Module 3 – Home
Obtaining the Data for the Research Context
Modular Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of this module, the student will be able to satisfy the following outcomes:
Case
Identify the unit of analysis.
SLP
Use descriptive data to forecast.
Discussion
Identify potential ethical issues in data collection.
Module Overview
The sample component of your methodology describes:
the participants in your study,
their organizational context,
their roles in relation to your research questions,
how many people might be involved,
the kinds of data that you hope to obtain from each of them,
how you plan to obtain their cooperation,
how you plan to protect your respondents and their interests,
and related issues. This section is particularly important, because if you do not have any participants in your study, you will not have any data, and therefore you will not have a project. Research is inherently a cooperative endeavor between the researcher and the people and situations that he/she is investigating. Your participants have an investment in your study, just as you do. They will be giving you their time and energy and commitment to help you with your study. In return, you need to be sure that you are providing value to them, in some form.
Interactions with your participants might take the form of surveys or questionnaires, in which you ask a limited number of highly structured questions of the same kinds of people, with an aim of gathering some generalizable information about some factors. This is very common form of participant interaction and requires explanation and/or compliance with the human subjects protection rules (see below). Or you might prefer interviews, either structured or semi-structured, in which you aim to gather more in-depth qualitative information than is possible with a survey. Again, there are some specific rules that need to be complied with.
These human subject protection rules are administered by the Institutional Review Board of the University. These are federal rules that have the force of law behind them. You need to obtain the approval of the board at your university in order to be able to legally conduct research in which you gather data directly from people. You will find in the readings for this module information about the requirements for such approval.
The readings for this module cover both the mechanics of selecting a sample and theory governing sampling, as well as practical suggestions about obtaining cooperation and effective participation on the part of your respondents. The case for this module calls for you to identify the participants and respondents in your research and some things about the information you propose to gather from them.
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Modules/Module3/Mod3Background.html
Module 3 – Background
Obtaining the Data for the Research Context
Required Reading
Barnett, J., Vasileiou, K. Thorpe, S., and Young, T. (2015, January). Justifying the adequacy of samples in qualitative interview-based studies: Differences between and within journals. In Quality in qualitative research and enduring problematics. Symposium conducted by the faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Bath, Bath, Somerset, United Kingdom. Retrieved May 10, 2018, from http://www.bath.ac.uk/sps/events/Documents/27_jan_2015_slides/julie_barnett.pdf
Chapters 1-4 in: Carlberg, C. (2016). Excel sales forecasting for dummies, 2nd edition. John Wiley & Sons. Available in the Trident Online Library: Follow these instructions for Finding Skillsoft Books. Enter 132620 in the search bar.
Preface in: Dean, S., & Illowsky, B. (2014). Collaborative Statistics. Connexions: Rice University. Creative Commons License 3.0. Retrieved from https://cnx.org/contents/[email protected]:LnCgyaMt@17/Preface
Chapter 1 in: Dean, S., & Illowsky, B. (2014). Collaborative Statistics. Connexions: Rice University. Creative Commons License 3.0. Retrieved from https://cnx.org/contents/[email protected]:AkLGjuVA@15/Video-Lecture-1-Sampling-and-Data
Dudovskiy, J. (n.d.) Sampling. Retrieved May 10, 2018, from the Research Methodology website at https://research-methodology.net/sampling-in-primary-data-collection/
Råheim, M., Magnussen, L. H., Sekse, R., Lunde, A., Jacobsen, T., & Blystad, A. (2016). Researcherresearched relationship in qualitative research: Shifts in positions and researcher vulnerability. International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being, 11, 10.3402/qhw.v11.30996. Retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3402/qhw.v11.30996
Rowley, J. (2014). Designing and using research questionnaires. Management Research Review. Retrieved May 10, 2018, from https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/579515/1/Designing%20and%20using%20Research%20QuestionnairesREV18042013.pdf
Stockberger, D. (2016). Introductory statistics: Concepts, models, and applications. Missouri State University. Retrieved from http://www.psychstat.missouristate.edu/introbook/sbk19.htm
Taherdoost, H. (2016). Sampling methods in research methodology: How to choose a sampling technique for research. International Journal of Academic Research in Management (IJARM ), 5(2), 1827.
