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Visar inlägg med etikett Theme 6. Visa alla inlägg
Visar inlägg med etikett Theme 6. Visa alla inlägg
måndag 26 oktober 2015
måndag 19 oktober 2015
Post - Theme 6: Qualitative and case study research
This week’s theme was about qualitative and case study research. The plan was to have a lecture and a seminar after the pre posting. Unfortunately the lecture was cancelled and we only had a seminar. I felt that this affected my learning for this theme because I could only base the seminar on what I had read for the pre post and my own interpretations. A lecture would have been good to clear up some of the concepts that were hard to grasp, such as case study.
During the seminar my group discussed both qualitative and case studies that we had read about for the pre post. We talked about our qualitative study papers first. Most of what was said felt as a repetition from the previous theme about quantitative research where there was a question about qualitative methods. I feel that it would have been better having quantitative and qualitative research as one theme instead of splitting them up like this. Because in order to talk about quantitative it’s easier to also discuss qualitative to understand what differs and defines them as separate research methods. I feel that I already explained qualitative studies in a previous theme and the main purpose of it is to achieve a deeper and broader understanding of something. One thing that was new was that the number of participant does not define it being quantitative or qualitative. It’s the content that matters.
We later on discussed what case study research is and took turns in telling each other about the case studies we chose to read for the pre post. We mostly talked on how our papers fulfilled the 8 steps recommended in the literature. I didn’t feel that the smaller group discussion was enlightening, most of us had only our pre posting to base our discussion on and it felt as I didn’t get a clearer idea on what exactly a case study is. Although after the smaller group discussions Ilias talked during the second part and answered to questions such as what a case study is and when it’s good to use one. This part of the seminar felt more rewarding to me. I understood that the main purpose of case studies is to create a theory or rather gain knowledge and not confirming a theory. For example it’s profitable to conduct case studies when you have a field that is unknown or poorly researched that you want to investigate. They allow you to dig deeper and create a theory on the field you are researching. Ilias brought up some good things that I felt helped me understand the concept better. He said that a case study focuses on something specific and investigates what makes it stand out and differ. He also mention it being a good method of investigating a field to see if it's worth to further investigate. For example if a group of people were suddenly turned into robots you could pick up one of them to base your case study on. The case study would then provide you the tools to see if there is more to investigate and gain knowledge on how to further develop your conducted research.
I felt that understanding exactly what case studies are was the hardest part during this theme, but I feel that I have better understanding from my first posting.
During the seminar my group discussed both qualitative and case studies that we had read about for the pre post. We talked about our qualitative study papers first. Most of what was said felt as a repetition from the previous theme about quantitative research where there was a question about qualitative methods. I feel that it would have been better having quantitative and qualitative research as one theme instead of splitting them up like this. Because in order to talk about quantitative it’s easier to also discuss qualitative to understand what differs and defines them as separate research methods. I feel that I already explained qualitative studies in a previous theme and the main purpose of it is to achieve a deeper and broader understanding of something. One thing that was new was that the number of participant does not define it being quantitative or qualitative. It’s the content that matters.
We later on discussed what case study research is and took turns in telling each other about the case studies we chose to read for the pre post. We mostly talked on how our papers fulfilled the 8 steps recommended in the literature. I didn’t feel that the smaller group discussion was enlightening, most of us had only our pre posting to base our discussion on and it felt as I didn’t get a clearer idea on what exactly a case study is. Although after the smaller group discussions Ilias talked during the second part and answered to questions such as what a case study is and when it’s good to use one. This part of the seminar felt more rewarding to me. I understood that the main purpose of case studies is to create a theory or rather gain knowledge and not confirming a theory. For example it’s profitable to conduct case studies when you have a field that is unknown or poorly researched that you want to investigate. They allow you to dig deeper and create a theory on the field you are researching. Ilias brought up some good things that I felt helped me understand the concept better. He said that a case study focuses on something specific and investigates what makes it stand out and differ. He also mention it being a good method of investigating a field to see if it's worth to further investigate. For example if a group of people were suddenly turned into robots you could pick up one of them to base your case study on. The case study would then provide you the tools to see if there is more to investigate and gain knowledge on how to further develop your conducted research.
