Galvan Chapter 6

Stacy Lambert-Johnson
Galvan Chapter 6:

1. What characteristics of the report you located led you to believe that it is an example of qualitative research? 

Besides the fact that it was stated in the report, a general problem was posed, Why parents choose private schools over public schools, as the data was collected several hypothesis emerged, the sample used was purposeful, and small (8 parents, 8 students and 3 administrators).  An unstructured measure was used- open ended interview questions and the results were mainly presented in words.The problem statement was: What do parents perceive as the benefits of sending their children to private schools?


2. Was the study conducted by an individual or by a research team?  The study was conducted by an individual.


3. Was the initial analysis of the results conducted independently by more than one researcher? The analysis of the results was conducted independently.


 4. Were outside experts consulted for peer review? For an audit? If yes, does this increase your confidence in the validity of the results? Outside experts were not consulted for peer review or an audit.  




5. Did researchers use member checking ? If yes, does this increase your confidence in the validity of the results? Member checking was not mentioned in the report and was not used.




6. Is it clear whether a purposive or a convenience sample was used? Explain.  A convenience sample was used.  The researcher interviewed 8 parents, 8 students, and 3 administrators.  The parents, students and administrators were from 4 private schools, two with a religious affiliation and two with no religious affiliation.



7. Has the researcher described the demographics of the participants in sufficient detail? Explain. Yes.  The researcher presented a table that had the demographics of all participants listed: Ethnicity, age, marital status, Education, income and type of school attended.



8. Did the researcher name a specific method of qualitative data analysis (e.g., consensual qualitative research)? Is it described in sufficient detail? Explain. The researcher stated that a basic interpretive qualitative design was used where the researcher asked open ended interview questions, transcribed them verbatim and then identified recurring patterns and commonalities.



9. Did the researcher provide sufficiently specific qualitative information in the results section? Explain. Yes.  The researcher used the commonalities and recurring patterns as the basis of the results, giving a breakdown of the characteristics and which participants mentioned them along with how frequently they were mentioned.  A chart of this was displayed.  Additionally, the researcher gave a summary of what the participants said regarding the factors.

10. Briefly describe any major flaws in the research that you did not cover in your answers to Questions 1 through 9.  A major flaw that I see is in the fact that the researcher conducted the interviews, and transcribed the interviews by herself.  She mentioned that she had a bias because she sent her children to private school and that her questions were open ended and sometimes discussions were off topic.  Her sampling was small and I wonder if it is sufficient enough to make a generalization on the topic.