Yip, C., Han, N., & Sng, B. (2016). Legal and ethical issues in research. Indian Journal of Anaesthesia, 60(9), 684688. Retrieved from http://www.ijaweb.org/article.asp?issn=0019-5049;year=2016;volume=60;issue=9;spage=684;epage=688;aulast=Yip
Video Material
Flipp, C. (2014, Feburary 22). Qualitative Sampling [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Dn4u9DPmDs
Flipp, C. (2014, March 3). Quantitative sampling [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKUAop1Pre0
Excel Campus – Jon. (2015, February 4). Introduction to pivot tables, charts and dashboards in Excel (part 1) [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NUjHBNWe9M
Excel Resources
Brown, N., Lave, B., Romey, J., Schatz, M., & Shingledecker, M. (2018) Beginning Excel. OpenOregon, Creative Commons License. Retrieved from https://openoregon.pressbooks.pub/beginningexcel/ and https://openoregon.pressbooks.pub/beginningexcel/front-matter/introduction/
ExcellsFun. (2016, May 20). Highline Excel 2016 class 15: Excel charts to visualize data: Comprehensive lesson 11 chart examples [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLmtGk7Ymy8&t=2003s
Chapter 10 in: Harvey, G. (2016). Excel 2016 for Dummies. John Wiley & Sons. Available in the Trident Online Library: Follow these instructions for Finding Skillsoft Books. Enter 117498 in the search bar.
Book II: Chapters 14 and Book V: Chapter 1 in: Harvey, G. (2016). Excel 2016 All-in-One For Dummies. John Wiley & Sons. Available in the Trident Online Library: Follow these instructions for Finding Skillsoft Books. Enter 112925 in the search bar.
Kaceli, S. (2016, January 24). Excel 2016 Tutorial: A comprehensive guide on Excel for anyone [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lXerL3DHRw. Note: This video runs for 2 hours.
Optional Reading
Cooper, B. (2017). The best ways to persuade people. Retrieved May 10, 2018, from the Planio website at https://plan.io/blog/the-best-ways-to-persuade-people/
Hearn, P. (2016). 5 ways to encourage people to complete your online survey. Retrieved May 10, 2018, from the MRDC Software website at http://www.mrdcsoftware.com/blog/5-ways-to-encourage-people-to-complete-your-online-survey
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Barnett-Justifying the adequacy.pdf
Justifying the adequacy of samples in qualitative
interview-based studies: Differences between and
within journals
Prof Julie Barnett a, Konstantina Vasileiou a, Dr Susan Thorpe b, Prof Terry Young c
a University of Bath, Department of Psychology
b Newcastle University, School of Psychology
c Brunel University London, College of Engineering, Design and Physical Sciences
Symposium: Quality in qualitative research and enduring problematics
Qualitative Methodology Forum 27 January 2015
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Bath
Experiential triggers for this project (1)
First of all, most of the
articles published in the
journal are not qualitative in
protocol. So we need to
enter this manuscript gently
as has been done with
some others
Editor
Third, I dont have a good understanding of the
representativeness of the sample. Only 30% of
winning organizations were represented. Of them,
the key informants are not at all well-described.
How do we know that these 15 people best
represent their organizations? Who are they?
What are their characteristics. The sampling issue
(at both of two levels, organization selection and
individual selection within organizations) is a
critical issue
I thought for a topic like this you may need to increase
the number of participants to at least 25 (50%). This was
not a random selection. 15 is respectable. However,
can you prove they are representative of the 51
winners? Secondly what are these winners of? What
are the broader implications of using such subjects?
Who can they speak for?
Experiential triggers for this project (2)
While no decisions
regarding clinical practice
should ever be based on
such a small sample size,
in the end I believe it makes
a contribution solely in the
way we conceptualize
evidence.
Reviewers
Your sample size of 15 out of 51 organizations
is very small .However, the issue of sampling
error is just as pertinent to qualitative researchers
as it is to quantitative researchers. Three
statements are just not enough for me to believe
that the result will generalize to the larger
population. In other words, how do I know this is a
real signal rather than noise? The generalizability
of the results, perhaps, might be more believable if
a large proportion of the interviewees concurred
with the quoted statements.
There remains an issue of
how useful this information
would be. The poor
response rate is certainly
something that gives the
reader pause, and the
results of the work cannot
be seen as generalizable.
The generalizability of findings is what
makes science different from faith-based
study. If the purpose of qualitative
research is not to produce findings that
are capable of generalizing beyond the
data gathered, then why should a reader
care about the results? We only care
when we think the results may
generalize to our own studies,
theories, situations, etc.
How many qualitative interviews are enough? Purposeful sampling ? Informationally representative samples (vs statistically
representative)
Tension between achieving informational redundancy and be able to conduct in-depth,
case-oriented analysis (Sandelowski, 1995)
So how many interviews are enough?
