RESEARCH DESIGNS - QUANTITATIVE

QUANTITATIVE NON EXPERIMENTAL METHODS

1. DESCRIPTIVE
2. SURVEYS
3. COMPARATIVE
4. CORRELATIONAL
5.CASUAL COMPARATIVE

DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH

The descriptive research attempts to describe, explain and interpret conditions of the present. The purpose of a descriptive research is to examine a phenomenon that is occurring at a specific place(s) and time. A descriptive research is concerned with conditions, practices, structures, differences or relationships that exist, opinions held processes that are going on or trends that are evident.

CO-RELATIONAL METHOD

Correlational research is aimed at determining the nature, degree and direction of relationships between variables or using these relationships to make predictions. Correlational studies typically investigate a number of variables expected to be related to a major, complex variable. Those variables which are not found to be related to this major, complex variable are omitted from further analysis. On the other hand, those variables which are found to be related to this major, complex variable are further analysed in a causal-comparative or experimental study so as to determine the exact nature of the relationship between them. In a correlational study, hypotheses or research questions are stated at the beginning of the study. The null hypotheses are often used in a correlational study. Correlational study does not specify cause-and-effect relationships between variables under consideration. It merely specifies concomitant variations in the scores on the variables. For example, there is a strong relationship between students‘ scores on academic achievement in Mathematics and their scores on academic achievement in Science. This does not suggest that one of these variables is the cause and the other is the effect. In fact, a third variable, viz., students intelligence could be the cause of students academic achievement in both, Mathematics and Science.

Steps of a Correlational Research

1. Selection of a Problem: Correlational study is designed (a) to determine whether and how a set of variables are related, or (b) to test the hypothesis of expected relationship between among the set of two or more variables. The variables to be included in the study need to be selected on the basis of a sound theory or prior research or observation and experience. There has to be some logical connection between the variables so as to make interpretations of the findings of the study more meaningful, valid and scientific. A correlational study is not done just to find out what exists: it is done for the ultimate purpose of explanation and prediction of phenomena. If a correlational study is done just to find out what exists, it is usually known as a ‗shot gun‘ approach and the findings of such a study are very difficult to interpret.

2. Selection of the Sample and the Tools

The minimum acceptable sample size should be 30, as statistically, it is regarded as a large sample. The sample is generally selected using one of the acceptable sampling methods. If the validity and the reliability of the variables to be studied are low, the measurement error is likely to be high and hence the sample size should be large. Thus it is necessary to ensure that valid and reliable tools are used for the purpose of collecting the data. Moreover, suppose you are studying the relationship between classroom environment and academic achievement of students. If your tool measuring classroom environment focuses only on the physical aspects of the classroom and not its psycho-social aspects, then your findings would indicate a relationship only between academic achievement of students and the physical aspects of the classroom environment and not the entire classroom environment since the physical aspects of the classroom environment is not the only comprehensive and reliable measure of classroom environment. Thus the measurement instruments should be valid and reliable.

3. Design and Procedure: The basic design of a correlational study is simple. It requires scores obtained on two or more variables from each unit of the sample and the correlation coefficient between the paired scores is computed which indicates the degree and direction of the relationship between variables.

4. Interpretation of the Findings: In a study designed to explore or test hypothesized relationships, a correlation coefficient is interpreted in terms of its statistical significance.

Co relational research is of the following two types:

(a) Relationship Studies: These attempt to gain insight into variables that are related to complex variables such as academic performance, self-concept, stress, achievement motivation or creativity.

(b) Prediction Studies: These are conducted to facilitate decisions about individuals or to aid in various types of selection. They are also conducted to determine predictive validity of measuring tools as well as to test variables hypothesized to be predictors of a criterion variable. 

RESEARCH DESIGNS - ANALYTIC STUDIES

ANALYTICAL METHOD

It involves the identification and interpretation of data already existing in documents, pictures and artefacts. It is a form of research in which events, ideas, concepts or artefacts are examined through analysis of documents, records, recordings or other media. Here, contextual information is very essential to for an accurate interpretation of data. Historical research comprises of systematic collection and analysis of documents, records and artefacts with the objective of providing a description and interpretation of past events or persons. Its application lies in a range of research methods such as historical research which could use both quantitative and qualitative data, legal analysis which focuses on selected laws and court decisions with the objective of understanding how legal principles and precedents apply to educational practices, concept analysis which is carried out to understand the meaning and usage of educational concepts (eg. school-based reforms, ability grouping, affective teacher education) and content analysis which is carried out to understand the meaning and identify properties of large amounts of textual information in a systematic manner.

Characteristics of Analytical Research

Following are the characteristics of analytical research:

1. It does not create‘ orgenerate‘ data through research tools and techniques.

2. The topic of analytical research deals with the past.

3. It reinterprets existing data.

4. It predominantly uses primary sources for collecting data.

5. Internal and external criticism is used as a technique while searching for facts and providing interpretative explanations.

