Chapter+Four+-+Qualitative+Research+Designs

=Chapter Four: Qualitative Research Designs =

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a discussion of the various research designs used in quantitative research studies. Each design should be clearly described, including procedural steps regarding sampling and data collection as well as the type of statistical analysis that would be used to determine the outcome(s) of a study using that design.

I. Overview
Qualitative research aims to study abstract phenomena and gather non- numerical data about issues such as attitudes, behaviors, perspectives and trends over time in order to generate theories or create a context to better understand a given concept.

II. Theoretical Frameworks
A theoretical framework is considered a practical theory that allows a researcher to look at, and test a belief about an idea. Generally the person creating the framework wants to test present theories and see if there finding may be different from the other research that is already there. A theoretical frame work generally has two components: a problem, and a solution to the problem based on facts, data, studies, and observations that have been recorded.

III. Qualitative Research Designs
Qualitative research design is conducted when one wants to know how people feel about a certain issue. For instance, if one wants to know how students feel about writing and the writing prompts they have been assigned, qualitative research is a good way to measure this. The information that is received from the students will only be the views of this group. If one wants to know how other students feel they could create a qualitative research design to learn about the perspectives and views of others. This will allow one to determine a process of what is happening with students’ writing over time.They are not just obtaining information from their own students, but from a group of students. The information collected amongst the certain groups of students will be subjective because it is based on what they know.

IIIa. Ethnography
This is an approach in qualitative research whereby the researcher (also known as the ethnographer) becomes immersed in a culture as an active participant with the intent to understand the culture as an insider. Becoming an active participant means becoming accepted as a natural part of the culture to ensure the neutrality of observations. Ethnography is time consuming, requires extensive note taking and may take years with no clear definition as to what point the researcher can conclude his research. I agree with the above statement. The essential idea in ethnography is that the role of the researcher must change. The research differs from the direct observation of a group as a non-participant to an active participant. In ethnography, one has to become a participant in the observation to obtain the data. Therefore, if the researcher wanted to know why people joined gangs, they would have to participate in the research as an insider to gain perspective. If the researcher wanted to understand a particular gang, the ethnographer would have to become a participant to understand the actions and events of the people being researched. This type of research can be demanding. It may result in prolonged immersion into a group or organization in order to fully understand them. There are also questions and consequences that may arise based on the participants direct involvement in the research. Such as, to what extent will the researcher have to participate to obtain the data?

IIIb. Historical Research
Historical research is an approach to research that involves carefully analyzing historical data with the intent to connect cause and effect relationships and consequently make predictions that would guide present practices that are free from the errors of yester years. For example, studying the grades of students who had breakfast in school everyday last year and those who didn't (for what ever reason) led to the conclusion that students who eat breakfast before engaging in academic work perform better than their contemporaries who don't. Based on this historical data, the school district could mandate the serving of free breakfast to all students before the beginning of every school day regardless of their economic status.

IIIc. Narrative Research
Mostly used when researchers describe the lives of individuals, collect and tell stories about people’s lives, and write narratives of individual experiences. It is a form of qualitative research; a narrative typically focuses on studying a single person, gathering data through the collection of stories, reporting individual experiences, and discussing the meaning of those experiences for the individual. It is often used when individuals are willing to tell their stories. It is used if they want to report personal experiences in a particular setting. When you have a chronology of events that you would like to write in a literary way and develop the micro picture in your audiences mind. It can be used in a teacher reflection an emphasis is placed on teacher knowledge, an attempt to bring teachers’ voices to the forefront. There are different types of narrative designs: Biography; Autobiography. Life History and Personal Experience Story.

IIId. Action Research (Classroom-based Research)
Action Research attempts to discover the impact of interventions made in the classroom by researching student's knowledge, skills or attitudes. It is the process of developing questions based on your curiosity about your students learning and teaching. Investigating your questions and documenting what happens then analyzing the data and forming a a conclusion based on the results. In a nutshell it is the process we are presently doing and plan to do in the future. The goal is to learn from the process and share with others. Teacher often share thoughts, concepts and practices in informal settings. This is a formal way of validating ourselves and our everyday practices with credible evidence.

IIIe. Case Studies
//A case study is //a specific method used to look at a problem that needs to be solved. It can be viewed as a mystery or a puzzle that needs a conclusion or an ending. A case study can be used in society by anyone looking to research information on a subject; for example organizations, businesses, social group, and scientist all use this type of research to look at data. The idea behind writing a case study is for the writer to put out the facts, data, and research behind a particular topic and show you- the reader evidence to either prove or disprove a theory. A case well documented case study should contain several things; a problem, the research, any analysis work that has been done, and then the actual writing. Within each of these components there should be very specific work done to make the study complete. The problem should be stated clearly in the introduction; so that the reader clearly understands what the writer was looking at. Next, the research area should include many things; such as interview, observational logs, a number of sources, such as articles, magazines, books and the internet. The analysis part of a case study should include looking at and comparing the research that is already done and been reported on the subject. And, the last part should include the actual writing and reporting of the finding of the work samples collected.

