Research week10 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Research week10 - Essay Example I have chosen the very same mixed research method to conduct my study while involves dealing with a similar participant base and challenges. Assignment 3 A brief (1–3 sentences) description of your area of interest, and the mixed methods approach you proposed in Discussion 1: Mixed Methods Strategies. Then explain how the mixed methods approach you proposed could eliminate the weakness inherent in using only one of the primary approaches. Also identify and describe the weaknesses in the mixed methods approach you proposed. My area of interest is that of criminology, the study of the nature, extent, causes and control of criminal behavior in an individual as well as a society. To narrow down my area of interest into a specific branch of criminology I have picked the topic of juvenile crime and delinquency which analyses the acts committed against the law by underage individuals. The mixed method research design that suits research into my area of interest is sequential explanat ory strategy. Similar to sequential explanatory strategy, it is conducted in two phases. However this strategy is characterized by the collection and analysis of qualitative data followed by the collection and analysis of quantitative data. ... r strengths and their weaknesses form a crucial part in contributing to the overall research; so quantitative research’s key weakness is the possibility that due to to the focus on hypothesis testing and not generation, the overall objective of the study might not be fulfilled. Also the generalizability of the study might be limited to certain areas, situations or individuals (Knowledge base). This is where the sequential explanatory strategy comes in as it will incorporate both qualitative and quantitative methods. Key challenges of this approach can be the time factor required to gathering the data and analyzing both the quantitative and qualitative data since incorporating both is crucial to the research design. (Creswell, 2009). References: Creswell, J. (2009). Research design. Thousand Oaks, CA; Sage.   Knowledge base. Retrieved from: http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/datatype.php Assignment 4 During my research I came across an article about Buck et al on ‘ Profiles of Urban, Low SES, African American Girls’ Attitudes Toward Science’. Since my own and the writer’s chosen method to conduct the research was that of sequential explanatory strategy. The purpose of his study was to increase the education community’s understanding of the experiences and needs of girls that are discriminated on basis of gender, race and socioeconomic status in a manner that has left their needs largely invisible. The researchers followed a sequential explanatory strategy, in which they used two data collection phases, qualitative followed by quantitative, to investigate 89 African-American girls’ personal orientations towards learning. The mixed method analysis provided four personality orientations which linked academic success and experiences with confidence and