QUESTION 1

CASE STUDY

Chris is a researcher in school counselling who is concerned about the stresses experienced by young adolescent students at his school. Chris requires to convince his principal and school manager to provide funding to support a new after-school programme. He chooses to gather data on the problems that youth at the school are experiencing to find out what types of programmes are most needed. Meaningful that the school board will want to know how frequently the problems occur he initially decides to gather information through a quantitative questionnaire that measures the number of stressful events youth have experienced. The questionnaire that Chris selects lists many stressful events, parents fighting, such as getting a bad grade, getting into fights with friends moving or losing someone you loved through death. Youth implementation the questionnaire are asked to check off all the events that they have experienced in the past year and to indicate which event was most stressful. Chris will then calculate the percentage of youth selecting each response and report which types of events are most frequent and how many youth are experiencing them. Nevertheless Chris also wants to provide greater depth and meaning to his report. To accomplish this, he adds a question asking the students why the event they identified as most stressful was so difficult. Chris plans to select several youth based on their answers to this open ended question and interview them in depth to find out how they coped with the event. He acquires permission from the school and most of the students' parents to conduct his research study. As he analyses the questionnaire results, he notices that one boy has checked that both his dog and his father died in the past year. Chris decided to interview the boy who explained that the dog had been a gift from his father on his 7th birthday. He and his father frequently took walks with his dog. "When my father died, my dog comforted me. I always talked with him about my father. Therefore when my dog died it was like losing my dad all over again and also my best friend." In his school board presentation, Chris presents data from his questionnaire showing the numerous youth reported stressful events involving the loss of a loved one. He exemplifies the difficulties experienced by the youth using several stories from his interviews. (Note- He obtained permission to use the stories and also carefully protected the confidentiality of the youth by omitting any identifying details). He then creates a request for funding to support programmes on grief and loss for the students

(a) What is the research approach used by Chris? Generally, what are the benefits of using that approach?

(b) What are some of the ethical practices that Chris made use in his research? What is the purpose of respecting the ethical issues?

(c) What has been the purpose of undertaking interviews and providing short stories in his presentation? Identify the different types of interviews and what are the weaknesses of each

QUESTION 2

(a) Distinguish between a Case study and Survey research design and illustrate your answer with one appropriate research topic for each design

(b) Explain the strengths and weaknesses of each design

QUESTION 3

A literature review is, without question, a key part of anyone's research; it is more than a mere summary of research studies and findings

(a) What are the major purposes of carrying a literature review?

(b) What are the steps that a researcher should bear in mind so as to conduct a literature review?

QUESTION 4

(a) Identify a topic that could be the focus of a research study in Educational Leadership & Management, and write two or three different research questions that could be addressed on this topic

(b) Discuss which approach would be best so as to carry out the research and explain the benefits & limitations of such an approach