Qualitative
methods
This week I chose the study "The Effect of a Web-based Writing Program in College English Writing Classes" by Wenli Tsou published in Advanced Learning Technologies (2008). The study is about a web-based writing program and tests the program's ability to improve students’ English writing. The study consists of two parts one quantitative where data was gathered of students’ result when tested the program. The other part is a qualitative one and contains a questionnaire to find out students’ opinions about the program and semi-structured interviews were held with teachers to find out their thoughts about using the program.
This week I chose the study "The Effect of a Web-based Writing Program in College English Writing Classes" by Wenli Tsou published in Advanced Learning Technologies (2008). The study is about a web-based writing program and tests the program's ability to improve students’ English writing. The study consists of two parts one quantitative where data was gathered of students’ result when tested the program. The other part is a qualitative one and contains a questionnaire to find out students’ opinions about the program and semi-structured interviews were held with teachers to find out their thoughts about using the program.
At first when I read the paper I thought it was better to choose another
one since I didn’t consider questionnaires as a qualitative study. But the
author clearly stated that he had used a qualitative and a quantitative study
so I decided to read a bit more about qualitative studies. Just as two weeks
ago when we talked about quantitative studies I got surprised that I had so
little knowledge about something I believed to know. After reading up on
qualitative studies, I changed my mind. The questionnaires in the paper aim to
get more depth in the study and find out how and why the student’s results and
thoughts differed from each other. Therefor the questionnaires could be a
qualitative study depending on the format of the questions and execution. I had
no doubt from the beginning that the interviews were a qualitative method.
The study is of small extent and unfortunately the author doesn’t
describe how the questionnaires or the interviews where done. Therefore it’s
difficult to know how qualitative his study really is. I think he should have
been more critical to his choice of methods and motivated his decisions in order
to strengthen his paper. Since he didn’t gather a great quantitative of data I
think he could have improved his study by doing interviews with the students as
well as the teachers. You could gather a lot more qualitative information from
a face-to-face meeting than from a questionnaire. I believe that the
misunderstandings and misinterpretations would decrease with interviews. In an
interview you can explain the questions more thoroughly and you can see the
interviewee’s reactions and interact on a higher-level.
Case Study
A case study is a research method in which you examine a certain case. The method aims to give a deeper understanding through empirical data. A case study is used when you want to observe something specific. For example you can do a case study by examining a group of people, an incident or an organization etc. A case study could be investigating, explanatory or descriptive. In a case study you often focus on one or a few specific cases to get a more detailed knowledge and understanding of the situation.
I read the paper “Student experiences: Collaboration for group assignment in distance education” by Lisa Soon and Maryam Sarrafzadeh published 2010 on IEEE. The paper studies the use of learning management systems (LMS) for group assignments in distance. The study is made in Australia where the authors have done a case study at Charles Sturt University on their LMS “Interact”. The study involved 73 undergraduate students who were divided into groups with assignments to carry out. They were given a set of communication tools such as the LMS Interact to use as communication channels. To gather data and the students’ opinions a web-based survey were sent out to the ones that participated.
In my opinion the authors did a good case study in a well thought out way. Here follows an examination of the paper with the help of "Process of Building Theory from Case Study Research" (Eisenhardt, 1989)
Case Study
A case study is a research method in which you examine a certain case. The method aims to give a deeper understanding through empirical data. A case study is used when you want to observe something specific. For example you can do a case study by examining a group of people, an incident or an organization etc. A case study could be investigating, explanatory or descriptive. In a case study you often focus on one or a few specific cases to get a more detailed knowledge and understanding of the situation.
I read the paper “Student experiences: Collaboration for group assignment in distance education” by Lisa Soon and Maryam Sarrafzadeh published 2010 on IEEE. The paper studies the use of learning management systems (LMS) for group assignments in distance. The study is made in Australia where the authors have done a case study at Charles Sturt University on their LMS “Interact”. The study involved 73 undergraduate students who were divided into groups with assignments to carry out. They were given a set of communication tools such as the LMS Interact to use as communication channels. To gather data and the students’ opinions a web-based survey were sent out to the ones that participated.
In my opinion the authors did a good case study in a well thought out way. Here follows an examination of the paper with the help of "Process of Building Theory from Case Study Research" (Eisenhardt, 1989)
Getting Started: The study aims to
explore collaboration through Internet in distance educations but I believe the
research question could be clarified.
Selecting Cases: The authors have
done a good job choosing and limit the cases. They chose to study one course
and the students who took the course. Even though they don’t define a specific
old or origin of their target group I think they have managed to circumscribe
the participants.
Crafting Instruments and
Protocols: The data was gathered through a
web-based survey. It would be a much bigger study if the authors had decided to
do interviews with all the participants but I believe that you miss some of the
data through a survey. Nevertheless a survey is an efficient way to collect
data and offers the opportunity to be anonymous.
Enfolding literature: The literature that
is used is well organized and strengthens the study.
Analyzing data: The data is
analyzed and the results are shown in intuitive graphs. The data is categorized
and then analyzed which makes it easy to follow.
Reaching closure: The conclusion is
based on the data but is very general about e-learning and its advantages and
disadvantages.
Hi Cim,
SvaraRaderaI can see some advantages of using written questionnaires as opposed to face-to-face interviews. If the topic is very sensitive, you might get a more honest and in-depth answer if you can write it down anonymously (den semi-anonymously) as compared to a face-to-face conversation, especially if it is something you are embarrassed about or find it hard to talk about. In this particular case though, studying a web-based writing program then that is probably not an issue.
Hi Jenny,
RaderaI agree with you. As I wrote, one of many benefits with questionnaires is the possibility of anonymity. What I was trying to highlight was the disadvantages of using questionnaires as a qualitative method. I would personally consider questionnaires as a better quantitative method than a qualitative method since it's difficult to get a deeper understanding of the participants through a questionnaire.
Hi Cim,
SvaraRaderaThanks for some interesting paragraphs! Firstly, I would like to say that I am quite intrigued by the article you chose. As we have studied a bit of e-learning in the social media technologies course, I am wondering how quantifiable this study is. Did the study say if the students were happy about the program? In that case there must great potential in these kind of tools! Do you, by reading this article, think language courses will more and more become something you can take as a distance course?
Thanks for your comment.
RaderaThe results of the study varied but the students who used the web-based writing program in general had a greater development during the course, especially in content and organization. Even though I believe web-based system lack some qualities I do think it will be used more in the future. It is efficient and less time consuming to use. I would prefer a mix of web-based tutoring and class held lectures.