6. It uses documents, relics and oral testimonies for collecting data.

 Objectives Analytical Research

Following are the objectives of analytical research:

1. It offers understanding of the past/existing/available data.

2. It enables the researcher to shed light on existing policies by interpreting the past.

3. It generates a sense of universal justification and underlying principles and aims of education in a society.

4. It reinterprets the past for each age group.

5. It uses data and logic to analyse the past and demythologises idealized conceptions of the past. 

TYPES OF ANALYTICAL RESEARCH

HISTORICAL RESEARCH

INTRODUCTION

History usually refers simply to an account of the past of human societies. It is the study of what “can be known to the historian)… through the surviving record.” Gottschalk referred to this as ‘history as record’, He further stated that “The process of critically examining and analyzing the records and survivals of the past is … called historical method. The imaginative reconstruction of the past from the data derived by that process is called historiography (the writing of history)”.

MEANING

Historical research has been defined as the systematic and objective location, evaluation and synthesis of evidence in order to establish facts and draw conclusions about past events. It involves a critical inquiry of a previous age with the aim of reconstructing a faithful representation of the past. In historical research, the investigator studies documents and other sources that contain facts concerning the research theme with the objective of achieving better understanding of present policies, practices, problems and institutions. An attempt is made to examine past events or combinations of events and establish facts in order to arrive at conclusions concerning past events or predict future events.

Historical research is a type of analytical research. Its common methodological characteristics include

(i) identifying a research topic that addresses past events,

(ii) review of primary and secondary data,

 (iii) systematic collection and objective evaluation of data related to past occurrences with the help of techniques of criticism for historical searches and evaluation of the information and

(iv) synthesis and explanation of findings in order to test hypotheses concerning causes, effects or trends of these events that may help to explain present events and anticipate future events. Historical studies attempt to provide information and understanding of past historical, legal and policy events. The historical method consists of the techniques and guidelines by which historians use historical sources and other evidences to research and then to write history.

THE PURPOSE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH

Conducting historical research in education can serve several purposes as follows:

1. It enables educationists to find out solutions to contemporary problems which have their roots in the past. i.e. it serves the purpose of bringing about reforms in education. The work of a historical researcher sometimes sensitizes educators to unjust or misguided practices in the past which may have unknowingly continued into the present and require reform. A historical researcher studies the past with a detached perspective and without any ego-involvement with the past practices. Hence it could be easier for educationists to identify misguided practices thus enabling them to bring about reforms.

2. It throws light on present trends and can help in predicting future trends. If we understand how an educationist or a group of educationists acted in the past, we can predict how they will act in future. Similarly, studying the past enables a researcher to understand the factors / causes affecting present trends. In order to make such future predictions reliable and trustworthy, the historical researcher needs to identify and clearly describe in which ways the past differs from the present context and how the present social, economic and political situations and policies could have an impact on the present and the future.

3. It enables a researcher to re-evaluate data in relation to selected hypotheses, theories and generalizations that are presently held about the past.

 4. It emphasizes and analyzes the relative importance and the effect of the various interactions in the prevailing cultures.

5. It enables us to understand how and why educational theories and practices developed.

CHARACTERISTICS OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH These are as follows:

1. It is not a mere accumulation of facts and data or even a portrayal of past events.

2. It is a flowing, vibrant report of past events which involves an analysis and explanation of these occurrences with the objective of recapturing the nuances, personalities and ideas that influenced these events.

3. Conducting historical research involves the process of collecting and reading the research material collected and writing the manuscript from the data collected. The researcher often goes back-and-forth between collecting, reading, and writing. i.e. the process of data collection and analysis are done simultaneously are not two distinct phases of research.

4. It deals with discovery of data that already exists and does not involve creation of data using structured tools.

5. It is analytical in that it uses logical induction.

6. It has a variety of foci such as issues, events, movements and concepts.

7. It records and evaluates the accomplishments of individuals, agencies or institutions

SCOPE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH IN EDUCATION

1. General educational history of specific periods such as

 (a) ancient India, (b) A during British rule, (c) Independent India etc.

2. History of specific levels of education (a) primary education, (b) secondary education, (c) tertiary education etc. in India.

3. History of specific types of education such as (a) adult education, (b) distance education, (c) disadvantaged education, (d) women’s education in India.

 4. Historical study of specific educational institutions such as (i) University of Mumbai, (ii) Aligarh Muslim University and so on.

5. History of the role of the teacher in ancient India.

6. History of specific components of education such as (a) curriculum, (b) text-books, (c) teaching-learning methods, (d) aims and objectives of education, (e) teacher-student relationships, (f) evaluation process and so on.

 7. History of national education policies in India.

8. History of admission processes in professional / technical courses (medicine, engineering, management) in India.

9. History of teacher education.

10. Historical biographies of major contributors to education such as Mahatma Gandhi, MaharshiKarve, MaharshiPhule, ShriAurobindo, Gurudev Tagore and so on.

