ED 635 Action Research

Unit 5: Qualitative methods

Unit overview

There are as many qualitative methods as there are qualitative researchers. Methods in this genre of research are extremely varied ranging from interviews, observations, drawing diagrams, taking photographs, gathering artifacts like student work... and so on. Now... the trick in qualitative methods is what do you do with this data after you've gathered it? Again, the methods here are as varied as the researcher but mostly what qualitative researchers try to do is tell the best story using the data available. What qualifies as best story? - that would be the story that is most defensible and most refletive of an emic perspective. In this unit, we're going to practice gathering qualitative data as well as conducting analysis using that data.

Moodle discussion

1. What do you believe are the most important strengths and the most significant weaknesses of qualitative research and associated methods? What was interesting to you about the two activities in this unit?

Unit content

For this unit download and read this (a chapter on qualitative data collection) and this (a chapter on qualitative data analysis). After you've read both of these chapters carefully. Complete the following activities.

Activity #1: Analysis of powerful teaching

Activity #2: Zork - download and complete this activity as well. It is important to remember that kid #1 on part 1 is the same kid as kid #1 on part 2... and so forth. This allows you to compare kids over time. You'll see what I mean once you download it.