Question

You are a researcher interested in asking the following research question:

In what ways do afterschool leadership programs help middle school students gain leadership skills?

There are many different ways you could approach this research, but you narrow it down to two different options, described below.

Option 1: You select five different afterschool leadership programs. You visit each program for a week, during which time you conduct a set of hour-long interviews with three program staff members and an hour-long focus group of five youth participants.

Option 2: You select one afterschool leadership program. You work as a staff member at that program twice a week for the entire school year. You document your observations in field notes after each session.

a. Compare options 1 and 2 in terms of the research approach. What are advantages and disadvantages of each option from a research methods perspective? Explain your answer.

b. Discuss one ethical concern and compare options 1 and 2 in terms of this concern in the research approach. Explain your answer.

c. If you were conducting this research, which option would you prefer to use? Explain your answer.

Answer 1

Answer A) Comparison of Option 1 and 2 in terms of research approach :

If we compare the two methods stated above, in option 1, we are conducting a statistical research and by following a proper framework of sampling and questioning the subjects, after which, we are coming to a conclusion of the problem statement, that is, out of all available afterschool leadership programs, we are selecting five of them by simple random sampling or any other suitable statistical sampling approach( a good sample size) and a good amount of observation time( a week) is used for interrogating the staff members and the students before coming to a conclusion. Hence, the researcher can know everyone's perspective about the leadership program and then take a decision which will definitely be a wise decision. This is one of the biggest advantage of this option.

while

In option 2, we are choosing only 1 afterschool leadership program and working their as a staff member without anyone's notice and conducting the research only based on our observations. Since, no other people are involved in the conclusion, so this might not be a good way of conducting research, because the decision is solely taken by the researcher. There's also a saying "To err is human", so, taking decision based on only a single person's perspective might not be a wise one. This is one of the biggest disadvantage of this option.

From a research perspective, a researcher should choose a wise method of sampling the programs, choose enough people for interrogating and knowing their perspective about the program and relate his own perspective and finally take a decision which is clearly followed in option 1, hence it is a good method.

Answer B) While conducting a research, a researcher must follow fair means, there is no use of conducting any research by unfair means.If we compare option 1 and 2 in terms of honesty, the way of conducting option 2 is not at all acceptable. The researcher, here, is cheating the leadership program by working as a staff member, while, he is not serving their to help the students but to observe and take down points for his research by unfair means. In option 1, the researcher is confronting the leadership program telling about his research objective and interviewing the staff and students so as to get a true response about how good the program is.

Answer C) If I were the researcher, I would have definitely chosen Option 1. Research itself means you should have enough evidence to prove your conclusion correct. This is clearly seen in option 1 where a lot of people are asked about their opinion and a wise conclusion is reached rather than just taking a decision based on one's own perspective. Of course, there is no unfair method involved in this process, so I would go for option 1.