Methodology:

Designing the Inquiry Project

Scholarly Inquiry

Dr. Stephen Jay D. Co

 Methodology
• The project “recipe”.
• You describe the steps you took to
conduct your stusy or designed your
project.
• How detailed should it be?
• The reader should have enough
information that he/she could replicate
your study with the same or similar
population and arrive at the same results.
 Operational Framework
• A visual representation of your steps to
complete your research.
• Construct a flow-chart with labels.
• Make it a “figure” for your document.
• Follow APA style for formatting a “figure”.
• Be sure to have a narrative of your
Operational Framework.
• Tell the reader what occurs at each step.
 Methodology
✓Type of research
✓Design
✓Sampling
✓Data gathering procedure
✓Data analysis procedure
✓Ethical Considerations
 Type of Research of Project
• Descriptive
• Experimental
• Historical
• Qualititative
• Project (Curriculum design)
 Design
• Survey
• Interrelationships studies
• Developmental studies
• Experimental studies
 Surveys
• School surveys (ie. Teachers, students,
administrators, etc.)
• Job analysis
• Documentary analysis
• Public opinion surveys
• Community surveys
 Interrelationships
• Case studies
• Causal comparative
• Correlational studies
 Developmental Studies
• Growth studies
• Trend studies
• Model or system development
 Experimental Studies
• True experimental designs
• Quasi-experimental designs
• Pre-experimental designs
 Qualitative Research
• Qualitative research involves the studied use and
collection of a variety of empirical materials - case study,
personal experience, introspective, life story, interview,
observational, historical, interactional, and visual texts-
that describe routine and problematic moments and
meanings in individuals lives.
• Deploy a wide range of interconnected methods, hoping
always to get a better fix on the subject matter at hand.
 Qualitative Research
• Qualitative research is multimethod in focus,
involving an interpretative, naturalistic
approach to its subject matter.
• Qualitative Researchers study “things”
(people and their thoughts) in their natural
settings, attempting to make sense of, or
interpret, phenomena in terms of the
meanings people bring to them.
 Data Gathering Procedures
• Instrument development
• Instrument description
• Validity
• Reliability
• How will you get the information?
– Self-administered survey questionnaire
• Mailed
• On-line
• Ask in person
• Ask over the phone
 Data Gathering Procedures
– Interview
• Face to face
• Open-ended
• Follow-up questions
– Observation (Ethnographic)
• Watching
• Listening
• Recording
• Non-participatory
 Instrumentation
• Develop an Interview Schedule or Guide
• Choose structured, semi-structured, or
unstructured
• Discuss the types of questions included
in the interview schedule or guide
• Provide examples of the questions you
asked your informants
 Instrument Validation
• Does the instrument measure the
constructs we intend to measure?
• Is the instrument reliable?
– If we retest the subjects with the same
instrument over a period of time (with no
treatment in between), will they respond the
same?
– Is there inter-item reliability?
 Instrument Validation
• Is the instrument valid?
• Does it measure what you want it to
measure?
 Instrumentation - Pilot Test
• The pilot test will assist the researcher in
determining if there are flaws, limitations, or
other weaknesses within the interview design
and enable the researcher to make necessary
revisions prior to the implementation of the study.
A pilot-study was conducted with 3 senior managers and were interviewed at
their workplace. The interview was audio-recorded to ensure correct use of
the device. During the exercise, attention was given to body language and
non-verbal responses and the manner of asking questions. As the
researcher was the main data collection instrument, the pilot-study provided
an insight into phenomenon studied, increased experience in interviewing as
well as enhanced interpersonal skills. Also errors in interviewing skills were
rectified and not repeated in the main study.
 Sampling
• In this section, provide the following:
• Who are the participants?
• How did you choose them? Justify your
method.
• Why did you choose them and why?
• How many and why?
• Where do you plan to conduct the study?
 Qualitative Data Collection
Techniques
• In depth Interviewing
• Focus Groups
• Participant Observations
• Ethnographic Studies
• Projective Techniques
• Record and Document Analysis
 Data Analysis Procedures
• Statistical procedures (ie. use of SAS,
SPSS, or another analysis software
program)
• Descriptive
• Inferential
• Qualitative – transcription of interviews
(coding, categorizing, etc.)
• Use of specialized procedures
 Data Analysis Procedures
• Explain how you analysed the data collection.
The “How to” guide.
• Give a step by step narrative description how
you conducted the entire analysis of your data.
• You might start by making a bulleted list in
another document, and then narrate in
paragraph.
• Show what you did with the collected data and
that it fits well with your research philosophy,
research design and research questions.
 Data Analysis Procedures
• All qualitative data analysis involves the
same four essential steps:

