Qualitative Validity of Study Results Discussion

Qualitative Validity of Study Results Discussion Qualitative Validity of Study Results Discussion no plagiarize, spell check, and check your grammar. please use the two references below Many researchers, particularly those from the hard sciences like mathematics or physics, consider quantitative research, with the ability to determine “statistical significance,” as more rigorous than qualitative research. Qualitative research does not lend itself to such mathematical determination of validity, rather it is highly focused on providing descriptive and/or exploratory results. However, this does not relieve the qualitative researcher from designing studies that are rigorous and high in “trustworthiness,” often the word used to describe validity in a qualitative study. There is no agreed upon set of criteria for ensuring a quality qualitative study, but there are a number of models of quality criteria. HCA340 Academy of Healing Arts Qualitative Validity of Study Results Discussion Instructions : After reading the assigned articles by Shenton (2004) and Freeman, deMarrais, Preissle, Roulston, and St. Pierre (2007), discuss at least three things a qualitative researcher can consider to increase the validity of a study’s results. Give at least one example from one of the qualitative study articles you have found on your own topic of how a claim (reported result) is supported. Qualitative Validity of Study Results Discussion How does that article report on the validity of the study’s results? Do the authors do a good job of demonstrating validity? If not, what could/should they have done differently? References Freeman, M., deMarrais, K., Preissle, J., Roulston, K., & St Pierre, E.,A. (2007). Standards of evidence in qualitative research: An incitement to discourse.Educational Researcher, 36(1), 25-32. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.proxy-library.ashford…. Malec, T. & Newman, M. (2013). Research methods: Building a knowledge base. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc. ISBN-13: 9781621785743, ISBN-10: 1621785742. Section 1.6 Writing a Research Proposal Chapter 3: Qualitative and Descriptive Designs – Observing Behavior Section 5.3: Experimental Validity: A Note on Qualitative Research Validity and Reliability Appendix: Example of a Research Proposal new85743_03_c03_103_168_lowres__2_.pdf out.pdf ORDER NOW FOR CUSTOMIZED AND ORIGINAL ESSAY PAPERS chapter 3 Qualitative and Descriptive Designs—Observing Behavior John Foxx/Stockbyte/Thinkstock Chapter Contents • • • • • Qualitative and Descriptive Research Designs Qualitative Research Interviews Critiquing a Qualitative Study Writing the Qualitative Research Proposal Describing Data in Descriptive Research new85743_03_c03_103-168.indd 103 6/18/13 12:00 PM CHAPTER 3 Introduction I n the fall of 2009, Phoebe Prince and her family relocated from Ireland to South Hadley, Massachusetts. Phoebe was immediately singled out by bullies at her new high school and subjected to physical threats, insults about her Irish heritage, and harassing posts on her Facebook page. This relentless bullying continued until January of 2010, ending only because Phoebe elected to take her own life in order to escape her tormentors (United Press International, 2011). Tragic stories like this one are all too common, and it should come as no surprise that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have identified bullying as a serious problem facing our nation’s children and adolescents (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2012). Scientific research on bullying began in Norway in the late 1970s in response to a wave of teen suicides. Work begun by psychologist Dan Olweus—and since continued by many others—has documented both the frequency and the consequences of bullying in the school system. Thus, we know that approximately one third of children are victims of bullying at some point during development, with between 5% and 10% bullied on a regular basis (Griffin & Gross, 2004; Nansel et al., 2001). Victimization by bullies has been linked to a wide range of emotional and behavioral problems, including depression, anxiety, selfreported health problems, and an increased risk of both violent behavior and suicide (for a detailed review, see Griffin & Gross, 2004). Recent research even suggests that bullying during adolescence may have a lasting impact on the body’s physiological stress response (Hamilton et al., 2008). But most of this research has a common limitation: It has studied the phenomenon of bullying using self-report survey measures. That is, researchers typically ask students and teachers to describe the extent of bullying in the schools or have students fill out a collection of survey measures, describing in their own words both bullying experiences and psychological functioning. These studies are conducted rigorously, and the measures they use certainly meet the criteria of reliability and validity that we discussed in Chapter 2 (Section 2.2, Reliability and Validity). However, as Wendy Craig, Professor of Psychology at Queen’s University, and Debra Pepler, a Distinguished Professor at York University, suggested in a 1997 article, this questionnaire approach is unable to capture the full context of bullying behaviors. And, as we have already discussed, self-report measures are fully dependent on people’s ability to answer honestly and accurately. In order to address this limitation, Craig and Pepler (1997) decided to observe bullying behaviors as they occurred naturally on the playground. Among other things, the researchers found that acts of bullying occurred approximately every 7 minutes, lasted only about 