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Abstract Most qualitative researchers do not recommend generalization from qualitative studies, as this research is not based on random samples and statistical controls. References Brainerd C. Google Scholar Maxwell J.
Planiuc 61—74 Google Scholar Niaz M. Interchange — Google Scholar Onwuegbuzie A. A research project pointed toward a small group of specialists studying a similar problem may emphasize transferability, since specialists in the field have the ability to transfer aspects of the study results to their own situations without overt generalizations provided by the researcher.
Ultimately, the researcher's subject, audience, and goals will determine the method the researcher uses to perform a study, which will then determine the transferability or generalizability of the results. Although generalizability has been a preferred method of research for quite some time, transferability is relatively a new idea.
In theory, however, it has always accompanied research issues. It is important to note that generalizability and transferability are not necessarily mutually exclusive; they can overlap.
From an experimental study to a case study, readers transfer the methods, results, and ideas from the research to their own context.
Therefore, a generalizable study can also be transferable. For example, a researcher may generalize the results of a survey of people in a university to the university population as a whole; readers of the results may apply, or transfer, the results to their own situation. They will ask themselves, basically, if they fall into the majority or not.
However, a transferable study is not always generalizable. For example, in case studies , transferability allows readers the option of applying results to outside contexts, whereas generalizability is basically impossible because one person or a small group of people is not necessarily representative of the larger population. Research in the natural sciences has a long tradition of valuing empirical studies; experimental investigation has been considered "the" way to perform research.
As social scientists adapted the methods of natural science research to their own needs, they adopted this preference for empirical research.
Therefore, studies that are generalizable have long been thought to be more worthwhile; the value of research was often determined by whether a study was generalizable to a population as a whole. However, more and more social scientists are realizing the value of using a variety of methods of inquiry, and the value of transferability is being recognized. It is important to recognize that generalizability and transferability do not alone determine a study's worth.
They perform different functions in research, depending on the topic and goals of the researcher. Where generalizable studies often indicate phenomena that apply to broad categories such as gender or age, transferability can provide some of the how and why behind these results.
However, there are weaknesses that must be considered. Researchers can study a small group that is representative of a larger group and claim that it is likely that their results are applicable to the larger group, but it is impossible for them to test every single person in the larger group.
Their conclusions, therefore, are only valid in relation to their own studies. Another problem is that a non-representative group can lead to a faulty generalization. For example, a study of composition students'; revision capabilities which compared students' progress made during a semester in a computer classroom with progress exhibited by students in a traditional classroom might show that computers do aid students in the overall composing process.
However, if it were discovered later that an unusually high number of students in the traditional classrooms suffered from substance abuse problems outside of the classroom, the population studied would not be considered representative of the student population as a whole.
Therefore, it would be problematic to generalize the results of the study to a larger student population. In the case of transferability, readers need to know as much detail as possible about a research situation in order to accurately transfer the results to their own.
However, it is impossible to provide an absolutely complete description of a situation, and missing details may lead a reader to transfer results to a situation that is not entirely similar to the original one.
The degree to which generalizability and transferability are applicable differs from methodology to methodology as well as from study to study. Researchers need to be aware of these degrees so that results are not undermined by over-generalizations, and readers need to ensure that they do not read researched results in such a way that the results are misapplied or misinterpreted.
Research Design Case studies examine individuals or small groups within a specific context. Research is typically gathered through qualitative means: interviews, observations, etc.
Data is usually analyzed either holistically or by coding methods. Assumptions In research involving case studies, a researcher typically assumes that the results will be transferable. Generalizing is difficult or impossible because one person or small group cannot represent all similar groups or situations.
For example, one group of beginning writing students in a particular classroom cannot represent all beginning student writers. Also, conclusions drawn in case studies are only about the participants being observed. Results of a Study In presenting the results of the previous example, a researcher should define the criteria that were established in order to determine what the researcher meant by "writing skills," provide noteworthy quotes from student interviews, provide other information depending on the kinds of research methods used e.
Readers are then able to assess for themselves how the researcher's observations might be transferable to other writing classrooms. Research is completed through various methods, which are similar to those of case studies, but since the researcher is immersed within the group for an extended period of time, more detailed information is usually collected during the research.
Assumptions As with case studies, findings of ethnographies are also considered to be transferable. Unlike a case study, the researcher here discovers many more details. Also, since analysts completing this type of research tend to rely on multiple methods to collect information a practice also referred to as triangulation , their results typically help create a detailed description of human behavior within a particular environment.
Example The Iowa Writing Program has a widespread reputation for producing excellent writers. In order to begin to understand their training, an ethnographer might observe students throughout their degree program. During this time, the ethnographer could examine the curriculum, follow the writing processes of individual writers, and become acquainted with the writers and their work. By the end of a two year study, the researcher would have a much deeper understanding of the unique and effective features of the program.
Results of a Study Obviously, the Iowa Writing Program is unique, so generalizing any results to another writing program would be problematic.
However, an ethnography would provide readers with insights into the program. Readers could ask questions such as: what qualities make it strong and what is unique about the writers who are trained within the program? At this point, readers could attempt to "transfer" applicable knowledge and observations to other writing environments. Research Design A researcher working within this methodology creates an environment in which to observe and interpret the results of a research question.
A key element in experimental research is that participants in a study are randomly assigned to groups. In an attempt to create a causal model i. Assumptions Experimental research is usually thought to be generalizable. Since participants are randomly assigned to groups, and since most experiments involve enough individuals to reasonably approximate the populations from which individual participants are drawn, generalization is justified because "over a large number of allocations, all the groups of subjects will be expected to be identical on all variables" Example A simplified example: Six composition classrooms are randomly chosen as are the students and instructors in which three instructors incorporate the use of electronic mail as a class activity and three do not.
