Question

In that scenario, the three instructors realized there are limits to the insights they can gain through anonymous counting of discussion posts. The instructors would like to answer two additional research questions: (a) How do their students actually feel about the intervention? and (b) How do students view the influence of the intervention on their learning inside and outside of the classroom (if applicable)? In your initial post, compare the characteristics of appropriate research designs and recommend a qualitative research design that would facilitate answering the instructors’ additional questions. Explain the philosophical paradigm underlying the recommended approach. Evaluate the required articles for this week and describe the assumptions the instructors might have to set aside as they enter into a qualitative research study. Be sure to identify any ethical issues that may apply to the research. Review the characteristics of the quantitative approach you described in the Week Two discussion. Explain the ways in which the quantitative approach and paradigm differs from the qualitative approach and paradigm you have recommended here.

Scenario: Three instructors teach the same online course and have devised an experimental intervention to improve student motivation to actively participate in discussions. The course is a core requirement for all psychology students, and students are assigned to particular sections at random rather than by instructor choice. The average class size for this particular course is 45 students. To get a large enough sample for adequate analysis, the instructors have decided to include two sections for each instructor in the experiment. The first section will serve as the control group (no experimental intervention), and the second section will receive the intervention. Anonymous data about the dependent variable will be pooled for the three sections comprising the control group and the three sections that receive the intervention. The independent variable is the intervention, which may be an incentive such as digital badges or an instructional intervention involving changing the instructions for the guided response. The dependent variable will be the number of response (not initial) posts per student that exceed two lines of text

Answer 1

In the present study, the additional research questions can be explored in depth using the phenomenological approach as the major paradigm of qualitative design. The phenomenological approach will be help to describe the specific events inside and outside the classroom which shape the activity of intervention or the phenomenon under study.

In the study, the researchers could use a combination of methods, such as conducting interviews, reading the partiicpant’s journal accounts for the period of exposure to the intervention strategies, visiting places and events which are related to their learning environment, in order to understand the actual meaning participants place on the experience with learning interventions introduced in the research being examined. This would allow a greater insight into the participants’ own motivations in using the interventions in their everyday lives which would help to gage the influence of the research variable on their academic performance.

Based on the interviews, the researchers would then reflect and analyse the common themes, to look for emerging themes and to use other participants to validate the findings.In this way, a phenomenological study would be able to understand the students’ experiences with or without intervention and how the latter may impact comprehension of the study material.