IV. Qualitative Data Collection
Qualitative data collection is very useful for several reasons including: assessing a change in attitudes and perceptions of people about a given topic over time, strengthening the design of survey questions and clarifying survey-based quantitative data. Qualitative data is collected through sampling, observation and surveys/interactive interviews that are open-ended and less structured than quantitative surveys/interviews. Collecting data qualitatively can be both time-consuming and expensive, researchers are required to use a combination of instruments including cameras, recording instruments, artistic skills etc to be able to get an accurate picture.

IVa. Sampling
Sampling means, taking part of a given population and examining its characteristic elements with the intent to produce a piece of evidence that can be used to established a pattern and pursue further research in a related topic. They are two types of sampling, probability and non-probability. The probability sampling is based on the concept of random selecting--each population element has a known and equal chance of selection. The non-probability sampling is the opposite of the probability sampling, what this means is that each element of the population does not have an equal chance of being selected. Probability or random sampling is the most used approach for data collection in qualitative research.

IVb. Interviews
There are different types of interviews/surveys namely: face-to-face interviews, computer-assisted interviews and telephone interviews. As the names indicate, these interviews defer from each other according to the method they are conducted. We also have questionaires which could be paper-pencil-based or web-based questionaires. Respondents may be interviewed severally to cross-check the accuracy of data and clarify earlier responses.

IVc. Observation
Observations are an important piece of data collecting for writing case studies, or conducting educational research. A researchers has to define the purpose of the research, and figure out what //role the observation will// play in the data collection process. Any, researcher that wants to look at data that is as natural and normal as possible, would want to make sure that the participate in the study are as comfortable and normal as possible. If it is a structured setting, the individuals may not be or act as comfortable as they may normally would act if you were not there. So, a researcher has to be very careful to look at the scenario and determine if the results they get back from an observation -are truly valid. Observations have several components to them; all observation generally has a recording/logging sheet, an interview or a debriefing period that has recorded notes, and a reporting or a results page.

V. Qualitative Data Analysis
Data analysis invloves three main steps. They are data preparation, descriptive statistics, and inferential statistics. In data preparation, one organizes the data. In descriptive statistics, the data is described, and in inferential statistics, hypothesis are proven and sound judgements are made.

Va. Content Analysis
Content analysis occurs when you are looking for certain things. What is the process? Did my students writing change over time? Was the change due to the students applying the 6+1 traits of writing? If I wanted to determine the effects the Empowering Writers textbook had on the students’ writing. What am I thinking about the information? Content analysis is used when you want to determine specific information about a subject.

Vb. Grounded Theory
 In using the grounded theory for my research on culturally relevant writing instruction, I would have to determine how I would use the approach. Conducting this type of research within my own classroom would require me to be subjective when interpreting the data and along with using a scientific approach. This information will solely be based on what I know. There is always the issue of maintaining a constructivist point of view when it comes to studying your own students? This can be challenging and may require the use of other qualitative analysis. The grounded research will give information about the process I used. I want to know how students feel about writing in my classroom. So, I would conduct an interview with certain students to determine how they felt about writing. I would then conduct an interview with students from another class to collect data on how they felt. With this information I would compare the two interviews from both classes. The grounded theory would be the interview process that I used to describe the information.

VI. Issues in Qualitative Research
The biggest issue in qualitative research is the issue of ensuring validity. Because the data collection is not numerical, one cannot assign concrete categories to the data or in most cases, uses standard instruments that are readily available. Instead the researcher must be prepared to organize raw data into general categories that he believes fits the description of the data. This can be complex because there are a numerous ways in which the data can be categorized. What parts of the data is most improtant to the research? What does the data really say( especially in the case of interviews)? Does everybody in the demographic fit into this phenomena? The best way to ensure validity of qualitiative dats is by making certain the data has credibility, transferabilty, dependability, and confirmabilty.

VII. Summary
In summary, qualitative research is the research without the numbers. Quantitative research is all about numbers. Researchers look at numerical data to prove their points. What did students make on their test? How many students in a non-reciprocal peer tutoring group improved over the course of the study and by what percentage? Qualitative research looks at attitudes, behaviors, and trends over time. How do students feel about working in groups? Do students feel that they are gaining more knowledge working in pairs versus by themselves? Quantitative research uses experiments whereas qualitative research focus more on interviews, surverys, and observations over time. From this information, researchers gather a tremendous amount of data that is just as useful and effective in research as numerical data.