Unit 2 Research Process and Strategy

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Qualitative & Quantitative Research Design

Students in their freshman year complained that the Composition 101 class should be eliminated because they already knew how to write.

Organizations Organizations are faced with various problems and issues on a daily basis.

Sometimes, the problems are complex and require further inquiry. To solve these

problems, research often is necessary. The research process involves developing

questions that help collect data to make an informed decision.

Quantitative numeric standards, closed-ended ques- tions

“On a scale of one to five, with one being the least important, how important do you think Composition 101 is for incoming freshmen at this university?”

Qualitative surveys, interviews, open-ended questions “Why do you think Composition 101 is important for incoming freshmen at this university?”

“How can Composition 101 be improved for incoming freshmen?”

Research On a scale of one to five, how important

do you think this class is?

31What type of research would you conduct to answer if Composition 101 should be required for incoming freshmen?

Quantitative Tips • Make sure to tabulate your findings. For example, if seventy students answered with a three on a survey asking how important Composition 101 is for their college careers, these would be tabulated accordingly. Also, if yes or no answers are found, these are tabulated based on how many respondents replied.

• Compute ratings and rankings by averaging each question. From the current scenario, the survey could show that fifty students ranked Composition 101 at a three, meaning that they believe it is somewhat important.

Qualitative Tips • Read all of the data.

• Organize any comments from the interviews or surveys into similar categories. For example, if fifty students reported that the class helped them improve their grammar skills, this would be one category.

• Make sure to label the categories. In this case, one category could be labeled as Grammar Improvement.

• Find any trends or patterns in the data. In this scenario, a pattern might show that most students learned something from the course.