Advanced Educational Research Assignment

Assignment One: Qualitative analysis and interpretation - students will be provided with a number of interview transcripts, the interview schedule and the background to the study. They will prepare a short literature review of the area under investigation, and then construct and apply a coding framework to the transcripts providing details of coding scheme and memoing of both a priori and in vivo coding. A summary should contain interpretation of the analysed data.

The purpose of this assignment is to analyse secondary qualitative data in the form of interview transcripts and prepare a report on the analysis approach and interpretation of the interview data.

Details of the study that collected the data to be used in this assignment - Henderson, S., Holland, J., Thomson, R., McGrellis, S., Sharpe, S. (2011). Inventing Adulthoods, 1996-2006. [data collection]. 3rd Edition. UK Data Service. SN: 5777.

Students are provided with five transcripts obtained from interviews with young people involved with the Inventing Adulthoods Project. They are also provided with the interview schedule that was used to collect the data and a brief description about the Project and the research used to evaluate it. There are also links and references to further resources relevant to the project which should be consulted. Also included are brief background details of each of the five interviewees - including gender, socio-economic status, etc.

The Assignment:

• Students are asked to briefly introduce the assignment with reference to the area or topic to be investigated, i.e.: youth transitions and the factors that shape their adult lives and the role that family and other influences play in the pathway to adulthood.
• Students are then asked to develop 'a priori' themes from the interview schedule and from the relevant literature; then, develop codes related to their themes and apply them to one of the transcripts providing details of their thinking underlying the selection of text to be coded. (This may be summarised and presented in tabular format - but caution should be exercised in presentation)
• Students should then identify and select one area of the schedule or one of the main themes identified above and apply the codes developed plus any new or 'in vivo' codes that arise during the in-depth reading and analysis to two of the other transcripts. It is suggested that choosing contrasting cases may aid comparisons
• Students should then provide a brief interpretation of the coded texts noting both similarities and differences across the individual transcripts.
• Finally, students should draw brief conclusions regarding the topic(s) they have analysed in the transcripts.

Word count: 2000 words.

Attachment:- Assignment Files.rar