I felt that understanding exactly what case studies are was the hardest part during this theme, but I feel that I have better understanding from my first posting.
fredag 9 oktober 2015
Pre - Theme 6: Qualitative and case study research
- Which qualitative method or methods are used in the paper? Which are the benefits and limitations of using these methods?
- What did you learn about qualitative methods from reading the paper?
- Which are the main methodological problems of the study? How could the use of the qualitative method or methods have been improved?
I read the paper ““Maybe you don’t want to face it” – College students’ perspectives on cyberbullying” published in Computers in Human behavior (Impact factor: 2,69). The article aims to learn more about college students opinion on cyberbullying and how they are affected by it in social and learning environments. When collecting data the researchers used a qualitative method to gain a deeper understanding, which is also the methods biggest benefit, of the students definition of cyberbullying and to later on determine if they perceive cyberbullying to be an issue. They also chose this method because they felt that little research has been made on the subject by using qualitative methods.
Six focus groups, of 6-10 participants per group, were conducted by the two researcher. Taking turns on one asking the questions and the other taking notes. To be able to conduct good interviews you need be experienced or educated researchers, in this case they both were experienced and felt that they were well enough qualified. Makes me wonder though, how are we to know for sure?
The participants were found through different methods, such as posters on billboards or informing younger students during class. Usually this is also a limitation when it comes to qualitative researches; it’s hard to find volunteering participants. In fact they got a total of 54 students, where all of the participants received course credits and a $25 gift card. This is something I see as a potential methodological problem. The participants may have participated for the wrong cause, and their level of activity during the focus groups may have been affected by the thought of being in it only for the money or course credits. Another limitations is that even if they got quite a few students all of them were from the same college which can not make their research generalizable to the general public.
I am also dubious on focus groups on a subject that can be sensitive is the best method. The students were all from the same school, only that can make a student not wanting to share sensitive personal opinions. I believe a combination of interviews one-on-one with half the students would have been a good complement to the focus groups. They could also have improved the unequal gender participation. 85% were females but the researcher did not distinct the males from the females in the results or conclusion.
Something I felt the researcher did very well that was new to me and I found to be smart was the way they analyzed the data collected. They decided to each go through all the transcriptions made by a hired third party independently. After this they met up and summarized their findings with each other. Later on they had a follow up focus group discuss their findings and see if they agreed or disagreed.
Source:
Golman, M. & Crosslin K. (2014). “Maybe you don’t want to face it” – College students’ perspectives on cyberbullying. Published in journal: Computers in Human Behavior. http://www.sciencedirect.com.focus.lib.kth.se/science/article/pii/S0747563214004476
- Briefly explain to a first year university student what a case study is.
- Use the "Process of Building Theory from Case Study Research" (Eisenhardt, summarized in Table 1) to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your selected paper.
1. A case study is an in-depth investigation of a subject that is used to look at individuals, groups or communities. The data is collected through different methods, such as interviews observations. Case studies are a form of qualitative descriptive researches. The goal of case studies is to understand the complexity of the case study in every way possible.
2.
Paper: The social sharing of emotion (SSE) in online social networks: A case study in Live
Journal: Computers in human behavior
Strengths:
- Clear and well defined research questions in the beginning. This is something that is pointed out to be important by Eisenhardt because a good research focus helps the authors not to loose the main theme and start collecting unnecessary and confusing data.
- More than one person did the research in this case study. This increases the chances of getting a better perspective on things and possibly new ideas and insights on the study.
- They used different tools when collecting data which is also something preferable and strengthening for case studies.
Weaknesses:
- According to Eisenhardt a good case study is built on 4 to 10 cases. This study had 3 cases which affects the complexity of the study.
Source:
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