Theme 6: Qualitative and case study research, post 1

Qualitative research paper: Appearance-related cyberbullying: A qualitative investigation of characteristics, content, reasons, and effects.
Journal: Elsevier Science

Which qualitative method or methods are used in the paper? Which are the benefits and limitations of using these methods?

I chose the article Appearance-related cyberbullying: A qualitative investigation of characteristics, content, reasons, and effects, where the researchers interview several adolescents about cyberbullying. The research is based on semi-structured interviews, and the researchers organized focus-groups to gain a deeper understanding and listen to adolescents speak about appearance-related cyberbullying. The data was collected during fall 2012 from one private and one public school in Gothenburg, Sweden. The two schools represented different socioeconomic areas and a total of 27 adolescents participated and got divided into four focus groups, two with only girls, and two with only boys.

What did you learn about qualitative methods from reading the paper?

During my bachelor’s I mainly worked with qualitative research, and did a lot of interviews, so this really wasn’t that new to me. It was interesting to read how they had done their research, why they had chosen the participants, and how they worked with their interview guide, and their procedure. The researchers were very careful about the participant’s well-being, and very attentive to any signs of discomfort or stress, and the procedure had been approved by the regional ethics review board.

Which are the main methodological problems of the study? How could the use of the qualitative method or methods have been improved?

When working with interviews it’s always difficult as it can be hard to get people to be honest and really open up, especially when researching about more sensitives subjects. Bullying is a very sensitive subject and it can be difficult to admit to having experience with it, both being a victim of it, and having done it to someone else. The researchers chose to conduct the interviews in small groups, and separating boys and girls in different groups, as they thought that would make the participants more comfortable to talk freely. All participants were in the 9^th grade and had all been given a written information letter, as well as been informed it was all voluntary and could be discontinued at any time, and their answers would be treated anonymously.

I think the researchers did a good job trying to get as honest answers as possible, and it’s difficult to know how to best get adolescents to speak freely about a subject such as bullying. It could have been interesting to hear what they would have said in a one-on-one interview, or if the lack of peers would have made them even less comfortable and less willing to open up.

Only 27 adolescents participated in the study, which is not a very high number, and the research was only done with two different schools. It would have been interesting to get a wider perspective and some more answers. As it was not a requirement for the participants to have been in any way involved with cyberbullying, it also made the answers more general, instead of their own experiences.

Case study research paper: The tweet that killed a university: A case study investigating the use of traditional and social media in the closure of a state university
Journal: Elsevier Science   

Briefly explain to a first year university student what a case study is.

A case study is a research method. A case study is an in depth study of a particular situation (or a company, an event etc.) instead of, for example, a general statistical survey. A case study usually combines data collection methods, for example, observations and archival sources, questionnaires, interviews, and it focuses on a specific target group and setting. It doesn’t have a hypothesis to begin with, and it may combine both quantitative and qualitative research methods.

Use the "Process of Building Theory from Case Study Research" (Eisenhardt, summarized in Table 1) to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your selected paper.

My chosen case study research investigates the use of traditional and social media in the closure of the university South Florida Polytechnic (USFP). The research was conducted in two parts, one via a student survey and one looking at social media data. The survey was done via a questionnaire consisting of demographic data and also contained questions regarding the pending independence of USFP. The second part, social media data, was done by observing activities on social media, and all data mining was completed based on the presence of keywords.

This research is very extensive, and the researchers have looked at several different aspects, both analyzed online activity as well as gotten opinions via questionnaires, and they succeeded in getting a lot of data. They collected data from multiple methods, strengthening their grounds, and by analyzing different data they got a wide perspective. They didn’t present an hypotheses before starting their research, and they didn’t ask any leading questions.