QUALITATIVE RESEARCH PROJECT

For your second assignment, you will write a qualitative research paper of
roughly 2100 words. Academic research writing consists of three basic
methodological approaches: quantitative research, which focuses on
conducting research that explains the what, where, and when of phenomena
through mathematical models; text-based research (our first assignment),
which focuses on conducting research through the analysis and
understanding of textual representations of phenomena; and qualitative
research, which focuses more on the “why” phenomena work. The main tool
for qualitative research is observation, often in the forms of ethnography,
fieldwork, or through participant-observation (common in
anthropology/sociology).

Several options are appropriate for qualitative research:

• Investigate workplace changes and trends in a local industry or field.

Include data from interviews conducted with people in the field.
• Write a short history of your immediate family, drawing on interviews,
photographs, scrapbooks, old letters, unpublished records, and any
other available sources.
• Study the reasons students today give for going to college. Gather
your information from pertinent sources (such as educational studies,
off-campus, interviews, internal DU publications, and so on) as well as
interviews or surveys of a variety of DU students.
• Interview local residents about the impact of contemporary
government on their lives.

The above list offers only a few options for a research project. What you need
to do is engage a topic in which you are invested. What are you interested in
learning more about? What type of problem would you like to research a
solution for? Can you craft a research project that may help you in your
major—or in your decision to choose a major—or a project for some a group
with whom you work? This project will work best for you if you develop a
project around your own interests.

Once you’ve picked a topic, you will need to decide the best tool for
gathering your data. The technical terminology for this process means that
you will be developing a research instrument to gather information about
your topic. Because this is a short paper written over a short period, this
instrument will be rather simple, but it should provide you with enough data
to create a thorough understanding of your topic. For this assignment, you
may use interviews, observation of a public space, or a questionnaire. Of
course, you may also use a combination of the research instruments from the
previous sentence. We will discuss how to develop an instrument for your
observation of particular phenomena, and so on. For our next class, come in
with a draft of a research instrument to share with your peers and me. After
you have gathered your data, you will need to write up your findings in an
accessible style. We will spend a fair amount of time discussing strategies for
the writing portion.
Some additional notes before delving into some specific criteria for this
project: 1) research must be ethical. Please see the IRB PowerPoint slide
attached to the blog (its label is “IRB note”). Of course, we will discuss DU’s
IRB concerns as well. 2) you will include a reflective note for this project.
Please see p. 194 of Sandra Giles’ “Reflective Writing” piece that we read.
Again, we will discuss this component of the assignment in more detail during
class. Please begin writing your process note immediately. I will give you
some time on Monday 4/11 to freewrite and draft some potential ideas for
your qualitative paper.

Some Specifics
The first part of a compelling research project is the creation of an interesting
research question. If you have a copy of the QA handbook (which you might
have used in WRIT 1122), it has useful advice about developing a research
question. Here is my summary of that process (taken from pp. 335 – 340):

• Your topic is specific and clear. E.g., asking, “How do DU students

study?” is not necessarily a compelling question. However, asking, “How
do DU freshmen students write about qualitative research in one
quarter?” will reveal more specific data.
• You can conduct the research in a timely manner. That is, you have
approximately 2 weeks to write a draft of this particular paper. Make
sure that you approach a topic that you can complete in that short
amount of time.
• You will critically engage with your topic in an interesting manner. E.g.,
you won’t just report what you learn about the writing practices of DU
freshmen. Instead, you would report what you found and what light it
sheds on the culture of DU freshmen. That is, what argument can you
support based on your limited research?
• Remember that research as inquiry is an active quest for an answer.
For this project, you will want to ask a question that is not already
answered. In other words, this project is not about looking up the
answer. Your task is to create the answer.

One of the goals of this course is to engender critical reading skills. With that
in mind, I encourage you not to perceive of the textbook (or me) as the final
authority on writing. For example, one author claims that, “…researches
aren’t just telling the story of what they did in the order they did it and [that]
they aren’t following a set form for presenting their research….” (Mitchell 33).
However, even in the Social Sciences and Humanities, research writing does
have a fairly common tradition (one begun in the medical sciences over 50
years ago). As you begin to write your paper, you’ll want to keep in mind the
following criteria. Your paper should follow the IMRaD format (Introduction,
Methods, Results, and Discussion):

1. Introduction, in which you state the research question and why your
reader should find your research interesting. The introduction is also
where you would include a Review of Literature, in which you
summarize and analyze previous research about your particular topic. I
certainly do not expect you to provide and exhaustive summary of
 everything about your topic. For the purposes of this assignment, I
would like you to include at least three scholarly sources for your
review of literature. You may use sources from your previous project.
2. Methods, in which you describe how you conducted your research.
Why did you ask the questions that you asked? Why did you research
the subjects that you researched? In other words, your Methods
section describes how you captured the data.
3. Results, in which you describe the data you collected in detail for your
audience.
4. Discussion, in which you include your analysis of what that data
means. You need to describe to your audience how you think the data
answers your research question.
Timeline For This Assignment (in addition to course readers, please
bring the following to the listed class meeting)
Wednesday 4/13 Draft of research instrument due*
Monday 4/18 Draft of introduction, methods section, and preliminary
data due;
This should be approximately 500 – 600 words*
Wednesday 4/20 Draft of Process Note for peer critique*
Monday 4/25 Volunteer to workshop paper*
Wednesday 4/27 Draft for peer critique*
Thursday 4/28 Final draft on blog due by 10 a.m.

*Missing this step automatically deducts 1/3 of a letter grade from your final
paper grade.

Criteria Points
Clear IMRaD format (including bibliographic info.) /30
Clear, compelling research question/hypothesis /20
Critically reads results, not just report /20
Correctly adheres to IRB protoco1l /10
Offers thoughtful peer critique /10
Attached research instrument /5
Grammar/Mechanics/Style /5
Total /100