The purpose of this assignment is to critically understand different process, methods and designs which are needed for effective research. This assignment will critique a specific research article which includes eight areas that will be discussed on issues, validity and ethics. The research article is called ‘Food for thought: An ethnographic study of negotiating ill health and food insecurity in a UK foodbank’.

Rationale for the research

Rationale can be defined as setting out reasons on why the researcher has conducted the research and explains the purpose of their research (Bhattacharyya et al., 2009).

This study was carried out because it wanted to explore the relationship between health and food insecurity of those who use foodbanks in the UK (Garthwaite et al., 2015). This paper focuses on mental health of people and their experiences of using foodbanks due to their ill health, which involves the costs and how they may or may not have a healthy diet due to having less income (Garthwaite et al., 2015). According to Cooper & Dumpleton (2013), it was estimated that 500,000 people did not have sufficient access to healthy foods which meant that 19% were hospitalised in England due to malnutrition (Dowler et al., 2001). The lifestyle choices can influence the health of foodbank users because if they are spending money on items which are expensive such as alcohol and cigarettes which can lead to food poverty (Robinson et al., 2013). According to Poppendieck et al. (1998), food provision in the UK and internationally has become very significant because there is charitable emergency food provision because there has been an increase in taxes, benefits as well as unemployment rates.

Appropriateness of methodology

Appropriateness of methodology consists of two approaches in research which are quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative approach is about numbers and anything which can be measurable such as questionnaires and surveys (Balnaces et al., 2001). On the other hand, qualitative approach to research involves understanding people’s opinions, attitudes and behaviours (Kothari, 2004).

This paper is a mixed method project and focuses on the data which has been collected through an ethnographic study (Garthwaite et al., 2015). The approach to research is more qualitative than quantitative because it is about men and women experiences of using Trussell Trust foodbanks through observational and interview data (Garthwaite et al., 2015). By using a qualitative approach, the researchers were able to ask volunteers who had participated in the interviews about their experience of using foodbanks (Garthwaite et al., 2015). This is appropriate because after doing the interviews the results were analysed with the qualitative data analysis software (Garthwaite et al., 2015). However, the approach to the research can also be a little bit of a quantitative because there was a specific chosen number of men, women and volunteers who got interviewed and observed (Garthwaite et al., 2015). This is appropriate because it will examine relationships between their income and the health of foodbank users (Beynon et al., 1994).

In my opinion if the researchers had only used one approach instead of using two then the result would differ. This would have been appropriate to the research because they would have been able to focus on either quantitative or qualitative approach.

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Sample-choice and management

Sample choice management is about the participants who are involved in the research and who you are collecting and gathering data (Rose et al., 2013).

The sample consisted of volunteers and foodbanks users. Semi structured interviews were taken in which 42 interviews was people who use the foodbank and 8 interviews with volunteers (Garthwaite et al., 2015). The 42 people who used foodbanks were inter