38 seconds, and tended to occur within 120 feet of the school building. They also found that peers intervened to try to stop the bullying more than twice as often as adults did (11% versus 4%, respectively). These findings add significantly to scientific understanding of when and how bullying occurs. And for our purposes, the most notable thing about them is that none of the findings could have been documented without directly observing and recording bullying behaviors on the playground. By using this technique, the researchers were able to gain a more thorough understanding of the phenomenon of bullying and thus able to provide real-world advice to teachers and parents. Qualitative research is valuable when the nature of a phenomenon such as bullying, its signs, symptoms, dynamics, and emotional consequences are not well understood. One recurring theme in this book is that it is absolutely critical to pick the right research design to address your hypothesis. Over the next three chapters, we will be discussing 104 new85743_03_c03_103-168.indd 104 6/18/13 12:00 PM. HCA340 Academy of Healing Arts Qualitative Validity of Study Results Discussion CHAPTER 3 Section 3.1 Qualitative and Descriptive Research Designs three specific categories of research designs, proceeding in order of increasing control over elements of the design: descriptive designs, quasi-experimental designs, and true experimental designs. This chapter will also focus on qualitative research designs that have similar levels of control as the case study, in which the primary goal is to examine phenomena of interest in great detail. We will begin by discussing qualitative designs, including ethnography study, phenomenological study, and grounded theory study. We will then discuss three prominent examples of descriptive designs that can be used in either qualitative or quantitative approaches—case studies, archival research, and observational research—covering the basic concepts, the pros and cons, and contrasting qualitative and quantitative approaches of each design (see Figure 3.1). We go on to discuss interview techniques and then offer guidelines for presenting descriptive data in graphical, numerical, and narrative form. Finally, we show how to critique a study and write a proposal for qualitative research projects. Figure 3.1: Qualitative and descriptive research on the continuum of control Qualitative and Descriptive Methods Predictive Methods • Ethnographic Study • Phenomenological Study • Grounded Theory Study • Case Study • Archival Research • Observational Research • Survey Research Experimental Methods • Pre-experiments • Quasi-experiments • “True” Experiments Increasing Control . . . 3.1 Qualitative and Descriptive Research Designs W e learned in Chapter 1 that researchers generally take one of two broad approaches to answering their research questions. Quantitative research is a systematic, empirical approach that attempts to generalize results to other contexts, whereas qualitative research is a more descriptive approach that attempts to gain a deep understanding of particular cases and contexts. Before we discuss specific examples of both qualitative and descriptive designs, it is important to understand that descriptive designs can represent either quantitative or qualitative perspectives, whereas qualitative designs represent only qualitative perspectives. In this section, we examine the qualitative and descriptive approaches in more detail. In Chapter 1, we used the analogy of studying traffic patterns to contrast qualitative and quantitative methods—a quantitative researcher would do a “flyover” and perform a statistical analysis, whereas a qualitative researcher would likely study a single busy intersection in detail. This illustrates a key point about the latter approach. All qualitative approaches have two characteristics in common: (1) Focusing on phenomena that occur in natural or real-world settings; and (2) studying those phenomena in their complexity. 105 new85743_03_c03_103-168.indd 105 6/18/13 12:00 PM Section 3.1 Qualitative and Descriptive Research Designs CHAPTER 3 Qualitative researchers focus on interpreting and making sense out of what they observe rather than trying to simplify and quantify these observations. In general, qualitative research involves collecting interviews, recordings, and observations made in a natural setting. Regardless of the overall approach (qualitative or quantitative), however, collecting data in the real world results in less control and structure than does collecting data in a laboratory setting. But whereas quantitative researchers might view reduced control as a threat to reliability and validity, qualitative researchers view it as a strength of the study because the phenomenon of interest is being studied in its natural environment. By conducting observations in a natural setting, it is possible to capture people’s natural and unfiltered responses. The concepts of reliability and validity for both qualitative and quantitative approaches are discussed further in Chapter 5. As an example, consider two studies on the ways people respond to traumatic events. In a 1993 paper, psychologists James Pennebaker and Kent Harber took a quantitative approach to examining the community-wide impact of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake (centered in the San Francisco Bay Area). These researchers conducted phone surveys of 789 area residents, asking people to indicate, using a 10-point scale, how often they “thought about” and “talked about” the earthquake during the 3-month period after its occurrence. In analyzing these data, Pennebaker and Harber discovered that people tend to stop talking about