Qualitative Study Design Assignment
Joeman is interested in designing an ethnographic investigation to determine how students of different socio-economic statuses perceive the importance of a college education. He wants to show his proposal to his advisor, but has asked you for help with a number of design issues first. Below is the brief proposal, followed by a number of questions. Please answer all parts of all questions thoroughly for full points. I expect your answers will be no longer than three pages, single-spaced.
Participants: Joeman proposes using 30 participants for this study. His participants will be drawn from an introductory calculus class at an elite private university because he knows the instructor of that course. He thinks this sample will be better for his qualitative investigation than a quantitative one.
Instrumentation and Procedures: Joeman plans to ask the students a number of questions related to their socio-economic status so he can accurately classify their economic status. He also wants to ask them a number of questions related to their study habits for the calculus class because he thinks these types of questions will help him figure out the value participants place on higher education. He figures he will conduct one semi-structured interview with each of the students, and has written down a number of questions to ask each participant. He plans to ask the exact same questions to each student in the same order, and he plans that each interview will last approximately 30 minutes because the questions aren’t too hard to answer.
Proposed Data Analysis: In order to analyze the data, Joemanplans to transcribe each interview and then read the interviews over. He thinks he can quickly come up with themes by listing all the answers provided by each participant to each question and determining similarities. He doesn’t have any other plans to analyze the data because he perceives that qualitative data analysis is easier than the statistics he has learned.
Answer all parts of the following questions:
1. Critique Joeman’s current sampling strategy. Then, suggest a different sampling strategy for this study that will better help Joeman investigate the central phenomenon. (3 points)
2. Then, based on the sampling strategy you identified previously, suggest a better instrumentation plan that will help Joeman investigate the central phenomenon using the ethnographic methods he proposes. Specifically, what differentiates ethnography from other qualitative methodology, and what should Joeman do differently to conduct an ethnographic investigation here? In this section, it may be helpful to speculate regarding the types of questions he should ask of participants and the other types of data he would want to collect to complete an ethnographic study. (4 points)
3. Critique Joeman’s current study procedures and instrumentation. What ethical problems can you identify in the proposed procedures? What else should Joeman do to ensure the ethical treatment of study participants? In your proposed research design, you should include information on how data will be collected, procedures for gaining access to participants, data needed for triangulation, and allother details necessary for conducting the study. In other words, describe all details of your proposed study design as completely as possible in the design phase (knowing these procedures may change once the study is running). (15 points)
4. Critique Joeman’s choice of data analysis procedure.Suggest for him different analysis procedures that will help him better answer his research question. (3 points)