11. History of educational administration.

12. History of public financing of education.

13. History of educational legislation in India.

14. History of educational planning.

15. History of contemporary problems in India.

16. Historical study of the relationship between politics and education in India.

17. Historical study of the impact of the British rule in India.

18. Comparative history of education in India and some other country / countries.

19. Historical study of the system of state-sponsored inspection in India.

20. Historical study of education in specific Indian states such as Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan etc. In other words, historical research in education may be concerned with an individual, a group, an idea a movement or an institution. If a historical study focuses on an entire country / society / system, i.e. if it is broad in scope, it is said to be a macro-level historical research. On the other hand, if its focus is narrow and includes a selective set of people or events of interest, it is said to be a micro-level historical research

APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF HISTORY

According to Monaghan and Hartman, there are four major approaches to the study of the past:

a. Qualitative Approach : This is what most laypersons think of as history: the search for a story inferred from a range of written or printed evidence. The resultant history is organised chronologically and presented as a factual tale: a tale of a person who created reading textbooks, such as a biography of William Holmes McGuffey (Sullivan, 1994) or the Lindley Murray family (Monaghan, 1998) in the Western context. The sources of qualitative history range from manuscripts such as account books, school records, marginalia, letters, diaries and memoirs to imprints such as textbooks, children‘s books, journals, and other books of the period under consideration.

 b. Quantitative Approach: Here, rather than relying on ―history by quotation,‖ as the former approach has been negatively called, researchers intentionally look for evidence that lends itself to being counted and that is therefore presumed to have superior validity and generalisability. Researchers have sought to estimate the popularity of a particular textbook by tabulating the numbers printed, based on copyright records. The assumption is that broader questions such as the relationship between education and political system in India or between textbooks and their influence on children can thus be addressed more authoritatively.

 c. Content Analysis : Here the text itself is the focus of examination. This approach uses published works as its data (in the case of history of textbooks, these might be readers, or examples of the changing contents of school textbooks in successive editions) and subjects them to a careful analysis that usually includes both quantitative and qualitative aspects. Content analysis has been particularly useful in investigating constructs such as race, caste, etc.

d. Oral History : Qualitative, quantitative, and content approaches use written or printed text as their database. In contrast, the fourth approach, oral history, turns to living memory. For instance, oral historians interested in women‘s education could ask their respondents about their early experiences and efforts in women‘s education.

These four approaches are not, of course, mutually exclusive. Indeed, historians avail themselves of as many of these as their question, topic, and time period permit. This integration is possible because the nature of historical research cuts across a variety of approaches, all of which commence with the recognition of a topic and the framing of a question. In other words, a historical study may be quantitative in nature, qualitative in nature or a combination of the approaches. Its purpose can be mainly descriptive, aiming to understand some specific development in a particular period of time in a particular culture; or it could be explanatory, trying to test and accept / reject widely held assumptions.

A historical investigation is conducted with objectivity and the desire to minimize bias, distortion and prejudice. Thus, it is similar to descriptive method of research in this aspect. Besides, it aims at describing all aspects of the particular situation under study (or all that is accessible) in its search for the truth. Thus, it is holistic, comprehensive in nature and is similar to the interpretive approach. Though it is not empirical in nature (does not collect data through direct observation or experimentation), it does make use of reports (all the available written and/or oral material), it definitely qualifies to be a scientific activity. This is because it requires scholarship to conduct a systematic and objective study and evaluation and synthesis of evidence so as to arrive at conclusions. In other words, historical research is scientific in nature. Moreover, any competent researcher in other types of empirical studies reviews the related literature so as to find out prior researches and theoretical work done on a particular topic. This requires studying journals, books, encyclopedias, unpublished theses and so on. This is followed by interpretation of their significance. These steps are common to empirical research and historical research. i.e. to some extent, every researcher makes use of the historical method in his/her research.

However, it should be mentioned here that historical researcher in education “discovers” already existing data from a wide range of historical sources such as documents, relics, autobiographies, diaries or photographs. On the other hand, in other types of educational studies, the researcher “creates” data through observations, measurement through tests and experimentation. To this extent, historical research differs from descriptive and experimental researches.

STEPS IN HISTORICAL RESEARCH :

The essential steps involved in conducting a historical research are as follows:

A. Identify a topic/subject and define the problems/questions to be investigated.

B. Search for sources of data.

C. Evaluate the historical sources.

D. Analyze, synthesize and summarize interpreting the data / information.

E. Write the research report.

Since most historical studies are largely qualitative in nature, the search for sources of data, evaluating, analyzing, synthesizing and summarizing information and interpreting the findings may not always be discreet, separate, sequential steps i.e. the sequence of steps in historical research is flexible. Let us now look at each of these steps in details.

A. Identify a Topic and Define the Problem

According to Borg, “In historical research, it is especially important that the student carefully defines his problem and appraises its appropriateness before committing himself too fully. Many problems are not adaptable to historical research methods and cannot be adequately treated using this approach. Other problems have little or no chance of producing significant results either because of the lack of pertinent data or because the problem is a trivial one.”

