An Analysis of the Reading “Teachers as Architects of Transformation: The Change Process of an Elementary-School Teacher in a Practitioner Research Group” By Amy Vetter.
What type of qualitative research does this article represent? Why?
This article represents a focus group type of qualitative research. According to Qualitative Research Consultants Association (2015), in focus group qualitative research, a group of individuals who share a need, life circumstance, or habit relevant to the research issue(s) at hand are led in a discussion by a modulator. The focus group discussions often include between two to ten respondents, and are often held face to face. They can also be conducted remotely through videoconferencing, teleconferencing, or
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Grace, who was the main participant of interest, was heavily involved in the TTR group and was extremely reflective about her research process, and these were the reasons why she was chosen (Vetter, 2012). Melissa, Holly, and Gail on the other hand were practitioners in K-12 public schools and/or postsecondary education and all graduate students at the university (Vetter, 2012). The facilitator, who was also a participant, was also a practitioner. They were therefore correctly selected out of convenience, which is justified because focus groups are usually small and therefore, it is necessary for the researcher to select participants who are in the best position possible to give the right information, which may be impossible for randomly selected …show more content…
Grace was the main participant and therefore the researcher mainly focused on second year to examine her change process. Data to examine the process was collected from the TTR meetings from several sources, which included: Ten audio-taped discussions of the monthly meetings, three audio-taped group interviews, a conference presentation in the form of a power point, draft of a manuscript written about her second study, and observations and field notes from the ten monthly meetings. All these combined were sufficient enough to analyze and determine the change process (Vetter, 2012). The researcher also read and reread the various field notes, artifacts, and transcripts that involved Grace over several months to help add more insight into Grace’s change process.
However, the fact that the study only focused on a small group (a specific university students), a specific race (whites), one specific social class (middle class), and one gender (female) makes the credibility of the findings questionable because we cannot use them to develop a general conclusion to represent all the teachers. The researcher also acknowledged this by stating that the findings from the study can be used to inform other groups, but is not meant to be representative of all teacher researcher groups (Vetter,
The focus group (a less formal forum) included a medical doctor, two residents, two community members, two family members of the residents, nurses, director of nursing, the administrator, a member of the board of the directors, an IT specialist and human resource personnel. A focus group is a specialized group interview in which group members are not told exactly what the interviewer wants to
Stages of Change: Building attitudinal, intentional, motivational, and behavioral modifications as they move through preparation stages of readiness for change.
Qualitative method is using open-ended questioning, non-statistical research techniques, or value-based observations. In this research, three main methodologies are adopted as focus group, distributing questionnaires and conducting personal interviews simultaneously. Methods are all appropriate and contributed to a comprehensive research. The reason is that aim of this research is to acquire an in-depth understanding of
Facilitating focus groups, interviews, allowed us to strengthen our qualitative research skills. As an outsider, the qualitative process was the most enjoyable to me. I was able to learn their way of living, strengths and challenges of their community. The process of creating the pretest and posttest surveys collectively was a challenge, yet another beneficially learning experience. I realized effective surveys take time to develop and need to be reviewed by multiple people. Developing poorly constructed questionaries’ is highly possible if no one takes the time to actually
Flexible and inexpensive, focus groups consist of six to ten participants (Hartman, 2004, p. 408). Additionally, a moderator guides the discussion among its panel members that allows researchers to observe real-time verbal responses and nonverbal cues (Hartman, 2004, p. 402; Cooper & Schindler, 2014, p. 160). Focus groups moderators also have the ability to introduce new ideas to gain a greater understanding of concerns from respondents (Hartman, 2004, p. 402). However, a concern with focus group is the lack of anonymity due to the face-to-face participation.
