DHM1020 Research Methodologies

Introduce the research design

Very briefly summarise your research design; eg the research takes a qualitative approach using a case-study strategy. This should be brief because youve already presented the research design in assessment 1, the proposal, so you dont want to repeat too much of that information here.

Summarise the methods of data collection identified in the research design; eg systematic observation of four classes, one focus group with eight pupils and one semi-structured interview with the class teacher. Then, introduce the particular method that your report focusses on; eg this report evaluates semi-structured interviews as a method of data collection for my research.

Explain and evaluate the method of data collection thats the focus of your report

1. Why is it an appropriate method of data collection for your particular research?
2. What do you need to be mindful of when conducting this type of data collection?
3. Explain how you carried out the data collection for your Research Methods assessment. For this section youll need to explain briefly what you did, as its likely to be a bit different from what you plan to do for your Major Study; eg:

For the Major Study three primary school teachers will be interviewed; however for the purposes of this Research Methods assessment, a colleague who has children in primary school was interviewed to find out her opinion about school dinners [or whatever topic is related to your research].

For document analysis points to consider include: explainthe document/s you are analysing; explain your reasons for selecting this document/s (or section of a document),eg because its pivotal in policy change, because its representative (or atypical) of its type; justify why it counts as a primary source.

Evaluate the process of carrying out the data collection; what worked and what didnt work so well? What improvements would you make if you repeated this method of data collection?

How much data do I need to collect?

1. You need enough data to do something useful with it, but not so much that its overwhelming. Here are some general guidelines; but discuss your ideas with a module tutor if youre uncertain:
2. Focus-groups, interviews and observation: approximately 30 minutes worth of data in either one or two sets (ie one 30 min interview or two 15 min interviews, etc).
3. Questionnaire: approximately 12 completed questionnaires.
4. Document analysis: approximately 24 sides A4, 2-4 pictures or photos, about 30 minutes of audio-visual (eg film).

Presentation, analysis and interpretation of results

You will need to transcribe interviews, focus group notes, etc in order to analyse them. Allow yourself plenty of time to do this it takes longer than you think!Raw data, ie transcripts from interviews and focus-groups, and instruments of data collection, eg your observation schedule or questionnaire, should be included as an appendix (the appendix is not included in the word count). Your marker may request to see completed questionnaires, observations schedules, etc, so keep them somewhere safe and accessible.

Present the results of your data collection clearly and consistently. You might decide to use tables or graphs, or you might choose to write-up results paragraph-style, depending on what method of data collection youve used. If you use tables or graphs remember to label them very clearly.

Explain how you have analysed the data and why this is the best way of doing it for your research; eg inductive or deductive, descriptive, analytic, etc... Explain and illustrate your coding system if youve adopted one.For document analysis your approach might be, for example, thematic, comparative or compositional (compositional applies in particular to pictures or photos). Evaluate the process of data analysis; how did it go for you? Would you make any changes or improvements if you did it again?

Write up your interpretation of your results. Link back to published literature on the topic if you can.Your tutors realise that the interpretation might be a bit thin because you wont have very much data to go on; for this assessment your tutors are more concerned with the process than with your actual results.We want you to demonstrate that you have a good evaluative understanding of how to do research, so you need to demonstrate that you know how to present, analyse and interpret data robustly, (so that youll be able to do it really well in your Major Study).

Explain and evaluate how research ethics apply to your research design

1. Explain what ethics in research means, who it applies to and why it is important.
2. Reflect on the potential sensitivities of your research topic.
3. Considerethical concerns raised by your sample and/or method of data collection and how they might they be dealt with? This might include, for example, informed consent, right to withdraw, and inclusion of children or vulnerable adults in your sample. For document analysis consider the source and intended audience of the document being analysed;eg it is expected that journal articles will be used for academic research, but what about personal comments posted on blogs? How will you manage ethics if you want to use comments like these? Likewise photographs of, or that include, people.
4. Remember not to conflate anonymity and confidentiality.

Explain how validity is implemented in your overall research design.Points to discuss might include:

1. Sampling; random, purposive, representative.....?
2. Relevance and authority of participants or documents.
3. Relationship between research questions instruments of data collection; eg will your interview questions get the data you need to answer your research questions.
4. Scope for triangulation of data sets.
5. For document analysis you might also consider the author, intended audience and socio-historic context.

Explain how reliability is implemented in your overall research design

Points to discuss might include: features that might compromise objectivity in data collection - eg interviewer effect, leading interview / questionnaire questions, unintentional bias in observation, etc and how to alleviate them; transparent and systematic data analysis; how representative the sample is; how to expand the data collection to improve reliability if more time and resources were available.

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