Beach has classified the problems that prompt historical inquiry into five types:

1. Current social issues are the most popular source of historical problems in education. e.g. Rural education, adult and continuing education, positive discrimination in education etc.

2. Histories of specific individuals, histories of specific educational institutions and histories of educational movement. These studies are often conducted with “the simple desire to acquire knowledge about previously unexamined phenomena”.

3. A historical study of interpreting ideas or events that previously had seemed unrelated. For example, history of educational financing and history of aims of education in India may be unrelated. But a person reviewing these two researches separately may detect some relationship between the two histories and design a study to understand this relationship.

4. A historical study aimed at synthesizing old data or merge them with new historical facts discovered by the researcher.

5. A historical inquiry involving reinterpretation of past events that have been studied by other historical researchers. This is known as revisionist history. On the other hand, in order to identify a significant research problem, Gottschalk recommends that four questions should be asked:

 (i) Where do the events take place?

(ii) Who are the persons involved? (iii) When do the events occur?

(iv) What kinds of human activity are involved? The scope of the study can be determined on the basis of the extent of emphasis placed on the four questions identified by Gottschalk i.e. the geographical area included, the number of persons involved, the time span included and the number and kinds of human activities involved often, the exact scope and delimitation of a study is decided by a researcher only after the relevant material has been obtained.

The selection of a topic in historical research depends on several personal factors of the researcher such as his/her motivation, interest, historical knowledge and curiosity, ability to interpret historical facts and so on. If the problem selected involves understanding an event, an institution, a person, a past period, more clearly, it should be taken up for a research. The topic selected should be defined in terms of the types of written materials and other resources available to you. This should be followed by formulating a specific and testable hypothesis or a series of research questions, if required. This will provide a clear focus and direction to data collection, analysis and interpretation. i.e. it provides a structure to the study. According to Borg, without hypotheses, historical research often becomes little more than an aimless gathering of facts.

B. Search for Sources of Data

Historical research is not empirical in that it does not include direct observation of events or persons. Here, the researcher interprets past events on the basis of traces they have left. He uses the evidence of past acts and thoughts. Thus, through he/she does not use his/her own observation but on other people’s observations. The researcher’s job here is to test the truthfulness of the reports of other people’s observations. These observations are obtained from several sources of historical data. Let us now try to discuss various sources of historical data.

Sources of Historical Data These sources are broadly classified into two types:

 (a) Primary Sources: Gottschalk defines a primary data source as “the testimony of any eyewitness, or of a witness by any other of the senses, or of a mechanical device like the Dictaphone – that is, of one who … was present at the events of which he tells. A primary source must thus have been produced by a contemporary of the events it narrates.” In other words, primary sources are tangible materials that provide a description of an historical event and were produced shortly after the event happened. They have a direct physical relationship to the event being studied. Examples of primary sources include new paper report, letters, public documents, court decisions, personal diaries, autobiographies, artifacts and eyewitness’s verbal accounts. These primary sources of data can be divided into two broad categories as follows:

(i) The remains or relics of a given historical period. These could include photographs, coins, skeletons, fossils, tools, weapons, utensils, furniture, buildings and pieces of art and culture (object d’ art). Though these were not originally meant for transmitting information to future generations they could prove very useful sources in providing reliable and sound evidence about the past. Most of these relics provide non-verbal information.

(ii) Those objects that have a direct physical relationship with the events being reconstructed. This includes documents such as laws, files, letters, manuscripts, government resolutions, charters, memoranda, wills, news-papers, magazines, journals, films, government or other official publications, maps, charts, log-books, catalogues, research reports, record of minutes of meetings, recording, inscriptions, transcriptions and so on.

(b) Secondary Sources: A secondary source is one in which the eyewitness or the participant i.e. the person describing the event was not actually present but who obtained his/her descriptions or narrations from another person or source. This another person may or may not be a primary source. Secondary sources, thus, do not have a direct physical relationship with the event being studies. They include data which are not original. Examples of secondary sources include textbooks, biographies, encyclopedias, reference books, replicas of art objects and paintings and so on. It is possible that secondary sources contain errors due to passing of information from one source to another. These errors could get multiplied when the information passes through many sources thereby resulting in an error of freat magnitude in the final data. Thus, wherever possible, the researcher should try to use primary sources of data. However, that does not reduce the value of secondary sources.

In conclusion, the various sources of historical information-both primary and secondary can be summarized as follows: It must be mentioned here that the branch of historical research using all or some types of oral records is known as oral history. It should also be mentioned here that some objects can be classified as documents or relics depending on the how they are used in a historical study. For example, in a research study on how a historical figure (a politician, a freedom fighter or a social reformer) is presented in textbooks of different periods, the textbook will be classified as a document as the emphasis here is on analyzing its content-matter given in a verbal form. On the other hand, in a research study on printing methods in the past, the textbook can be used as a relic as the focus here is not on analyzing its contents but on its physical, outward characteristics or features. 

