The purpose of Chapter 9 is to help you meet the following objectives:

1. Define and give examples of qualitative research.

(Review Questions 1 & 2)

(Textbook emphasis pp. 192-193)

2. Describe the relationship between qualitative research in education and research methodologies in ethnography, human ecology, and sociology.

(Review Question 3)

(Textbook emphasis pp. 193-196)

3. Describe the role of the participant observer in qualitative research.

(Review Question 4)

(Textbook emphasis pp. 196-198)

4. Describe effective qualitative research strategies including the following:

Interviews

Observations

Content analysis

(Review Questions 5 & 6)

(Textbook emphasis pp. 198-200)

5. Describe how samples are selected for qualitative research.

(Review Question 7)

(Textbook emphasis pp. 200-201)

6. Describe and identify examples of the four types of field data.

(Review Question 8 & 9)

(Textbook emphasis pp. 201-205)

7. Describe the important issues in establishing the reliability and validity of qualitative research.

(Review Question 10)

(Textbook emphasis pp. 205-206)

8. Describe four major phases of qualitative research and the activities typically conducted during each phase.

(Review Question 11 & 12)

(Textbook emphasis pp. 206-209)

9. Describe the characteristics of a good qualitative research report.

(Review Question 13)

(Textbook emphasis pp. 209-210)

10. Describe the major problems that occur in qualitative research and strategies for overcoming these problems.

(Review Question 14)

(Textbook emphasis pp. 210-211)

REVIEW QUIZ

1. Which of the following is an example of qualitative research?

a. Mr. Romano has examined the standardized test scores that his fifth graders took two years ago and compared them to their current test scores. He finds that their performance in reading has gone from the 40th to the 60th percentile and in math from the 45th to the 55th percentile.

b. Mrs. Hall is videotaping her students while they run computer simulations. She hopes to analyze the tapes to develop ideas about how they approach problem solving and perhaps to develop ways to help them solve problems better.

2. Which of the following is an example of qualitative research?

a. Mr. Hill is examining the reading test scores of the children in his middle school. He has found that students with low reading scores in the sixth grade are likely to drop out of school before they graduate. He is developing a program to help these stu-dents read better, with the hope that this may help them stay in school through graduation.

b. Mrs. Kalina is considering accepting a position as assistant principal in a nearby school district. To get a grasp of what her job would be like she has obtained the minutes of the school board meetings for the past two years and has systematically examined in detail the local pages of the newspaper for information related to the school at which she would be principal. These analyses lead her to believe that she should accept the job offer.

3. In what way does the qualitative researcher in education most directly imitate the methodology of ethnography?

a. They refrain from making value judgments about the situations and people they observe.

b. They make careful value judgments about the situations and people they observe based on systematic observation.

c. During the research process they try to improve the situations or people they observe.

d. All of the above.

c. None of the above.

4. Who can serve as a participant observer in a classroom?

a. the teacher.

b. the students.

c. trained researchers who become familiar to the students and teachers.

d. All of the above.

5. Which of the following statements accurately compares qualitative observation strategies with quantitative observation strategies?

a. Qualitative observations are more likely to be reactive.

b. Qualitative observations are more likely to be open-ended.

c. Qualitative observations are more likely to be structured.

d. Qualitative observations are more likely to be conducted by a trained observer who is unfamiliar with the persons being observed.

6. Which of the following is NOT true?

a. Archival documents are often valuable for qualitative research even when they contain errors and are incomplete.

b. Both current and archival documents analyzed by qualitative researchers are referred to as artifacts.

c. Content analysis consists of looking for themes or concepts in documents being analyzed.

d. During documentary analysis it is often valuable for qualitative researchers to examine information that was collected in an obtrusive manner.

e. All of the above are untrue.

7. How are samples of subjects typically selected for qualitative research?

a. through random sampling

b. through systematic sampling

c. through stratified sampling

d. in such a way as to get subjects to test a particular theory

8. Mr. Hoyte has a notebook in which he wrote down his plan regarding how he would spend his time observing at Warren Harding Elementary School. Now he is making notes in the same notebook to indicate the degree to which he carried out this plan. This notebook contains his

a. field jottings

b. field notes

c. field diary

d. field log

9. Dr. Brenneman has a notebook in which she writes down her personal feelings about the classroom she is observing. This notebook contains her

a. field jottings

b. field notes

c. field diary

d. field log

10. The purpose of a member check is to

a. check the validity of the observer's interpretation of qualitative observations.

b. make sure all the persons to be interviewed have actually been interviewed.

c. ascertain that members have not dropped out of the research study before its completion.

d. verify the accuracy of the first observer's observations by having someone else make a parallel set of observations.

