Integrity, Validity and Ethics Within

¶ … Integrity, Validity and Ethics within the proposed topic: Benefits and Drawbacks of Online Teaching vs. Teaching in Traditional Face-to-Face Settings

The advent of online-courses and to a greater extent online-universities have driven traditional brick and mortar universities to integrate online-courses into their teaching pedagogy. This evolutionary construct has lead to several questions being asked. Such questions as "What is the difference between online teaching and face-to-face? And "What can faculty members expect from teaching courses on the Web?" These questions are tantamount to understanding the very nature of integrating a web-based curriculum into a traditional teaching model. To fully understand this relationship and altercation within higher education, a qualititative study has been proposed to ascertain the attitudes of professors who have taught either at online universities or have taught singular online-courses. This brief discussion will examine the main qualitative aspects of the research design. Specifically, this discussion will focus on the critical steps needed to ensure validity of the study, maintaining integrity and the ethics involved in conducting such a study.

Discussion

There are numerous factors that contribute to the maintenance of validity within a qualitative study. Qualitative research has been described as involving a "human touch" opposed to the static, antiseptic methods of pure data analysis through quantitative analysis (Shank, 2002). This human touch is defined as having the ability to observe, interpret, converse and participate (Shank, 2002). Furthermore, these skills can further be delineated into more focused, refined and directed forms of observing (Shank, 2002). Additionally, the researcher should recognize and work within a paradigm that allows the responses of the participants to account for almost all of the data input within the qualitative study (Merriam, 2008).

Recording these responses accurately is a pivotal component of ensuring the validity of the research. Maintaining the proper maintenance of data goes to the hear of creating the context that maintains qualitative validity. Achieving a balance between what the researcher deems important and the participants deem important must be coordinated in order for the results of the study to be valid. This concept of "balance" is one of the most often cited difficulty cited by beginning qualitative researchers (Schram, 2006).

To ensure this balance is achieved and the overall study is comprised of the strongest and highest level of integrity and ethics, there must be a solid design. Although the purpose of this discussion is not to divulge into the specific mechanics of the qualitative design, ethics and integrity are both natural outgrowths of solid research designs.

Integrity and ethics have been referred to as "straightforwardness" and "trustworthiness" within qualitative studies (Given, 2008). Integrity and ethics are ensured when the researcher exhibits a reasonable level of quality control in reviewing the data (Patton, 2006). Specifically, the researcher should be on the look out for data that goes according to plan, in other words, data that fits the model to well or data that has "too good of fit" should be viewed with some skepticism. The logical conclusion to this environment would construe the facts to discern that the integrity and ethics of the qualitative study design have been compromised (Patton, 2006; Given, 2008).