Qualitative Research Methods: a team designed and implemented project
Contact details
Gordon Waitt
School of Geosciences
University of Wollongong
NSW 2522
Australia
Tel: 0242 213 684
Email: gwaitt@uow.edu.au
Classification Category
- Using teaching and learning processes which simulate research processes (e.g. project-based modules, dissertation modules, problem based learning etc).
Context
- Course/unit/module title: GEOS 347
- Course title: Northern Neighbours: Economic and Social Change in the Asia -Pacific
- Level: 300 Level (3rd Year)
What does the teacher do?
Section 1: A guide to designing a team project approach to teaching a Qualitative Research Methods course
The teaching task...
You have been given the task of teaching qualitative research methods in your department. You wish to provide the students with learning outcomes where they have first hand experience of the problems of conducting qualitative research and can apply this experience to designing and conducting future research projects. You wish to design a student centred research project where the students design the research questions, conduct the literature review, develop and test the interview structure and prepare a final report. You wish the students to learn group skills, but wish to assess their involvement in the research process and quality of their research.
Assessment: -
Final report 50%
Research diary - 50%
Preparation time...
You will need to give yourself at least a month preparation time before the class begins.
Preparation of workbook materials and exercises is essential to run a series of workshops that provide the students with what is often their first insights into designing and implementing a research project.
I divided the 13 week semester into a series of workshops: working as a group; getting a research project started; a literature context; designing our questionnaire; selecting a qualitative method; implementing our questionnaire; and writing-up qualitative research. In each workshop I identified particular learning outcomes. Each workshop was designed around a series of student centred activities. Each set of activities built-up into the complete research project.
In addition to the workshop I also scheduled a series of weeks that were for student presentations of the literature, for problem solving and troubleshooting and conducting fieldwork.
Selecting a qualitative research problem...
Select a qualitative research problem that is central to the subject you are teaching. I have selected problems that have explored social and cultural issues relating to tourism within the Asia Pacific.
Provide the students with the context of the problem rather than a specific research question. The students will have to work as group to devise the specific research question they are going to explore. For example, in the context of tourism in the Asia Pacific I have devised a problem around whether tourism results in increased understanding and respect for cultural differences between visitors and guests. Another project focused on the tourism brochures of National Tourism Organisations, and whether they were an important mechanism in informing the imagined geographies of the Asia-Pacific.
Meeting the students for the first time...
It is important to be prepared for the first class, armed with the workbook
and workshop series.
Your role is to guide the students through the research process. It is essential
you map out the journey that this class will take. It is essential to explain
that this class is different and how each of the workshops build into a whole
project. It is imperative at this first class you air student concerns. It
is also critical that the class derives agreement on how these concerns can
be addressed before the project begins. This often involves the class setting
deadlines and penalties over the submission of work that the group requires
to complete the project.
Your role is to create and support a learning environment, rather than provide instruction.
Final ingredients...
You are now ready to begin the workshops. Enthusiasm is an essential final ingredient. Make sure that you keep the class informed each week of the stage they have reached in the project. Before each workshop, clearly specify the learning outcomes. Remind the students that they should be reflecting on the research process in their diaries. As a facilitator, you should be prepared to guide the students through the learning outcomes of each workshop and allow the students to take control of the direction of the research project.
Section 2: A case study of the application of the team project approach
The teaching-research nexus does not occur 'naturally' within universities. For the benefits of the teaching-research nexus to be realised, staff members require to carefully reflect on their understanding of teaching and design course curriculums that provide opportunities to participate in research-like activities. Careful planning, design and organisation are required to explicitly link aspects of staff research to student learning.
This teaching-research nexus case study refers to the teaching of qualitative research methods within a final-year subject, with around 25 student enrollments. In 2000-2001, the 'practical' components of 'Northern Neighbours: Social and Economic Change within the Asia Pacific' at the University of Wollongong, Australia, was re-designed around a group research-like activities. Students are presented with a research problem that related directly to the course content, in my case tourism as mechanism of social and economic change in the Asia-Pacific. In the context of the workshops one of the first group tasks the students undertake is to devise the specific research questions, within the context of the problem. In 2000-2001 the problem was centred on tourism as mechanism for increasing the understanding of cultural differences between guest and host cultures. In 2001-2002 the focus changed to examine if brochures of the National Tourism Organizations have an influence on the imagined Asia-Pacific geographies of Australians.
The 'practical' content of this subject was redesigned as the culmination of a three-year geography curriculum in which students have been introduced to various transferable skills and the idea of geography as a research-based discipline. In the first-year 'practical' course in geography the aim is to incorporate contemporary geographical techniques with teaching and learning methods. This is achieved through students undertaking six independent research tasks to gain insight to a particular geographical problems and techniques. In second-year subjects the 'practical' courses are designed to further develop students' 'research tools' and independent learning skills. 'Northern Neighbours' was therefore designed as the concluding 'practical' course within this set of subjects, before advancing to an honours research project. This subject counts for one-sixth of the students' final year marks.
Learning Outcomes
Two sets of related learning outcomes were conceived for the 'practical' course, the first refers to geographical understanding, the second to transferable skills. By the end of the 'practical' course the students should:
- be competent in a range of methodological skills, particularly those relating to qualitative research design and practice including, conducting interviews, questionnaire design, interview transcription and rigors of qualitative analysis
- have enhanced their command of transferable skills, including the capacity to present material in a report and to work efficiently and pragmatically both as an individual and team member
- have increased awareness of their own range of personal transferable skills.
There were no formal exams. Instead grades were allocated to the level of engagement in the process of research as indicated by entries in student's reflective diaries and the final written report.
The 'Practical' Course Structure
The 'practical' course comprised of a series of 7 workshops (Table 1). Although each workshop had specific learning outcomes, students were made aware from the first workshop how all classes were integrated with each other. Also at the outset it was explained that at the completion of each workshop students were required to monitor their own communication, interpersonal or geographical skills by conducting a personal skills audit, writing their self-assessment within a research diary. In addition, throughout the duration of workshops 2-5 each student was also required to record in their research diary a log of group work activities and a reflection upon how the group was functioning.
From student weekly evaluations, an insight is provided to the effectiveness of conducting the workshops. Resistance to the workshops was present at the beginning of the semester, voiced in terms of the workshop concept being new, the scale of the project and the scope of the project requiring a dependence on others. However, by the end of the project, overall, students' reactions were very supportive. In particular students commented in terms of how these workshops (a) reduced their anxiety in undertaking group work; (b) increased their confidence to undertake original research; and (c) increased their awareness of the process of knowledge formation.
As a staff member the effectiveness and value of running workshops to teach qualitative research methods through developing a teaching-research nexus were demonstrated through the opportunity to develop assessment tasks that reflect engagement through participation as well as understanding of the research process. The workshop design all resulted in secondary benefits in terms of improved class attendance and students setting and meeting group deadlines.