While reading Creswell’s chapters
on quantitative and qualitative methods this week, it became clearer than ever
just how different the two approaches are. It also became clearer than ever that
I am vastly more familiar with qualitative research methods.
One of the things which stood out
to me as a difference between the two methodological approaches was the stress
on the importance of the role of the researcher in the qualitative method as
opposed to the quantitative. This seems to take the form more of the participation
the researcher actually has in the process of gathering data, interacting with participants,
and the researcher’s biases and opinions in data interpretation; the idea with quantitative
is that is seems to strive to be as neutral and random as possible which is
where they find strength and validity as opposed to a heavier emphasis on
authenticity found in qualitative studies.
I was thinking about my possible
thesis research options. I could be doing research on composition classroom
practices, and I would probably do observations, interviews, or documents. This
methods procedure outline would clearly be very useful. If I were to do a
critical discourse analysis of films and reproductions of films, I think I would
less of this type of data collection methodology. Perhaps the literature review
section of this book would be most useful to that thesis idea. The data interpretation
of this idea might also be useful, because although I might not collect data
from participants, I would think I still need to interpret the “data” of the
films.
I agree with being more familiar with qualitative studies- not because I've done any but because of the papers I've written in English classes. I feel that they consider a more global perspective of an issue rather than singling out factors that can be controlled.
ReplyDeleteBoth directions that you would take for your thesis paper look pretty good. If you were to include, interview from the participants or documents that they write, I think it would bring a greater focus to them and add legitimacy to any theoretical lens or approach that you’re using when interpreting your findings- simply because it’s information that they’ve provided.
When considering the other topic, I think it’s really important to talk thoroughly about your background and what approach you’ll be taking. Since you’re the one interpreting the film’s data, it would be nice to know who you are in analysis this information. I would also elaborate extensively on the lens that you’ll be using, so the reader can completely agree with all of your findings. If you point on something from the film, the reader should say, “Yeah, that completely falls under that theoretical lens she’s talking about. Let’s give her a master’s degree already.”