Qualitative research methods and applications

Education

Qualitative Method

Distinguishing research purposes

When trying to determine the purpose for doing research it is often helpful to look at the idea of distinguishing between those things in which you can study through gathering and evaluating data, the research purpose and those things that you would like to know more about but can't study via empirical data, the practical purpose.

Empirical data is data that is derived from experiment, experience, and observation rather than from theory or logic (Empirical, n.d.) When looking at the problem of resource officers' perceptions of their duties in suburban middle schools, one set of empirical data that can be studied would be that of poverty and family dysfunction and how that drives school violence. A question that can be looked at in regards to this data is what is it that school resource officers can do reduce the amount of violence surrounding this segment of kids. So in this study the research purpose would be to see how much poverty and family dysfunction contribute to school violence, and the practical purpose would be to see what it is that school resources officers can do to reduce this.

By preserving the distinction between the research purpose and practical purpose of a study it is possible to design a study that will elicit some kind of change in the area in which you are studying. It allows the research designer to formulate empirical questions that will help to shape the outcome of the practical purpose of the study.

SUBJECT: Clarifying the focus and locus of inquiry

The focus of a research study should deal with conceptual concerns surrounding the data being looked at. Conceptual concerns are those of or relating to concepts or mental conception (Conceptual, n.d.). These concepts need to be an indicator of the significance of the research that is being done. The locus of a research study should focus on direct attention of social actions within a particular set of circumstances.

Within the study of resource officers' perceptions of their duties in suburban middle schools, the focus of the study would be that of what resource officers perceive as the issues that they must face in carrying out the duties of their job. Formulating these concepts will help to determine the significance of the research being done and really give it a purpose. The locus in this study would be to take the concepts of what is perceived as the duties of the resource officers and using these to determine what it is they can do to alleviate some of the concerns that face middle schools today.

Both the focus and the locus help the researcher to formulate the questions that they hope to answer by doing the research that they are looking at. Devising good questions from the beginning will help ensure that the appropriate research is conducted and good results are obtained.

SUBJECT: Generating an analytic memo

A good analytic memo should focus on a single term or idea within the research that is being done. The memo should explore the concepts characteristics while exploring the ways in which these characteristics might vary within different contexts.