ASSIGNMENT 1

HMEF5103
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
MAY 2019 SEMESTER

SPECIFIC INSTRUCTION

1. Answer in English.

2. Number of words : 2500 – 3000 words excluding references.

3. Submit your assignment ONCE only in a SINGLE file.

4. Submit your assignment ONLINE.

5. Submission date : 8th July 2019 until 22nd July 2019

6. This assignment accounts for 50% of the total marks for the course.

ASSIGNMENT QUESTION

1
OBJECTIVE:
The objective of this assignment is to enable you to apply your skills for data collection using
several qualitative research techniques.

INSTRUCTIONS:
You are required to complete all TWO (2) parts of the assignment.

QUESTIONS:
You are required to conduct research on the topic “Rethinking our public school education:
What do we change? What do we keep?”

PART 1: Data Collection

In this part of the assignment, you will collect qualitative data by conducting interviews and
collecting documents related to the topic “Rethinking our public school education: What do
we change? What do we keep?”

1A: Conduct Interviews

 Identify and interview three (3) respondents using the topic above as a guide. Each
interview should last at least half an hour.
 Audio and/or video record all interviews.
 Transcribe all interviews in verbatim, paying heed to pauses, interjections and turn-
taking.

1B: Collect Related Documents/Audio Visual Materials

Read and collect three (3) documents/ audio visual materials that may provide confirmatory
evidence of the information obtained from the interviews, as well as those that will give you
in-depth understanding of your public school education and what changes should be made
and/or what should be kept.

PART 2: Coding and Generating Thematic Framework

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In this part of the assignment, you will analyse the qualitative data that you collected in Part
1. Use a two-step procedure to analyse your data.

Step 1: Familiarising yourself with data collected (interview transcripts and audio and/or
video recording of the interview, and documents)

 You can do so by reading the interview transcripts, listening to the audio and/or
watching the video recording of the interviews and going through the collected
documents. This process will enable you to be aware of key issues, ideas and
recurrent themes associated with “Rethinking our public school education: What do
we change? What do we keep?”

Step 2: Coding and Generating thematic framework

 After the familiarization stage, assign codes or labels to segments of the data which
are relevant to the research objective.
 Key issues, ideas or concepts, and themes which emerge after coding are referred to
as “emergent themes”. Make a list of the recurrent themes and the subthemes, and
how they may be substantiated by the data collected.

Note: This process is similar to a filing system. At this point in time, you may wish to
read or collect new documents to support your interview data.

Assignment Description

Write a paper discussing issues related to your data collection, data coding and identifying
emergent themes. You may adopt the following outline for your paper:
 Purpose of your study
 Data collection:
 describe how interviewees were selected and why they were chosen
 describe interview procedures
 describe the choice and the rationale for the selection of the documents
 Coding and Generating Emergent Themes
 describe how data was coded
 describe how themes were derived

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  list themes derived

[Total : 50 marks]

References:

Srivastava, A. & Thomson, S. B. (2009). Framework Analysis: A Qualitative Methodology for

Applied Policy Research. JOAAG, Vol. 4. No. 2.
http://joaag.com/uploads/06_Research_Note_Srivastava_and_Thomson_4_2_.pdf

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 ATTACHMENT
ASSIGNMENT RUBRIC
HMEF5103 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODOLOGY/ MAY 2019
Excellent Unsatisfactory/No
Good Fair Low Response Max
Criteria Weightage Marks
4 3 2 1 0
Interviewing and 5.0  Excellent  Good description of  Basic description of  Weak description of  Weak or no 20
transcribing skills. description of interview procedures. interview procedures. interview procedures. description of
interview interview
procedures. procedures.

 Interview is clearly  Interview is generally  Interview is somewhat  Interview is not always  Transcripts do not
focused, with focused, with related to the research related to the research demonstrate
discussion directly discussion related to objective. objective. appropriate
related to the the research objective. interviewing or
research objective. transcribing skills.
 Interviewer uses
 Excellent interview appropriate open-  Basic ability to use  Poor ability to use  The transcripts are
with appropriate ended questions, appropriate open- appropriate open- not submitted.
open-ended and probing where ended questions, but ended questions or
probing questions. necessary. could have probed probing questions.
more to glean
pertinent information.
 Transcripts indicate
 Interviews are well interjections, pauses  Transcripts generally  Transcripts do not
transcribed with and turn-taking. show interjections, always show
interjections, pauses and turn- interjections, pauses
pauses and turn- taking. and turn-taking.
taking clearly
indicated.
 Only one
 Only one interviewer/ee is  Only one  It is unclear if only one
interviewer/ee is present in an interviewer/ee is interviewer/ee is
present in an interview. present in an present in an
interview. interview. interview.

5
Ability to source and utilise
relevant documents/ audio
visual materials.
Ability to code data and
identify emerging themes.
2.5 Documents/ audio Documents/ audio visual Documents/ audio visual Documents/ audio visual Documents/ audio 10
visual materials materials presented: materials presented: materials presented: visual materials are
presented: presented:
 Are related to  Are somewhat  Show a basic  Show a loose  Are not related to
Public school related to Public connection to Public connection to Public Public school
education: What school education: school education: school education: education: What
we change and/or What we change What we change What we change we change and/or
what we keep. and/or what we and/or what we and/or what we keep.
keep. keep. keep.
 Are strongly  Are mostly related to  Are broadly related to  Are not always related  But not used to
related to main main themes in data. main themes in data. to main themes in draw connections
themes in data. data. between themes/
categories/ data
and ideas found in
documents.
 Strongly support  Mostly support  Somewhat support  Do not always support  Documents/ audio
outcomes of the outcomes of the outcomes of the outcomes of the visual materials are
interviews. interviews. interviews. interviews. not related to
challenges of being
a teacher.
 Are very effectively  Are effectively used to  Are quite effectively  Are not effectively  Documents/ audio
used to draw draw connections used to draw used to draw visual materials are
connections between themes/ connections between connections between not presented.
between themes/ categories/ data and themes/ categories/ themes/ categories/
categories/ data ideas found in data and ideas found data and ideas found
and ideas found in documents/ audio in documents, though in documents.
documents/ audio visual materials. not always effectively.
visual materials.
5.0 Coding of data and Coding of data and Coding of data and Coding of data and Inability to code data 20
identification of identification of themes identification of themes identification of themes and poor or no
themes are excellent: are good: are basic: are weak: identification of
themes.
 Able to search  Able to search through  Able to search through  Able to search through
through the data for the data for quite a the data for a limited the data for minimal
all or most of the number of regularities number of regularities regularities and
regularities and and patterns. and patterns. patterns.
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 patterns.
 Words and phrases  Words and phrases
 Words and phrases used for coding quite used for coding do not  Words and phrases
used for coding very accurately represent accurately represent used for coding do not
accurately represent the patterns the patterns represent the patterns
the patterns established. established. established.
established.
Total 12.5 50