Evaluating Qualitative Methods
The following scenario was originally presented in Module 2.
Assume the role of a chief researcher for the state Department of Education who is examining two groups with similar educational deficiencies. One group involved in the study is a rural, ethnically-defined, aboriginal group with a high rate of health issues including diabetes, vision impairment, and heart disease. The other group is also a rural group living on family-owned farms (as opposed to corporate farms) that are in severe decline as a result of years of decreasing rainfall and drought. Both groups' exhibit achievement test scores that are more than one standard deviation below the mean at all grade levels, and excessive high school drop-out rates.
General Requirements:
Use the following information to ensure successful completion of the assignment:
- Instructors will be using a grading rubric to grade the assignments. It is recommended that learners review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment in order to become familiar with the assignment criteria and expectations for successful completion of the assignment.
- Doctoral learners are required to use APA style for their writing assignments. The APA Style Guide is located in the Student Success Center.
- This assignment requires that at least two additional scholarly research sources related to this topic, and at least one in-text citation from each source be included.
- You are required to submit this assignment to Turnitin. Refer to the directions in the Student Success Center. Only Word documents can be submitted to Turnitin.
Directions:
Write a paper of 1,250-1,500 words in which you consider the merits of applying ethnography, phenomenology, grounded theory, narrative inquiry, and case study to the scenario above. Include the following in your paper:
- A brief description of what types of information about the given scenario could be gathered from each of the qualitative methods listed above.
- A brief statement of the potential utility and scientific merit of the information to be gathered by applying each of the qualitative methods above to the given scenario.
- A brief statement describing which qualitative method(s) listed above would be best suited to the scenario in light of the potential gains in both utility and scientific merit expected from completing the study.