CHD4630 Midterm Flashcards
The four elements of research design
Variables, Sample, Location, and Method
Element of Research Design: Variable
what kind of data to collect
Element of Research Design: Sample
from whom to collect data
Element of Research Design: Location
where to collect your data
Element of Research Design: Method
how to collect and analyze your data
Clarifying your research focus
Clarify & focus in definitions help your research question be understood by readers
-What you aim to achieve
Sub-questions provide direction and structure for your research
-Ex: What role do family and friends play in motivating Facebook use? Extent of particular software applications motivate?
Strengths of Qualitative research Design
Emergent research design
-info. explore may influence future data gathering decisions (flexibility)
Exploration
-useful as first step in understanding ideas, perspectives and phenomena
In-depth understanding
-can enable deeper understanding of individuals’ perspectives and experiences
Weaknesses of Qualitative research
Lack of Breadth
-hamper ability to gather data from a broad range or large number of cases
-possible skewed understanding
Time-consuming
-voluminous data
-higher costs and longer time to prep data for analysis
Limited ability to generalize to population
-experiences or perspectives of small numbers
Strengths of quantitative research
Easier to generalize results
Large scale
-collecting data from large numbers, greater confidence not biased
Statistical analysis
-complex and powerful analysis that can identify subtle statistical patterns in the data
Visualizations
-easily translate data
Weaknesses of Quantitative data
Loss of depth and context
-individual-level patterns can be obscured, important contextual factors may be neglected
Limitations in accuracy
-limited depth of measurement or respondents not fully understanding or engaging with survey questions
Disconnected
-“Operationalizing” concepts and turning into Qs can create measures that are removed from real-world phenomenon
-may measure what not intended
Elements of Action research
Cycle of taking action
-Ex: Implementing intervention
Evaluating an action’s effectiveness
-Ex: Did intervention address research question effectively
Using that knowledge to inform future action
-Ex: modifying intervention
Action research does what?
Enables researchers to intervene with aims of improving or affecting something about your sample while creating new research knowledge
-may be specific system, service, product or outcome
-refined product & new knowledge
-usually continue until resources dry up or evaluation results become satisfactory
Evaluation research
= focus on assessing whether objectives or intended outcomes have been achieved by a particular intervention or initiative
-real life events or contexts
-Social, policy, learning, or business
-aims to provide useful information on how and why particular interventions or processes work or fail
-goal is to inform future decision-making
Process of writing literature review includes
- Focus you literature review while accounting for the big picture
- Search for books and articles
- Organize your sources
- Continually concept map
- Begin-in-depth reviews of categories
- Write your literature review
Process of writing literature review: Focus you literature review while accounting for the big picture
Place your topic within a relatively broad research and policy context to establish why your topic is interesting and orient your readers
Save time by defining your focus as narrowly as possible
The more tightly focused your topic, the more efficient and effective your research can be
If you don’t yet have a specific research question, try to sharpen your focus by talking to your colleagues/supervisor or doing initial reading about general topic
Keep making adjustments as you develop your literature review
Process of writing literature review: Search for books and articles
Investigate a lot of different approaches and ideas (open and curious, while maintaining goal)
Develop a search plan (words and phrases likely to lead to information)
-Enables you to maintain good coverage in your search and to explain how you went about your search in your research report
Evaluate & access potential sources
Weigh strengths and weaknesses
Peer review is gold standard for source credibility
-Widely accepted quality control mechanism in social research (can vary, so be critical)
Start with electronically accessible, saving difficult access for a later detailed search
Ensure relevance by first reading the title, then read the abstract or summary, and then by downloading or recording the details of the publication and its citation
Process of writing literature review: Organize your sources
Organize them into categories, with a folder on your computer for each category
Place downloaded publications into these folders along with a document containing copied and pasted details of publications you couldn’t download
Once you’ve created a preliminary set of categories, take stock to see if you can combine categories, if you need to expand your search or if you should re-focus away from any categories
Process of writing literature review: Begin-in-depth reviews of categories
Shouldn’t just report, but critically evaluate your sources’ claims
Evaluate whether the methods used in the study provide sufficient evidence for its claims
Don’t assume that established researchers are producing good research
Take 2 different sets of detailed notes on your sources
First set summarize the methods, findings and a few quotes that effectively describe the research results or conclusions
Second, start identifying connections (similarities or divergences) with other literature
Process of writing literature review: Write your literature review
Clear organization
Include introduction that emphasizes its importance, as well as stating what research has been conducted and how the section will be structured
Next, body section being the main part where you present your summaries, evaluation and application of the literature to your topic
Conclude by summarizing the gaps your research will be addressing
Reviewing your literature includes
Evaluation of core content
Assessment of evidence
Coverage of the topic
Reviewing your literature: Evaluation of core content
Has the author clearly defined the topic? How significant?
Whats author’s theoretical framework?
Does the information come across as opinion or propaganda?
Are assumptions reasonable?
Does the author take a radically different approach from others? Could it have been better if approached from a different perspective?
