Research Methods - Dissertation Example

Section 3: Methodology Introduction Research can be a tedious process but the heart and soul of the study is the data derived from it since it is the one that provides the information from which new knowledge may be formed. This chapter details how such data is derived. It will identify the methods selected to be able to answer the main research question “How do teachers view the effect of instruction within the inclusion model for students with learning disabilities”. Specifically this study addresses the following: How does a full inclusion classroom setting serve to affect the relationship between the educator and his students (both with and without LDs)? What are the educators’ perspectives of this process of full inclusion and does this perspective change as the educator starts using the process within a general classroom setting? How does the process of full inclusion affect the achievements of students within a general classroom setting? Quantitative and Qualitative Methodology Research methods fall into two general categories namely Quantitative and Qualitative methods. Quantitative methods entail numerical analysis of data while investigations that produce information without statistical procedures or any quantification are considered qualitative research (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). On the other hand Gay (2009) contends, “Qualitative research is the collection, analysis, and interpretation of comprehensive narrative and visual (i.e., nonnumerical) data to gain insights into a particular phenomenon of interest” (p. 7). Robson (2002) contend that quantitative researches determine the causes of events and predict and generalize their findings while qualitative researchers look for enlightenment and understanding. They search for various perspectives and do not restrict their different interpretations of data to just a norm (Glesne, 1999). She further explains that the research focuses on the participants’ experiences, the participants ascribe to those experiences, and/or understanding a process from the insights of a process participant. Hence, the data expected to be analyzed mostly come from the insights and shared experiences of the participants of the study. This study takes more of a qualitative approach in gathering data. Merriam (1998) defines qualitative research as “an umbrella concept covering several forms of inquiry that help us understand and explain the meaning of social phenomena with as little disruption of the natural setting as possible”(p.5). The qualitative approach is selected because it is the most suited in eliciting the needed information regarding the insights teachers have about inclusion in their own context. Such approach can delve deeper beneath the surface as the researcher may ask probing questions that the participants may answer, and this is not possible with quantitative methods which may limit the responses to only measurable choices. Philosophy The philosophy adhered to by the research methodology employed in this study is Social Constructivism-Interpretivism. It gathers information from people’s viewpoints and their various perspectives to get a picture of the social environment they move in (Gay et al., 2009). Their opinions and insights will then be interpreted in accordance to the concepts discussed in the review of literature. The researcher chose this philosophy because it is the most fitting in helping the study answer the research questions since it goes directly to the people concerned in this study for their own inputs. Research Methods Exploring teachers’ views on inclusion takes more than just extracting what they know about it. Probing deeper into the matter, one would be able to derive their thoughts, feelings and personal insights on how inclusion affects them. In doing so, teachers may be introspective and assess their own attitudes, behaviors and performance as teachers in inclusive educational settings. This is the outcome envisioned by this study. In order to achieve that, the methodology of questionnaire and focus group interview will be undertaken. Questionnaires Questionnaires are effective means of collecting data from the research participants, with the aim of obtaining their personal views on various issues. Participants may feel more secure and confident in answering them due to their anonymous nature since filling out their names is optional. Campbell et al. (2004) describe questionnaires as: “…a very versatile data-gathering method; they are cheap, easy to administer no matter how many participants are expected to fill them out. These questionnaires can be used to gather a great variety of data of both quantitative and qualitative nature.” (Campbell et al., 2004, p. 146). It is also hailed for its efficiency in collecting a significant amount of information in just one attempt instead of collecting it over a period of time (Cohen et al.,2000). When the questionnaire is left to the respondents to answer at their own time, the time of the respondents of the questionnaires are not wasted as they have the convenience of completing it at a time that is convenient for them that does not require the researcher and the respondent to arrange their schedules in order to conduct the research (Gillham, 2000). The use of questionnaires is also helpful when the topic of research is controversial and sensitive, so the anonymity of the respondents are protected. If the respondents are assured of their anonymity, it is more likely that they answer truthfully or maybe write about the issues more openly in the questionnaires rather than in face-to-face interactions. Thus, questionnaires are assumed to generate more truthful answers because there is no personal contact with the interviewer (Cohen et al., 2000; Gillham, 2000). The disadvantage of pre-made questionnaires that provide choices of answers, however, is that their responses may just be limited to the choice of box they tick or brief responses expected of them based on the questions, so the result is getting more breadth of information rather than depth. This is the limitation of lacking an interviewer to prompt the respondent for further information or more detail in his or her answers. Another limitation is that the researcher is unable to clearly explain whatever