Proposed Qualitative Research Design
Proposed Qualitative Research Design
Qualitative research is a process of investigations which tries to build a holistic through largely narrative, explanations to tell the researcher’s capacity of understanding of either social or cultural scenario and normally should take place in a natural environment and adopts combination of observation interviews and review of documents.
Qualitative Research Processes
The qualitative research process is defined by The McMillan and Schumacher in 1993 as an inductive process of organizing data into categories and identifying correlations among categories, and this implied that data and its meaning would emerge organically from the research context.
Common Assumptions
Qualitative research is a strategy which is predicted and thus it is accompanied by assumptions and perspectives which are usually summarized as follows;
It views phenomena in the holistic approach, and that it assumes that there is no possibility of deduction of complex phenomena into smaller and independent sections.
It assumes that the researcher do not impose assumptions, limitations, delimitations, definitions, and research designs upon emerging data but instead record what he or she observes or collects from subjects within their natural environment.
It assumes that reality exists as the subjects see it and the researcher is to record, fully, accurately and unbiased and that the true picture of the phenomenon can actually be seen through the subjects eyes. Conclusions should emerge from the data and no prior conclusions.
Common Reference Points
Almost all qualitative research is done in natural settings and variables should not be manipulated and the despite existence of variety strategies of qualitative and subspecialties, the most important thing is basing them on the reference point which is universal.
Working Design-A preliminary plan needs to be drawn, and it should be flexible. The field sites should be selected through purposeful sampling given the study’s purpose and the time duration of fieldwork needs to be determined and other relevant operational issues should be addressed.
Working Hypotheses– needs to be done using inductive approach of inquiry and those qualitative researchers should refrain from positing rigid hypotheses or any hypotheses at all.
The research questions should be typically posed and as process of data collection and analysis continues, there is the emergence of specific questions and hypotheses and these may be extended, deleted, reframed as the data collection and analysis of collected data continues. The goal of this process is to ensure that there are comprehensive, and the description of the phenomena that are being investigated from the experience perspective should be accurately recorded as it emerges.
Data Collection– main data collection devices include observation, interview, artifact, oral histories and specimen records.
There are many qualitative research data recording techniques, and that the researcher is advised to keep accurately detailed records of his or her feeling, thought, and behavior while the data is collected. As this will assist the researcher to avoid incidences of being bias
Data Analysis and Interpretation- Data should be must be reduced and organized by coding and details of behavior, statements, feelings, thoughts need to be identified and coded.
Perspectives for Designing the Qualitative Study
Funnel Approach– the researcher should have a very general research question or hypothesis which will be used to select the initial research site, subjects, and data to be collected. Depending on the on results generated from the earlier initiative, the research question and hypothesis should be increasingly become the point of focus and this process needs to be repeated until data collection, analysis, and interpretation focus only on the phenomena under study and produces concrete conclusions.
Modified Analytic Induction Approach– the researcher should start with specific research questions which identifies virtually all issues of the phenomenon under investigation try to investigate each case, and it employs an iterative strategy in that the research question or phenomenon explanation could be revised until the researcher arrives at a suitable comprehensive, descriptively rich narrative.
References
Creswell, (2003). Research design: quantitative, Qualitative and mixed method approaches.
Denzin and Lincoln, (2000). Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed.).
Denzin and Lincoln, (2011). The SAGE Handbook of qualitative research (4th ed.).
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