Lecture note on exploratory research for housing studies dissertation project study

Lecture note on exploratory research for housing studies dissertation project study

 

In the context of study of research types, please clarify four main ideas of exploratory research and offer 4 main how-to advices on research methods practices in the context of Housing Studies dissertation project works.

 

Exploratory research is most useful when a housing issue is insufficiently understood, poorly defined, or shaped by local context. Its role is to produce an informed understanding and sharper research questions—not to provide final causal proof or statistical generalisation.

Four main ideas

1.    Clarify an uncertain housing problem
Start with a broad issue—such as why particular households experience difficulty accessing public rental housing, or how subdivided-flat tenants evaluate housing security—and explore what the problem actually means to different actors. Exploratory work helps specify concepts, boundaries, stakeholders, and plausible influencing factors.

2.    Discover experiences, meanings, and unanticipated factors
Housing is not only a physical or financial matter: it involves family life, neighbourhood belonging, tenure security, affordability, mobility, stigma, and interactions with landlords or public agencies. An exploratory design is open to factors that were not originally anticipated by the researcher, rather than restricting participants to predetermined survey categories.

3.    Generate research questions or propositions, rather than test them
The central question is usually “What is happening, and how do people understand it?” rather than “Does X cause Y?” The outcome may be a refined question, a preliminary conceptual framework, or propositions for a later survey or explanatory study—for example: “Perceived tenure insecurity appears to influence tenants’ willingness to report unsafe conditions.”

4.    Use a flexible, iterative design
Exploratory research permits adjustment after early evidence. Initial literature and policy documents may reveal key themes; early interviews may then lead you to revise interview prompts, recruit a missing participant group, or compare a second housing estate or district. This flexibility is a strength, but changes must be documented and justified.

Four practical how-to advices

1.    Turn the broad topic into a feasible exploratory question
Define the population, setting, phenomenon, and time frame. Avoid a question that is too broad, such as “What are Hong Kong’s housing problems?” A more workable dissertation question is: “How do young adult applicants in Fanling describe the barriers and coping strategies involved in seeking affordable independent housing?” Add 2–3 aligned objectives, such as identifying perceived barriers, examining coping strategies, and comparing views among different household circumstances.

2.    Build the study from secondary evidence first
Before collecting interviews or questionnaires, conduct a focused literature and document review. Use peer-reviewed Housing Studies literature, Hong Kong housing-policy documents, and official statistical data to map what is already known, define concepts, and identify evidence gaps. Hong Kong’s Census and Statistics Department and DATA.GOV.HK provide housing and property statistics, including monthly-digest materials and reusable datasets.   Create a simple evidence matrix with columns for source, topic, key finding, method, limitation, and relevance to your research question. This will make the literature review directly useful for Chapter 3, not merely descriptive.

3.    Choose methods that fit discovery, then pilot them
For a small Housing Studies dissertation, semi-structured interviews are often especially suitable because they allow participants to explain lived experience in their own terms. You could interview, for instance, tenants, applicants, estate residents, housing professionals, or NGO workers. Combine this with policy/document analysis for triangulation. Draft 6–10 open questions, pilot them with one or two appropriate people, and revise unclear or leading wording. Ask prompts such as: “Can you describe the point at which housing became difficult to manage?” and “What options did you consider, and why were some not realistic?” Do not assume that exploratory research must be exclusively qualitative: descriptive statistics or a short pilot survey may help map patterns, but they should support—not falsely claim to conclusively prove—your findings.

4.    Plan credibility, sampling, and ethics before fieldwork
Use purposive sampling: recruit people who can directly illuminate the issue, while seeking meaningful variation—for example, different tenures, household sizes, income situations, or districts. State clearly that your aim is analytical insight, not statistical representativeness. Keep an audit trail of recruitment decisions, changes to your interview guide, coding steps, and reflexive notes about how your own assumptions may shape interpretation. Obtain your institution’s ethics approval where required. Give participants clear information on the study’s purpose, what participation entails, recording, data storage, confidentiality limits, voluntary participation, and withdrawal arrangements. Good qualitative-interview practice includes both written initial consent and confirmation at the interview, especially for audio recording.

A suitable dissertation design

A defensible exploratory Housing Studies design could be:

·        Research purpose: Exploratory and qualitative

·        Research strategy: Case study of a defined locality, tenure group, or housing-policy issue

·        Evidence: Literature/policy review, official housing statistics, and 10–15 semi-structured interviews

·        Sampling: Purposive, with transparent inclusion criteria

·        Analysis: Thematic analysis—code interview material, develop themes, compare themes across participant groups, and relate them back to policy and literature

·        Claim level: “This study identifies themes and possible mechanisms among this sample,” rather than “This study proves the position of all Hong Kong residents.”