¶ … mixed methods research study. Each of the three studies must have been published in a peer-reviewed journal. Analysis of a Qualitative Research Report: Problem statement:

What is the problem the study was conducted to address?

Many schools have not adopted new electronic-era media literacies into their core curricula, but understanding these new, evolving literacies is critical to understanding how students learn today, especially with regard to low-income students, for several reasons (Turner, 2011, p. 614).

Why is the problem an important one for someone in your discipline to study?

The ability to use multi-media communication technologies will increase in importance the more those technologies are deployed in education. The more technology proliferates in education, the more students will need skills to critically analyze such texts for validity and applicability. If those students will be the workforce of the next generation, the workers we manage will need critical multi-media literacy skills in order to separate authoritative text from say advertising or politically biased messaging in the workforce and daily life.

Study purpose: 1.). what is the purpose of the study?

Turner responds to a 2003 prediction by Kress that understanding a "shift to screen-based image literacy" (Kress, 2003, quoted in Turner, 2011, p. 613) would entail a concurrent shift in pedagogical research.

Research question:

1.). What is the research question?

Turner breaks his inquiry into multi-media production "in the development of information and communications technology literacies" (Turner, 2011, p. 614) into three questions, namely what specific skills students developed, how acquiring multi-media skills increased students' abilities "to interpret and produce texts" (Turner, 2011, p. 614), and how students' understandings of information and cummications technology literacies change per different contexts.

2.). Is the question stated broadly enough for a qualitative study? Why or why not?

The questions are...

Each question is open-ended, asking 'what' or 'how' questions without limitation as to how many answers or ranking of those answers, for example. Had these been asked 'which of the skills' or 'what is the best skill,' those questions would be more amenable to quantitative research due to the comparison for dominance within their respective groups, for example.
Study design:

1.). What qualitative design is used?

Taylor employed pre- and post-test subject (student) and proctor (educator) interview, where the test condition was a multi-media production class; participant observation, researcher selection on basis of interest (gender, race and ethnicity); answers were open-coded for "repeating, emergent themes that helped answer my three research questions" (Turner, 2011, p. 616); pre- and post-test Likert-type scale response analysis for specific skill attainment and technology mode. The last would approach quantitative analysis except that the responses were based on self-report rather than specific objectives determined within constrained test conditions, i.e. unobservable test conditions may have confounded students' responses before and after treatment.

2.). In what way is the chosen design an appropriate one for this study?

This design is appropriate because of the expense involved in treating a large number of such test participants, the subjectivity of response, and the subjectivity of terms of definition, i.e. Turner's (2011) "emergent themes" (616), which would be possible but difficult to restrict semantically for a large, heterogenous sample. Having students perform skills presentation of which constituted test conditions, was appropriate to identify whether they had indeed obtained the conditions the test sought to impose or not. This study could be performed quantitatively given extensive prior definition of the categories, say through standardized testing, and a larger budget.

Subjects and setting:

1.). How were the study subjects obtained?

The 30 students who began the program…