RESEARCH DESIGNS - QUALITATIVE

ETHNOGRAPHY

Meaning

Ethnographic studies are usually holistic, founded on the idea that human beings are best understood in the fullest possible context, including the place where they live, the improvements they have made to that place, how they make a living and gather food, housing, energy and water for themselves, what their marriage customs are, what language(s) they speak and so on. Ethnography is a form of research focusing on the sociology of meaning through close field observation of socio-cultural phenomena.

Typically, the ethnographer focuses on a community (not necessarily geographic, considering also work, leisure, classroom or school groups and other communities). Ethnography may be approached from the point of view of art and cultural preservation and as a descriptive rather than analytic endeavour. It essentially is a branch of social and cultural anthropology. The emphasis in ethnography is on studying an entire culture. The method starts with selection of a culture, review of the literature pertaining to the culture, and identification of variables of interest - typically variables perceived as significant by members of the culture. Ethnography is an enormously wide area with an immense diversity of practitioners and methods. However, the most common ethnographic approach is participant observation and unstructured interviewing as a part of field research. The ethnographer becomes immersed in the culture as an active participant and records extensive field notes. In an ethnographic study, there is no preset limit of what will be observed and interviewed and no real end point in as is the case with grounded theory. Hammersley and Atkinson define ethnography as, "We see the term as referring primarily to a particular method or sets of methods. In its most characteristic form it involves the ethnographer participating, overtly or covertly, in people's lives for an extended period of time, watching what happens, listening to what is said, asking questions—in fact, collecting whatever data are available to throw light on the issues that are the focus of the research. Johnson defines ethnography as "a descriptive account of social life and culture in a particular social system based on detailed observations of what people actually do."

Assumptions in an Ethnographic Research

According to Garson, these are as follows:

a. Ethnography assumes that the principal research interest is primarily affected by community cultural understandings. The methodology virtually assures that common cultural understandings will be identified for the research interest at hand. Interpretation is apt to place great emphasis on the causal importance of such cultural understandings. There is a possibility that an ethnographic focus will overestimate the role of cultural perceptions and underestimate the causal role of objective forces.

b. Ethnography assumes an ability to identify the relevant community of interest. In some settings, this can be difficult. Community, formal organization, informal group and individual-level perceptions may all play a causal role in the subject under study and the importance of these may vary by time, place and issue. There is a possibility that an ethnographic focus may overestimate the role of community culture and underestimate the causal role of individual psychological or of sub-community (or for that matter, extra-community) forces.

c. Ethnography assumes that the researcher is capable of understanding the cultural mores of the population under study, has mastered the language or technical jargon of the culture and has based findings on comprehensive knowledge of the culture. There is a danger that the researcher may introduce bias toward perspectives of his or her own culture.

d. While not inherent to the method, cross-cultural ethnographic research runs the risk of falsely assuming that given measures have the same meaning across cultures.

Characteristics of Ethnographic Research:

According to Hammersley and Sanders, ethnography is characterized by the following features:

 (a) People's behaviour is studied in everyday contexts.

(b) It is conducted in a natural setting.

(c) Its goal is more likely to be exploratory rather than evaluative.

(d) It is aimed at discovering the local person‘s or ―native‘s‖ point of view, wherein, the native may be a consumer or an end-user.

 (e) Data are gathered from a wide range of sources, but observation and/or relatively informal conversations are usually the principal ones.

 (f) The approach to data collection is unstructured in that it does not involve following through a predetermined detailed plan set up at the beginning of the study nor does it determine the categories that will be used for analysing and interpreting the soft data obtained. This does not mean that the research is unsystematic. It simply means that initially the data are collected as raw form and a wide amount as feasible.

(g) The focus is usually a single setting or group of a relatively small size. In life history research, the focus may even be a single individual.

(h) The analysis of the data involves interpretation of the meanings and functions of human actions and mainly takes the form of verbal descriptions and explanations, with quantification and statistical analysis playing a subordinate role at most.

(i) It is cyclic in nature concerning data collection and analysis. It is open to change and refinement throughout the process as new learning shapes future observations. As one type of data provides new information, this information may stimulate the researcher to look at another type of data or to elicit confirmation of an interpretation from another person who is part of the culture being studied.

Guidelines for Conducting Ethnography

Following are some broad guidelines for conducting fieldwork:

1. Be descriptive in taking field notes. Avoid evaluations.

2. Collect a diversity of information from different perspectives.

3. Cross-validate and triangulate by collecting different kinds of data obtained using observations, interviews, programme documentation, recordings and photographs.

4. Capture participants' views of their own experiences in their own words. Use quotations to represent programme participants in their own terms.

5. Select key informants carefully. Draw on the wisdom of their informed perspectives, but keep in mind that their perspectives are limited.

6. Be conscious of and perceptive to the different stages of fieldwork.

 (a) Build trust and rapport at the entry stage. Remember that the researcher-observer is also being observed and evaluated.

(b) Stay attentive and disciplined during the more routine middle-phase of fieldwork. (c) Focus on pulling together a useful synthesis as fieldwork draws to a close.

