Qualitative Research Proposal
This week we created our qualitative research proposal. Reading about how to plan a research project is one thing, and thinking through your research project and planning it is definitely another thing! I was placed in a group of three amazing classmates and together we created a research proposal and presented it. Here are some things things that stood out to me!
Be specific!!
This is probably the biggest thing that stood out to me. One of my teammates did the literature review while the other teammate and I created the methods section. The two of us who worked on the methods section worked very carefully and tried to include as much detail in our plan as possible. I was pretty comfortable with what we had done. As part of our research proposal, we were also asked to look at the proposals of our classmates. This was incredibly eye-opening on a bunch of levels. First of all, I realized that although we had been pretty specific in our "context", "positionality", and "participants" sections, we actually could have been EVEN MORE specific. Actually, A LOT more specific.
For example, in our participants and context sections we included what grade levels and schools the students in our survey were from. We didn't think to consider mentioning the socioeconomic state of the school districts, details on ethnic diversity, etc.
Another example was our positionality. I included details that I thought related directly to biases that might impact our research. Our research is about whether teachers felt prepared to transition to online teaching during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. I thought potential biases would be tied to our personal experiences with the pandemic, so that is the information I included in the proposal. I didn't think to consider our ethnicity, backgrounds, etc. Again, a great place where I could have been a little more specific.
The moral of the story is--BE SPECIFIC! Hash out any and every detail that you can think of that is pertinent!
Use the literature review to build an argument
This is something that we didn't consider in the slightest. We thought, "oh, we'll find any literature related to our study, summarize it, and be on our way." But looking back, the whole purpose of a literature review is to see to what extent the literature out there already answers our question! Based on the literature, what do we think the answer to our question would be? It's definitely important to know how much existing studies answer, and what they say about it, before you begin a study.
Use methods that will answer your question
Last of all, if you are doing interviews, surveys, etc. it is important to ask questions that will give you enough information to find the answer to your question. Make sure to keep your research question in mind when forming the survey or interview questions. At the same time, it's also important to create questions that are open-ended and don't reflect your bias. If you really want to understand someone's experience it is important that you don't ask questions that will shape their answers.
It's not always the internet...
This last one is a little more humorous. A little background: This past week I have been in Idaho helping my grandpa. My grandpa is 90 years old and has probably never used the internet in his life. Hence, he has absolutely no need for internet in his home. This week I have been relying on the hotspot on my phone for internet--a risky endeavor since my phone only has 2 gigs of high speed data before it drops to slow speed.
In the process of preparing our presentation my teammates and I decided that a good way to record our presentation would be through Adobe Spark. My one teammate gets Adobe Spark free through her school and has quite a bit of experience with it. She explained that there is a free version that we could each use to collaborate with her on the powerpoint.
We had already completed the powerpoint in our google slides, she had uploaded the slides to Adobe Spark, and all that needed to be done was 10-15 minutes of recording my talking on the slides. I hooked my phone up to the hotspot on my phone, did the whole recording, and... it didn't save? I tried again. And it didn't save again? I was sure it was the internet, so I tried my grandpa's hotspot. I recorded several times with no luck. Then came my cousin. Same story over again with her hotspot. So I drove over to my aunt's house. Same story again. I was so confused and frustrated, and I nearly had every slide memorized by this time. I finally drove over to my sister's house because I know she has good internet. SAME STORY all over again. They have a desktop computer connected directly to the internet, and I figured if that didn't work nothing would. And it didn't. I tried several things, enlisted my sister and brother-in-law's help, and NOTHING worked.
I was confused, and my very last idea was to call my teammates and have them record my voice as I talked over the phone. Luckily, before that happened, I had a bright idea pop into my head head that maybe I had the wrong version of Adobe Spark. Sure enough, there were two free versions and I had somehow missed the second one. Three hours later I found out that the problem isn't always the internet... it's not uncommon, and it happened again--it was another situation of user error.
Be specific!!
This is probably the biggest thing that stood out to me. One of my teammates did the literature review while the other teammate and I created the methods section. The two of us who worked on the methods section worked very carefully and tried to include as much detail in our plan as possible. I was pretty comfortable with what we had done. As part of our research proposal, we were also asked to look at the proposals of our classmates. This was incredibly eye-opening on a bunch of levels. First of all, I realized that although we had been pretty specific in our "context", "positionality", and "participants" sections, we actually could have been EVEN MORE specific. Actually, A LOT more specific.
For example, in our participants and context sections we included what grade levels and schools the students in our survey were from. We didn't think to consider mentioning the socioeconomic state of the school districts, details on ethnic diversity, etc.
Another example was our positionality. I included details that I thought related directly to biases that might impact our research. Our research is about whether teachers felt prepared to transition to online teaching during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. I thought potential biases would be tied to our personal experiences with the pandemic, so that is the information I included in the proposal. I didn't think to consider our ethnicity, backgrounds, etc. Again, a great place where I could have been a little more specific.
The moral of the story is--BE SPECIFIC! Hash out any and every detail that you can think of that is pertinent!
Use the literature review to build an argument
This is something that we didn't consider in the slightest. We thought, "oh, we'll find any literature related to our study, summarize it, and be on our way." But looking back, the whole purpose of a literature review is to see to what extent the literature out there already answers our question! Based on the literature, what do we think the answer to our question would be? It's definitely important to know how much existing studies answer, and what they say about it, before you begin a study.
Use methods that will answer your question
Last of all, if you are doing interviews, surveys, etc. it is important to ask questions that will give you enough information to find the answer to your question. Make sure to keep your research question in mind when forming the survey or interview questions. At the same time, it's also important to create questions that are open-ended and don't reflect your bias. If you really want to understand someone's experience it is important that you don't ask questions that will shape their answers.
It's not always the internet...
This last one is a little more humorous. A little background: This past week I have been in Idaho helping my grandpa. My grandpa is 90 years old and has probably never used the internet in his life. Hence, he has absolutely no need for internet in his home. This week I have been relying on the hotspot on my phone for internet--a risky endeavor since my phone only has 2 gigs of high speed data before it drops to slow speed.
In the process of preparing our presentation my teammates and I decided that a good way to record our presentation would be through Adobe Spark. My one teammate gets Adobe Spark free through her school and has quite a bit of experience with it. She explained that there is a free version that we could each use to collaborate with her on the powerpoint.
We had already completed the powerpoint in our google slides, she had uploaded the slides to Adobe Spark, and all that needed to be done was 10-15 minutes of recording my talking on the slides. I hooked my phone up to the hotspot on my phone, did the whole recording, and... it didn't save? I tried again. And it didn't save again? I was sure it was the internet, so I tried my grandpa's hotspot. I recorded several times with no luck. Then came my cousin. Same story over again with her hotspot. So I drove over to my aunt's house. Same story again. I was so confused and frustrated, and I nearly had every slide memorized by this time. I finally drove over to my sister's house because I know she has good internet. SAME STORY all over again. They have a desktop computer connected directly to the internet, and I figured if that didn't work nothing would. And it didn't. I tried several things, enlisted my sister and brother-in-law's help, and NOTHING worked.
I was confused, and my very last idea was to call my teammates and have them record my voice as I talked over the phone. Luckily, before that happened, I had a bright idea pop into my head head that maybe I had the wrong version of Adobe Spark. Sure enough, there were two free versions and I had somehow missed the second one. Three hours later I found out that the problem isn't always the internet... it's not uncommon, and it happened again--it was another situation of user error.
Comments
Post a Comment