I'm Working On This Question And I Need A Sample Draft To Help Me Study

I just need responses to these answers like last week. Keep them in order or label them when you answer. Thank you.

1 Hansen

Good Morning class, 

Although it was a great holiday weekend I found myself more behind in daily tasks than before, but I can see everyone is moving forward and onward throughout the fifth week.  The weekly readings found me focusing on helping and defining my understanding of some different qualitative methods that can assist when conducting or adding tools to my research methods.  When thinking about qualitative research some assumptions can get made and have been recognized when conducting the type of research.  The specific examples that I recognized when thinking about the examples provided in this week's readings are the validity issues that can arise from bias or the way that the data is designed to be collected.  For example, the researcher will potentially either unconsciously or consciously have a belief or expectation for the study and unintentionally set the table for the results expected.  The second example of assumption in qualitative research can come from the credibility of sources.  When you set out to conduct qualitative research realize on using techniques to assist in gathering data.  Throughout the previous weeks of this course, we have looked at ways to weed out or eliminate incredible sources that may contain bad data.  Some ways of getting more credible sources are through peer review and looking at studies that are more intense or looked at over some time.  Sometimes it can be hard to find data that is free of emotional bias or designed with a purpose in mind. 

Conducting interviews is a great way to increase qualitative data on a particular research question.  I like how there are multiple approaches and ways to structure the interview through either one-on-one interaction with a very structured standard approach to a loose or unstandardized approach that is possible done through online interactions (Berg and Lune, 2013.  Showing that you can tailor the way you gather qualitative data and can structure the approach around what type of information is most valuable to the project.  Having that flexibility in approach to the interview, I believe can assist in increasing how generalized, valid, and reliable the data gathered will be during research.  A hurdle to overcome with interviews is that the type of approach may not meet the way the interviewee would like to provide the information or they may not have the correct mindset to provide sound feedback or just blow off the interview altogether.

Another approach to gaining qualitative research data is using focus groups (Berg and Lune, 2012).  Just like interviews you can tailor how large, amount of time, and platform used to generate data.  The method can also provide a flexible way to gather more reliable and valid data by creating a focus group that can tackle the research data needed.  A challenge that may arise from this type of method is the limited number of questions or time the group can come together and that a dominant personality may skew everyone's perspective during the meeting and generate an overpowered or steered result.

A question I think that is relevant to qualitative research is that it should remain flexible throughout the research study.  The approach to gathering data may appear to contain bias or motional responses within the participants.  It may be important throughout the project to question whether the information gained is needing a shift or appears to be getting the results without a motive behind it.  

The week's topic on qualitative research methods allowed me the time to dive deeper into what is needed to give the most effective research methods to focus on the problem.  Thanks for reviewing my post and hope everyone is doing well with their assignments; look forward to wrapping up the final weeks of class.   

References:

Berg, Bruce L., and Howard Lune. 2012. Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences. 8th ed. Pearson.

2 Banaszynski

Secondary analysis is essentially conducting research on a topic using data from studies that were previously accomplished. This type of research can answer questions that were not already addressed by the studies the data is from. Advantages to this type of research is that it saves the researcher time, as they do not have to worry about collecting the data themselves. It also can save the researcher money or resources, as they do not have to conduct interviews, set up case studies, or travel to do the field research themselves. 

The disadvantages to secondary analysis are somewhat related to the advantages. Although they don't have to conduct the interviews or field research themselves, they are then limited to the responses and observations already collected. They cannot change questions or make their own observations about the specific topic they are looking at. Further, they are limited to using what is already available. This could mean that they don't have enough data to rely solely on secondary analysis and may have to supplement it with their own research. 

One study that I found that uses secondary analysis is:  "Digital Leadership in the Economies of the G20 Countries". This study looked at how the digital leadership in these countries affected their innovation and overall economic success or failure. As stated in the study, "The purpose of this study is to investigate the digital leadership capabilities of the G20 countries in terms of digital readiness, innovation, and competitiveness 4.0 and to determine the relationship between these variables." (Digital Leadership in the Economies of the G20 Countries: A Secondary Research. 2021) Essentially, the research team took studies that were conducted regarding the country's digital readiness, such as their capabilities for their leadership to conduct official business digitally, a study that examined their innovation process and scored them with metrics, and a look at their economy and attempted to find causation between them all. There results were summarized much like the truth tables in qualitative comparative analysis, where they associated the different variable with each other and determined whether there was causation or not. They determined that there is a positive relationship between digital readiness, innovation, and competitiveness. 

