MA EDUCATION – Designing

Social Research/Evidence Based

Practice

Designing Social Research

Session 4: Research Methods
(Data Collection Tools)

derby.ac.uk

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 Can you remember any methodological
approaches from last week?

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 Developmental Research
"the systematic study of designing, developing and evaluating instructional
programs, processes and products”

(Seels & Richey, 1994, p. 127)

analysis phase,
design phase,
a development phase,
and a try-out and
evaluation phase.
(Richey and Klein, 2005)

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 Review of Philosophical Perspectives

Decisions you make are informed by assumptions:

Epistemological - the nature of knowledge

Ontological -realities you encounter in your research.

Axiological - ways your own values influence your

research process.

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 Your philosophical stance will generally contain an
epistemological or ontological (or both) assumptions that
will guide your research.

continental philosophy relativism

critical theory social constructionism
functionalism social constructivism
humanism nominalism
interpretivism structuralism
phenomenology positivism/scientism
postmodernism pragmatism
critical realism post positivism

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 Research Philosophies within the Three
Research Paradigms
Quantitative Qualitative Mixed Methods

Positivistic Interpretivist Pragmatism

Critical Positivism Phenomenology Critical Realism

Logical Positivism Relativism Post Positivism

Social Postivism Social Constructivist

Radical Structuralist

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 Example of constructively
misaligned research
Research Question:
1) Is there a significant difference in the numeracy test scores of male and female students
entering PGCE programmes?
2) Is there a relationship between numeracy test scores and career aspirations of in-service
teachers.
Literature review: attitude towards teaching, career aspirations, levels of engagement in
PGCE programmes.
Methodology
Paradigm – Mixed paradigm
Philosophical Stance – Post modernism
Methodological Approach – Action Research
Participants – sample of students chosen purposively entering a PGCE programme
Data Analysis – thematic analysis
Recommendations from findings: Female teachers in schools should engage in more
mathematics based professional development activities

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 Data Collection Tools
• Interviews
• Observations
• Questionnaires
• Experiments
• Policy Documents
• Students work
• Tests
• Diaries
• School Data Sets
• Film, Video and photographs, video

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 Interviews

Interviewer is in charge
• Structured e.g. questionnaire
• Semi-structured – closed and open ended items

Informal interviews
• Unstructured – more like a free conversation (but essentially interviewer is
still managing), producing thick descriptions

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 Task 1: Generate 4 interview questions that would help to
answer the following research question;

• How did the shift to online learning during the Covid-19

pandemic, 2020-2022 impact upon the practice of an HE
practitioner?

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 Phenomenological Approach to Interviewing

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1049732313519710
Contextualization: Objects or experiences of the lifeworld stand out against a
backdrop of context or horizon, with a personal biography that provides meaning
to that object or experience (Husserl, 1970).
Apprehending the Phenomenon: Phenomenological method posits that the
identity of a thing or experience has modes of appearance and is experienced in
many ways.
Clarifying the Phenomenon: Imaginative Variation is applied when the researcher
is conscious of an element of experience, which is then put through the process of
imaginatively varying its structural components to uncover invariant parts and thus
clarifying its structure (Husserl, 1960) “Describe how the unit experience would
change if a doctor was present at all times”

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 Task 2: Generate an interview schedule that utilises the three aspects
of phenomenological research identified in the slide; You choose an
area…perhaps in your research area. Work in pairs on this..be prepared
to share.

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 Post Modern Approach to Interviewing

Kvale (1996) – mining (positivistic) V travelling (post modern)

Post modern approach to interviewing – avoidance of universal truth,
challenges meta narratives, knowledge creation subject to critique and
negotiation, many versions of the truth exist

(O`Donnell, 2003)

Interviewer and interviewee roles are deconstructed. Understanding is co-

constructed – an exchange.