(d) Be well-organized and meticulous in taking detailed field notes at all stages of fieldwork.

(e) Maintain an analytical perspective grounded in the purpose of the fieldwork: to conduct research while at the same time remaining involved in experiencing the observed setting as fully as possible.

(f) Distinguish clearly between description, interpretation and judgment.

 (g) Provide formative feedback carefully as part of the verification process of fieldwork. Observe its effect.

(h) Include in your field notes and observations reports of your own experiences, thoughts and feelings. These are also field data. Fieldwork is a highly personal experience. The meshing of fieldwork procedures with individual capabilities and situational variation is what makes fieldwork a highly personal experience. The validity and meaningfulness of the results obtained depend directly on the observer's skill, discipline, and perspective. This is both the strength and weakness of observational methods.

Techniques Used in Conducting Ethnography

These include the following

A. Listening to conversations and interviewing. The researcher needs to make notes or audio-record these.

B. Observing behaviour and its traces, making notes and mapping patterns of behaviour, sketching of relationship between people, taking photographs, video-recordings of daily life and activities and using digital technology and web cameras.

Stages in Conducting Ethnography

According to Spradley, following are the stages in conducting an ethnographic study :

1. Selecting an ethnographic project.

2. Asking ethnographic questions and collecting ethnographic data.

3. Making an ethnographic record.

4. Analysing ethnographic data and conducting more research as required.

5. Outlining and writing an ethnography.

Steps of Conducting Ethnography

According to Spradley, ethnography is a non-linear research process but is rather, a cyclical process. As the researcher develops questions and uncovers answers, more questions emerge and the researcher must move through the steps again. According to Spradley, following are the steps of conducting an ethnographic study .

1. Locating a social situation. The scope of the topic may vary from the  micro-ethnography of a single-social-situation  to macro-ethnograph of a complex society. According to Hymes, there are three levels of ethnography including comprehensive ethnography which documents an entire culture,  the topic-oriented ethnography which looks at aspects of a culture and hypothesis-oriented ethnography which beings with an idea about why something happens in a culture. Suppose you want to conduct research on classroom environment. This step requires that you select a category of classroom environment and identify social and academic situations in which it is used.

2. Collecting data. There are four types of data collection used in ethnographic research, namely,

(a) watching or being part of a social context using participant and non-participant observation and noted in the form of on observer notes, logs, diaries, and so on,

 (b) asking open and closed questions that cover identified topics using semi-structured interviews,

(c) asking open questions that enable a free development of conversation using unstructured interviews and

(d) using collected material such as published and unpublished documents, photographs, papers, videos and assorted artefacts, letters, books or reports. The problem with such data is that the more you have, greater is the effort required to analyse. Moreover, as the study progresses, the amount of data increases making it more difficult and sharp to analyse the data. Yet more data leads to better codes, categories, theories and conclusions. What is 'enough' data is subject to debate and may well be constrained by the time and resource the researcher has available. Deciding when and where to collect data can be a crucial decision. A profound analysis at one point may miss others, whilst a broad encounter may miss critical finer points. Several deep dives can be a useful method. Social data can be difficult to access due to ethics, confidentiality and determination necessary in such research. There is often less division of activity phases in qualitative research and the researcher may be memoing and coding as he proceeds with the study. The researcher usually uses theoretical and selective sampling for data collection.

3. Doing participant observation. Formulate open questions about the social situations under study. Malinowski opines that ethnographic research should begin with ―foreshadowed problems. These problems are questions that researchers bring to a study and to which they keep an open eye but to which they are not enslaved. Collect examples of the classroom environment. Select research tools/techniques. Spradley provides a matrix of questions about cultural space, objects, acts activities, events, time, actors, goals and feelings that researchers can use when just starting the study.

4. Making an ethnographic record. Write descriptions of classroom environment and the situations in which it is used.

5. Making descriptive observations. Select method for doing analysis.

6. Making domain analysis. Discover themes within the data and apply existing theories, if any, as applicable. Domain analysis requires the researcher to first choose one semantic relationship such as ―causes or ―classes‖. Second, you select a portion of your data and begin reading it and while doing so, fill out a domain analysis worksheet where you list all the terms that fit the semantic relationship you chose. Now formulate structural questions for each domain. Structural questions occur less frequently as compared to descriptive questions in normal conversation. Hence they require more framing. 

RESEARCH DESIGNS - QUALITATIVE

CASE STUDY

Case study research is descriptive research that involves describing and interpreting events, conditions, circumstances or situations that are occurring in the present. Case study seeks to engage with and report the complexities of social activity in order to represent the meanings that individual social actors bring to their social settings. It excels at bringing us to an understanding of a complex issue or object and can extend experience or add strength to what is already known through previous research. Case studies emphasize detailed contextual analysis of a limited number of events or conditions and their relationships. Darwin's theory of evolution was based, in essence, on case study research, not experimentation, for instance. In education, this is one of the most widely used qualitative approaches of research.

