What Has the Greatest Negative Impact on Childrens Learning: Socio-Economic Status or Race - Assignment Example

Qualitative Research Research Question What has the greatest negative impact on children’s learning: socio-economic status or race? Definition of KeyTerms Socio-economic status A familys socioeconomic status is based on family income, parental education level, parental occupation, and social status in the community (such as contacts within the community, group associations, and the communitys perception of the family) (ncrel, 2004). Race The term race differentiates one population from other. The basis of differentiation may vary from culture to culture and environment to environment. For some the basis of racial differentiation may be skin color facial features, genes etc. Data Collection Methods In-Depth Interview In-dept interviews are considered as the most widely used technique for data collection method by researchers. An in-depth interview comprises of an interviewer and a participant. In this case, the interviewer acts as a student who wishes to learn everything from the participants. They are usually conducted face to face. It provides you with a chance to know about an individual’s experiences, feeling and opinion about a particular subject or issue. There are many forms of an in-depth interview. It can be an informal conversational interview, a semi-structured interview or a standardized open-ended interview (worldbank, 2002). The interview is recorded on audio or video tapes, plus the interview takes the notes of these tapes. The tape is not enough during the interview; during the interview, the interviewer also have to take the notes of things which he might want to go back again to ask something about or any relation or interpretation of answer which he thinks he may forget afterwards. The ethical considerations are very important while conducting the in-depth interview. The interviewee should be informed of the purpose and objective of the interview. He should also be informed of the benefits and risks involves with his participation in the research and then an informed written consent should be taken by the interview which involves the confidentiality statement from the interviewer and the proposed date, timing and venue of interview. It’s the interviewer’s responsibility to arrange for the venue, agrees upon the time with the participants, the tapes or medium on which the interview will be recorded. He should be at the venue before the time to show his commitment. He should be well prepared and rehearsed for the interview. He should take into consideration all the requirements to gather the valid and reliable information which can be useful for the interview. The sampling for the participants must be done through maximum diversity sampling. Our target participants are the parent’s of school going children who can observe the change in behavior of their children observing the environment in the locality and in the school. Our selected respondents will be young couple with children in their teenage or below, since this is the time when the mind of children are fresh and they are ready to take up the and learn the things from their environment without considering whether it is right or wrong. They are the prime receptors of learning that the negative elements or behavior in the surrounding could provide them. Approximately 20 interviews will be taken from the parents who will be selected. Approximately 10 participants will be selected on the basis of socio-economic class A, B, C and the other 10 based on different ethnicity. This will provide a good mix of interviews which will be able to provide us their viewpoint on the impact of both the socio-economic class and race. The interviewer will prepare an interview guide to help him with asking the questions during the interview. The interview guide will have the related topics on which the interview will ask the questions. They are usually 5 to 10 topics. The topics and their related questions will be such that they will provide the interviewer with a space to ask open ended questions over these topics. Some topics to be included in the interview guide will be like: their residential area and the description of people in your locality, which school their children go to and a description of the teaching standards there, the usual behavior of their children with other children in the locality, the usual performance of their children in school, and have they observed any change in their children’s behavior with others over time and did they tried to find out the reasons for that change. The answer of questions related to these topics will be recorded on an audio or video tape and the notes will be taken for special points. Interviewer should also take notes of the points after the interview is finished. This helps in the further analysis of data since he will be able to recall the respondents answer and important points from the interview. This first thing in the analysis is to summarize each interview after it finishes. The most common technique to analyze the interview is to use tree technique. Start the tree with topic and divide it into branches with each branches showing the broad question that u asked in the interview. Then each branch will have a sub branch which may extend to a sub-sub branch depending on how u probed into the questions. Give the questions some codes and type them down. The need for typing is the reason that it will force you to go through the whole interview again to give you a clear mental picture of interview and to join threads to draw the findings. Now write a summary for each topic and its sub topic. This will enable you to come up with the conclusion of every question area. Then collectively write the summary of all the summaries of the individual topics. A marked difference will be noted in the initial findings from the respondents’ answer that you made just after the interview and the summary which you write at the end. Observations Participant observation is the method of observing the participant’s action and responses in a particular environment or situation. The interviewer becomes the observer who observe and sometimes also participates to study the respondent’s behavior in a particular situation. We can do the observations using two methods, either formal observation or informal observation. Direct observation has its downside. For