Do Singaporeans know what GMO is and if so, what is their opinion/ attitude towards it?

        1. FRAMING OUR RESEARCH TOPIC

Our chosen area of focus is  “Do Singaporeans know what GMO is and if so, what is their opinion/attitude towards it?” We have chosen this topic as we would like to know if the majority of the people living in Singapore share similar attitudes as those of our overseas counterparts and we would   like to examine the opinions of the general public. After researching about GMO, Anthony (2011) and  Alicia (2011) reported that GMO are banned in many countries and that residents residing in these  countries are also shown to object to GMO as well. However, in countries where GMO products are not banned in, we found evidence the people there have a mostly neutral opinion towards GMO products. Therefore, our motive was to try and gather the general public’s opinion towards GMO products, and also the raise awareness of the GMO products to the public.  

       2.  REASONS FOR CHOICE OF TOPIC 

We feel that this research topic provides suitable depth to be expanded on and GMO products also gradually becoming more common and are replacing organic products. They are also starting to get rooted deeply as a part and parcel of our lives- our everyday food. Hence, we chose this topic as we would like to find out the public’s opinion and thoughts towards GMO products which will probably be the type of product that will dominate markets and shops in the near future. One of the important problem that we have to solve is that, will the majority of the Singaporeans accept or reject the idea of having GMO products as our everyday foods. Another reason as of why this topic was chosen was because the we wanted to find out if the majority of the public share similar attitudes towards GMO products as those of our overseas counterparts.
         
       3.  FEASIBILITY OF THE RESEARCH
  • It is possible that we carry out surveys for Singaporeans on GMO on the internet or on the field. We can also post questions related to GMO product on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter and record down their views.
  • It is possible to carry out the project as we can go to supermarkets and check if the people buying the food are aware of GMO and what they understand of GMO by surveying them.
  • There is also a need for our research as many people are not aware that the food they are eating are actually GMO products. Hence, our research can help them understand and be more aware of GMO products.
  • The research provides plenty opportunity for the generation of ideas, as we will constantly have to think of effective questions for interviews and surveys. For analysis and evaluation of ideas, we will be able to sort them out and carry them out.
      4. MANAGEABILITY OF RESEARCH
  • We are only needed to interview some people and conduct surveys both on social media platforms like Facebook and also on the field. If we can manage the results of the surveys or interviews into diagrams like graphs and charts, we can finish the project without much difficulty because it is easy to collate the results.
  • This research provides sufficient opportunity for group work as we will need assign jobs to different members to interview the people. The public relations manager can also help to organize a talk and make a mass interview in public or in a supermarket. He actually is helping to make the project more efficient by having an interview/survey directly with the public instead of using the source from the internet.
  • The group also can finally get together to build effective internet survey questions. This builds the team’s teamwork and spirit and help the team to work together better as we would understand more about each other’s way of thinking.

        5. ACCESSIBILITY OF INFORMATION REQUIRED
  • Information/knowledge that will be relevant to our research would be the opinion of the citizens in Singapore of different age groups.
  • We will be obtaining this information from surveys and interviews. We will be conducting interviews to different age groups to see each of their views.
  • Some alternatives that we have thought of would be to ask others for information or primary and secondary sources. We can study the past studies on GMO products, which is easily available in the internet, and use them to find out if our research is reliable.
  • Some problems we anticipate while gathering materials would be that the information is very hard to gather as the topic as it requires a lot of field power and manpower. There might be difficulty expressing our point to ask good questions. And we might also have a hard time making good survey questions by ourselves.

REFERENCES

Alicia, B. (2011, June 18) What countries have banned GMO crops?. The Examiner, Retrieved from http://www.examiner.com/article/what-countries-have-banned-gmo-crops

Anthony, G. (2011, November 27) GMO Crops continually banned around the world in display of health freedom. Natural Society, Retrieved from http://naturalsociety.com/gmo-crops-continually-banned-around-world-health-freedom/