According to Odum, ―The case study method is a technique by which individual factor whether it be an institution or just an episode in the life of an individual or a group is analyzed in its relationship to any other in the group.‖ Its distinguishing characteristic is that each respondent is (individual, family, classroom, institution, cultural group) is taken as a unit and the unitary nature of individual case is the focus of analysis. It seeks to engage with and report the complexity of social and/or educational activity in order to represent the meanings that individual actors in the situation bring to that setting. It assumes that social and/or educational reality is created through social interactions, situated in specific contexts and histories and seeks to identify and describe followed by analysing and theorising. It assumes that things may not be as they seem and involve in-depth analysis so as to understand a ‗case‘ rather than generalising to a larger population. It derives much of its philosophical underpinnings and methodology from ethnography, symbolic interactionism, ethnomethodology and phenomenology. It follows the ‗social constructivism‘ perspective of social sciences. Most case studies are usually qualitative in nature. Case study research excels at enabling us to understand a complex issue or object and can extend experience or add strength to what is already known through previous research. Case studies involve a detailed contextual analysis of a limited number of events or conditions and their relationships. Social scientists have made a wide use of this qualitative research method to examine contemporary real-life situations and provide the basis for the application of ideas and extension of methods. Yin defines the case study research method as an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context; when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident; and in which multiple sources of evidence are used.

However, some case studies can also be quantitative in nature especially if they deal with cost-effectiveness, cost-benefit analysis or institutional effectiveness. Many case studies have been done by combining the qualitative as well as the quantitative approaches in which initially the qualitative approach has been used and data have been collected using interviews and observations followed by the quantitative approach.

The approach of case studies ranges from general field studies to interview of a single individual or group. A case study can be precisely focused on a topic or can include a broad view of life and society. For example, a case study can focus on the life of a single gifted student, his actions, behaviour, abilities and so on in his school or it can focus on the social life of an individual including his entire background, experiences, motivations and aspirations that influence his behaviour society. Examples of case studies include a ‗case‘ of curriculum development, of innovative training, of disruptive behaviour, of an ineffective institution and so on. Case studies can be conducted to develop a ‗research-based‘ theory with which to analyse situations: a theory of, for and about practice. It is essential to note that since most case studies focus on a single unit or small number of units, the findings cannot be generalised to larger populations. However, its utility can not be underestimated. A case study is conducted with a fundamental assumption that though human behaviour is situation-specific and individualised, there is a predictable uniformity in basic human nature. A case study can be conducted to explore, to describe or to explain a phenomenon. It could be a synchronic study in which data are collected at one point of time or it could be longitudinal in nature. It could be conducted at a single site or it could be multi-site. In other words, it is inherently a very flexible methodology. A case typically refers to a person, either a learner, a teacher, an administrator or an entity, such as a school, a university, a classroom or a programme. In some policy-related research, the case could be a country. Case studies may be included in larger quantitative or qualitative studies to provide a concrete illustration of findings, or they may be conducted independently, either longitudinally or in a more restricted temporal period. Unlike ethnographic research, case studies do not necessarily focus on cultural aspects of a group or its members. Case study research may focus on a single case or multiple cases.

Characteristics of a Case Study

Following are the characteristics of a case study:

1. It is concerned with an exhaustive study of particular instances. A case is a particular instance of a phenomenon. In education, examples of phenomena include educational programmes, curricula, roles, events, interactions, policies, process, concept and so on. Its distinguishing feature is that each respondent (individual, class, institution or cultural group) is treated as a unit.

2. It emphasises the study of interrelationship between different attributes of a unit.

3. According to Cooley, case study deepens our perception and gives us a clear insight into life… It gets at behaviour directly and not by an indirect or abstract approach.

4. Each case study needs to have a clear focus which may include those aspects of the case on which the data collection and analysis will concentrate. The focus of a study could be a specific topic, theme, proposition or a working hypothesis.

5. It focuses on the natural history of the unit under study and its interaction with the social world around it.

6. The progressive records of personal experience in a case study reveals the internal strivings, tensions and motivations that lead to specific behaviours or actions of individuals or the unit of analysis.

7. In order to ensure that the case study is intensive and in-depth, data are collected over a long period of time from a variety of sources including human and material and by using a variety of techniques such as interviews and observations and tools such as questionnaires, documents, artefacts, diaries and so on.

8. According to Smith, as cited by Merriam, (1998), these studies are different from other forms of qualitative of research in that they focus on a ‗single unit‘ or a ‗bounded system‘. A system is said to be a bounded system if it includes a finite or limited number of cases to interviewed or observed within a definite amount of time.

9. It may be defined as an in-depth study of one or more instances of a phenomenon- an individual, a group, an institution, a classroom or an event- with the objective of discovering meaning, investigating processes, gaining an insight and an understanding of an individual, group or phenomena within the context in such a way that it reflects the real life context of the participants involved in the phenomena. These individuals, groups, institutions, classrooms or events may represent the unit of analysis in a case study. For example, in a case study, the unit of analysis may be a classroom and the researcher may decide to investigate the events in three such classrooms.