I do not have any questions on the research methods at this time.

References

"Digital Leadership in the Economies of the G20 Countries: A Secondary Research." 2021.Economies 9 (1): 32. doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/economies9010032 .  https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/digital-leadership-economies-g20-countries/docview/2504590535/se-2 .

Cmrj522

1. Jamie

1. How are spent casings recovered from a crime scene examined? Do they possess individual or class characteristics?

            The same as any other physical evidence, firearm casings are documented (through photography), bagged, and chain of custody remained in tact for processing at a crime lab or private lab. If there is not an expert at the local crime lab available, the casings can be sent to a private lab or company for examination for a fee. Casings are recovered and examined by a firearm examiner when possible. Firearms examiners are extensively trained in all aspects of collecting, handling, and examining casings and firearm evidence (A Simplified Guide to Firearms Examination, n.d.). An example certification program is The Association of Firearm and Tool Mark Examiners (AFTE). In order to earn a certification through AFTE, the examiner must have experience in a course of study approved, three years paid experience, a baccalaureate degree in specific field of study, and pass a written and practical exam (AFTE.org, n.d.). All of this training is important as it contributes to the success of understanding the different types of weapons, individual, and class characteristics.

            Casings can be collected at the scene, the emergency room, or the morgue and are collected differently in each scenario. If collected at the scene (lets say casing is imbedded in a wall), the casing should be cut out as a section rather than digging the casing itself avoiding further damage. If collected at the emergency room or morgue, casings should be marked as a biohazard (A Simplified Guide to Firearms Examination, n.d.). Firearm casings include both individual and class characteristics. Individual characteristics are markings uniquely individual irregularities to a firearm barrel and are a result of the tools used to make the weapon while class characteristics are rifling specifications (Stein, 2020). In the lab, firearm casings are examined through specific equipment such as measuring devices, balances, microscopes, test firing facilities, and more (A Simplified Guide to Firearms Examination, n.d.). From these examinations, experts can try and determine if the characteristics match the test fire casing in order to make or eliminate a match.

A simplified guide to firearms examination. (n.d.). Forensic Science Simplified.org. https://www.forensicsciencesimplified.org/firearms/FirearmsExamination.pdf

AFTE Certification Program. (5 July 2022). The Association of Firearm and Tool Mark Examiners. https://afte.org/afte-certification/certification-program

Stein, J. (2020). Firearms. North Carolina Department of Justice. https://ncdoj.gov/crime-lab/firearms-and-tool-mark/

Kyle sowers

2)

Many other fluids from the body can be identified as evidence in a crime lab. Legg et al. (2014) list ‘saliva, urine, seminal, vaginal and menstrual” as many other evidentiary sources. Harbison and Fleming (2016) define preliminary testing of such evidence commonly referred as chemical (enzymatic) testing. Confirmatory testing, was described as microscopic or immunological, related to today’s RNA and DNA testing abilities (Harbison & Fleming, 2016).

Harbison and Fleming (2016) further explain why chemical enzyme testing is preliminary. Sweat is not successfully tested, and the likes of urine and vaginal fluid are described as not being able to provide enough specifically to confirm to desirability when tested chemically by enzyme. Blood chemical testing lacks heme groups from hemoglobin and the  α-amylase in saliva can be found in traces of other fluid sources, not specifically definable to saliva. Similar with the seminal acid phosphate in semen samples (Harbison & Fleming, 2016).

The mRNA testing today does provide more definitive result in cell types through recognition of specific characterizations explains Harbison and Fleming (2016). They tell miRNA is a more specific class of smaller RNA biomarkers that can be testing to provide confirmatory result. It can help to identify specific body fluids, through a database of know 1881 human identified biomarker entries in a database of over 29,000 biomarkers. Further, epigenetic testing is considered confirmatory testing through cell and tissue feature identification of DNA (Harbison & Fleming, 2016). It has been identified from all referenced parties that further developments are to come and are needed to improve upon results even provided through today’s technologies.

 

Reference:

Harbison, S., & Fleming, R. (2016). Forensic body fluid identification: state of the art. Res Rep Forensic Med Sci, 6(2016), 11-23.

Legg, K. M., Powell, R., Reisdorph, N., Reisdorph, R., & Danielson, P. B. (2014). Discovery of highly specific protein markers for the identification of biological stains. Electrophoresis, 35(21–22), 3069–3078.  https://doi-org.ezproxy2.apus.edu/10.1002/elps.201400125