one thing, not every goal youll want to study can be directly observed. It is also rather clumsy; it can interfere with your teaching activities; and it is costly in terms of time, money, and personnel (Digitalmediacentre, 2004). The main disadvantage of observation method is that it too long to conduct. You have to spend time in observation to come up with behaviors and responses from the participants that are relevant to your studies. Secondly it is hard to write each and every important response or action that you observe during the process as the writing distracts you from observing the participant. In the informal observation the researcher will carry a notebook and a pen with him or her and observe the participant. The observations made during the process will be noted down on a note book or can be recorded on a video device. An audio recording can also be done but the researcher will have to not down the actions along in writing. The informed consent is not necessary with the participants since the participant knowing that he is being observed, may alter his response and actions. Our target participants in this case will be students which will observed at different places in their classrooms, play area, cafeteria, and with children in neighbor around their residence. While conducting the participant observation you should take into account the ethical considerations so that the participants must not feel they privacy at stake having you around them. Also you should maintain the strict confidentiality of the observations that you make during the exercise. The sampling in participant observation is not done basing on the type of participant but rather it is done to select the observation to be included in your record. The reason for such sampling is that sometimes the behavior is so common or usual that it is in significant and time taken to record each and every behavior. So you go for time-sampling in which you observe the different responses which you find significantly related and important to you area of study and let others pass. This will be done by recording and pausing at different times. It is also sometimes called the snapshot method (audiencedialogue, 2002). Use of devices such as clipboard, mechanical counters and calculators may also facilitate if counting of occurrence or repetition of response is to be recorded. Observation can also be made by using other resources such as some members of home who can act as an observer or self observation can also be done in which the respondent observes himself or herself by keeping records in a log book provided to him or her by the researcher. The observations collected through the exercise are then analyzed by the researcher and making notes of the particular responses corresponding to the events of interest. Then the information in these notes is interpreted to draw conclusions. The problem with the observation method is that they can provide you the actions but not with the reasons behind those actions. They respondent’s action might be a one time action due to particular requirement of the situation which may vary the results acquired through research. Examining Records Examining Records is the analysis of data that was previously compiled or gathered by other resources. The problem with such records and data is that they are collected by some other persons for some other purposes and a lot of work is generally needed to analyze and come up with the things that are useful for the research. These data are compiled by research companies and sometimes the organizations themselves in the past who are conducting the research. These records are bought by the researchers if in the property of external resources. The limitation of secondary data analysis is that it is confined only to the researcher’s imagination. Sometimes though the method is qualitative in nature but some quantitative techniques are also used to cross check the results. In such cases qualitative studies provide the validity for the quantitative methods. The records can be of many types. They can be internal or proprietary data that is collected by organizations, it can from common or external sources of data like books, periodicals, journals, it can be government sources such as department of statistical surveys also provide data and numbers for particular areas, media which usually covers many news and topics in their daily programs. Internet and websites are also good resources to find information and data about the issue of interest. The sampling for record examination is done through the source checking of the resources. The background check of the source and the reliability of the source are the key issues in record examination. Since the information from the records will lead you to the conclusion regarding your research therefore relying on unauthenticated resources may waste the efforts that the researcher put in for the research. This method also is non-intrusive. Information that has been previously collected, or secondary data, is reviewed to gain a better understanding into the topic (Mdrc, 2007). The analysis of such records is limited by the ability of the researcher. The researcher goes through the records carefully, picks out the relevant information, and connects it with the information he has already gathered from other resources or other techniques. The researcher then makes a whole scenario with the gathered information. He then transforms the information and make summary of that information which represents the finding from this information. Then in the presence of these findings an answer to the research question is made. Bibliography Audiencedialogue (2002). Know your audience: chapter 13 Observation. Retrieved on February 15, 2007: http://www.audiencedialogue.org/kya13.html Digitalmediacentre. (2004). Data Collection Methods. Retrieved on February 16, 2007: http://dmc.umn.edu/evaluation/data.shtml#2 Mdrc, (2007). Methodological Challenges to Conducting Management Research. Retrieved on February 16, 2007: http://www.mdrc.research.med.va.gov/mgt_research/typical_methods.htm#7 Ncrel, (2004). Socioeconomic Status. Retrieved on February 15, 2007: http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/students/earlycld/ea7lk5.htm Worldbank, (2002). Qualitative Methods. Retrieved on February 15, 2007: http://www1.worldbank.org/prem/poverty/impact/methods/qualitative.htm#indepth Read More