Martha King, MA, and Melanie Brown, PhD, Dissertation Editors

Faculty: Dr. Bill Disch, Dr. Lou Milanesi, Dr. Nancy Rea, Dr. Daniel Salter, Dr. Carl Sheperis, Dr. Reggie Taylor

Writing Chapter 3 of the Proposal: The Research Method

Objectives

• Review research methodologies and designs.

• Connect a researchable problem to a clear method.

• Choose method to study primary research question.

• Discuss how to describe data collection and

analysis strategies.

• Recognize ethical responsibilities of researchers.

• Organize chapter 3 according to the university rubric

and guidelines for APA form and style.

Agenda

• Review dissertation chapters and method options.• Discuss sections of chapter 3 noted in the university dissertation rubric.• Read highlights from sample chapters (quantitative and qualitative).

Writing exerciseWrite a chapter 3 outline in groups.

OverviewDissertation

These chapters Ch. 1: Introduction

form Ch. 2: Literature Review

the proposal Ch. 3: Research Methods

(quantitative, qualitative, mixed method)

Ch. 4: Findings

Ch. 5: Summary, Conclusions,

and Recommendations

Ch. 3Commonalities

Clear introductions to key sections of chapter.

Description and justification of the research design.

Research questions.

Setting and sample.

Data collection and analysis.

Measures for ethical protection of participants.

OverviewMethods

Quantitative, qualitative, mixed-method designs:

What does each methodology entail?

Ch. 3Differences

Qualitative

Expand or understand a phenomenon

Design study driven by induction and exploration rather than by theory

Include research questions but no hypotheses

Explain processes for coding/categorizing data

Quantitative

Understand relationship bet. two+ quantifiable variables

Design study driven by theory rather than by induction or exploration

Include a null and an alternative hypothesis for each research question

Ch. 3 Quantitative

• Clear introduction of key areas.

• Description/justification (design derives from problem).

• Setting and sample.

• Research questions.

• Treatment; instrumentation and materials. Name and type; concepts measured; reliability/validity

• Data collection and analysis. Explanation of descriptive and/or inferential analyses Pilot study results, if applicable

• Ethical protection of participants.

Ch. 3 Qualitative

• Clear introduction of key areas.• Description/justification (design derives from problem).

• Research questions.• Context of study.• Criteria for selecting participants.• Data collection.

How and when the data will be analyzed

• Discussion of researcher’s role.• Ethical protection of participants.

Ch. 3 Mixed method

• Clear introduction of key areas.

• Description/justification

(design derives logically from problem).

• Elements drawn from quantitative and qualitative

content (previous two slides) as relevant.

• Ethical protection of participants.

Quantitative study

The following slides are excerpted from Chapter 3 of a study titled:

Graduation Rates at Ohio 2-Year Colleges:

A Comparison of Adult Students Taking and Not Taking Developmental Coursework

IntroductionIntroduction

The first section of this chapter includes a description of this quantitative research study. The design was quasi-experimental to test the primary question about the impact of developmental coursework on graduation rates. The next section, focusing on the setting and participants, includes a description of the population, reasons to use a purposive sample, and the criteria for selection of participants. The final portions of this chapter describe cross-tabulations of the nominal data and the analysis process utilizing the likelihood ratio chi-square technique.

IntroductionQuantitative research is used when a hypothesis or

theory proposes that a relationship exists between variables (Creswell, 2003). The purpose of this study was to examine whether taking developmental coursework had an impact on the graduation rates for adult students. Although demographic information was included to describe the participants, much like qualitative research data, the frequencies of graduates in a particular year represent data that are quantitative and are appropriate for this type of analysis. This study was also designed to test a hypothesis, not develop one.

Rather than true experimental, a quasi-experimental research design was viewed as the most appropriate for this research, because the participants were not randomly distributed within treatment conditions…

Research Questions and Hypotheses

Research Questions and HypothesesThe primary research question for this

study was: Are there significant differences in the rate of graduation for adult learners who take developmental coursework compared to adults who do not? Additional questions included: Are there significant differences based on gender or race for graduates who took developmental coursework?