Experts in the field tend to concur with the answer that It depends (Baker & Edwards,
2012)
? Research objective(s)
? Epistemological and theoretical underpinnings
? Type of analysis
? Epistemic community (i.e. rules, norms of the scientific community one belongs to)
? Practical considerations (e.g. hard to access participants; resources; researchers career
stage; institutional constraints)
The criteria of data/empirical saturation or theoretical saturation (i.e. when no new
insights about the phenomenon/theoretical category are found by adding new cases) remain
useful in determining qualitative sample sizes.
Our Research Questions
? To what extent are arguments to justify the sample size
of qualitative interview-based research employed?
? What are these arguments?
? Do the presence and/or the nature of justifications differ
across journals from different disciplines?
? How might the justifications relate to other
characteristics such as the type of analysis?
? What justifications, other than sample size, are used to
defend the adequacy of the sample?
? Do the various justifications change over time?
How do we do science: Scrutinising
published research
A few examples
? How is theory used in qualitative research? (Bradbury-Jones, C., Taylor, J., Oliver Herber, O. (2014). How theory is used and articulated in qualitative research:
Development of a new typology. Social Science & Medicine,120, 135-141)
? How are research questions constructed in social
scientific work? (Alvesson, M., & Sandberg, J. (2013). Constructing research questions: doing interesting research. London: Sage)
? Are participant recruitment and retention in RCTs
adequately reported? (Toerien et al. (2009). A review of reporting of participant recruitment and retention in RCTs in six major journals. Trials, 10, 52.)
Our Methods
Systematic review of qualitative interview-based
studies
Published between Jan 2003 and Dec 2013 in high
quality healthcare-related journals representing different
disciplines
Journals:
? British Medical Journal (BMJ) (Medical focus)
? British Journal of Health Psychology (Psychology)
? Sociology of Health & Illness (Sociology)
? Journal of Healthcare Management (Management Sciences)
? Social Science & Medicine (Interdisciplinary Social Sciences
journal)
Inclusion/exclusion criteria
? Cross-sectional study design (i.e. longitudinal studies were
excluded)
? Individual, qualitative interviews as method of data collection (i.e.
group interviews and structured interviews were thus excluded)
? Data analysed qualitatively (i.e. studies that quantified their
qualitative data were excluded)
? Mixed method studies were excluded (e.g. qualitative interviews
and structured questionnaires)
? Papers reporting more than one qualitative methods of data
collection were excluded (e.g. individual interviews and focus
groups)
Data Extraction Form
Data analysis
We used both qualitative and quantitative analysis of data
Some preliminary results: British Medical
Journal (BMJ)
? Search keywords: interview* AND qualitative
132 results were obtained from the search
All 132 results were screened as to
whether they met the criteria
22 eligible articles were included in the
review
Identification
Screening
Data were extracted from the 23 articles
that met the eligibility criteria Eligibility
Included One paper was excluded
due to longitudinal design
BMJ: Some basic stats
Countries of data
collection
Frequency
of papers
Percentage
%
UK 16 72
Netherlands 2 9
Canada 1 4
Serbia 1 4
Australia 1 4
South Africa &
Uganda
1 4
Total 22 100.0
N of Interviews N of participants
Minimum 19 19
Maximum 128 128
Median 31 30.5
Mean (SD) 44.14 (31) 44.73 (31.05)
Table 1
Countries of data collection
Table 2
N of interviews conducted and N of participants included
Study Populations N of papers involved each study population
Percentage (%) of the
total number (N =22) of
studies*
Patients 13 59 Doctors 5 22 Nurses 3 14 Relatives & Significant others 3 14 Senior Healthcare Managers 1 4
Healthcare Administrative
Staff 1 4
Children (but not patients) 1 4 Caregivers 1 4
Other (e.g. sex workers, ex-
offenders etc.) 4 18
Table 3
Study populations
* Some studies involved more than one study population (e.g. patients and doctors).
