Evaluating how community college students' understanding of success influences outcomes using a mixed-methods research design / Tanzina A. Ahmed.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ahmed, Tanzina A., author.

Series:

SAGE Research Methods. Cases.

SAGE Research Methods. Cases

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Academic achievement--Psychological aspects.

Academic achievement.

Community college students--Psychology.

Community college students.

Physical Description:

1 online resource.

Place of Publication:

London : SAGE Publications Ltd, 2018.

Summary:

This case study reviews a mixed-methods project that used qualitative and quantitative techniques to connect students' understanding of community college to their institutional performance within it. In doing so, this study reviews the importance of choosing suitable qualitative methods, reveals the importance of experimenting with qualitative analytic strategies, and demonstrates the benefits and drawbacks of expanding a study's research questions midway through a project. Ultimately, it offers three major lessons to students of mixed-methods studies. The first lesson is on the importance of figuring out which qualitative methods best works within the time-frame and needs of one's study, as demonstrated by a choice made between in-depth interviews and written narratives in this study. The second lesson lies in the importance of maintaining analytic flexibility based on idiosyncrasies of one's collected qualitative data, as demonstrated by this study's analytic evolution from character mapping to plot and script analyses. The final lesson involves the pros and cons of complicating one's research goals when one discovers intriguing new questions. As seen in this study, research questions may shift in response to the unique features of one's qualitative data, with the answers to initial research questions giving rise to new questions in turn. However, it is important to be aware of how much time a researcher is willing to invest in a project before embarking on radical changes or additions within it.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on XML content.

ISBN:

1-5264-3991-3

9781526439918

OCLC:

1023833514