the importance of diversity in counselling contexts

According to the course syllabus we were introduced to the techniques of psychological research. This course was able to provide an understanding of how research is done, and what methods we can use to do so. By having a clear understanding of research and techniques used, it allows us to communicate effectively in regards to ideas behind the research process. In this paper, I will use myself as the case study to examine exactly what I learned about research.

Power point slide Qualitative research is a difficult term to define…. Nevertheless, it is important to be familiar with some definitions in the field. The definition provided by Creswell 2009 is enlightening because it incorporates ……….. most important part of definition for me were reports detailed views of informants and natural setting.

As this research consisted of 30 participants, a table format listing the four themes with clustered excerpts would have provided this writer with easier interpretation of the data collected. It would have been useful to quantitatively designate the percentage of participants in support of a theme versus those with alternative perceptions. Narrative display of data collection findings made this research less vivid for this writer.

Researchers who uses qualitative study for addressing a problem they are interested in are most often confronted with enormous background knowledge they could use to make their research more successful. (Flick, 2007)

According to Bruan & Clarke Victoria (2006), “Thematic Analysis involves searching across a data set- be that a number of interviews or focus groups, or a range of texts to find repeated patterns of meaning.”

Within the eight weeks of this course, we learned a lot about psychological research. This course provided an understanding of how research is completed. This course also gave an understanding of what methods to utilize based on that particular research that is being conducted. In this paper I will discuss exactly what I learned about research at an introductory level as a case study. In the field of mental health, professionals must be constantly looking for ways to help their patients (Cozby & Bates 2015).

This section provides an introduction to the different types of research paradigms and methods before concluding on the approach that this study will undertake.

Qualitative Research- concept of valuable ideas that are supportive in planning the research regarding their own personal experiences.

Qualitative research is conducted in a natural setting and attempts to understand a human problem by developing a holistic narrative and reporting detailed views of informants about the culture of a problem. It forms a report with pictures and words. One of the most important distinctions that sets qualitative research apart from more traditional types of research is that qualitative research is holistic in that researchers study phenomena in their entirety rather than narrowing the focus to specific defined variables” (p. 93). Similarly, Cresswell (1984) indicated that qualitative research “is defined as an inquiry process of understanding a social or human problem, based on building a holistic picture, formed with words, reporting detailed views of informants, and conducted in a natural setting” (p. 2). Cresswell’s definition clearly delineates the major characteristics of qualitative research. Pg. 50 (Smith & Davis, 2010).

Content analysis is the major approach to analyzing qualitative data it is “a systematic research method for analyzing textual information in a standardized way that allows evaluators to make inferences about that information. (Weber, 1990) “A central idea in content analysis is that the many words of the text are classified into much fewer content categories.” (Weber 1990) the essential result is an attempt at harvesting important themes without losing the richness of meaning by way of numeric analysis. It is clear therefore that qualitative research has the means with which results can be achieved without lost to structure.

The researchers control in the analysis of qualitative data will be based on an interpretive epistemology. Also, the positionality of the researcher will influence the analysis. The thematic analysis provides the flexibility and richness in data collected by the researcher for a better understanding of the public health issue. Patterns and themes can be extracted from the data from the researcher’s point of view.

As mentioned, the research method used for this study was participant observation. This was further divided into three different segments. Each of these segments featured its own distinct observation site and involved one hour of observation per site.

Qualitative research is the technique that is used as a part of exploratory research and to derive the independent variables. There are different methods through which we can conduct the qualitative research. As a part of this study we have adopted the following methods:

Maxwell (2005) also notes that qualitative research can be used to address various issues and is not restricted to one ontological stance. The method also involves developing a relationship with the people one is studying, an aspect that is important in defining the authenticity of the data and determining the course of action.

Qualitative and Quantitative study designs both can be beneficial in research design. They both provide valuable options for researchers in the field. These techniques can either be used separately in a research study or they can be combined to achieve maximum information. This paper will define the terms qualitative and quantitative; describe the similarities and differences between each; discuss how qualitative and/or quantitative research designs or techniques could be used in the evaluation of my proposed research; and discuss why linking analysis to study design is important.