Nitel Araştırma Yöntemleri

I want to jot down the names of the book that I've read throughout qualification process. One of the books is "Nitel Araştırma Yöntemleri" which is written by two valuable professors from METU-EDS. The book covers the qualitative research top to bottom. It is essential for those who wants to learn how and why to conduct qualitative research.

Yıldırım, A., & Şimşek, H. (2006). Sosyal Bilimlerde Nitel Araştırma Yöntemleri (6th ed.). Ankara: Seçkin Yayınevi. 

Validity Reliability Issues

"Research for its own sake." Is it really for its own sake? Why? How? How not? These questions are closely related to the well-known twin brothers in the area of research? Validity & reliability. These highly debated terms should be clarified at first stage: Lets me jot down the definitions from the book "Case Study Research" Lin (2003). Kidder and Judd defines the terms as below (as cited in Lin, 2003, p. 34). Other, additional definitions are also welcome.

Construct validity: Establishing correct operational measures for the concepts being studied.
Internal validity: (For internal and casual studies only) establishing a casual relationships whereby certain conditions are shown to lead other conditions, as distinguished from the spurious relationships.
External validity: Establishing the domain to which a studies findings can be generalized.
Reliability: Demonstrating that the operations of a study, such as the data collection procedures, can be repeated with the same results

In fact validity and reliability are evaluated differently for qualitative and quantitative research. Although the idea behind the terms are similar, how they are perceived is changed depending on the type of research design. Therefore, to understand these issues, there is a need to read them from multiple sources. One is provided below.

A nice resource which compare and contrast the meanings of validity and reliability for both qualitative and quantitative research: http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR8-4/golafshani.pdf

Grounded Theory Research

Grounded theory is a research design which implements qualitative research methods. According to Creswell (2005), it is used when you need "a broad theory or explanation of a process" (p.396).
When there is little is known about a process or the existing theories does not explain it, grounded theory research is used. The aim in this type of studies is to generate a theory. It is too assertive, isn't it.

However conducting a grounded theory research is not that much easy. first of all, the researcher who wish to implement such a study should decide on which type of grounded research to conduct. Creswell (2005) groups the types of grounded theory research under three: systematic design, emerging design and the constructivist design. The systematic design is the most "systematic" one with a positivist theory behind, whereas constructivist design put more emphasis on the beliefs and views of participants with a postmodern point of view. In fact for the young researchers, with no experience et all, systematic design is recommended.

In systematic design the structure o the reserach is clearly explained. In addition a diagram showing the theory is served. In emergent desing, on the other hand, more flexible structure is put forward. And lastly, for the constructivist design, any kind of prescribed theory formation is not welcomed. In the continuum of types of grounded tehory research, systematic design can be put in a more "quantitative like" position. Nevertheless, all three aim at formaiton of a theory or explanation of a unexplained process or action or interaction.

Creswell (2005) lists the following as the key characteristics of the grounded theory research.

• Process approach
• Theoretical sampling (sampling is intentional and focused on the generation of a theory)
• Constant comparative data analysis
• A core category 
• theory generation 
• Memos

Example purpose statement: "to explore the role of art therapy in individuals' recovery from chemical addiction."

Methodology? Research design? Research method?

Methodology: Philosophical framework and the fundamental assumptions of research (van Manen, 1990)

Research Design: The plan of action that links the philosophical assumptions to specific methods (Creswell, 2003; Crotty, 1998)

Research Method: Techniques of data collection and analysis such as quantitative standardized instrument or qualitative theme analysis of text data (Creswell, 2003; van Manen, 1990)

Developmental Research

Reeves, T. C. (2000). Enhancing the worth of instructional technology research through “design experiments” and other development research strategies. International perspectives on instructional technology research for the 21st century, New Orleans, LA, USA.

Writer convinces the researchers for the design experiments, developmental research in other words. It is a nice paper touching upon realities about instructional design research. Why there are so much "invaluable research" "research of its own sake" is explained clearly. I also deals with theory vs. practice issue. Developmental research is offered as a kind of solution to this well known problem.