BMJ: Justification of sample size
? The majority of papers (N = 12; 54.5%) did not justify their
sample size in any way
Types of Justification Frequency Percentage % over the total
number of justifications
provided
Data saturation 7 41
Theoretical Saturation 2 12
Previous literature 2 12
Sample pre-defined requirements
(e.g. maximum variation sampling)
2 12
Pragmatic reasons 2 12
Researchers experience 1 6
Nature of qualitative data 1 6
Total 17 100.00
For the papers that
DID justify their
sample size (N = 10;
45.5%)
Number of different
justifications
provided by
justifying papers (N
= 10)
BMJ: Qualitative analysis of sample adequacy
argumentation (1)
Diversity/Variation
? The argument of diversity counterbalanced the lack of sample
representativeness
Study Populations
We included the views not
only of patients and GPs but
also of practice nurses and
receptionists, who have
generally been excluded from
previous studies (BMJ02)
Participant Demographic characteristics
One strength of our study was the diverse
range of respondents in terms of age,
socioeconomic group, location, and household
smoking profile.(BMJ10)
Participants were purposely sampled to
represent a wide range in medical specialties,
age, and sex to reflect the possible diversity of
opinions. (BMJ19)
Aspects of the phenomenon of
interest
An additional strength is its focus on
reactions to intermediate results as
well as positive and negative
diagnostic results (BMJ07)
As with any qualitative study aiming for a maximum
variation sample, the findings are not intended to be
numerically representative the sampling method is
intended to show the diversity in responses, including
those that are less usual. (BMJ17)
These tables were, however, derived from a purposive
sample and should not be taken to represent the
population; rather, we aimed to capture the range and
diversity of experience, beliefs, and opinions instead of
providing a quantitative summary of findings. (BMJ20)
BMJ: Qualitative analysis of sample adequacy
argumentation (2)
Sample particularity: Constructed negatively as it undermines the
potential of representativeness of the sample and thus limits the
generalizability of findings
The generalisability of our findings is
limited because the sample was drawn
from a prison in southwest England that
predominantly holds white British
offenders with sentences of less than one
year; to what extent our findings might
relate to long term offenders, those from
black and ethnic minorities, or women is
therefore unclear. (BMJ09)
But because of the particular
nature and characteristics
pertinent to older people and
patients with chronic pain the
results presented may not be
generalisable to other drugs
or different age groups.
(BMJ11)
One limitation of our study is that we looked only
at cases in which a request for euthanasia had
not been granted or granted but not performed
(about two thirds of all requests), and the
perspectives of patients and physicians with
regard to unbearable suffering might be different
in cases where euthanasia was performedfor
instance, showing more agreement between
patients and physicians. (BMJ15)
Finally, within the sub-Saharan African
population, the participants in this study
are a relatively unusual group in that all
were receiving palliative care. Most people
dying with advanced illness in South Africa
and Uganda, and indeed in the rest of sub-
Saharan Africa, may have even less
access to information and care than this
sample. (BMJ16)
“Another limitation of our study is
that we focused on difficult and
straightforward cases rather than
on the type of cancer; our study
may therefore not be
representative for the whole
cancer population. (BMJ19)
Some preliminary conclusions
? Just over half of the papers did not justify their sample size in any
way
? Claim to data saturation was the most common justification for the
sufficiency of sample size
? Stakeholder, demographic or phenomenal diversity/variation was
the strongest line of defence of sample adequacy
? Sample particularity was viewed to be problematic as it undermined
the scope of sample and thus the generalizability of results
? There was an absence of claims around theoretical
generalisations
Quasi-quantitative referential system of evaluation of
sample adequacy
Thank you for listening!
Any questions?
References
Alvesson, M., & Sandberg, J. (2013). Constructing research questions: doing interesting research.
London: Sage
Baker, S.E., & Edwards, R. (2012). How many qualitative interviews is enough? Expert voices and
early career reflections on sampling and cases in qualitative research. National Centre for
Research Methods Review Paper.
Bradbury-Jones, C., Taylor, J., Oliver Herber, O. (2014). How theory is used and articulated in
qualitative research: Development of a new typology. Social Science & Medicine,120, 135-141
Sandelowski, M. (1995). Sample size in qualitative research. Research in Nursing & Health, 18, 179-
183.
Toerien et al. (2009). A review of reporting of participant recruitment and retention in RCTs in six
major journals. Trials, 10, 52.
Rowley-Designing and using Research Questionnaires.pdf
Designing and Using Research Questionnaires
Abstract
Purpose: This article draws on experience in supervising new researchers, and the advice
of other writers to offer novice researchers such as those engaged in study for a thesis, or
in another small-scale research project, a pragmatic introduction to designing and using
research questionnaires.
Design/methodology/approach: After a brief introduction, this article is organized into
three main sections: designing questionnaires, distributing questionnaires, and analysing
and presenting questionnaire data. Within these sections, ten questions often asked by
novice researchers are posed and answered.
Findings: This article is designed to give novice researchers advice and support to help
them to design good questionnaires, to maximise their response rate, and to undertake
appropriate data analysis.
Originality/value: Other research methods texts offer advice on questionnaire design and
use, but their advice is not specifically tailored to new researchers. They tend to offer
options, but provide limited guidance on making crucial decisions in questionnaire
design, distribution and data analysis and presentation.
