9-2 Discussion: Qualitative Research | Homework Writings Help

Can you help me understand this Psychology question?

Using the module readings as a guide (ATTACHED), think of a way that your research question (or a similar question) could be answered using qualitative research. What type of qualitative research could be used, and how would it be conducted? What would be the strengths and weaknesses of this design compared to quantitative methods?

My research topic: Effects of social media on academic performance for college students

When responding to your classmates, provide your perspective on qualitative research designs and discuss other research designs that could have been used to answer the research question.

To complete this assignment, review the Discussion Rubric document.

AFTER COMPLETING THE INITIAL POST, PLEASE ALSO RESPOND TO THE FOLLOWING TWO STUDENTS REGARDING THE SAME TOPIC!

STUDENT ONE:

My research question concerns whether we can predict an individual’s musical dimension based off of there personality. I think if I were to conduct this as qualitative research I might do it in the form of a focus group. I would begin by asking the participants how they see their own personality. Do they feel that they are outgoing? Are they very anxious all the time? Do they get along with other people? Just to name a few, I would then ask them what there favorite genre of music was based on a predetermined list.

The trade-off with this design is the loss of an experimental design to create generalizable results that are valid and useful for research. This design, however, would be really good for an exploratory experiment to get an idea of how the research should be conducted later on.

STUDENT TWO:

My research questions is: are student pet owners less stressed compared to non-pet owners? This question, obviously is being answered with quantitative research for the final project, but it could also be answered with qualitative research. In my current study, subjects are asked to complete a standard survey about their stress. By asking subjects to participate in an in-depth interview, the quantitative survey would be removed and replaced with the interview. This interview would allow subjects to answer open-ended questions pertaining to their stress in a one-on-one interview with the study research team. The answers from this interview would be compared to see if there were major differences between groups of subjects who had pets or did not have pets.

The strength of this type of research would be that subjects could expound upon their feelings much more specifically than they would in the standard stress survey. Having the ability to explain their stress may lead to evidence of more specific differences between the two groups (pet-owners vs. non-owners) that a simple standard survey may not be nuanced enough to pick up on. The weaknesses in this study would be comparing results between subjects may prove difficult. If the question is, are pet owners less stressed, and the results between participants is not subjective enough to differentiate what “less” or “more” stress is, the research question can’t be answered.