CLASS ROOM AND SIZE RESEARCH PAPER 1:
CONCEPTUAL BAGGAGE JOURNAL
1. Due Monday March 17
2. 2 pages minimum
3. Topic: classroom size and structure, class size, pedagogical style,
learning style – how these factors have interacted in your learning experiences.
4. As you prepare to conduct an interview on these matters, you need
to be aware of how your own involvement be shaping your role as interviewer.
5. To get started, think about classes that have worked for you and
those that haven’t.
6. This is your personal journal, make it clear and readable. You might
think about what format would best suit your journaling style.
CLASS ROOM AND SIZE RESEARCH PAPER 2:
RESEARCH DESIGN
1. A research design is to doing research what a blueprint is to building
a house (S. Machum). There’s a good deal of work to be done before you
set out to do a research project. As in all things sociological, there
is no standard form to just fill in the blanks. Below are some of the things
Professor Machum expects when you construct a design her Research Strategies
3033 course, plus others that I believe are necessary.
2. I’m particularly concerned that you be able to conceptualize the
entire research design process. Where you don’t have the information
to “fill in the blank”, write about some of the issues you foresee having
to deal with in that area.
3. For instance, if after some head scratching and flights of fantasy
you can’t figure out how to identify, locate, and coax some people to participate
in your study, write about the SPECIFIC difficulties you expect to encounter
in this step.
4. For example, NOT “I don’t know how to find research subjects” BUT
“The reasons it will be difficult to find interviewees given these specific
features of my research plan include 1), 2), 3).
5. Turn to the chapters in QMSR for more information about XXX
6. Length: The more detail you include in your design the higher its
quality, ergo the higher your mark.
7. Length: Avoid 2 or 3 word responses to each of the design items,
write sentences and elaborate.
8. Length: Use your judgement.
9. Length: Use your time wisely and well.
10. Length: 3 or 4 or 5 pages plus attachments (e.g., Literature Review
documents).
GUIDELINES FOR CONSTRUCTING A RESEARCH DESIGN:
A good strategy is to imagine you are setting out on this research
project and visualize yourself carrying out each of the following steps
in research design.
1. What do you want to investigate? Why?
2. Do this topic and research have special significance – social problem,
policy, lack of knowledge about these matters, etc.?
3. What is your personal involvement in this topic? What is your interest
and/or connection in this topic? Why do you care about it? What made you
think of it?
4. What form of journaling or conceptual baggage statement do you plan
to write? What is it about your connection into this topic that leads you
to think this process is (or is not) important to supporting your role
as researcher in this project?
5. What is the setting for this study – school, dorm, mall, etc. What
features of this setting create problems or issues you will have to
6. What theoretical, political, policy approach (see QMSR ch 1) informs
this research project?
7. What methodological techniques do you intend to use? Focus on Interviews
and Observation as these are key to qualitative research.
8. In what ways are these techniques suited to your research problem?
9. Sketch out some of the issues you intend to cover in your interviews
and/or observations.
10. Who are the research subjects? How do you identify and locate people
to participate in this study? How do you contact them? What will you say
to encourage them to participate? Do you anticipate difficulties getting
people to agree given some feature of your study (e.g., sensitive topic)?
11. What problems accessing the setting of your study do you anticipate?
How will you try to overcome them?
12. Will you need special permission from an ‘authority’ in the setting
of your research (employer, school principal)?
13. Will you conduct a pre-test of your observation and/or interview
protocol? In what ways would this be useful (or not). How will you go about
it?
14. What ethical issues do you see arising in this project? How will
you deal with them?
15. What special problems of the relationship between researcher and
research subjects do you anticipate? How will you deal with them?
Interview Documents
Due Monday March 24
1. Facesheet
2. How you introduced yourself and your research project.
3. What you brought with you
4. Questions, probes
5. Fieldnotes
6. Write up of field notes (what you learned in the interview, what
you learned about interviewing, what you would do differently next time)
7. Consent Form IF YOU USED ONE (but white out names to protect confidentiality)
8. Your experiences in this interview
IN-CLASS OBSERVATION
In class this week (March 24-28), you’ll have a chance to do a focused
observation. I’ll assign a group of about 10 to observe 20 minutes of a
class, then shift to a second group for the final 20 minutes. I’ll bring
fieldnotes pages, though you are free to design your own.
If you’re unsure about how to do an observation, re-read QMSR CH4.
If you’re unsure how to make observation fieldnotes, re-read “Logging Data”.
The goal is to write down everything you see going on in the class, anything
about the classroom setting that’s significant in those 20 minutes.
Within two class meetings after you’ve done your observation, turn
in
1. A facesheet (QMSR p101) If you use the fieldnotes page I provide
you’ll see that this information is logged on that page.
2. Your in-class fieldnotes.
3. As in all qualitative research, the more extensive writing work
goes on after you’ve made the field notes. Plan on spending at least
double that 20 minutes observation writing out and elaborating everything
you wrote on the fieldnotes page. Make as full a record of what you observed
as possible.
4. And then write about what you learned about doing observations,
what you will do differently next time, how did you feel about observing,
what was hard or easy about it, etc.
________________________________________________________________________________________
An online
article that discusses potential bias in research (http://www.socresonline.org.uk/2/1/2.html)
Hammersley,
M. and Gomm , R. (1997) 'Bias in Social Research' Sociological Research
Online , vol. 2, no. 1