Р. П. Мильруд Доктор педагогических наук, профессор кафедры иностранных языков
жүктеу/скачать 0.69 Mb. Pdf көрінісі
|
| Participant observation is qualitative and is concerned with discovering the
meanings that people attach to their actions. By contrast, structured observation is quantitative and is more concerned with the frequency of those actions. Participant observation is a method in which the researcher participates in the lives and activities of those whom they are studying. It is used to attempt to get to the root of ‘what is going on’ in a wide range of social settings. Partici- pant observation means that you adopt a number of potential roles differentiated by the degree to which your identity is concealed from the subjects of the research and the degree to which you participate in the events you are studying. Par- ticipant observation must avoid the trap of mere storytelling, its purpose is to develop theory. A prevalent form of data analysis used here is analytic induction. This may lead to an initial hypothesis being redeveloped more than once. Structured observation is concerned with the frequency of events. It is characterised by a high level of predeter- mined structure and quantitative analysis. A choice may be made between ‘off-the-shelf’ coding schedules and a sched- ule that you design for your own purpose. Alternatively you may decide to use a ‘hybrid’. The main threats to reliability and validity inherent in structured observation are subject error, time error and observer effects. 3. Data that have already been collected for some other purpose, perhaps processed and subsequently stored, are termed secondary data. There are three main types of secondary data: documentary, survey and those from multiple sources. Documentary secondary data include both written (such as notices, correspondence, minutes of meetings, re- ports to shareholders, diaries and transcripts of speeches) and non-written documents (like tape and video recordings, pictures, films and television programs, DVDs and CDs). Any secondary data you use will have been collected for a specific purpose. This purpose may not match that of your research. In addition, the secondary data are likely to be less current than any data you collect yourself. Finding the secondary data you require is a matter of detective work. This will involve you in establishing whether the sort of data that you require are likely to be available and locating the precise data. 4. An interview is a purposeful discussion between two or more people. The use of interviews can help you to gather valid and reliable data that are relevant to your research question(s) and objectives. Interviews may be highly formalized and structured, using standardized questions for each respondent, or they may be informal and unstructured conversations. In between there are intermediate positions. One typology that is commonly used is thus related to the level of formality and structure, whereby interviews may be categorized as one of: – structured interviews; – semi-structured interviews; – unstructured interviews. Another typology differentiates between standardized interviews and non-standardised interviews. The third typology differentiates between respondent interviews and informant inter- views. Structured interviews use questionnaires based on a predetermined and standardized or identical set of questions. By comparison, semi-structured and unstructured interviews are non-standardised. In semi-structured interviews the researcher will have a list of themes and questions to be covered, although these may vary from interview to interview. Unstructured interviews are informal. You would use these to explore in depth a general area in which you are inter- ested. These interviews are referred to as in-depth interviews. There is no predetermined list of questions to work through in this situation, although you need to have a clear idea about the aspect or aspects that you want to explore. The interviewee is given the opportunity to talk freely about events, behaviour and beliefs in relation to the topic area, so that this type of interaction is sometimes called non-directive. It has been labelled as an informant interview since it is the interviewee’s perceptions that guide the conduct of the interview. In comparison, a respondent interview is one where the interviewer directs the interview and the interviewee responds to the questions of the researcher. Interviews may be conducted on a one-to-one basis, between you and a single participant. Such interviews are most commonly conducted by meeting your participant ‘face to face’, but there may be some situations where you con- duct an interview by telephone. There may be other situations where you conduct a semi-structured or in-depth inter- view on a group basis, where you meet with a small number of participants to explore an aspect of your research through a group discussion that you facilitate. 5. Questionnaire is a general term including all data collection techniques in which each person is asked to respond to the same set of questions in a predetermined order. The design of a questionnaire differs according to how it is administered, and in particular the amount of contact you have with the respondents. Self-administered questionnaires are usually completed by the respondents. Such ques- tionnaires are delivered and returned electronically using either email or the Internet (on-line questionnaires), posted to respondents who return them by post after completion (postal or mail questionnaires), or delivered by hand to each re- spondent and collected later (delivery and collection questionnaires). Responses to interviewer-administered question- naires are recorded by the interviewer on the basis of each respondent’s answers. A growing number of surveys, par- ticularly in the area of market research, contact respondents and administer questionnaires using the telephone. These are known as telephone questionnaires. The final category, structured interviews (sometimes known as interview жүктеу/скачать 0.69 Mb. Достарыңызбен бөлісу:
|