misinterpretations of the questions to the respondent, so it renders each participant to resort to his or her own subjective understanding of the questions. The questionnaire to be used in this study is adopted from Concerns-Based Adoption Model developed by the staff at the Research and Development Center for Teacher Education by Hall, Wallace and Dosset (1973). This measures the developmental changes in educators over a period of time. The CBAM has three diagnostic dimensions: the Stages of Concern (SoC), the Levels of Use (LoU), and Innovation Configurations (IC). This study will only use the Stages of Concern (SoC) component of the model (See Appendix). Focus Group Interview To supplement data that will be gathered from the questionnaires, focus group shall also be conducted. Interviews allow sharing of insights among the participants. It gives the interviewer an opportunity to probe responses and investigate motives and feelings of the participants on the topic at hand. Data gathered from the questionnaires and focus group interview will be validated with the content analysis of relevant literature. The interview method involves questioning or a discussion of issues with one or more people.  It is useful to collect data which may not be accessible through observation or questionnaires (Blaxter et al, 2006). Robson (2002) points out how the interview is a flexible and adaptable research tool.  In face to face interviews, there is the possibility of following up interesting responses.  Frey and Mertens-Oishi (1995) comment how respondent participation can be enhanced by the interviewer sensitively guiding the questioning, and being able to answer any questions which the respondent may ask.  Oppenheim (1992) suggests that the response rate is higher in interviews than in questionnaires, due to the fact that participants become more involved. For this study, to pursue the questions in the questionnaires in depth, 7-10 volunteers will be asked to join the focus group interview. The participants for the focus group interview are teachers in inclusive educational settings. The number of participants (7-10) is just right to conduct a more in-depth discussion of the interview questions because it provides just enough number of people to comfortably share their insights without feeling too intimidated to speak in front of a group. More than 10 people might be too big a group that shy participants may be reluctant to share their insights. On the other hand, just a handful or less of participants will limit the sharing of opinions and insights to a number that may not be representative of the rest of the teacher’s sentiments. The focus group interview will be facilitated by the researcher, himself. A set of questions is prepared to guide the interviewer in encouraging teachers to share their views on inclusion. However, since it is a semi-structured interview, the discussion may shift to other related topics not initially included in the questionnaire. Hence, the researcher should be skilled in determining the relevance of the discussion to the study and steer the participants to stay within the bounds of the discussion on inclusive programs. The following questions will be addressed in the focus group interview: 1. How do you define an inclusive program for children with disabilities? 2. In your opinion, what are the elements that facilitate or hinder an inclusive program to succeed? 3. How do you collaborate with your colleagues in order to make inclusion more effective? 4. What do you think is the impact of inclusion on both students with special education needs and general education students? 5. How is your relationship with your students in your inclusive classes? 6. How do your students achieve their goals in an inclusive class? The focus group interview will be audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. This is to ensure that the full interview is documented accurately. Although recorded, the interviewees are ensured of the confidentiality of their responses as there will be no reference to their identities during the interview process and that their real names will not be used in the reporting of the responses as data. The researcher will secure the copy of the audio recording and dispose of it permanently upon the completion of its transcription. Assuring the interviewees of confidentiality gives them an opportunity to elaborate and freely express their insights with regard to the issues at hand.. The focus group discussions are believed to add pertinent information to the study. Participants of the Study Twenty five participants who will be recruited in this study are teachers with ample experience in teaching in inclusive classrooms. These teachers are general education teachers who teach the core subject areas such as Math, English, Science and Social Studies. They should have at least two years of teaching experience to make them credible sources of information regarding inclusive programs and its impact on both general education students and students with special education needs. Selection of the participants would be based on their professional qualifications and length of teaching experience. These teachers will complete the Stages of Concern Questionnaire, after which they will be divided into three focus groups which will be conducted separately by the researcher. Data Analysis Analysis of data derived from the Stages of Concern Instrument will follow the protocol of analysis provided by the instrument. Data from the focus group interview will be transcribed in verbatim and the responses will be tabulated based on the thematic categories that come up in the interview. “Data analysis in qualitative research involves summarizing data in a dependable and accurate manner and leads to the presentation of study findings in a manner that has an air of undeniability” (Gay et al, 2009, p. 448). Bowen’s (2005) analysis of interview transcripts and observation sheets identified patterns in the data by means of thematic codes. “Inductive analysis,” Patton (1980) explains, “means that the patterns, themes, and categories of analysis come from the data; they emerge out of the data rather than being imposed on them prior to data collection and analysis” (p. 306). Bowen’s analysis of data entailed studying the patterns that emerged and making