Lesson 3: How to do a Qualitative Research

Question 1

What are the parts in making a qualitative research?

Answer 1

1. Preparing Your Research

2. Collecting and Analyzing Your Data

Question 2

What does a good research question need to be?

Answer 2

It needs to be:

a. clear
b. specific
c. manageable

Question 3

What should the research question explore?

Answer 3

It should explore reasons for why people do things or believe in something.

Question 4

What is the most important piece of the research design?

Answer 4

Research question.

Question 5

What is the research question?

Answer 5

It is the most important piece of the research design that helps to focus the study and determines what you want to learn or understand, and how you conduct your study (since different questions require different methods of inquiry).

Question 6

What is the literature review?

Answer 6

A literature review is a process of studying what others have written about your research question and particular topic and it will also help you to determine whether you are really interested and committed to the topic and research question and that there is a gap in the existing research that you want to fill by conducting your own investigation.

Question 7

What questions are qualitative researches applicable for?

Answer 7

Qualitative methods are useful when a question cannot be answered by a simple ‘yes’ or no’ hypothesis. Often qualitative research is especially useful for answering “how” or “what” questions.

Question 8

True or false. Qualitative research is good for budgetary decisions.

Answer 8

True.

Question 9

What is a characteristic of qualitative research that sets it as different among all other types of researches?

Answer 9

The design of qualitative research is the most flexible of all the experimental techniques.

Question 10

What are the accepted methodologies in qualitative research?

Answer 10

1. Action Research
2. Ethnography
3. Phenomenology
4. Grounded Theory
5. Case Study Research

Question 11

What is Action Research?

Answer 11

Action research focuses on solving an immediate problem or working with others to solve problem and address particular issues.

Question 12

What is Ethnography?

Answer 12

Ethnography is the study of human interaction in communities through direct participation and observation within the community you wish to study.

Question 13

What is Phenomenology?

Answer 13

Phenomenology is the study of the subjective experiences of others. It researches the world through the eyes of another person by discovering how they interpret their experiences.

Question 14

What is the Grounded Theory?

Answer 14

It looks at specific information and derives theories and reasons for the phenomena.

Question 15

What is the purpose of Grounded Theory?

Answer 15

The purpose of grounded theory is to develop theory based on the data systematically collected and analyzed.

Question 16

What is a Case Study Research?

Answer 16

This method of qualitative study is an in-depth study of a specific individual or phenomena in its existing context.

Question 17

What methodology focuses on solving an immediate problem or working with others to solve the problem and address particular issues?

Answer 17

Action Research

Question 18

What methodology is the study of human interaction in communities through direct participation and observation within the community you wish to study?

Answer 18

Ethnography

Question 19

Where does Ethnographic research come from?

Answer 19

Ethnographic research comes from the discipline of social and cultural anthropology but is now becoming more widely used.

Question 20

What methodology is the study of the subjective experiences of others, researching the world through the eyes of another person by discovering how they interpret their experiences?

Answer 20

Phenomenology.

Question 21

What methodology looks at specific information and derives theories and reasons for the phenomena?

Answer 21

Grounded Theory.

Question 22

What is the methodology that is an in-depth study of a specific individual or phenomena in its existing context?

Answer 22

Case Study Research.

Question 23

What does the data collection depend on?

Answer 23

The research methodology.

Question 24

True or false. Each of the research methodologies uses only one type of data collection.

Answer 24

False. Each research methodology uses either one or more types of data collection.

Question 25

What are the types of data collection?

Answer 25

1. Direct observation
2. Participant observation
3. Interviews
4. Surveys
5. Document Analysis

Question 26

In what ways can direct observation occur in?

Answer 26

Direct observation of a situation or your research subjects can occur through:

1. video tape playback, or
2. live observation.

Question 27

What is Direct Observation

Answer 27

Direct observation is the data collection technique wherein you are making specific observations of a situation without influencing or participating in any way.

Question 28

What is Participant Observation?

Answer 28

Participant observation is the immersion of the researcher in the community or situation being studied.

Question 29

Why is Participant Observation considered as “time-consuming”?

Answer 29

This form of data collection tends to be more time consuming, as you need to participate fully in the community in order to know whether your observations are valid.

Question 30

What is the Interview data collection?

Answer 30

Qualitative interviewing is basically the process of gathering data by asking people questions.

Question 31

What are the different types of interviews?

Answer 31

1. Structured interviews,
2. Unstructured interviews,
3. One-on-one interviews, and
4. Small groups (a.k.a. focus groups)

Question 32

What is the difference between structured and unstructured interviews?

Answer 32

Structured interviews use pre-set questions, whereas unstructured interviews are more free-flowing conversations where the interviewer can probe and explore topics as they come up.

Question 33

When are interviews particularly useful?

Answer 33

Interviews are particularly useful if you want to know how people feel or react to something.

Question 34

What are examples of surveys in qualitative research?

Answer 34

1. Written questionnaires, and

2. Open ended surveys about ideas, perceptions, and thoughts

Question 35

What is Document Analysis?

Answer 35

It is the methodology that involves examining written, visual, and audio documents that exist without any involvement of or instigation by the researcher.

Question 36

What are the different ways to analyze data in a qualitative research?

Answer 36

1. Coding
2. Descriptive Statistics
3. Narrative Analysis
4. Hermeneutic Analysis
5. Content Analysis / Semiotic Analysis

Question 37

What are the steps to coding?

Answer 37

1. Assign a word, phrase, or number to each category. Start out with a pre-set list of codes that you derived from your prior knowledge of the subject (e.g. “financial issues” or “community involvement” might be two codes you think of after having done your literature review of second career teachers).
2. You then go through all of your data in a systematic way and “code” ideas, concepts and themes as they fit categories.
3. You will also develop another set of codes that emerge from reading and analyzing the data.

Question 38

What is Descriptive Statistics?

Answer 38

Descriptive Statistics is the data collection method that helps describe, show or summarize the data to highlight patterns.

Question 39

What can Descriptive Statistics not do?

Answer 39

Descriptive statistics cannot be used to make conclusions and confirm/disprove hypotheses.

Question 40

What is Narrative Analysis?

Answer 40

Narrative Analysis is the data collection technique that focuses on speech and content, such as grammar, word usage, metaphors, story themes, meanings of situations, the social, cultural and political context of the narrative.

Question 41

What is the Hermeneutic Analysis?

Answer 41

Hermeneutic analysis is the data collection technique that focuses on the meaning of a written or oral text.

Question 42

What is Content or Semiotic Analysis?

Answer 42

Content or semiotic analysis is a data collection technique that looks at texts or series of texts and looks for themes and meanings by looking at frequencies of words.