Phenomenology, Case Study and Grounded Theory By Dr Rojnath Pandey

Research Question How do students in a freshman engineering fundamentals class describe the experience of “academic cheating”? –Context bound –Personal experience based –Structure or ‘essence’ of term

Data Collection Most common: depth interviews Other possible approaches: reflective essays, open-ended survey items, projective techniques such as posing scenarios, showing videotape clips to elicit responses

Sampling All students in class If sample, based on applicable strategy – Students who are “information rich” cases (students who have cheated) –Maximum variation (gender, GPA, etc.) –Snowball or other strategy –Purposeful –Small Ns

Analysis Search for patterns in statements across cases that lead to characteristics that are not part of the phenomenon and those that are, distinctions with other related terms Recursive coding until essence is captured across cases –Specialized text analysis software: Nvivo or others

Case Study

Question What happened in –the case of Mickey Mouse’s plagiarized term paper? –the cases of the Seven Dwarfs’ plagiarized term papers? Specific instance(s) or context Multiple lenses, holistic view

Data Collection Variety of choices, including –Document analysis (Disney U policies on cheating, drafts of papers turned in, etc.) –Interviews (with Mickey, the Dwarfs, their teachers, administrators at Disney U, etc.) –Observation -if event has not occurred yet- (go to Disneyworld and watch as Mickey and the Dwarfs compose their term papers) –All focus on as many aspects of the case, or cases, that will give the story

Sampling Those documents, people, places, etc. that are likely to be relevant to the question

Data Analysis Pattern analysis, usually first by organizer such as chronology, viewpoint of specific actors, etc.; then by theme Single case(s) (Dopey, Sneezy, etc.) Also, cross-case analysis, if multiple (Patterns across the Dwarfs)

Grounded Theory

Question Is there a relationship between characteristics of the instructional activities in our curriculum and the amount and kind of cheating that occurs? –Relationship between variables –Operational definition of terms

Data Collection Thick description of instances of cheating Thick description of instructional activities that were associated with them Obtained from documents, interviews, observation

Sampling Cases that had been reported to Student Misconduct last year Or, other cases that can be accessed Within Engineering School Related to instructional activities of school (as opposed to external exams, parking tickets, etc.)

Data Analysis Open coding (data that answer, “What is this about?”) Axial coding: relationships between codes Search for characteristics that are associated across cases Selection of core category and testing of patterns and refining to accommodate data Statement that captures cases and describes context