logical associations with the interview questions. He details the process of deriving his research findings as follows: “At successive stages, themes moved from a low level of abstraction to become major, overarching themes rooted in the concrete evidence provided by the data. These emerging themes together with a substantive-formal theory of ‘development-focused collaboration’ became the major findings of my study.” The same method of data analysis will be employed in this research. The researcher will gather all the qualitative information from questionnaires and interviews from the teachers, organize them into prevailing themes and cross-reference it to the literature review before coming up with a final report of findings. Using various data-collection methods is one way to add trustworthiness to the derived data. Such a strategy is known as triangulation, a concept borrowed from surveying and navigation. Creswell and Miller (2000) defined triangulation as “a validity procedure where researchers search for convergence among multiple and different sources of information to form themes or categories in a study” (p. 126). It is not simply putting together a variety of data, but its significance lies in finding the relationships of the data to each other in order to counteract possible threats to validity (Berg, 1995). Denzin (1994) suggested the incorporation of multiple kinds of data sources and multiple theoretical perspectives instead of just using multiple data-collection methods in order to strengthen the validity of the findings. Incorporating multiple data sources and theoretical perspectives improves the validity and reliability of the research (Golafshani, 2003). For this study, the data sources are the questionnaires to be completed by the teacher participants as well as the responses in the focus group interview. Trianglulation will be achieved when these data sources are compared and contrasted, and analyzed with the backdrop of the review of literature. Mathison (1988) elaborated, “Triangulation has risen as an important methodological issue in naturalistic and qualitative approaches to evaluation [in order to] control bias and [for] establishing valid propositions because traditional scientific techniques are incompatible with this alternate epistemology” (p. 13). Ethical Considerations This study shall comply with ethical standards and considerations in conducting research with human participants as prescribed by the Institutional Review Board. The necessary forms will be completed, as well as necessary permissions will be sought in relation to the participation of the teachers as well as the conduct of the interviews. Confidentiality of information will be ensured so that the trust of the participants was established. Participation will be non-obligatory and participants will be informed that they may withdraw anytime they might feel like it. References Berg, B. (1995). Qualitative research methods for social sciences. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Blaxter, L., Hughes, C., & Tight, M. (2006). How to research (3rd ed.). Open University Press. Bowen, G.A. (2005) “Preparing a Qualitative Research-Based Dissertation: Lessons Learned”, The Qualitative Report Volume 10 Number 2 June 2005 208-222 http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR10-2/bowen.pdf Campbell, A., McNamara, O., & Gilroy, P. (2004). Practitioner research and professional development in education. London, England: Paul Chapman. Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2000). Research methods in education (5th ed.). London, England: Routledge Falmer. Creswell, J. W., & Miller, D. L. (2000). Determining validity in qualitative inquiry. Theory into Practice, 39(3), 124–131. Denzin, N. K. (1994). Handbook of qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Frey, J. H., & Mertens-Oishi, S. (1995). How to conduct interviews by telephone and in person. London, England: Sage. Gay, L.R., Mills, G.M., & Airasian, P. (2009). Educational research: Competencies for analysis and applications (9th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education. Gillham, B. (2000). Developing a questionairre. London, England: Continuum. Glesne, C. (1999). Becoming a qualitative researcher: An introduction (2nd ed.). Addison Wesley Longman. Golafshani, N. (2003). Understanding reliability and validity in qualitative research. The Qualitative Report, 8(4), 597–607. Mathison, S. (1988). Why triangulate? Educational Researcher, 17(2), 13–17. Oppenheim, A. N. (1992). Questionnaire design: Interviewing and attitude measurement. London, England: Pinter. Patton, M. Q. (1980). Qualitative evaluation methods. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Robson, C. (2002). Real world research (2nd ed.). Oxford, England: Blackwell. Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1990). Basics of the qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques. London, England: Sage. Appendix Letter of Consent Dear Sir/Madam: I am Philip Thompson, currently a candidate for a Doctorate degree in Education-Administration Leadership For Teaching & Learning at the Walden University. I am doing my dissertation entitled “Teachers’ Views of The Effect of Instruction Within The Inclusion Model For Students With Learning Disabilities”. In view of this, I am seeking your consent to participate in my study by completing a questionnaire on this topic and joining a focus group interview with other teachers to discuss your views on the inclusion of students with learning disabilities in your classes. Please be assured that your responses to the questionnaire and interview will be held in utmost confidentiality. Your participation will be valuable to this research, as I would consider your contribution to be very helpful in clarifying educators’ views on Inclusion. Please manifest your intention to participate in this study by filling out the form below. Should you agree to participate, details of the schedule of data gathering will be furnished to you soon. Very truly yours, Philip Thompson Consent to Participate Form ______ I am willing to participate in the study entitled “Teachers’ Views of The Effect of Instruction Within The Inclusion Model For Students With Learning Disabilities” ______Sorry, I do not intend to participate in the study Read More