U4A1 - Your Research Question....Please follow all instructions and read the attachments. DUE SUNDAY BY 9PM CST. My Field is Public Service Leadership

UNDERSTANDING QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

The Basics

The Qualitative Method of research asks questions that can't be answered through statistics or other concrete forms of data. Instead, qualitative research is a tool that gives meaning to social constructs, relationships, behavior, attitude, goals, culture, beliefs, lifestyles, and perceptions.

Consider the following example. John is hired to do research to determine which burger is the best in town. Through qualitative research he finds the answer is Local Boy's Tavern. John interviewed more than two dozen randomly selected respondents, selected from willing passersby on Main Street.

Respondents to his interview reported quality meat cooked to perfection, loaded with fresh lettuce, tomatoes, red onion, mustard, mayonnaise, all on a homemade bun.

Respondents also noted that the place has character and has been in business since the 1940s. Many remember eating there as kids.

From this qualitative approach to answering the research question, John gained non-quantifiable information—or data—related to the perceptions, experiences and memories of the interviewees.

Qualitative Methods and Applications

Qualitative Data are collected through various techniques, including:

• Interviews. • Questionnaires. • Observation. • Focus groups. • Case studies. • Artifact analysis.

The social sciences continue to find new applications for qualitative methods of research. For example:

• Anthropological researchers make great use of ethnography, which involves interviewing, observation, artifact analysis, and questionnaires.

• Criminal justice researchers make great use of interviewing, questionnaires and observation. • Public administration justice researchers make great use of interviewing, questionnaires,

observation, and artifact analysis. • Political science researchers make great use of questionnaires and interviewing.

Ethical Issues in Qualitative Research

All methods of research have ethical and legal considerations that researchers have to follow when designing their studies.

For example, in reaction to the uncovering of extensive Nazi experimentation on people, the Nuremberg Code of 1947 enacted ethical guidelines on the use of patients in medical research.

After the results of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, in which the U.S. Public Health Service purposely withheld treatment to African-Americans who had been affected with the disease, were leaked to the public, the government responded by establishing the Office for Human Research Protections and The Belmont Report. Completed in 1979, the Belmont Report set out ethical principles and guidelines to protect human subjects in biomedical and behavioral research studies. The three key guidelines from this document are:

• One: Respect for Persons. This means treating individuals as autonomous agents and protecting individuals with diminished autonomy.

• Two: Beneficence. Related to the Hippocratic Oath of doctors, this guideline requires that researchers do no harm or minimize the possible harm to their research subjects.

• Three, Justice. The concept of justice refers to the fair distribution of benefits and burdens resulting from the research.

L i c e n s e d u n d e r a C r e a t i v e C o m m o n s A t t r i b u t i o n 3 . 0 L i c e n s e .