Reflection 1
Topic: How do you feel about qualitative research methods and design?
After listening to Dr. Warren’s podcast again on Introductions to Qualitative methods I developed a better understanding of what qualitative data research is and how does this fit my research in the future. As mentioned, we need to find a lot of depth in the research as qualitative is subjective in nature which means there are several different perspectives that I need to look into user interviews with structured, semi-structured and unstructured, field studies that are direct observation and contextual inquiry, diary study which are historical ways and change in attitude and focus groups to question who, what, when why and where.
I foresee going through a mixed method of quantitative and qualitative. Due to the extensive research, I need to obtain information to provide new technology to refugee camps which more often would be different from each country, location, camp, and population. I will need to find the depth of information, observe possibilities of prior grounding and understanding, why people do, and what they do, identify approaches that best fit the camp model. Moreover, will need to focus on improving the situation or fix and focus on the improvement. For this, I now feel that my research is more qualitative than quantitative.
Does it speak to you and make intuitive sense?
Thinking of my future research, I am positive qualitative research will be more helpful for my research in trying to gather information through the field office survey, interviewing the camp authorities, education offices, and through the user, interviews through one-to-one conversation over the phone. As interviews in-person and direct observation and focus groups would not be a possibility sometimes on the research of providing new technology to the camp population. Although all these methods will be useful in my work environment to gain information to improve present situations, solving problems, and focusing on the improvement of faculty and student base research.
Is there something that concerns you about the outcomes?
Yes, I had a tough time understanding the numerical data involvement in within the qualitative and the quantitative when the survey is sent to gather the perception about the value of the tool which is subjective, and when the qualitative research is rated which gives a numerical value effect although this was a qualitative approach.
What do you like about them, if anything?
Even though I like the quantitative methods of research with numerical data, going by the qualitative methods and different ways of exploring the topics, tools, and ideas, I feel I would prefer qualitative to quantitative research. I do understand that qualitative methods are intensive and the approach is completely different but being in the education field the qualitative methods of research would be more useful for me than the other to inquire into things, try to improve the situation, solving problems, trying to focus on improving the situation for faculty and report the lessons learned, will help me in my current Instructional design position.
Reflection 2
After working on the first Coding Practice, how are you feeling about the research approach?
As practiced in the class meeting coding is a process of labeling and organizing the qualitative research in different themes “ a common recurring pattern” of sources by comparing the same topic, in between relationships. Yet again it is a challenge to learn a new approach to qualitative research. This helps to better analyze and summarize words, phrases, sentences, or the whole paragraph. With a bit of practice, I should be able to accomplish this with confidence for my future research analysis to categorize the data.
What makes sense and what does not?
As I understood, this coding process is done through customer feedback where we use common words, phrases, or numbers to fit together. And the recommendation is to use short phrases. Also, initially I thought that this was more towards the compiling and generating the research document itself but later reading and researching on the topic I gathered this is for generating the analysis of feedback.
What challenges did you face?
Initially, I felt reading and understanding the concept was a challenge with each peer member’s discussion I understood the real scenario. Getting to know this better challenged me to read and research more into the coding process as I am sure to use this in the future.
Is this something you are comfortable with immediately? Something you think you will get comfortable with.
I am comfortable doing this right now, although I feel this would be a tedious task if we must do this manually, and if the data set is large, this would go for hours especially coding these by hand. This would also take more manpower and sometimes this could bring meaningless outcomes. As per Robson, & McCartan (2011), the familiarizing process is time-consuming too as I need to give time immerse myself with the data and be familiar with the data collected by repeated reading, by searching for meanings and patterns. If the data range is smaller the compilation of this task should be manageable and reachable.
There seem to be different types of approaches 1.) Quasi-Statistical approach with word, phrase frequencies and inter-correlations method and 2.) Thematic coding approach and Grounded theory approach. As per Medelyan (n.d.), the thematic analysis software helps automatic analysis that is used in larger customer feedback, saves time, and increases accuracy which will be helpful in my future research. I strongly believe I would get accustomed to this method over time.
References
Robson, C., McCartan, K. (2011) Real world research – fourth edition
Medelyan, A (n.d.) Coding Qualitative Data: How to Code Qualitative Research (Updated 2020)https://getthematic.com/insights/coding-qualitative-data/
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