Research Questions and Hypotheses1. Developmental vs. No Developmental Coursework

a) H0 - There is no significant difference in the graduation rates of adults taking and not taking developmental coursework.

b) Ha - There is a significant difference in the graduation rates of adults taking and not taking developmental coursework.

2. Gender

a) H0 - There is no significant difference in the graduation rates of adults taking developmental coursework, based on gender.

b) Ha - There is a significant difference in the graduation rates of adults taking developmental coursework, based on gender.

3. Race

a) H0 - There is no significant difference in the graduation rates of adults taking developmental coursework, based on race (non-White or White).

b) Ha - There is a significant difference in the graduation rates of adults taking developmental coursework based on race (non-White or White).

Setting, Population, and Sample

Setting of Study

College students in the state of Ohio have the option of attending private or public institutions that provide certifications required for employment, applied degrees in various technologies, associate of arts and sciences degrees, and bachelor, master, or doctoral degrees. According to the Ohio Board of Regents (2006a), there were 638,146 students enrolled in these institutions, with 172,118 of them at community

and technical…

Setting, Population, and Sample

Population of StudyA study population can be defined in two ways (Trochim, 2001). The theoretical population is the one to which the researcher wants to generalize. The accessible population is composed of the individuals to whom the researcher has access. For this study, the theoretical population was adult students, defined as age 26 and over at entry and enrolled full-time in public 2-year colleges in the United States. The accessible population was the group of adult students from the state of Ohio who were enrolled full-time and for the first time in 1999 (n = 840), 2000 (n = 884), or 2001 (n = 894) which produced a total N = 2,618.

Setting, Population, and Sample

Sample for Study

According to Champion (2002), purposive sampling is used when there are “clear criteria for selecting the participants for the sample group to be studied” (p. 62). Rather than gathering a random sample of the accessible population from all of the 2-year institutions in Ohio, a purposive sampling of students from the 16 schools that used the COMPASS test for placement was employed...

TreatmentTreatment

The primary focus in this study was graduation rates for adults who take or do not take developmental coursework. Developmental coursework is curriculum that has been designed to prepare students for subsequent college-level courses. The independent variable for this study was whether students took developmental coursework prior to attempting college-level coursework. Hence, for purposes of this research, students who took developmental coursework defined the treatment group. Students not enrolled in developmental coursework constituted the control group. … The researcher will apply for IRB approval for this study before….

Instrumentation and Materials

InstrumentsA college placement test is used to

identify the need for developmental coursework for students attending community colleges with an open access mission. To eliminate the extraneous effect of the variance among placement tests, students completing the COMPASS placement test were targeted for this sample. The COMPASS is a computerized assessment tool distributed by ACT….

Data collection and analysis

Data Collection and Analysis

This study utilized data compiled by the Ohio Board of Regents (OBOR). To obtain this information, a request was made to the OBOR. The de-identified data, as delivered to the researcher, contained information compiled by OBOR and recorded on a CD-ROM in comma-delimited format.

Data Collection and AnalysisDescriptive and Inferential Analyses

Individual student information of age, gender, and race…was totaled and cross-tabulated across the control and treatment conditions of the independent variable.

Subsequent to these tabulations, an inferential analysis was conducted to test the research questions. For the primary question, the independent variable was having taken or not taken developmental coursework, and the dependent variable was the frequency of student graduation in a year across 5 years. Because both variables are nominal level, a test of independence required a chi-square analysis of the 2 x 5 contingency table.

ConclusionThis chapter contained an explanation of

the research study, research questions and hypotheses, and additional factors relating to the project. After the discussion of the pilot study, including the implications found, the next logical step was to conduct the research study. The next chapters will describe what process was followed for conducting the study and analyzing the results. Then the findings are presented and discussed. Finally, a presentation of the conclusions drawn and recommendations made are included.

Qualitative studyThe following slides are excerpted from ch. 3 of a study titled:

Exploring the Intrinsic Role of Agency

and the Extrinsic Role of Social Expectations

for Adults Who Learn to Read:

A Life History

Introduction

Introduction

The primary purpose of this qualitative life history study was to explore the roles of agency and social expectations for adults who have learned to read. The secondary purpose of this study was to describe the lived experience of adults who did not learn to read in school. This study also explored the potential applications of adult agency behaviors in reading intervention curriculum for adolescents who struggle to read.

