Completing A Qualitative Study - View Rubric And Due Date

Assignment Completing a Qualitative Study View Rubric Due Date: Apr 19, 20

This assignment requires the application of qualitative research methods using mock data to simulate a study similar to Clark and Springer's (2007) research on incivility, but focused on undergraduate psychology classes. It involves coding data, creating tables for results and themes, and writing a comprehensive report including introduction, methodology, analysis, results, and recommendations. You will base your study design on specific prompts provided, ensuring compliance with GCU formatting and methodology standards, culminating in a detailed academic paper of approximately 1000 words with credible references.

Paper For Above instruction

Incivility in higher education poses significant challenges, affecting both faculty and students and undermining the learning environment. The proposed qualitative study aims to explore perceptions of incivility within undergraduate psychology classes at a university in the northern United States. Inspired by Clark and Springer’s (2007) investigation into nursing education, this research seeks to understand the common disruptive behaviors among students and faculty, their perceived causes, and potential strategies for fostering civility in academic settings.

The problem addressed by this study is the prevalence of uncivil behaviors disrupting the educational process in undergraduate psychology courses. Incivility can manifest as disruptive actions such as disrespect, inattentiveness, or other behaviors that hinder learning and teaching. Understanding these behaviors from both students and faculty perspectives can inform targeted interventions for improving educational climates.

The sample will include undergraduate psychology students and faculty, selected through a stratified sampling strategy to ensure diversity in demographics such as age, gender, and years of teaching or studying in the program. Justification for the sample size aligns with qualitative research standards, aiming for saturation with approximately 15-20 participants per group. This criterion ensures comprehensive exploration of perceptions while maintaining manageable data for analysis (Mason, 2010).

The phenomenological design is appropriate for this study, as it seeks to explore lived experiences related to incivility. Employing a descriptive case study approach enables detailed examination of perceptions and behaviors within the specific context of undergraduate psychology courses, aligning with Creswell’s (2013) qualitative methodology guidelines.

The purpose of this study is to explore faculty and student perceptions of incivility within undergraduate psychology classes, identify common disruptive behaviors, explore their perceived causes, and recommend strategies to promote civility. The study aims to contribute to best practices for enhancing classroom environments in higher education.

Data collection will utilize the Incivility in Higher Education (IHE) survey, adapted from Clark’s (2007, 2011) instrument, including demographic questions, ranking of disruptive behaviors, frequency of occurrences, and open-ended questions for elaboration. Data will be gathered through semi-structured interviews and online survey responses, ensuring informed consent and confidentiality through anonymized coding and secure data storage.

In analyzing the data, initial coding will involve highlighting significant words and phrases that appear frequently within transcripts. These codes will be clustered into themes reflecting underlying patterns of incivility, such as disrespect, inattentiveness, or disruption. Using qualitative data analysis strategies such as thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006), the codes will be collapsed into 3-4 main themes that encapsulate the phenomena observed.

Results will be summarized using tables to depict the frequency of codes, illustrative quotations for each theme, and visual charts where appropriate, following APA formatting standards. These tables will facilitate an understanding of common behaviors, their causes, and participant perspectives, supporting a rich description of the data.

Based on the findings, recommendations will be proposed to mitigate incivility, including faculty strategies for setting clear expectations, engaging students actively, and fostering respectful communication. These recommendations will integrate peer-reviewed literature supporting effective interventions (Lin et al., 2014; Lee et al., 2015). Limitations include potential biases in self-reporting and sampling constraints, while the benefits involve rich, contextual insights into perceptions of incivility in educational settings.

References

• Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77-101.
• Creswell, J. W. (2013). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches. SAGE Publications.
• Clark, C. M., & Springer, P. J. (2007). Thoughts on incivility: Student and faculty perceptions of uncivil behavior. Nursing Education Perspectives, 28(2), 93–97.
• Lin, H., Wang, X., & Chen, J. (2014). Strategies for promoting civility in higher education: A systematic review. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 36(4), 385-396.
• Lee, A., Zhu, L., & Li, B. (2015). Classroom incivility and its impact on student learning. Educational Research Quarterly, 38(1), 25-39.
• Mason, M. (2010). Sample size and saturation in PhD studies using qualitative interviews. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 11(3).
• Saldana, J. (2016). The coding manuals for qualitative researchers. Sage Publications.
• Yin, R. (2014). Case study research: Design and methods. Sage Publications.
• Hatch, J. A. (2002). Doing qualitative research in education settings. SUNY Press.
• Groenewald, T. (2004). A phenomenological research design illustrated. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 3(1), 15-16.