One of the strategies not used in this study we the use of group interviews or focus groups. The authors point this fact out in their study indicating that while the results from such interviews would likely add to the evidence of their study, because of the scope of the study this method would need to wait to be utilized in later studies. Limiting the number of uncontrolled variables and not overwhelming the study with multiple research methods that may or may not add to the value of the results at this point seems beneficial and allows room for future
LexisNexis, Fastcase, and Thomas West Westlaw to perform different daily tasks. During the interview process, Daniel said that technology has been both a blessing and a curse, but it generally saves time. In terms of soft skills, lawyers need to be able to negotiate, persuade, advise, think critically, collaborate, and actively listen to others. Basically, lawyers need to be diplomatic in their daily approach with other people. This changed my perception of lawyers because I used to think that they just argue with a strong position. Daniel also mentioned that lawyers have to be diplomatic because they have to be friendly with other clients and lawyers in order to be recognized in this particular field.
Each interview and focus group audio was transcribed within 24 hours by a research assistant. Data analysis was conducted using the Statistical package for social science to analyze the data set collected from the
Jemma, the researcher and focus group moderator, has structured the discussion in the following way: to start with, Jemma provides a frame of reference for the focus group referring to the aim of her research, and summarizes the pre-formulated research questions that serve as openings to obtain such feedback (Nel, Romm, & Tlale, 2015). Focus groups are seen as providing a unique data source, and tend to emphasise their value in exploring participants’ knowledge and experiences and in helping to understand not only what people think, but also why they think the way they do (Greenwood, Ellmers, & Holley, 2014).
Eight to fifteenth participants were in attendance at each focus group. At the start of each focus group participants began by completing a general survey about their socio-demographic, finances, health and wellbeing. A researcher facilitated a series of questions and two UCLA team members took notes and recorded each group. The questions (appendix a) covered topics from overall health, nutrition, budget, savings, debt, and financial security. All the information then was transcribed and analyzed by the UCLA team members. The 3 Spanish focus group was transcribed and interpreted by an outside vendor. While the English focus an UCLA team member transcribed group.
Qualitative approaches to research are approaches that depend on words as the primary source of data, as opposed to numbers. Qualitative research may also be called non-experimental research, since the investigations are more exploratory and do not require control or the manipulation of variables. There are several types of qualitative research approaches, for example grounded theory, phenomenological, generic inquiry, ethnography, and case studies. Non-experimental methods may include qualitative methods such as surveys, focus groups and interviews (Hacker, 2013). The purpose of this discussion is to carefully analyze
A Focus group is defined as a research technique that collects data through a group interaction, on a given topic from the researcher. Along with this definition are some essential components. Firstly, it states that, focus groups are research methods devoted to data collection. Secondly, it signifies the interaction of group discussion as a source of data. Lastly, it acknowledges the active role of researchers in establishing the group discussion in order to collect data (David, 1996.p.130).
The focus group of a study includes a group of people that is diverse demographically. These participants are guided in a discussion about a specific product, political campaign, television series, etc. to gauge the general reaction of the public. As a form of qualitative research the focus group involves the participants answering questions pertaining to their perceptions, beliefs, attitudes, and opinions towards the targeted product, concept, advertisement, idea, packaging, or service. Participants are questioned in a interactive group environment where they are given the opportunity to discuss their opinions with other group members. Originally focus groups were labelled as “group depth interviews” or “focused interviews”. After World War II this technique was developed to allow a platform for evaluating audience response of radio programs. Since that time period, program evaluators and social scientists have determined focus groups to be beneficial on understanding the means for how and why people hold specific beliefs about a program or topic of interest. Focus groups primarily include 7-10 individual participants who are completely unfamiliar with one another. Generally focus groups strive to include participants due to characteristics in common that apply to the
Flexible and inexpensive, focus groups enable researchers to generate small group ideas and expression responses (Hartman, 2004, p. 408; Cooper & Schindler, 2014, p. 133). Additionally, focus groups encourage member discussions and allow researchers to observe real time verbal and nonverbal responses (Hartman, 2004, p. 402; Cooper & Schindler, 2014, p. 160). It also presents the ability to stimulate ideas or gain a greater understanding of concerns from respondents (Hartman, 2004, p. 402).
Focus groups are a prominent method of enquiry, regularly used within the field of social science and in particular, qualitative research. The focus group practice involves a number of participants having an open discussion on a specific topic, set by a researcher. The researcher acts as a moderator to aid discussion by using probes to collect desirable data. This process is recorded and transcripts are used to interpret and analyse given information.