11. Ms. Henderson is carefully examining and considering all the field data that have been collected and applying her insight to these data. She is most likely in what phase of qualitative research?

a. interpretation

b. invention

c. discovery

d. explanation

12. Mr. Ritchie is actually conducting interviews with students and teachers in the natural setting of their classroom. He is most likely in what phase of qualitative research?

a. interpretation

b. invention

c. discovery

d. explanation

13. A good qualitative research report will most closely resemble

a. a quantitative research report

b. a census report

c. a review of the literature

d. a novel

14. All but one of the following are serious PROBLEMS with qualitative educational research. Choose the EXCEPTION.

a. First impressions are likely to impede objectivity by dominating later inferences and assertions.

b. Data that are readily obtained are likely to be relied on more than data that are more difficult to obtain.

c. The direct involvement of the participant observer in the research settings is likely to give a different impression than would be available to an outside observer.

d. Novelties and extreme observations tend to receive more weight and importance than redundant or consistent data.

 {Click here to see answers.}

 

POSSIBLE PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

1. Students are often confused about the distinction between qualitative and quantitative research. The basic distinction is simple:

Quantitative research puts a primary emphasis on tabulating and comparing numbers.

Qualitative research puts a primary emphasis on conveying an accurate impression of an admittedly subjective situation.

Both types of researchers are scientific and systematic, they are just systematic in different ways.

Quantitative researchers rely heavily on mathematical, statistical, and research design strategies to support the validity of their conclusions.

Qualitative researchers rely on experience, insight, and reasoning to demonstrate the validity of their conclusions.

2. Students often have trouble distinguishing aamong ethnography, anthropology, and human ecology. While there are legitimate distinctions, it would take a lengthier presentation than that in the textbook to make these distinctions. If instructors consider it to be important to make these distinctions, they should present substantially more detailed instruction than that included in the textbook. The goal of pages 193 through 196 is to demonstrate that there are legitimate and important fields of study in which researchers rely on experience, insight, and reasoning to demonstrate the validity of their conclusions and to suggest that there is a need for similar research in education.

CROSS-REFERENCES TO OTHER CHAPTERS

Chapter 9 makes reference to the following concepts that are defined and discussed in other chapters. These are listed in the order in which they occurred in Chapter 9. Note that in almost every case each term will have a slightly different meaning in this chapter than it has in the other chapter.

Reliability (mentioned on pages 197 and 211 and emphasized on pages 204-205) is discussed in detail in Chapter 5.

Validity (mentioned on page 197 and emphasized on pages 204-205) is discussed in detail in Chapter 5.

Unobtrusive measurement (mentioned on page 197) is discussed on page 142.

Observational strategies (discussed on pages 198-199) are discussed on pages 137-142.

Interview strategies (discussed on pages 199-200) are discussed on pages 133-137.

Sampling strategies (discussed on pages 200-201 and again on page 211) are the main topic of Chapter 8.

External validity (discussed on page 210) is the main topic of Chapter 15.

Triangulation (mentioned on page 210 is discussed on page 73.

Correlation (mentioned on page 211) is one of the main topics of Chapter 13.

DEFINING KEY TERMS

The following matching exercise focuses on the key terms in this chapter. Instead of using it as matching exercises, you may find it effective to try to define each of the terms. The correct answers can be found by checking the answers to the matching exercise.

MATCHING EXERCISE - KEY TERMS

Given below are the descriptions of key terms discussed in this chapter. Match each term to the definition listed below.

a. Analytic notes

b. Content analysis

c. Diachronic reliability

d. Ethnography

e. Field diaries

f. Field jottings

g. Field logs

h. Field notes

i. Human ecology

j. Participant observer

k. Purposive sampling

l. Sociology

m. Synchronic reliability

1. _____ A branch of social science that is concerned with such factors as social change, social status and stratification, social power, social problems (such as crime, poverty, ethnic relations, population, rural and urban problems), bureaucracies, families, and social institutions.
   
   
2. _____ The study of the total system of influences, as a unit, surrounding people.
   
   
3. _____ The process by which qualitative researchers look for themes or concepts in natural language.
   
   
4. _____ The written results of the qualitative researchers' conceptualizations of how they think the culture and social groupings are structured and organized.
   
