Qualitative track:
Assignment 4 (20%) DUE MAY 4
1. Formulate your hypotheses
2. Put together your interview schedule
3. Conduct at least one interview
3. Conduct at least one interview
4. Submit the transcription of the interview
5. Submit your field notes/field diary pertaining to this interview.
6. Write the first part of your research report based on the structure provided below.
6. Write the first part of your research report based on the structure provided below.
Suggested outline:
Introduction
A. State your research question. As an example, you can open your paper by stating, “In this paper, I would like to propose a study examining….” , and in the second sentence continue with stating, “More specifically, this proposed question aims to investigate…” and explain your question in more detail.
B. Discuss why this question is worth studying. Why does this question require scholarly/scientific attention? Why is it personally interesting for you?
Literature Review
Improved version of your lit rev section.
At the end of this section, you should
provide a transition to your methods section. This transition typically states
what the studies you reviewed looked at in general, and how your study will
contribute to this existing body of research.
Methods
A. Conceptualization: What is the main concept (or concepts) you want to examine? Explain how you will define this concept for the purposes of your study. Again, here you can refer to past studies that might have utilized this concept, and if you do so, make sure to properly cite these sources.
B. Operationalization: Working with your conceptualization, operationalize your concepts i.e. clarify, how you will measure each concept.
C. State the specific hypothesis(es) that you wish to examine.
D. Explain which research methods you use - semi-structured interviews with XXX etc. The method section should give a detailed plan of your study. sampling, access, where the interviews will be carried out, how many etc etc. In indicating the method of your choice, explain why you picked this particular method as opposed to others. Also, discuss possible disadvantages of using this method.
E. Describe the research design: What type of research design was used to collect your data? Here, appropriate to the method used, you should explain all the specific steps that were taken to collect data.
F. Discuss sampling: What kind of sampling was used? Why? Explain the sampling procedure.
G. Ethics: A discussion of ethical concerns in your design. How do you plan to handle these issues?
For an example of a qualitative methods section click here. This is just an example. It is not perfect so instead of imitating it, write your own version and try to address all the issues outlined above.
Appendix
1. Interview schedule (your list of questions) - should be in the language the interview will be conducted.
2. Interview transcript - be careful to clearly write down which ones are your questions and probes and which ones are the respondent's answers - should be in the original language of the interview - i.e. in Turkish for most cases.
3. Field diary/notes pertaining to this interview - You should reflect on your interview and write down your thoughts and observations. You can also include contextual information. Here are some of the questions you need to consider when writing your field notes (based on Roulston et al. 2003. "Learning to Interview in the Social Sciences" Qualitative Inquiry, Vol 9, No.4, p.665)
1. Interview schedule (your list of questions) - should be in the language the interview will be conducted.
2. Interview transcript - be careful to clearly write down which ones are your questions and probes and which ones are the respondent's answers - should be in the original language of the interview - i.e. in Turkish for most cases.
3. Field diary/notes pertaining to this interview - You should reflect on your interview and write down your thoughts and observations. You can also include contextual information. Here are some of the questions you need to consider when writing your field notes (based on Roulston et al. 2003. "Learning to Interview in the Social Sciences" Qualitative Inquiry, Vol 9, No.4, p.665)
- How did you think you did in explaining the purpose of your research?
- How did you think you did with the explanation of the consent process?
- How did the interview context enable or constrain the interview process?
- How did you do in building rapport with the participant?
- How did your questions influence the participants' responses?
- Were there interruptions?
- What would you do differently if you were to do the same interview again?
- what suggestions for improvement do you have for your interview techniques?
Quantitative track:
Assignment 4 (20%)
Formulate your hypotheses
Discuss conceptualization and measurement
Find an appropriate database
Include the questionnaire used in this survey research - if you use survey data.
Include the questionnaire used in this survey research - if you use survey data.
Suggested outline:
Introduction
A. State your research question. As an example, you can open your paper by stating, “In this paper, I would like to propose a study examining….” , and in the second sentence continue with stating, “More specifically, this proposed question aims to investigate…” and explain your question in more detail.
B. Discuss why this question is worth studying. Why does this question require scholarly/scientific attention? Why is it personally interesting for you?
Literature Review
Improved version of your lit rev section.
At the end of this section, you should provide a transition to your methods section. This transition typically states what the studies you reviewed looked at in general, and how your study will contribute to this existing body of research.
Methods
Your methods section will provide a detailed plan of how your question is to be studied. It should include all of the following information:
A. Conceptualization: What is the main concept (or concepts) you want to examine? Explain how you will define this concept for the purposes of your study. Again, here you can refer to past studies that might have utilized this concept, and if you do so, make sure to properly cite these sources.
B. Operationalization: Working with your conceptualization, operationalize your concepts, i.e. clarify, how you will measure each concept.
C. State the specific hypothesis(es) that you wish to examine.
D. Identify the independent and the dependent variables in the hypothesis. Explain how you determined which variable was independent and which was dependent.
E. State at what level each variable is measured.
F. State which method was used to collect the data. Discuss possible disadvantages of using this method.
G. Describe the research design: What type of research design was used to collect your data? Here, appropriate to the method used, you should explain all the specific steps that were taken to collect data.
H. Discuss the reliability and validity of your measurements. What kinds of reliability and validity problems might emerge in this study? How can you resolve these potential problems?
I. Discuss sampling: What kind of sampling was used? Why? Explain the sampling procedure.
J. Ethics:
For an example of a quantitative methods section click here. This is just an example. It is not perfect so instead of imitating it, write your own version and try to address all the issues outlined above.
Appendix
1. Dataset which you will use: A printed page of the data set. Variable names and codes.
2. Questionnaire if you use survey research.