1. Raw data management- ‘data cleaning’

2. Data reduction, I, II – ‘chunking’, ‘coding’
3. Data interpretation – ‘coding’, ‘clustering’
4. Data representation – ‘telling the story’,
‘making sense of the data for others’
http://ojs.aishe.org/index.php/aishe-
j/article/viewFile/335/553
If you are working with a particular
research design…?

• The following expert lists are provided

to help you match specific qualitative
research designs with the appropriate
qualitative data analysis strategies…
 APPROACHES & EXPERTS
Domain Analysis: Thematic Analysis
– Spradley (1979) – Boyatzis (1998)
– Guest, MacQueen,
Grounded theory,
Namey (2012)
constant comparison
analysis: Ethnographic
analysis:
– Birks & Mills (2011)
– Spradley (1979)
– Charmaz (2006)
– Sunstein & Chiseri-
– Glaser (1967)
Strater (2012)
– Strauss & Corbin
– Wolcott (2005,
(1990)
2008)
 Thematic analysis
• applied to a set of texts, such as interview transcripts.
• The researcher closely examines the data to identify common
themes – topics, ideas and patterns of meaning that come up
repeatedly.
 APPROACHES & EXPERTS
Linguistic/metaphor Phenomenological
analysis: thematic, Analysis:
emotional barometer, – Colaizzi (1978)
cultural values – Giorgi (1985, 2009)
– Whitcomb & – Holstein & Gubrium
Deshler (1983) (2012)
Cultural Analysis – Moustakas (1988,
1990)
– Wolcott, 1999 – Smith, Flowers, &
– Van Maanen, 1984 Larkin (2009)
– van Manen (1990)
Felice D. Billups, EdD., NERA
Webinar Presentation
 Phenomenological Analysis
• The aim of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) is to
explore in detail how participants are making sense of their personal
and social world, and the main currency for an IPA study is the
meanings particular experiences, events, states hold for participants.
 APPROACHES & EXPERTS
Auto/Biographical Case Study:
analysis: – Stake (1995)
– Denzin (1989) Focus Groups:
– Spry (2011) – Krueger & Casey
Narrative analysis: (2009)
– Holstein & Gubrium Mixed Methods:
(2012) – Creswell & Plano
– Reissman (2008) Clark (1995)
– Yussen & Ozcan – Tashakkori &
(1997) Teddlie (2010)
Felice D. Billups, EdD., NERA
Webinar Presentation
 Ethical Considerations
• Letters of permission to conduct the study.
• Letters of invitation to participate with attached
consent forms.
• A paragraph must be inserted that states the
study is deemed to be one of minimal risk to
participants and that the probability and
magnitude of harm or discomfort anticipated in
the research will not be greater than any
ordinarily encountered in daily life, or during the
performance of routine physical or psychological
examinations or tests.
 Ethical Considerations
• A statement should be made that
confidentiality of recovered data will be
maintained at all times, and identification
of participants will not be available during
or after the study.
• Participants should be informed that they
could withdraw from the study at any time
without questions being asked.
 Prepare your Methodology
(2-3 paragraphs)
✓Type of research
✓Design
✓Sampling
✓Data gathering procedure
✓Data analysis procedure
✓Ethical Considerations