   
5. _____ A branch of social science that studies such topics as languages, loss of cultural elements, the influence of exceptional individuals, taboos, religion, child rearing patterns, marriage, eating habits, housing patterns, gender roles, and games and recreation.
   
   
6. _____ A strategy for ascertaining that sufficient persons or contexts are included in a qualitative study to ensure appropriate testing of grounded theories.
   
   
7. _____ A person who participates in the setting or process being studied and also makes careful observations of what is happening.
   
   
8. _____ The similarity of qualitative observations within the same time period (agreement among observers or measures).
   
   
9. _____ The stability of qualitative observations over time.
   
   
10. _____ Summaries of field data collected during the day or over a designated period of time.
    
    
11. _____ Personal chronicles of how the participant observer feels about the social situation in and the relationship of the observer to those in it.
    
    
12. _____ Chronicles of how the participant observer planned to spend time, how time was actually spent, who was seen, their names, what they talked about, and who else needed to be see and what needed to be asked.
    
    
13. _____ Notes taken whenever the researcher observes or hears something important. They are written on the spot to avoid the problem of forgetting and selective memories.

     {Click here to see answers.}

     

SUPPLEMENTARY ACTIVITIES

1. Take the results of a quantitative assessment (such as a course evaluation) and supplement them with qualitative data.
   
   
2. In a situation where you have normally employed a quantitative assessment strategy (such as a course evaluation), use a qualitative strategy instead, and compare the results of the two strategies.
   
   
3. Serve as a participant observer in your own classroom or in an educational setting of a colleague.
   
   
4. Examine a qualitative research report and analyze its strengths and weaknesses.
   
   
5. Examine a predominantly quantitative research report and identify ways in which it could usefully be supplemented with qualitative data.
   
   
6. Conduct a preliminary qualitative study and follow it up with a quantitative study to answer questions or test hypotheses that arose during the qualitative analysis.
   
   
7. Reexamine a course or subject matter that you have previously studied and that employed a qualitative methodology. (Cultural anthropology and sociology are typical examples.) Analyze the research methodologies and identify ways in which the same or analogous methodologies could be applied in educational settings.
   

ANSWERS TO QUIZ AND EXERCISE

Review Quiz

1. (b) Mrs. Hall is examining students in their natural setting. She is not assigning scores to what she sees, but us forming an overall impression. Mr. Romano is comparing scores. Specifically, he is applying a cohort design, which will be discussed in Chapter 11, to evaluate the effectiveness of his program.
   
   
2. (b) Mrs. Kalina is examining the school system in its natural setting rather than assigning scores and making numerical comparisons. Mr. Hill is comparing numerical scores. Specifically, he is doing correlational research, which will be discussed in Chapter 13.
   
   
3. (a) Ethnographers are objective observers of what goes on within a culture. Someone else may make value judgments, and it may be commendable to help people improve their lives, but when ethnographers are acting as ethnographers, they refrain from judging or altering the settings they observe.
   
   
4. (d) Although teachers may be the most common participant observers, anyone who can both participate and observe can be a participant observer.
   
   
5. (d) Although (b) is sometimes also true, (d) is a much more common characteristic of qualitative as compared to quantitative research. If the observer is not initially familiar with the person being observed, he/she will become as familiar as possible during the observation process.
   
   
6. (e) All of these statements are true.
   
   
7. (d) This is often referred to as purposive sampling. The researcher refrains from using quantitative sampling theory but instead looks for subjects to give a realistic impression or to permit a thorough test of particular theories.
8. (d) These are the activities that are typically included in the field log.
   
   
9. (c) These are the contents that are typically included in the field log.
   
   
10. (a) The other activities may also be beneficial, but a member check consists of checking with the members to determine whether the interpretation is reasonable.
    
    
11. (a) She is interpreting the information that she planned to collect during the invention phase and collected during the discovery phase.
    
    
12. (c) Discovery refers to the process of actually making observations, conducting interviews, and collecting other types of data.
    
    
13. (d) It may resemble a short novel, but a good qualitative report includes an analysis of settings and feelings, which are hallmarks of a good novel.
    
    
14. (c) Obtaining a different impression than would be available to an outside observer is an advantage. Being seduced by first impressions is a problem. Relying on easily obtained data is a problem. Focusing excessively on novelties is a problem. These others are problems in the sense that they are likely to give a false impression. Answer (c) refers to a different but true impression.

Matching Exercise

1. l

2. i

3. b

4. a

5. d

6. k

7. j

8. m

9. c

10. h

11. e

12. g

13. f