When students in the first three classes begin discussing their papers through e-mail and, as a result, make better revisions to their papers than students in the other three classes, a researcher is likely to conclude that incorporating e-mail within a writing classroom improves the quality of students' writing.
Depending on how the researcher has presented the results, they are generalizable in that the students were selected randomly. Since the quality of writing improved with the use of e-mail within all three classrooms, it is probable that e-mail is the cause of the improvement. Readers of this study would transfer the results when they sorted out the details: Are these students representative of a group of students with which the reader is familiar?
What types of previous writing experiences have these students had? What kind of writing was expected from these students? The researcher must have provided these details in order for the results to be transferable. Research Design The goal of a survey is to gain specific information about either a specific group or a representative sample of a particular group.
Survey respondents are asked to respond to one or more of the following kinds of items: open-ended questions, true-false questions, agree-disagree or Likert questions, rankings, ratings, and so on. Results are typically used to understand the attitudes, beliefs, or knowledge of a particular group.
Assumptions Assuming that care has been taken in the development of the survey items and selection of the survey sample and that adequate response rates have been achieved, surveys results are generalizable. Note, however, that results from surveys should be generalized only to the population from which the survey results were drawn. Results of a Study The generalizability of surveys depends on several factors.
Whether distributed to a mass of people or a select few, surveys are of a "personal nature and subject to distortion. Depending on whether or not the survey designer is nearby, respondents may or may not have the opportunity to clarify their misunderstandings.
It is also important to keep in mind that errors can occur at the development and processing levels. A researcher may inadequately pose questions that is, not ask the right questions for the information being sought , disrupt the data collection surveying certain people and not others , and distort the results during the processing misreading responses and not being able to question the participant, etc.
One way to avoid these kinds of errors is for researchers to examine other studies of a similar nature and compare their results with results that have been obtained in previous studies. This way, any large discrepancies will be exposed. Depending on how large those discrepancies are and what the context of the survey is, the results may or may not be generalizable.
For example, if an improved understanding of Derrida is apparent after students complete E, it can be theorized that E effectively teaches students the concepts of Derrida.
Issues of transferability might be visible in the actual survey questions themselves; that is, they could provide critical background information readers might need to know in order to transfer the results to another context.
In Miles and Huberman's book Qualitative Data Analysis , quantitative researcher Fred Kerlinger is quoted as saying, "There's no such thing as qualitative data. Everything is either 1 or 0" p.
To this another researcher, D. Campbell, asserts "all research ultimately has a qualitative grounding" p. This back and forth banter among qualitative and quantitative researchers is "essentially unproductive" according to Miles and Huberman. They and many other researchers agree that these two research methods need each other more often than not. However, because typically qualitative data involves words and quantitative data involves numbers, there are some researchers who feel that one is better or more scientific than the other.
Another major difference between the two is that qualitative research is inductive and quantitative research is deductive. In qualitative research, a hypothesis is not needed to begin research.
However, all quantitative research requires a hypothesis before research can begin. Another major difference between qualitative and quantitative research is the underlying assumptions about the role of the researcher.
In quantitative research, the researcher is ideally an objective observer that neither participates in nor influences what is being studied.
These basic underlying assumptions of both methodologies guide and sequence the types of data collection methods employed. Although there are clear differences between qualitative and quantitative approaches, some researchers maintain that the choice between using qualitative or quantitative approaches actually has less to do with methodologies than it does with positioning oneself within a particular discipline or research tradition.
The difficulty of choosing a method is compounded by the fact that research is often affiliated with universities and other institutions. The findings of research projects often guide important decisions about specific practices and policies. The choice of which approach to use may reflect the interests of those conducting or benefitting from the research and the purposes for which the findings will be applied.
Decisions about which kind of research method to use may also be based on the researcher's own experience and preference, the population being researched, the proposed audience for findings, time, money, and other resources available Hathaway, Some researchers believe that qualitative and quantitative methodologies cannot be combined because the assumptions underlying each tradition are so vastly different.
Other researchers think they can be used in combination only by alternating between methods: qualitative research is appropriate to answer certain kinds of questions in certain conditions and quantitative is right for others.
And some researchers think that both qualitative and quantitative methods can be used simultaneously to answer a research question.
To a certain extent, researchers on all sides of the debate are correct: each approach has its drawbacks. Quantitative research often "forces" responses or people into categories that might not "fit" in order to make meaning. Qualitative research, on the other hand, sometimes focuses too closely on individual results and fails to make connections to larger situations or possible causes of the results.
Rather than discounting either approach for its drawbacks, though, researchers should find the most effective ways to incorporate elements of both to ensure that their studies are as accurate and thorough as possible. It is important for researchers to realize that qualitative and quantitative methods can be used in conjunction with each other. In a study of computer-assisted writing classrooms, Snyder employed both qualitative and quantitative approaches.
The study was constructed according to guidelines for quantitative studies: the computer classroom was the "treatment" group and the traditional pen and paper classroom was the "control" group.
Both classes contained subjects with the same characteristics from the population sampled. Both classes followed the same lesson plan and were taught by the same teacher in the same semester.
The only variable used was the computers. Although Snyder set this study up as an "experiment," she used many qualitative approaches to supplement her findings. She observed both classrooms on a regular basis as a participant-observer and conducted several interviews with the teacher both during and after the semester. However, there were several problems in using this approach: the strict adherence to the same syllabus and lesson plans for both classes and the restricted access of the control group to the computers may have put some students at a disadvantage.
Snyder also notes that in retrospect she should have used case studies of the students to further develop her findings. Although her study had certain flaws, Snyder insists that researchers can simultaneously employ qualitative and quantitative methods if studies are planned carefully and carried out conscientiously.
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