PhD Seminar Qualitative Research Dr Janice Whatley September Dr J Whatley, September 2014

Agenda  Part 1  Introducing Qualitative Research  Part 2  Methods for Qualitative Research  Part 3  Analysing and Presenting Qualitative Research  At the end of this seminar, you will have material to enable you to write an appropriate research methods chapter.  Dr J Whatley, September

Something about me Dr J Whatley, September  Academic in the Computing and Information Systems fields  Carried out research in educational technology  Completed my PhD a few years ago  Research interests include  Educational Technology  Human Factors  Multimedia  Team Working  Editor of an academic journal - IJELLO

What is Research  Diligent and systematic inquiry or investigation into a subject in order to discover or revise facts, theories, applications, etc.  A particular instance or piece of research.  To make researches, investigate carefully.  To make an extensive investigation into.  Synonyms for the word: study, inquire, examine, scrutinise Dr J Whatley, September

Types of Research  'pure research'. This approach is undertaken in order to contribute to abstract, theoretical understanding;  'instrumentalist research'. An alternative motivation is to contribute to understanding in order to be able to more effectively act or to 'design interventions' into the environment. Two sub-categories of instrumentalist research need to be distinguished:  'applied research'. This commences with a technology (an artefact, a technique, or both) and uses it in an experimental fashion to intervene into personal, organisational or social processes; and  'problem-oriented research'. This begins with a problem. It experiments with existing technologies and/or prototypes new ones, in an effort to devise a solution (e.g.Clarke, 2000). Dr J Whatley, September

A typical Research Methods chapter  Identify philosophical stance  Design the research instrument  Define methods of data collection  Choose appropriate modes of analysis Dr J Whatley, September

Research Onion (Saunders, 2003) Dr J Whatley, September

Alternative models of research stages Dr J Whatley, September  Crotty (2007) narrowed them down to be:  Epistemology;  Theoretical perspective;  Methodology;  Methods.  Miles and Huberman (1994)  Identify philosophical stance  Design the research instrument  Define methods of data collection  Choose appropriate modes of analysis

Qualitative Research Dr J Whatley, September  Qualitative research focuses on text rather than numbers  Text is what people say, written and verbal  Enables researchers to explain and understand social and cultural phenomena

Three little words Dr J Whatley, September  What?  Why?  How?

Talking about your work  Can you give me in 1 sentence (or 2) what your thesis is all about.  If you can’t explain your work in this way, you will not be able to defend it in the Viva. Dr J Whatley, September