traumatic events about 2 weeks after they occur but keep thinking about the event for approximately 4 more weeks. HCA340 Academy of Healing Arts Qualitative Validity of Study Results Discussion That is, the event is still on people’s minds, but they decide to stop discussing it with other people. In a follow-up study using the 1991 Gulf War, these researchers found that this conflict between thoughts and their verbalization leads to an increased risk of illness (Pennebaker & Harber, 1993). Thus, the goal of the study was to gather data in a controlled manner and test a set of hypotheses about community responses to trauma. Contrast this approach with the more qualitative one taken by the developmental psychologist Paul Miller and colleagues (2012), who used a qualitative approach to study the ways that parents model coping behavior for their children. These researchers conducted semistructured interviews of 24 parents whose families had been evacuated following the 2007 wildfires in San Diego County and an additional 32 parents whose families had been evacuated following a 2008 series of deadly tornadoes in Tennessee. Owing to a lack of prior research on how parents teach their children to cope with trauma, Miller and colleagues approached their interviews with the goal of “documenting and describing” (p. 8) these processes. That is, rather than attempt to impose structure and test a strict hypothesis, the researchers focused on learning from these interviews and letting the interviewees’ perspectives drive the acquisition of knowledge. Qualitative research is undertaken in many academic disciplines, including, psychology, sociology, anthropology, biology, education, history, and medicine (Leedy & Ormrod, 2010). Although once frowned upon in the fields of psychology and education, due to their subjective nature, qualitative techniques have gained wide acceptance as legitimate research. In fact, many researchers argue that qualitative research is the beginning step to all types of inquiry. Thus, qualitative research can explore unknown topics, unknown variables, and inadequate theory bases and thereby assist in the generating of hypotheses for future quantitative studies. Unlike quantitative studies, qualitative studies do not allow the researcher to identify cause-and-effect relationships among variables. Rather, the focus is on describing, 106 new85743_03_c03_103-168.indd 106 6/18/13 12:00 PM Section 3.1 Qualitative and Descriptive Research Designs CHAPTER 3 interpreting, verifying, and evaluating phenomena, such as personal experiences, events, and behaviors, in their natural environment. The most common forms of qualitative data collection techniques are observations, interviews, videotapes, focus groups, and document review. Creswell (2009) lists the following characteristics as generally present in most types of qualitative research: • • • • • • • • Data collection occurs in the natural or real-world setting where participants experience the issue or problem being investigated. The researcher is the key instrument used to collect data through means of examining documents, observing behavior, or interviewing participants. Multiple sources of data are collected and reviewed. As discussed in Chapter 1, qualitative researchers use inductive data analysis and build patterns and themes from the bottom up. Focus is on understanding the participants’ experiences, not on what the researcher believes those experiences mean. The research process is emergent and can change after the researcher enters the field and begins collecting data. Researchers as well as participants and readers interpret what they see, hear, and understand. This results in multiple views of the problem. Researchers attempt to develop a complex picture of the problem under investigation, utilizing multiple methods of data collection. Descriptive research does not fit neatly into the categories of either qualitative or quantitative methodologies; instead, it can utilize qualitative, quantitative, or a mixture of both methods to describe and interpret events, conditions, behaviors, feelings, and situations. In all cases, descriptive research investigates situations as they are, and similar to qualitative designs, does not involve changing (controlling) the situation under investigation or attempting to determine cause-and-effect relationships. However, unlike qualitative designs, descriptive designs usually yield quantitative data that can be analyzed using statistical analyses. That is, descriptive research gathers data that describe events and then organizes, tabulates, depicts, and describes the collected data, often using visual aids such as graphs, tables, and charts. Collecting data for descriptive research can be done with a single method or a variety of methods, depending upon the research questions.HCA340 Academy of Healing Arts Qualitative Validity of Study Results Discussion The most common data collection methods utilized in descriptive research include surveys, interviews, observations, and portfolios. In general, descriptive research often yields rich data that can lead to important recommendations and findings. In the following six sections, we examine six specific examples of qualitative and descriptive designs: ethnography, phenomenological studies, grounded theory studies, case studies, archival research, and observational research. The sections on ethnography, phenomenological studies, and grounded theory studies will focus specifically on the qualitative uses of these methods, since these are qualitative-only research methods. Because case studies, archival research, and observational research share the goals of describing attitudes, feelings, and behaviors, each one can be undertaken from either a quantitative or a qualitative perspective. In other words, qualitative and quantitative researchers use many of the same general methods but do so with different ends in mind. To illustrate this flexibility, we will end these three sections with a paragraph that contrasts qualitative and quantitative uses of the particular method. 