10. According to Yin, case studies typically involve investigation of a phenomenon for which the boundaries between the phenomenon and its context are not clearly evident. These boundaries should be clearly clarified as part of the case study. He further emphasises the importance of conducting a case study in its real life context. In education, the classroom or the school is the real life context of a case study as the participants of such a case study are naturally found in these settings.

11. There are two major perspectives in a case study, namely, the etic perspective and the emic perspective. The etic perspective is that of the researcher (i.e. the outsider‘s perspective) whereas the emic perspective is that of the research participants including teachers, principals and students (i.e. the insider‘s perspective). This enables the researcher to study the local, immediate meanings of social actions of the participants and to study how they view the social situation of the setting and the phenomenon under study. A comprehensive case study includes both the perspectives.

12. A case study can be a single-site study or a multi-site study.

13. Cases are selected on the basis of dimensions of a theory (pattern-matching) or on diversity on a dependent phenomenon (explanation-building).

14. No generalization is made to a population beyond cases similar to those studied.

15. Conclusions are phrased in terms of model elimination, not model validation. Numerous alternative theories may be consistent with data gathered from a case study.

16. Case study approaches have difficulty in terms of evaluation of low-probability causal paths in a model as any given case selected for study may fail to display such a path, even when it exists in the larger population of potential cases.

17. Acknowledging multiple realities in qualitative case studies, as is now commonly done, involves discerning the various perspectives of the researcher, the case/participant, and others, which may or may not converge.

Components of a Case Study Design

According to Yin, following are the five component elements of a case study design:

1. Study questions

2. Study propositions (if any are being used) or theoretical framework

3. Identification of the units of analysis

4. The logical linking of the data to the propositions (or theory)

5. The criteria for interpreting the findings.

The purpose of a case study is a detailed examination of a specific activity, event, institution, or person/s. The hypotheses or the research questions are stated broadly at the beginning at the study. A study‘s questions are directed towards ‗how‘ and ‗why‘ considerations and enunciating and defining these are the first task of the researcher. The study‘s propositions could be derived from these ‗how‘ and ‗why‘ questions. These propositions could help in developing a theoretical focus. However, all case studies may not have propositions. For instance, an exploratory case study may give only a purpose statement or criteria that could guide the research process. The unit of analysis defines what the case study is focussing on, whether an individual, a group, n institution, a city, a society, a nation and so on. Linkages between the data and the propositions (or theory) and the criteria for interpreting the findings are usually the least developed aspects of case studies (Yin, 1994).

Types of Case Study Designs Yin (1994) and Winston (1997) have identified several types of case study designs. These are as follows:

(A) Exploratory Case Study Design: In this type of case study design, field work and data collection are carried out before determining the research questions. It examines a topic on which there is very little prior research. Such a study is a prelude to a large social scientific study. However, before conducting such an exploratory case study, its organisational framework is designed in advance so as to ensure its usefulness as a pilot study of a larger, more comprehensive research. The purpose of the exploratory study is to elaborate a concept, build up a model or advocate propositions.

(B) Explanatory Case Study Design: These are useful when providing explanation to phenomena under consideration. These explanations are patterns implying that one type of variation observed in a case study is systematically related to another variation. Such a pattern can be a relational pattern or a causal pattern depending on the conceptual framework of the study. In complex studies of organisations and communities, multivariate cases are included so as to examine a plurality of influences. Yin and Moore (1988) suggest the use of a pattern-matching technique in such a research wherein several pieces of information from the same case may be related to some theoretical proposition.

(C) Descriptive Case Study Design: A descriptive case study necessitates that the researcher present a descriptive theory which establishes the overall framework for the investigator to follow throughout the study. This type of case study requires formulation and identification of a practicable theoretical framework before articulating research questions. It is also essential to determine the unit of analysis before beginning the research study. In this type of case study, the researcher attempts to portray a phenomenon and conceptualize it, including statements that recreate a situation and context as much as possible.

(D) Evaluative Case Study Design : Often, in responsive evaluation, quasi-legal evaluation and expertise-based evaluation, a case study is conducted to make judgments. This may include a deep account of the phenomenon being evaluated and identification of most important and relevant constructs, themes and patterns. Evaluative case studies can be conducted on educational programmes funded by the Government such as ―SarvaShikshaAbhiyan‖ or Orientation Programmes and Refresher Courses conducted by Academic Staff Colleges for college teachers or other such programmes organised by the State and Local Governments for secondary and primary school teachers.

Steps of Conducting a Case Study

Following are the steps of a case study:

1. Identifying a current topic which is of interest to the researcher.

2. Identifying research questions and developing hypotheses (if any).

3. Determining the unit of sampling and the number of units. Select the cases.

4. Identifying sources, tools and techniques of data collection. These could include interviews, observations, documentation, student records and school databases. Collect data in the field.

5. Evaluating and Analysing Data.

6. Report writing.