Qualitative Study: Critique & Recommendations

Norbert JerinaJavier LeungTirana PorterDestini RobinsonCheral Wintling

EDF 6464

Participants

Profiles

Interview Process

Demographics: Aging, gender, and education

Women’s movement

Community college history

Life-span developmental psychology

Feminist sociological research

Importance to issues: self-definitions, independence, power and

opportunity, and racism

Critique & Recommendations

The first paragraph should be shortened

The first paragraph might be divided by detaching the closing sentence, which introduces the concept of equity, and combining it with the opening sentence of the next paragraph.

With a few added words to connect the theme of equity with the previous questions about personal meaning, the two paragraphs thus organized would yield a slightly more inviting format for the first page.

Each paragraph must have its own independent, major thought

Remove the quotes from around equal rights at bottom left page 174.

The third item under Importance of the Study could be broken down.

Demographic factors

Influence school populations

Historic moments: Oppressed groups struggles for equal rights &

offerings in higher education

Community college standards

Studies of women who returned to school

Topic on women returning to school is minimal

Open door policy of community college

Psychology of women

Feminist sociological research orientation

Critique & Recommendations

Add break at the point where the topic shifts from reasons for selecting community college to the subject of barriers to re-entry.

The sentence dealing with the subjects used in Tittle and Denker’s study seems out of place in this summary. It might have been placed at the front adjacent to the introduction of the sources, or might have been omitted as not contributing anything essential to the reader’s understanding.

The topic of women reporting to school could have been expanded

Critique & Recommendations

The purpose of a proposal is to explain and justify a plan for investigation, not to convert or overwhelm the uninitiated.

Personal commitments should not be included in the proposal

Include reasonable limitations as a stipulated part of the contract.

The topic of contrasting qualitative and quantitative paradigms should not be included at the conclusion of this section

Epistemological stance:

Phenomenological in-depth

interviewing

Epistemological debates:

Possibility and objectivity,

subjectivity, causality, validity,

generazability (Patton, 20002).

Research bias: Curiosity

Philosophic position and

assumptions

Eighteen to twenty-two females: ages 25-70

Community colleges from California, Massachusetts, and New York

Returned for education in a community college

Education interrupted for 3 – 4 years, but not more than 10 – 30

years

Range of ages, ethnicities, class backgrounds, marital and family

statuses, and fields of studies

Informal channel to locate participants

Participants

Interview Process

Phenomenological in-depth interview (Siedman, 1983 & Sullivan,

1982).

Interview for 90 minutes – 2 days apart, but no longer than a week

apart

One interview will be held at the participant’s house

Interview questions:

Profiles

Team approach: Interviewer’s words are omitted in the

transcription

Manuscript is shared with the participants for validation

Final versions of manuscripts omit sensitive information

Finals versions will be completed by the responsible person who

initiated the profile.

Critique & Recommendations

If the references really matter, then they should have been included in a way that displays their significance.

First full paragraph has a sentence 13 lines long. This needs to be edited into multiple sentences.

Middle paragraph can be deleted. This discussion is really not required.

The ultimate goal of the research was listed in the last sentence of the last paragraph. The goal should have been listed in the beginning of the proposal.

If doing a qualitative proposal then quantitative data should not be discussed.

No quantitative measures could use Cronbach Alpha. A multiple regression could be done as an independent variable. Other factors she develops could be grouped into dependent variables.

Identify themes

Deductive analysis based on expected patterns and themes

Deductive analysis based on expected college experiences that

relate to issues of equality

Patton, M.Q. (2002). Qualitative Research & Evaluation Methods (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.