There are five questions. Answer all questions and all parts of the question.
Quantitative and Qualitative Research Methods – PA 556
Quantitative and Qualitative Methods for Public Administration
Question 120 pts
Social science research is accomplished from differing theoretical perspectives. The same social situation can be studied from several different perspectives. Important differences have been identified between quantitative and qualitative methods perspectives. The social science researcher makes an important initial choice as he chooses between a quantitative or qualitative research design. A substantial number of choices in theoretical perspectives occur after the quantitative or qualitative methods decision. Often researchers are influenced by their own skills and aptitudes as they devise research designs. Mention reasons researchers yield to their aptitudes as they elaborate planned research in the research design.
What personal variables are most likely to influence a research design choice for quantitative methods? Contrast these personal factors with abilities that incline the researcher to go with qualitative methods. Identify any special research abilities that would make an interpretivist/constructionist research design a likely choice. Does interpretivist/constructionist analysis advantage some researchers more than others?
The following are theoretical perspectives a researcher could possibly use – rational choice, procedural fairness, symbolic interaction, conflict theory, and functional theory. Appropriateness of perspective to the research questions is an evaluative issue in analyzing research design. How must a research design be appropriate? The unique abilities that the researcher has often results in choosing one of the afore mentioned perspectives. Identify your likely choice from among these perspectives. Why did you make the choice you did in beginning your research design?
Think of yourself as the audience for a social science researcher’s presentation. Does focusing in on the researcher’s decision about research design, allow improved comprehension of the presentation? Asking why the researcher has chosen the subject he is writing about could be useful. When evaluating a social science product, what are some of the best indicators of the researcher’s true purpose in devising his research project?
Place your answer here 400 words be direct to the point and address all the parts
Question 220 pts
The Phersons discuss the joy of the data hunt in their Chapter 8, “What Types of Information Are Available.” PA 556 has emphasized reasoning from data to conclusions. Social science has been explained as reasoning about social reality that is based on data. The social science research activity begins as the researcher identifies possible data. There is a considerable range of possible data sources because of the range of ideas that can be researched with qualitative methods. Explain why the Phersons use the “joy of the data hunt” phrase in discussing this step in the research process?
Saldaa encourages researchers to reason choices several different ways in order to have improved abilities both to devise relevant concepts and to communicate these concepts effectively to the intended audience. Discuss reasons why the innovation that he suggests leads to effective social science. Are Saldaa’s ideas accomplished effortlessly? Why is the intellectual activity that goes into reasoning as Saldaa recommends likely productive in producing excellent social science?
Another emphasis of the Phersons is the importance of reliability and credibility in choosing data. Do quantitative and qualitative methodologies reason the importance of data and validity differently? Why do the Phersons insist that the audience for a research product, or “clients” to use their phrase, be considered when data choices are made? How would Saldaa and the Phersons rationalize a data choice that intends to conceptual development instead of results with significant validity?
Place your answer here 400 words be direct to the point and address all the parts
Question 320 pts
Ethnomethodology is defined as the study of methods people use for understanding and producing the social order in which they live.
Saldaa writes, Critical thinking can result in not just a report but a manifestoan extended narrative about one’s opinions, policies, and goals. Is Saldaa writing about ethnomethodology? Can you read a social science product and evaluate how dedicated the researcher’s ethnomethodology is? Besides “dedicated” what comments might one possibly make about a researcher’s ethnomethodology? How is Lune and Berg’s chapter about participatory action research focused on ethnomethodology? Do you believe that criticizing ethnomethodology is useful in evaluating social science research?
Sometimes methodologists prefer data because of an ability to analyze the data until all possible meaning in the data is understood. Does research improve in quality if the data upon which the research is based allows this sort of extended analysis? The Juliet Corbin and Anselm Strauss book Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory was mentioned in class. These authors present the case for extensive analysis of the same data set. Is this an ethnomethodology understanding? In your answer, detail how ethnomethodology influences achievement in social science research.
Place your answer here 400 words be direct to the point and address all the parts
Question 420 pts
Defining what is adequate data is extensively analyzed in the literature about research methods. Quantitative research has more exacting ideas about adequate data than does qualitative research. Discuss how quantitative methods is able to use statistics in deciding that available data is adequate. Criticism of social science often asks this question as we evaluate political polls. Mention some of the adequate data issues lurking behind the political polls popularized by journalists.
Qualitative research likewise has data problems. Lune and Berg discuss methodological issues in interviewing, for example. To obtain useful data, what must be anticipated in dramaturgical interviewing? Mention useful ideas interviewers include in their interview repertoire?
Are focus groups reasonably analogized to interviews? Discuss focus groups from the data perspective? Are focus transcribed in qualitative methods. Why are focus groups and other verbal techniques transcribed?
Participatory action research, narrative, and case studies are other qualitative methods that have been mentioned. These are but a few of the possible qualitative methods found in the literature. Can criticism of qualitative research dismiss research efforts on the basis of inadequate data? What would be your standard for refusing to accept qualitative research on the basis of data?
Barbara Czarniawska in her book Narratives in Social Science Research quotes Roland Barthes, French semiologist and literary critic, about narrative.
“The narratives of the world are numberless. Narrative is first and foremost aq prodigious variety of genres, themselves distributed among different substances – as though any material were fit to receive man’s stories. Able to be carried by articulated languages, spoken or written, fixed or moving images, gestures, and the order mixture of all these substances; narrative is present in myth, legend, fable, tale, novella, epic, history, tragedy, drama, comedy, mine painting … stained glass window, cinema, comics, news item, conversation.” (Czarniawska, 2004, p. 1)
Is Czarniawska purpose in citing Barthes to make more inclusive what can be deemed data for narrative analysis? Would such a data strategy improve qualitative narrative analysis?
Place your answer here 400 words be direct to the point and address all the parts
Question 520 pts
Why are surveys so popular as a quantitative methodology? Why are issues of validity so much different for quantitative and qualitative research? Compare the rules for reflexivity in quantitative and qualitative research. Can one evaluate quantitative research on the basis of how well the researcher anticipated data gathering issues?
Do these polls provide us enough information to evaluate the validity of poll results. Consult Real Clear Politics. . Do we know if present political polling follows all the procedures textbooks recommend for effective survey research? Can we evaluate if the sampling procedures in this research acceptable. How does present political polling reassure of adequate methodological caution.
Discuss various techniques for creating a sample. Does theoretical sampling produce research validity? How do qualitative researchers resolve the validity issue when they use theoretical sampling? Gains from theoretical sampling are often mentioned when this technique is evaluated. Can the quantitative survey use theoretical sampling? What are the sampling requirements for an effective quantitative research project?
Present how survey research questions are written. Be inclusive of the various techniques the survey researcher must include to assure the success of his research design.
Place your answer here 400 words be direct to the point and address all the parts
B. Books
Howard Lune and Bruce L. Berg, Qualitative Research Methods for
the Social Sciences, New York, New York: Pearson, 2017.
Katherine Hibbs Pherson and Randolph H. Pherson. Critical
Thinking for Strategic Intelligence. Third Edition. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage,
2021.
Russell K. Schutt, Understanding the Social World, Research
Methods for the 21st Century, Thousand Oaks, California: Sage,
2021.
Johnny Saldaa. Thinking Qualitatively, Methods of Mind. Thousand
Oaks, California: Pine Forge Press, 2015.