Philosophical Differences Between Qualitative And Quantitative Paradigms And Approaches
Review PSY635 Week Two Discussion Scenario.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)?
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Order Paper NowCompare 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 attached 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 described in the Week Two discussion attached. Explain the ways in which the quantitative approach and paradigm differs from the qualitative approach and paradigm you have recommended here.
REQUIRED ARTICLES REFERENCES
Frost, N. (2011). Qualitative research methods in psychology. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.Chapter 1: Qualitative Research in Psychology
PSY635 Week Two 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. The researchers have decided to use the Week Four discussion for data collection,
reasoning that it may take some time for the intervention to become effective
Problems in Designing an Experimental Research Study
Null and Research Hypotheses
Research Hypothesis
Motivated students do actively participate in discussions than unmotivated students.
Null Hypothesis
There is no statistically significant correlation between the instructors and the course they teach.
The Most Appropriate Experimental Research Design to Test my Hypothesis
In this experiment, the most suitable research design to test the hypothesis according to
the provided case scenario is Pretest-Posttest Control-Group Design. This research design
involves the random assignment of participants to either control or experimental groups
(Skidmore, 2008). In the provided case, the assignment of students into particular sections using
randomization rather than being directed by the instructor’s choices. This is the first factor that
makes Pretest-Posttest Control-Group Design suitable for this experiment. Additionally, PretestPosttest Control-Group Design is characterized by the presence of control and an experiment
group, an element that has been utilized in the provided scenario. Besides that, Pretest-Posttest
Control-Group Design entails an intervention administered in the experimental group and no
intervention given to the control group. The control group shall not receive any intervention in
the provided case, while the experimental group shall receive an intervention. Hence, a
combination of the above elements makes Pretest-Posttest Control-Group Design the most
appropriate research design for this experiment.
Internal Threats to Validity and How to Mitigate Them
Addressing validity threats is a crucial task towards realizing a conclusive research
experiment. Internal validity threats hinder the researchers’ ability to achieve accurate inferences
in the particular experiment (Skidmore, 2008). The provided case study is exposed to various
internal validity threats, among them experimental attrition. In this internal validity threat,
researchers are concerned about a differential loss of experiment participants due to the impacts
of administered interventions. In the provided scenario, many students might leave the
experimental group due to the effects of various interventions such as changing instructions to
grant a guided response if they feel that the instructions make the discussions challenging. In this
case, the experiment results will be under question as the comparison will be less effective as
most of the participants will be from the control group. Researchers can mitigate attrition in their
experiments by offering incentives to participants. Besides that, Pretest-Posttest Control-Group
Design entails pretesting, which exposes the experiment to testing internal validity threats. In this
regard, the familiarity with the prior testing of the various interventions might create a significant
difference in pretest and post-test results, creating a concern that testing can influence the
experiment’s results. If there is a significant difference between results before and after testing,
the results might be inconclusive, adversely impacting the experiment’s quality. Researchers can
mitigate testing validity threats by altering the research to employ experimental designs that do
not use pretesting.
Ethical Principles in the Proposed Research
Ethics is a valuable tool that guides quality research. In this proposed research, various
ethical principles should be implemented to fulfill the research’s moral obligations. These ethical
principles include informed consent, justice, and integrity. Informed consent is a core principle of research, ensuring that participants can voluntarily enter into the experiments and be granted
adequate information on what the study means to them. Additionally, informed consent provides
that researchers seek the participants’ consent before entering into the research.
On the other hand, justice is a vital principle that ensures that researchers exhibit fairness
and equity to all the participants and that the needs and interests of research participants have a
higher priority than the study’s objectives. Whenever human beings are treated unfairly, their
human dignity is violated (Damtew, 2018) Moreover, integrity is an ethical research principle
that ensures that a study is conducted with transparency, honesty, and open communication.
Integrity enables other people to have trust in research methods and findings. Lastly, the selected
population in the samples should depict diversity, requiring each sample in the scenarios to have
people from different cultures since people from diverse backgrounds might react differently to
various interventions, improving the quality of the research.
References
Damtew, B., 2018. Justice in Research: History,
Principle and Application (A Literature
Review). In: Ethics in Conducting Health
Systems Research.
Skidmore, S. (2008). Experimental Design and
Some Threats to Experimental Validity: A
Primer. Online Submission