Use the online library to find a peer-reviewed journal article that uses qualitative methods.

Read the article and write a brief summary of the article

Write a critical review of their qualitative analysis. For example, how were the data codified? Was there a message to finding particular themes in the data? Or, could the authors have presented a better explanation for how the data were categorized and analyzed? Explain in detail.

The article I found is Child Abuse Investigation: An in-depth analysis of how police officers perceive and cope with daily work challenges. There were two reasons for conducting the study: to explore the perceptions of the challenges that are involved with child abuse investigations as well as how those challenges affect the officer's ability to carry out the investigations and to discover how the officers deal with these challenges on a daily basis (Wright et al, 2006).

This study had a qualitative design with in-depth interviews of 25 police officers associated with child abuse units. The study found that a heavy caseload and collaboration with other professional groups were two causes for negative work stress (Wright et al, 2006)

Qualitative Analysis

1) Is the results section a cohesive essay?

Yes, the article as a whole is very cohesive with a section fully devoted to the results of the study.

2) Does the researcher connect the results to any general research questions or goals?

Yes, there were a lot of questions about how the stress associated with the job is managed and after the results section there are other sections that go a bit further in describing the different ways the officers dealt with the stress.

3) Is the perspective of the results presentation appropriate? Does it match the research technique?

Yes it is, it maintains the qualitative design and follows the same technique that is seen throughout the entire study.

4) Has the writer presented enough examples to support the conclusions? Do the examples make the readers ‘believe' the researcher's points?

Yes, there are plenty of examples throughout the article and even more following the results.

5) Do you have reason to believe that the presence of the researcher influenced the actions or statements of other group members? If this is possible, has the researcher addressed it in the research?

I do not feel as though the researcher's presence influenced the information given by the participants. The article states that the participants were able to speak freely and when they presented negative stressors themselves is when the researchers asked for them to elaborate.

6) Especially in field research (although this may be an issue to a lesser degree in other forms of qualitative data gathering), does the researcher discuss how he or she interacted with subjects in the field, what problems arose, and how the researcher addressed them?

The researcher was able to meet with each participant and their workplace with the exception of one that chose to meet in a public place. The interview was semi structured and normal conversations were conducted between the researcher and participant. As I stated previously, participants were asked to elaborate when they said something that the researcher wanted to hear more of.

Wright, R., Powell, M. B., & Ridge, D. (2006). Child abuse investigation. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 29(3), 498-512. doi:10.1108/13639510610684728