What, you may ask, does a flea-market have to do with quantitative research? Honestly, I just wanted to put a photo on my blog post for a change. In terms of research, this image does beg several quantitative questions: how many flea markets in the US are run by people who consider themselves to be Christian? what are their thoughts about being open on a sunday? From a qualitative perspective, I'm interested in finding out if they are thanking god for the flea market or just the world in general, one in which they can have 'the most awesome flea market in the world'? Recently I coordinated a quasi-experimental study using a non-equivalent 'post-test' group design (Creswell 2009, 160). The study was one in which participants were purposely recruited (medical professionals with experience working in humanitarian/development situations in low-resource settings) to test an ethics decision-making tool. There were 6 different groups, 3 in Hamilton and 3 in Montreal, each comprised of 2-4 participants. For 4 of the groups, the participants were asked to familiarize themselves with the tool ahead of time, which required the reading of a 2-page set of questions (the decision-making tool). They were then brought together in a workshop-type setting where they applied the tool to a particular ethical dilemma case with the use of the tool. Following their 30 minute discussion, they were then asked to discuss their perceptions of the tool with the researchers. The researchers were also present during the case discussion, but remained observers to the proceedings. The participants were also asked, at the end of the session, to complete a questionnaire. The remaining 2 groups were not given the tool ahead of time, and were asked to work through an ethical dilemma case study initially without the tool, then with the tool. The groups were given one of three different case studies for their discussions to evaluate the applicability of the tool across a range of humanitarian situations (e.g., development, crisis, conflict). So in a way this experiment could be schematized as: Group A X(1 of 3 cases + tool)----------->O Group B X(1 of 3 without tool)----------->O In a sense, it could be said that Group B was a 'control', as they were not given the tool initially. This way we would be able to see what people who had a certain decision already made, would then think of their decision once they have such a tool in their hands. I won't go into detail as to the participant's conclusions about the tool, rather I want to will say that our 'quasi-experiment' was useful. It may not have been tremendously rigorous, we did introduce a few variables that might have made our findings difficult to verify - the variables of different health professionals (some with more or less experience, or more or less decision-making roles), the different cases (representing different humanitarian experiences), and the early or later exposure to the decision-making tool. Suffice it to say, our findings included some quantitative and some qualitative components (e.g., the n of participants; representative quotes). For my own research over the next 4 years at least, such experiments will not be part of my 'toolkit'. There are, however, valuable research concepts particular to quantitative research that are good to keep in mind when thinking of developing a qualitative research project: Construct validity, internal and external validity are valuable concepts when planning and evaluating research, be it qualitative or quantitative. You want to be sure you are using your theories and methods properly in the actual construction of the project. Otherwise you run the risk of fundamentally compromising the research. External validity, though less potentially damaging to the research, can still be detrimental. One has to be careful when generalizing findings beyond the population in which the research question was explored. Obviously, this is more of a potential problem in quantitative research, particularly experimental research where a certain intervention may not be as equally applicable for different populations (e.g., a new drug for instance). Internal validity is especially important for all research. As Creswell explains: There are those involving participants (i.e., history, maturation, regression, selection, and mortality), those related to the use of an experimental treatment that the researcher manipulated (i.e., diffusion, compensatory and resentful demoralization, and compensatory rivalry), and those involving procedures used in the experiment (i.e., testing instruments). (Creswell 2009, 162) I recall mentioning this in my first post that research questions will often determine the type of research design to use. For our ethics decision-making tool validation, the quasi-experimental model was the right choice. As for my research in narratives of the experience of creating representations of end of life, most certainly a quantitative approach using narratives, phenomenology and grounded theory is called for. Now on to complete the development of a 'pilot-study' on that topic. Che
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