Introduction This chapter describes the qualitative

research paradigm and life history design for this study of adult non- and limited readers and will discuss the rationale for choosing each in this context. In addition, this chapter describes the methodology for this study, including a description of the participants, how participants were selected, the researcher’s role, and ethical issues. An explanation is included of the data collection tools, how data was collected and analyzed, and threats to data quality.

Research Design

Paradigm and Tradition

According to Creswell (1998) the qualitative research paradigm should be undertaken based on the following rationales: (a) research questions begin with how and what, (b) the topic requires exploration because of multiple variables and/or a lack of theory, (c) a natural setting is required…Thus, the paradigm of qualitative research was chosen because words are more indicative of the experience of learning in reference to the cultural invention of reading than the numerical data of quantitative research…

Research DesignResearch Questions

1. What is the lived experience of an adult who does not read proficiently or who has learned to read proficiently as an adult?

2. What is the role of agency in learning to read as an adult?

3. What is the role of social expectations in learning to read as an adult?

4. How are agency and social expectations connected or revealed in the pivotal moments in the narratives of adult non- or limited readers?

MethodologyParticipants/Population

Participants were chosen for this qualitative life history because they had the shared experience of struggling to learn to read… The participants for this qualitative life story were selected by the researcher from a rural central Florida community. A convenience sample of 18 men and women who self-identified as having learned to read as adults was located through (a) referrals from teachers in public school adult education programs, (b) notices sent to community volunteer adult tutoring programs, (c) referrals from the researcher’s professional contacts…

MethodologyResearcher’s Role

According to Creswell (1998), the researcher is an “instrument of data collection who gathers words or pictures, analyzes them inductively, focuses on the meaning of participants, and describes a process that is expressive and persuasive in language” (p. 14)…As the instrument of investigation, the researcher must recognize and acknowledge the bias that cannot be left outside the research space shared by the story teller.

MethodologyData Collection Plan

Data collection occurred in three distinct phases: prescreening with initial brief interviews, screening with

written questionnaire instruments, and inclusion in the study with extended interviews…

Data Analysis PlanData analysis included construction of a visual display of information (see Figure 1) based on the three-level ladder of analytical abstraction developed by Carney in 1990 and presented by Miles and Huberman (1994). This data analysis plan was chosen because it allows for the correlation and corroboration of the written instruments with the interview text in a systematic and visual format.

Threats to Data QualityValidity and Reliability

Unlike quantitative research, which is based on calculation and comparison of numbers and generalizations, qualitative life history research requires a check and balance system because it is based upon interpretation of words and pictures...

To ensure validity, this research study of adults who learn to read will adhere to the three ideas presented by Merriam (2002)…

Ethical ConsiderationsMeasures for Ethical Protection of Participants

It is the researcher’s ethical responsibility to safeguard the story teller by maintaining the understood purpose of the research…

The researcher is also ethically bound to the institution which supports or sanctions the study. No participants were contacted, and no data was collected until the researcher received approval of the dissertation proposal from the researcher’s faculty advisor and dissertation committee members. The researcher will submit an application to the Walden University Institutional Review Board (IRB) to receive permission to begin research before soliciting for participants, arranging interviews, or collecting data.

Summary

Chapter 3 has described the methodology used to design this qualitative life history research, including a discussion of the qualitative paradigm and the rationale for the researcher’s choices. A description of the population and participants, the researcher’s role, the data collection tools, data collection plan, and data analysis plans was also incorporated. The researcher discussed threats to data quality, validity and reliability, and ethical considerations in reference to the current research study.

Ch. 3In sum

• Explains how you will carry out your study.

• Presents methods as logically connected to

your research question.

Ch. 3Writing exercise

Example topic

Success in online universities

In quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-method groups, write a chapter 3 outline to study this question:

What facilitates successful online learning?

Challenges Connecting question to a logical method.Covering all elements in university’s rubric.

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