Solved: PUBLG004A/B: Introduction to Qualitative Methods

Assessment – One 3000 word essay
The assessed task is to write a 3,000-word qualitative research design paper. A research design paper is a detailed plan that explains exactly how you would go about a piece of research on a political topic. The components include identifying the research question or puzzle and explaining why it is important, providing a review of the previous literature(s) relevant to your question (though see below on grounded theory methodology), explaining your methodological approach, addressing how you will go about answering your question, explaining how you will deal with any limitations, and explaining how your research will be evaluated.

It might help to imagine that you are applying for a grant for the time/money to do qualitative research on a topic of your choice. Although you may include other kinds of methods besides qualitative methods in the larger project, the grant is for the portion of the project where you will use qualitative research methods. You need to persuade the funding body that your research is important, that you have thought carefully about how you will go about it, and that it will stand up well to evaluation by the normal criteria that apply for this type of research. In other words, you need to show them that you have a good plan and that your research will be completed in a competent, well-organised and creative way.

A first key component of the research design paper is to identify a manageable research question or puzzle within your topic of choice. A second key component is to root your question or puzzle in the relevant literature in political science, economics, sociology, anthropology, public policy, or other relevant literature. If your research will use grounded theory methodology, you should explain your approach to the literature and justify the extent of your engagement with it.

Your research design paper should include the following components:
• An explanation of the previous research and literature with particular
reference to a) your research question and how your project moves this
literature forward and/or b) a research puzzle that has not yet been
solved by the existing literature and which your project will address.
(Again, if you are using grounded theory methodology, you may wish to
explain how far you have engaged with the literature and why.)
• An explanation of your methodology, showing a) how it follows from your
ontological and epistemological assumptions and b) how your project
relates methodologically to the literature on your topic (though again, see
above on grounded theory methodology). For example, are you proposing
to apply a new method that people studying your topic haven’t used
before? Or are you drawing on a tried and tested methodology to
investigate a new case?
• A discussion of what data and evidence you will collect: try to be as
specific as possible.
• Details of how you will collect, store and organise your data.
• An explanation of how you will analyse your data.
• A discussion of any problems that might arise and how you will deal with
them.
• An explanation of the criteria against which your research should be
evaluated and of how well it meets these criteria.
In addition, you should discuss the following ideas from the course if they are relevant:
• What is the hypothesis you are testing?
• What are your variables and how will you conceptualise and operationalise them?
• How will you choose your case or cases?
• How will you choose a sample?
• How will you gain entry to a research setting?
• What do you mean by technical terms such as “discourse” and
“intertextuality” and why do they matter for your research?
• How will you address any ethical considerations?
• How will you ensure that you remain sufficiently reflexive?
• Will you code your data? How will you go about this and how will you
analyse the output of your coding process?
• How will you judge the validity and reliability of your research?
• You may also want to discuss how you will write up or disseminate your
research, but this is not required.

You are being assessed on your ability to decide how far the above
considerations are relevant to your research. For example, if you are
proposing a discourse analysis, you need to define the term “discourse”. If not, you do not need to explain why you have not done so.
Finally, don’t forget that you are being assessed on your understanding of the Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods course, so make sure that you draw on ideas from the course and include references to the methodological literature, particularly relevant readings from the course syllabus.