Reviewing your literature: Assessment of evidence
Are there methodological shortcomings? If so, how fundamental to the author’s claims are they? What are the implications for the author’s claims? Is the chosen research method leading the author to make certain claims?
Are claims supported with sufficient and credible evidence? Is the author overreaching with the publication’s claims?
Does the article rest on primary or secondary research (or just the author’s arguments or application of the theory)?
Reviewing your literature: Coverage of the topic
Does the source confirm or support other sources you’ve read, update other material, or provide new insights?
Does the publication appear to be of good quality?
What does it mean to be analytical?
Summarize publications, presenting any major patterns in the literature and relationships between studies
Use quotations only when the author says something in a particularly concise way, or when you are going to be disagreeing with the author’s claims
Keep your own ‘voice’ as you write
-may feel pressure to mimic the style or terminology of your sources, but staying authentic helps ensure the review presents your analysis
Identifying key gaps in the literature
Finding a research gap that you can address is a good way to demonstrate the value of your research
Helpful to ask self:
Are there areas of worthwhile study relating to your topic that have not been covered by other researchers?
Are relevant studies neglecting a particular type of evidence?
Is there a relevant theoretical concept that has not yet been applied to the topic?
What is research ethics?
= values or principles that are integral to your research objectives and define your responsibilities to your participants, your institution and yourself
-Provides guiding principles during the research process
-Essential in order to maintain a positive relationship with your research participants that will stand the test of time
-Participants need to feel they are protected and not taken advantage of
Purpose of research ethics is to
Maintain integrity
Protect the welfare of others
Build support for you and your research
Give you direction when facing challenging situations
Purpose of research ethics: Maintain integrity
Promotes good research by establishing that you should be consistently truthful, seek to gain knowledge and avoid error
Established a set of expectations for your conduct that prohibits falsifying information, deception or other acts that might bring disrepute to you, the quality of your research or your institution
Purpose of research ethics: Protect the welfare of others
A fundamental principle of research ethics is to do no harm to others
You must ensure your research does not put at risk the welfare or reputation of those directly or indirectly involved in your research
Purpose of research ethics: Build support for you and your research
Those who participate in or view your research will have a more positive view of both you and your research
Improve likelihood of recruiting participants for your future research and gain help from colleagues
In regards to using data for purposes other than specified
Always make clear to participants how you will use the data collected from them
The person giving you permission to use their information has a right to know how it is going to be used and then decide whether this is an acceptable purpose or not
You can only use the information gained from participants for the specific purpose that you declare to them and they authorize
2 different methods of achieving informed consent
Writtent and Oral conset
Written consent
Generally viewed as gold standard
Offers the most protection from a legal standpoint
Oral consent
Generally considered a weaker form of consent, although we contest this view
In some situations, gaining consent verbally is superior to using a written form, such as when a signature can be a threat to maintaining a participant’s anonymity
How to achieve informed consent
Carefully weigh the relative strength of the form of informed consent vs privacy needs to your respondents
When seeking informed consent, make clear:
Participation is voluntary
They have a right to refuse to participate
They can withdraw from participation at any point for any reason (they don’t have to tell you what that reason is)
Should specify early in the process whether the data will be anonymized or held confidentially
When obtaining, you may need to make it clear that there are limits to the confidentiality you can offer (ex: report violent behavior to authorities)
Permission to electronically record a research interaction must be explicitly granted
Ethics an vulnerable populations
Additional ethical implications
Carefully consider whether you are prepared and qualified to tackle
Potential for causing harm to your participants is greater
Consider that you may need additional training before embarking with vulnerable population
Assess whether the vulnerable participants are capable of giving informed consent
Must be able to understand what participating in your research would mean, as well as the nature of the risks associated with it
If there are guardians responsible for the well-being of your prospective participants, you should also seek their informed consent
When working with children, you generally need the consent of their parent, guardian or school (if it has the delegated authority to grant consent)
Also important to gain the direct consent of the child if possible
Participants of all ages may also be vulnerable
Difficult decision about whether to engage someone in research that will likely be personally upsetting (e.g., victim of abuse)
Employ neutral phrasing
Investigate phrasing that may upset or insult your participants (Useful resources:)
Speaking to gatekeepers or those with knowledge of the participants’ social group
Viewing your research from the perspective of your participants
Creating a list for yourself of verbal ‘no-go’ terms or topics
Be familiar with your participants’ preferred phrasing and mirror it where possible
Employing the phrase ‘so called’ can help distance yourself from controversial term
Stress and decision making
Stressful emotions can distort your research perspective
Your emotional response can be instructive, pointing you towards important insights
But it can also override your objectivity, making you vulnerable to bias
Repeated exposure to content can make you think that upsetting incidents are more common than they really are
May cause you to lose perspective and overestimate a phenomenon’s importance or relevance to your research
Raw emotional experiences can make you identify too closely with your participants
While you certainly want to be able to empathize with your participants’ perspectives, you must maintain emotional boundaries
Getting too emotionally involved in your participants’ problems can get in the way of successfully completing your research