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 Task 3

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 Focus Groups

• form of group interview

• several participants and a moderator
• individuals in a social context
• discussion of specific issue
• interaction between group members
• to explore attitudes, perceptions, feelings and ideas about a specific topic
• for understanding underlying motives and meanings that explain particular views
and opinions
• for exploring new areas of research where the researcher quickly wants to gain a
broad feel for the issues as they are perceived by particular groups of people

(Denscombe 2007, p. 180)

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 Selecting Participants
• average 5-10 participants per study
• typically lasts about 1 - 2 hours
• usually on the basis of a shared
experience or characteristic
• usually selected by using purposive
sampling or possibly quota sampling
• strangers versus ‘natural groups’
• which makes it easier to discuss the topic?
• natural groups use taken for granted assumptions

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 What size should your focus group be?
What level of moderator involvement?
• over-recruit in anticipation of ‘no-shows’ • try to be unobtrusive and non-directive
Use smaller sized groups when: • ask small number of general questions to
• the topics is sensitive or controversial stimulate discussion
• allow a ‘free rein’ to participants
• each person will have plenty to say
• discover what they define as important
• you want to glean personal, detailed
accounts • intervene if the discussion wanders ‘off
track’ or there is a long silence
• user larger groups when:
• respond to potentially interesting points
• you want to hear numerous brief
that are not picked up by the participants
suggestions
(Morgan 1998)

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 Group Interactions
Important but often overlooked!!!
• complementary interactions
• consensus emerges
• agreement between viewpoints
• each participant builds on the previous remark
• argumentative interactions
• participants challenge each other
• opinions are revised and modified
• makes people account for their views
(Kitzinger1994)

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 Limitations of Focus Groups
• researcher has less control over
proceedings
• data are difficult to analyse
• produce large volume of data
• need to examine both themes in what people say
and patterns of interaction
• difficult to organize / risk of no-shows
• very time consuming to transcribe
• ‘groupthink’ (Janis; 1972, 1982)
• potential to cause distress

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 Task 4

Lets engage in a focus group interview…..

What shall we discuss?

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 Task 5

Watch the video by Graham Gibbs

As different types of interviews are discussed note down possible limitations and
benefits of these types of interviews.

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 Classification by Situation
• Active (Holstein and Gubrium) – two way process.
• Biographical – temporal.
• Oral history – e.g. living through the war.
• Collaborative/Group (inc Focus groups: interested in interaction)
• Debates and confrontational – eg. Jeremy Paxman
• Long interview, repeated interviews
• Multiple Interviewer
• Projective.
• Narrative – an aspect of someone's life ( very little intervention)

Summary of Graham Gibbs Lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWCh1RhYT-g

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 Deutscher (1966) - verbal attitude not always displayed in their behavior

`People are never more mistaken about themselves than when they are
speaking from the heart`
G.K.
Chesterton
`People have a working understanding of themselves which forms part of their
ability to relate to one another: it is constantly revised through the process of
interaction and reflection. How accurate it is is another matter.`
(Gillham,
2005)

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 Reference List

Denscombe, M. (2007) The Good Research Guide, (3rd ed), Maidenhead:

OUP
Gibbs, G. (2011) Research Interviewing Part 3: Types of Interviews, [Online
video], Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWCh1RhYT-g,
Accessed 10/02/2022
Gray (2018) Doing Research in the Real World (4th ed). London: Sage
Kitzinger (1994) The methodology of Focus Groups: the importance of
interaction between research participants, in Sociology of Health and
Illness, 16:1, 103-121
Kvale, S. (1996) Inter Views: An Introduction to Qualitative Research
Interviewing , London: Sage

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 Mann, S. (2010) A Critical Review of Qualitative Interviews in Applied
Linguistics 32/1: 6–24
Morgan (1998) Practical strategies for combining qualitative and quantitative
methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Morton, P. (2006). Using critical realism to explain strategic information
systems planning. JITTA : Journal of Information Technology Theory and
Application, 8(1), 1
O’Donnell, K. (2003) Postmodernism , Oxford: Lion Publishing.
Opie, C. (ed) (2004) Doing educational research, London: Sage
Silverman, D. (2008). Interpreting qualitative data, 3rd Ed. London: Sage.
Williams, J. (2020) How to read and understand educational research, London:
Sage

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