107 new85743_03_c03_103-168.indd 107 6/18/13 12:00 PM Section 3.1 Qualitative and Descriptive Research Designs CHAPTER 3 Ethnography Study (Qualitative Design) Ethnographies were first developed by anthropologists to examine human society and various cultural groups but are now frequently used in the sociology, psychology, and education fields. In fact, today ethnographies are probably the most widely used qualitative method for researching social and cultural conditions. Unlike case studies (which will be discussed later in this chapter) that examine a particular person or event, ethnographies focus on an entire cultural group or a group that shares a common culture. Although culture has various definitions, it usually refers to “the beliefs, values and attitudes that shape the behavior of a particular group of people” (Merriam & Associates, 2002, p. 8). The concept of what a culture is has also changed over time. Recently, more research has focused on smaller groups, such as classrooms and work offices, than on larger groups, such as northwest Alaskan Natives. Regardless of whether the cultural group is a classroom or an entire ethnic group in a particular region of the world, ethnographic research involves studying an entire community in order to obtain a holistic picture of it. For example, in addition to studying behaviors, researchers will examine the economic, social, and cultural contexts that shape the community or were formed by the community. In order to thoroughly study a particular cultural group, researchers will often immerse themselves in the community. That is, the researcher will live in the study community for a prolonged period and participate in the daily routine and activities Ingram Publishing/Thinkstock of those being studied. This is called participant observation. Such prolonged involvement is necessary in order to observe and record processes Employees who are part of an office culture that occur over time. Participant observation is are an example of those who might be an important data collection procedure in ethnostudied in an ethnography. HCA340 Academy of Healing Arts Qualitative Validity of Study Results Discussion graphic research; thus, it is imperative that the researcher establish rapport and build trusting relationships with the individuals he or she is studying (Hennink, Hutter, & Bailey, 2011). Establishing trusting relationships can be a quite lengthy process, which is why ethnographic studies usually span long periods of time. Steps in Ethnographic Research Several steps are involved in conducting site-based research and data collection. First, the researcher must select a site or community that will address the research questions being asked. Because researchers should not have any expectations regarding the outcome of the study, it is best if the researcher selects a site that he or she is not affiliated with. Selecting sites that the researcher is acquainted with may make it difficult for him or her to study the group in an unbiased manner. 108 new85743_03_c03_103-168.indd 108 6/18/13 12:01 PM Section 3.1 Qualitative and Descriptive Research Designs CHAPTER 3 The next step involves gaining entry into the site. This can be a difficult task, as some researchers may not be well received. Therefore, a successful entrance into a site requires having access to a gatekeeper, an individual “who can provide a smooth entrance into the site” (Leedy & Ormrod, 2010, p. 139). Gatekeepers may include a principal of a school, a leader of a community, a director of a company, a tribal shaman, or any other wellrespected leader of a particular cultural group. Once inside the site, the researcher must take several delicate steps, including establishing rapport with individuals and forming trusting relationships. As mentioned previously, establishing rapport is one of the most critical aspects of participant observation and provides a foundation for the quality and quantity of data that will be collected. Initially, establishing trust will involve interacting with everyone. At some point, however, the researcher will generally select key “informants” who can assist him or her in collecting the data. Finally, similar to all types of research, the researcher will need to inform individuals about why he or she is there and the purpose of the study. As with case studies, data collection and data analysis tend to occur simultaneously. Data collection may include making observations, obtaining recordings, conducting interviews, and/or collecting records from the group. As the information is being collected, the researcher will read through it in great detail to obtain a general sense of what has been collected and to reflect on what all the data mean. The next step is to organize the data based on events, issues, opinions, behaviors, and other factors and begin to analyze it by sorting the data into categories. The categorized information will allow the researcher to observe any potential patterns or commonalities that may exist, as … Purchase answer to see full attachment Student has agreed that all tutoring, explanations, and answers provided by the tutor will be used to help in the learning process and in accordance with Studypool’s honor code & terms of service . Get a 10 % discount on an order above $ 100 Use the following coupon code : NURSING10