Keywords: research questionnaires; quantitative research; quantitative data analysis.
Paper type: Conceptual paper
1
1. Introduction
Questionnaires are one of the most widely used means of collecting data, and therefore
many novice researchers in business and management and other areas of the social
sciences associate research with questionnaires. Given their prevalence, it is to easy to
assume that questionnaires are easy to design and use; this is not the case a lot of effort
goes into creating a good questionnaire that collects the data that answers your research
questions and attracts a sufficient response rate. In this article, we use the term research
questionnaire to refer to questionnaires that are used as part of an academic research
project. Others (e.g. Bryman and Bell, 2011) use the term self-completion questionnaire,
or the related terms self-administered questionnaire or postal or mail questionnaire.
Further, we use the term questionnaire to refer to documents that include a series of open
and closed questions to which the respondent is invited to provide answers. Research
questionnaires may be distributed to the potential respondents by post, e-mail, as an
online questionnaire, or face-to-face by hand. Interviews, especially structured and semi-
structured interviews, also ask questions that the respondent is invited to answer, but the
essential distinguishing characteristic of questionnaires is that they are normally designed
to be completed without any direct interaction with the researcher, either in person or
remotely. However, the boundary between questionnaires and interviews is fuzzy, since
they are both question answering research instruments, with unstructured interviews at
one end of a spectrum and questionnaires comprised of predominantly closed questions at
the other end. Respondents to a questionnaire may be asked to answer questions
regarding facts (e.g. their age or salary), or their attitudes, beliefs, behaviours or
experiences as a citizen, manager, professional, user, consumer or employee. Since one
of the main advantages of questionnaires is the ability to make contact with and gather
responses from a relatively large number of people in scattered and possibly remote
locations, questionnaires are typically used in surveys, where the objective is to profile a
population. This leads to consideration of who to include in the survey, or the sample.
In research in organizational studies, management, and business, participants may be
selected either as an individual or as a representative of their team, organization, or
industry.
2
If you are new to research, and possibly engaging in research to complete a thesis or
other small-scale project, and are planning to use questionnaires as a research method,
this article is written for you. It helps you to think about the decisions that you need to
make in designing questionnaires, distributing the questionnaires is such a way as to get a
good response rate, and analysing and presenting the data. This article seeks to provide
answers to some of the questions that new researchers frequently ask. Whilst its emphasis
is on helping you to do rigorous research and to succeed and maybe even excel, it is also
pragmatic in recognizing the time and other constraints often experienced by new
researchers.
There are many other sources of advice on designing and using research questionnaires
that you could also consult. First, there are many research methods textbooks that offer a
basic grounding in research methods (e.g. Bryman and Bell, 2011; Collis and Hussey,
2009; Cresswell, 2008; Denscombe, 2010; Easterby-Smith, Thorpe and Jackson, 2012;
Lee and Lings, 2008; Saunders, Thornhill and Lewis, 2012); since these books have a
wide scope, they only provide limited information on questionnaires as a data collection
method. Interestingly, there are only a few texts that deal specifically with quantitative
methods (e.g. Oakshott, 2009; Swift and Piff, 2010). Finally, there are a few texts
devoted specifically to questionnaires and/or surveys; amongst these Oppenheim (1992)
is regarded as a classic, whilst Gillham (2007), Sue and Pitter (2012) and Fowler (2008)
are also useful guides. Useful as these are, they can be a little daunting for the novice
researcher who is seeking a relatively quick and pragmatic approach to designing
questionnaires and analyzing their data. As with all research methods, learning how to
work with questionnaires is an iterative process, in which initial guidance allows the
researcher to get started, experience and reflection hones their art, and further advice
helps the researcher to develop their research skills yet further.
This article starts with discussion of a number of questions that are associated with the
design and planning of the questionnaire, and then moves on to consider aspects of the
questionnaire distribution and sampling, and finally, concludes with some thoughts on
making sense of the data and presenting it in a findings chapter.
3
2. Designing questionnaires
Q1. Why should I choose questionnaires for my research?
Questionnaires are mostly used in conducting quantitative research, where the researcher
wants to profile the sample in terms of numbers (e.g. the proportion of the sample in
different age groups) or to be able to count the frequency of occurrence of opinions,
attitudes, experiences, processes, behaviours, or predictions. For example, questionnaires
could be distributed to members of a social network site in order to ascertain the reasons
for their membership of the site, and the benefits that they perceive themselves to derive
from membership of the site. The questionnaire might include questions relating to any of
the standard topics included in
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