Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative
Using the questions you developed for the Week 9 discussion, interview a classmate, colleague, family member, or friend.
Code the results, and in at least one (1) paragraph reflect on what you learned about yourself while doing the interview.
[Note: The process of coding is described in Chapter 9 of your textbook.]Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative
I enclosed journal 5 instructions which is first attachment
week 9 discussion answer the questions 2nd attachment
chapter 9 3rd attachment
Question one
Do you think the college’s administration is doing enough in supporting students with autism? Are there structures that aim at upholding the welfare of autistic students?
This question will aim at evaluating whether the college is doing enough to ensure that autistic students do not experience any difficulties in meeting their educational goals. More so, it will also aim at evaluating the students’ perception regarding efforts being put in place to help autistic students meet their educational goals.
Question Two:
Prior to joining college, are there any preparations that were undertaken to help you adapt to college life? If there were, would you consider them effective?
There have been agencies that help autistic students prepare for life away from their families. In response, there have been dissenting views regarding their effectiveness especially in helping autistic students adjust in the new environment. Considering this, the researcher will aim at evaluating whether the programs are helpful in aiding autistic students to prepare for the college life.
Question Three:
What do you do differently to ensure success in your educational life here in college? What can the college do to support you in your personal educational goals?
The question will aim at evaluating different ways through which students strive to meet their educational goals. More so, it will aim at examining any levels of creativity among autistic students to ascertain whether they can be independent.Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative
On the other hand, it is imperative that one notes that the participants will be asked to give any information they may deem important regarding their educational life at the college. Doing so helps a researcher learn about unforeseen matters, concepts, and rising issues (Crewel, 2017). Additionally, a researcher needs to ensure that the environment is comfortable for the participants.
Reference
Crewel, J. (2017). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications, Inc.
Why is getting research more and more important in design? Marc Steen, a research scientist, says: “More and more innovations in the industry are lead by technological developments, rather than by consumers, users need or individual preferences. This so called technology gap brings the risk of creating products and services that people can not, or do not want to use or engage with.” (Steen, 2012) Research in design is “highly contextual and a key principle of a human centered design process by involving users in one or many parts of the design process.” (Steen, 2012) The goal is to understand people’s actions, needs and behaviors, to gain a deeper understanding of the problems, and receive valuable insights for the next design decisions.Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative
Designers have various tools available to do research. From face-to-face interviews, online surveys over to new tools like guerrilla testing. In most cases it is not possible to use all of these research tools in one project, due to budget or time limitations. The key to successful research is to understand the underlying methodologies, to choose the right tool for a project.
What is qualitative research?
Qualitative research is exploratory or interrogative research and tries to get “under the surface”. “The aim is to gather insights into how people live; what they do; how they use things; or what they need in their everyday or professional lives.“ (Government Design Service Manual, 2016)
Interviews are a good example how qualitative research can look like. For designers, they help them to understand the attitudes or mind-sets of a person, by asking for the “Why” and “How”. “If forces the interviewed person to think about motivations and reasons for a certain behavior.” (Barnham, 2015) Qualitative research often happens directly on-site. “It can range from a one-hour face-to-face interview, through following a participant for several days, or even a study over several weeks or months.” (Government Design Service Manual, 2016)
The gained results are rich, detailed insights of a person’s feelings and thinking. The gathered data is unstructured, and can be notes, drawings or even pictures. Qualitative research includes a small selection of participants, based on criteria’s defined by the researcher. The expectation is that this small selection represents a bigger group. This method does not claim that the results are universal right, nor statistical correct or can be reproduced. Qualitative research methods can provide deep insights, and therefore provide the designer with a better understanding for the researched topic.Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative
What is quantitative research?
Quantitative research tries to find answers to concrete questions by generating numbers and facts. “The goal is to establish a ‘representation’ of what consumers do or what consumers think.” (Barnham, 2015)
Surveys are good example for quantitative research. They ask for the “How much” or “How many” by a set of clear and predefined questions. Participants then have to choose which answer (“Yes”, “No”, “Never”, “twice a week”) is the best representation for them. Quantitative research is conducted indirectly or off-site. It is a method that includes large groups of participants to gather relevant data. The results of quantitative research are numbers or facts. In contrast these “facts” can be easily wrong interpreted because of the lack of context. And there is no control if the participant has understood the questions correctly, or what his underlying motivation is.
Quantitative versus qualitative research methods
Let me summarize the key features of both methods: Qualitative research tries to understand the context and has a holistic approach. The researcher does not exactly know what he is looking for. The results are insights in the form of Words, quotes or pictures. The results are a interpretation of the researcher and the data is unstructured. On the other hand, quantitative research tries to classify, count or measure. The researcher knows in advance exactly what he is looking for. The results are measurements, in most cases numbers. Quantitative research has the approach to proof a certain question and is therefore structured.Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative
Qualitative research methods generate insights that are always subjective and an interpretation of the person who is conducting the research. The results are not replicable and not statistical correct, but can provide valuable insights for a human centered design process. On the other hand quantitative research methods are a good instrument a later stage of the process to validate prototypes or measure improvements.
To say that quantitative research methods are therefore objective and qualitative methods are subjective, is an over simplification of both methods and is not correct. It is very important to understand that both methods do not work against each other.
How many people to ask?
Generalization or sampling, is the process of cutting out extremes or so called “outliners” from a research and is a standard in quantitative research. The goal of qualitative methods in contrast, is to look exactly for those “outliners”, because they can “provide a rich, contextualized understanding” (Polit, 2010) and be the most valid source for inspiration in the research process by a “…intensive study of individual cases.” (Polit, 2010)
This leads us to the question of how many observations are necessary to gain a deeper understanding of people’s behavior. In general, it depends on the research method, the approach and the time that is available. Jackob Nielsen, for example, says that five persons in a qualitative study are in most cases enough for a qualitative survey about human centered design questions. (Nielsen, 2012) He argues that the first interviewed person provides often the most insights. The second person will provide similar insights and will add some new insights to the research and so on. Most important is the fact, that asking no people in the design process gives no insights to the designer, and the more persons you add, the insights are not getting linear more.
Mixed methods and hybrid data
“Mixed methods research is, generally speaking, an approach that attempts to consider multiple viewpoints, perspectives, positions, and standpoints. Although mixed methods research is not new, it is a movement that has arisen in response to the currents of qualitative and quantitative research.” (Johnson, 2007)Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative
New inputs devices such as cameras, smartphones, sensors or open accessible public data give designer’s new tools to track and understand people’s real behaviors in real-time, and are constantly connected to the internet. Designers sometimes argue that tracked datasets are soulless and not a valid input. But when we can combine personal insights gained by qualitative research and combine it with quantitative behavioral data, it will enable designers to ask smarter questions in the design process, or to cite Seemann: “Hybrid data, allows us to keep the soul in the data.” (Seemann, 2012)
Mixing both methods, and adding behavioral data from sensors, we can create a new dimension in understanding people better, by analyzing what people actually do and how they behave, instead of asking them on how they think and feel. Because what people say, think, and feel can be contradictory to what they actually do. It is not that people are being dishonest, in fact, quite the opposite, they are giving as honest answer as they can. (Cooper-Wright, 2015)
By allowing designers to toggle between qualitative and quantitative methods during rapid prototyping and research synthesis …, hybrid data points to the future of smart insight generation. (Seemann, 2012)Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative