Qualitative research approaches in Logan's study

Scott, Logan (Year). Using the writing of a virtual expert to scaffold the writing of students learning reading diagnosis. Journal Name, Vol., Page(s)

When a critique is presented on behalf of any writing or research endeavor the reviewer must always assume a position of fairness and objectivity. To this end the article reported upon is evaluated and assessed from the standpoint of interest, interpretive accuracy, and the contribution being made to a scientific body of content knowledge. The professional article authored by Scott will, therefore, be evaluated on the merits of its purpose, stated area of professional interest, research design, scientific framework, supportive literature, and topic need.

The very first attention getting aspect of a published article is the title itself. The title is an important pointer incorporating significant keywords, phrases, and concepts of the issue, event, situation, or theory being reported upon. The title alerts the reader as to the type of research being conducted as well as to the variables under investigation. Although the Scott article fully catalogs the study's intent (i.e., scaffolding reading ability) there was no mention of the type of study being conducted, namely, quantitative or qualitative. In fact, although Scott references five case studies throughout the entire manuscript there was not mention that the research endeavor was a qualitative presentation of the five selected case studies. When attempting to present a qualitative study a researcher must ardently adhere to a certain structure to determine the significance of the phenomenon (scaffolding reading ability) being investigated.

In the interest of brevity qualitative research investigations can be described as having the following fundamental research characteristics (Peck & Secker, 1999; Gay & Airasian, 1996):

Interpretation of non-numerical facts.

Research based on past experiences of participants and personality of the researcher.

Uses an inductive rather than deductive approach.

Captures everyday life situations from participants and does so through face-to-face encounters. To analyze feelings, motivations, and attitudes.

Development of tentative research proposal through interaction with research participants.

Data analysis is interpretive and descriptive rather than quantitative and statistical. Data sets are small rather than large.

With these six fundamental requirements the Scott study will be reviewed and evaluated in terms of the following:

Title Page: A descriptive and succinct statement and one without embellishments or misleading statements. The title page, as reported upon earlier, does not give the reader any indication as to the what and how of the research concept.

Table of Contents: Scott does not provide the reader with a Table of Contents. A Table of Contents can be looked upon as a reader's roadmap to the content pages that follow. The reader of the Scott paper is relegated to either continuously reading the report to seen how things unfold or thumb through the pages to see the section headings listed - neither of which conform to qualitative research report best-practice requirements.

Abstract: An original, 150-word, brief description of the study and not a paraphrasing of the body or the research report. Although Scott did present an Abstract outlining his study there was a definite absence in presenting to the reader a professional conviction as to why such a study is needed or beneficial. The closest Scott came to fulfilling this requirement was to state that the aim of reviewing case studies is to prepare future teachers for real life situations. He might have informed the reader that case study research is a practical manner whereby students preparing to enter the educational field of reading disability is to garner information, as well as to evaluate situations that will resemble real life situations that will most likely be encountered.

In other words, learning through example.