Bootcamp week

 

This week led me to some serious reflection…

Topics covered:

The philosophy behind the research process. We discussed and debated concepts such as data, information and knowledge where data becomes information when it is interpreted and becomes knowledge when it is applied. We also discussed paradigms, ontology, epistemology and method as important components of a research project.

  1. Qualitative Research

The philosophy behind qualitative research was discussed and different data collection methods were touched on including, interviewing, focus groups and participant observation.

Different paradigms were discussed

Interpretivist

We covered the following approaches within the interpretivist paradigm

  1. Ethnography (Damien Eccles project)
  2. Phenomenology
  3. Biography
  4. Case studies
  5. Grounded theory
  6. Narrative methods

Social Constructionist

We covered the following approaches within the social constructionist paradigm

  1. Discourse analysis (J Cole “Lost Ones” song)
  2. Semiotics

Critical methods

We covered the following approaches within the critical methods paradigm (reflexive critique of society and culture)

  1. Marxism
  2. Feminism

During all of this ,we were given different tasks for analysing different media including song, video and images.

Quantitative Research

We also discussed the philosophy behind quantitative methods and positivism (logical positivism, naturalistic approach, the scientific method)

The following Positivist designs were discussed

  1. Descriptive designs
  2. Correlational designs
  3. Hypothesis testing
  4. Experimental designs
  5. Cross-sectional designs
  6. Longitudinal designs
  7. Sequential designs
  8. Quasi-experimental designs

Defining and measuring variables and the importance of defining a research variable in the research process was emphasised. Scales of measurement and types of measures were given.

  1. Self-report measures
  2. Tests
  3. Behavioural measures
  4. Physical measures

Probability and reliability, validity and sampling methods were introduced as were the following statistical tests:

  1. The standardising of scores
  2. Correlations
  3. T-tests
  4. Regression
  5. Analysis of variance
  6. Non-parametric designs
  7. Chi square
  8. Wilcoxon rank-sum test

And finally, the mixed methods design was introduced.