Value of Qualitative Designs. Part II: Ethnography, Grounded Theory, and More In Part II of qualitative designs, you will look at three other popular approaches that are used less often in business research. Ethnography Design – The ethnography design is used more in the social sciences and humanities fields because of its purpose. With an ethnography design, the researcher must be immersed in the culture or the situation to observe the culture in its natural environment. This culture, in the case of business, could be an organization’s culture. Because immersing yourself into a culture and observing the natural workings would take a good deal of time and resources, it is often not ideal for dissertation research in business. As a reminder, the research question will help to determine the design. Conducting an ethnographic study could require a time commitment greater than what is available in a university setting. The required immersion can be problematic. Grounded Theory Design – The grounded theory design is not one that you will likely use in your business dissertation, as the purpose of using this design is to develop or create a theory. Experienced researchers focus on adding to the body of knowledge on an existing theory within their specializations. Researchers who continually develop their theories over the years may have used the grounded theory design to construct those theories initially. There is a hidden challenge in grounded theory research that makes this less ideal for dissertation-type research—to fully develop a theory, the researcher must repeatedly test the emergent theory to establish its true existence. This would require resources not available to the dissertation Candidate that is developing their research skills. Grounded theory studies are time-consuming because repeated measures are required to confirm the existence of the theory. Researchers often begin by collecting qualitative data. Quantitative instruments can be used next to test the proposed theory. These processes often take years to complete. Narrative Design – The narrative design is used when the researcher is trying to focus on the subjects’ or participants’ lives as told by the subjects or participants themselves. In other words, the researcher relies on the narrations of people to tell their stories about their own experiences and use that to answer the research question. Executing this type of research can be time-consuming because of the number of hours that must be spent with the participants to gather data. Narrative research can appear similar to case studies or phenomenological studies. The key difference is the sole reliance on the spoken words of participants; documents and other data sources are not used for verification.
Create an instructor’s presentation to teach students about qualitative research designs. This week, you were presented with three different qualitative research designs. Determine the value of each of the five designs explored over the last two weeks and then critique the utility of each one relative to your research problem. Create a narrated PowerPoint presentation that includes the following: Cover and references slides (these do not contribute to sliding count) The problem to be investigated (your problem statement from Week 1) A critique of five qualitative research designs Comparison and contrast of the value of these designs Defense of your selection of one of the designs covered this week for your proposed dissertation research study. Note: This presentation should be usable in a teaching environment Length: 8- to 10-slide PowerPoint narrated presentation. Speaker notes (minimum 200 words per slide) Your presentation should demonstrate thoughtful consideration of the ideas and concepts presented in the course and provide new thoughts and insights relating directly to this topic. Your response should reflect scholarly writing and current APA standards. Be sure to adhere to Northcentral University’s Academic Integrity Policy. Upload your document and click the Submit to Dropbox button.