Deciding on the Research Approach

Sheila Webber and Dr Pamela McKinney
Information School, University of Sheffield
LILAC, Nottingham, April 2019
What's my approach? Deciding on the
approach to use for your research

Outline
• Introductions
• Presentation: Key characteristics of research
approaches: action research; case study;
phenomenography;
• Activity: Applying different approaches to an information
literacy scenario
– You will work in groups: each group seeing how one of the
research approaches might be used
• Sharing: Presenting how you would use your approach
Webber & McKinney, 2019

Introductions

Workshop objectives
• To identify key characteristics of selected qualitative and
mixed-methods research approaches, and to show what
kinds of research questions and problems each approach is
most suited to
• To enable participants to understand the issues,
advantages and disadvantages of different approaches, by
looking at a practice-based information literacy problem,
and asking participants to identify the implications of
choosing one approach or another.
By the end of the workshop participants should have an
extended understanding of the research approaches
available, what they should consider when deciding which
approach to use, and the implications of their choices
Webber&McKinney,2019

What do we mean by Research Approach?
• That choosing that approach affects all the aspects
of the research: research question or aims, data
collection, data analysis, and possibly also how you
present results
• Sometimes referred to as research design (although
all research should have a design) or research
methodology (i.e. rather than research methods)

Case Study
Case Study

Useful when: You want to
explore a specific question or
problem, in a specific context

A definition
“Case studies are analyses of persons, events,
decisions, periods, projects, policies, institutions, or other
systems that are studied holistically by one or more
methods. The case that is the subject of the inquiry will
be an instance of a class of phenomena that provides an
analytical frame – an object – within which the study is
conducted and which the case illuminates and explicates”
(Thomas, 2011b, 513)
See also Thomas (2011a)

Case study Characteristics
• Investigating a specific problem or question
• Doing so in a “bounded context” i.e. you can tell fairly
easily whether something is inside or outside the
context you are focusing on
• You collect multiple sources of evidence to get
different perspectives on the problem
• Start by describing relevant features of the context:
can be useful in helping you to “step back” from
familiar context

Case study Characteristics
• Outcome may be a model or theory and/or practical
recommendations relating to the whole case
• Can be used in combination with other methods
• Case study useful in setting the boundaries, focusing on
the problem & its setting, and reminding you to look at
the whole picture
• Note the difference between systematically planned and
researched case study and just describing one example
or anecdote

Example: Dr Syeda Hina Batool
• “System”: primary schools
in Lahore, Pakistan
• “Object”: information
literacy, including its
relationship to the Pakistani
school curriculum and to
relevant IL frameworks
See: Shahid (2016); Batool &
Webber (2017)
Photographer:unknownUoSgraduate
Syeda Hina Batool (l) and Sheila Webber
Photographer:unknownUoSgraduate

Interviews with teachers
Focus
groups with
children
Observation,
photos and
field notes
Curriculum
documents,
handouts etc.
Each case
= 1 school
6 schools,
purposive
sample of
different
types Material
produced by
children in
focus groups
Data
analysis
Also: description of the state of education in Pakistan, and an
analysis of the Pakistani school curriculum, using James Herring’s
PLUS model (Purpose, Location, Use, Self-Evaluation)

Her analysis and outcomes
• Rich description of each school, bringing out the
context and distinctiveness of each case
• Thematic analysis (teacher’s pedagogic approach;
Physical environment; Conceptions of “library”)
• Analysis of children’s level of skill in different aspects of
information literacy
• Proposed model of information literacy for primary
school children in Pakistan
• Situational analysis, putting the cases in the socio-
cultural context
• Proposed plan for developing IL in Pakistan

Phenomenography

“Phenomenography is the
empirical study of the differing
ways in which people
experience, perceive, apprehend,
understand, conceptualise
various phenomena in and
aspects of the world around us.”
(Marton 1994)
Marton at the SIG
Phenomenography
conference in 2016

Useful when: You want insight
into how different people are
experiencing or conceiving of
something
The phenomenon (the “something”) could be:
the library; a specific learning experience;
using the catalogue … you are looking at it
indirectly, through the interviewees’ eyes

The research question will be in the form of:
What are the qualitatively different ways in which
[the population] conceive of/ experience [the
phenomenon]
Started with investigating learning, but wide variety of
phenomena have been investigated in different
disciplinary contexts (e.g. the operating theatre; the
environment; solubility; research; healthy aging; e-
assessment)

Data collection and analysis
• Data collection:
– Usually interviews, participants chosen to maximise variation
– Interview circles round the central question
– Important for interviewers to put their own views to one side
• Analysis
– Analyse all the transcripts together as one “pool”
– Have to end up with a small number of categories, that are distinct,
and between them describe the qualitatively different ways people
think about or experience the phenomenon (unlike some other
approaches in which you look for similarities)
– Also look for dimensions of variations (a few factors which are
important in all the categories, but which are seen differently in
different categories)

Example: Categories from Emily Wheeler’s research
into librarians’ conceptions of themselves as teachers
of information literacy: librarians conceived of
themselves as ...
Wheeler & McKinney (2015)
Dimensions of variation are: identity (teacher/ not a teacher)
and perception of practice (I teach/ do not teach)

Applications of phenomenographic research
• Variation theory: having identified how learners’
conceive of a subject, you design learning that enables
them to experience the variations
• Workplace training & education e.g. Masters students at
the Sheffield iSchool were able to use Wheeler’s
framework when reflecting on their own development as
teachers of information literacy
• Understanding people better, so you are better able to
engage with them: the interview itself can be a learning
experience for the interviewee and interviewer

Action Research
Action Research

Useful when: You want to
improve existing practice

Action Research Characteristics
• Start with an aspect of practice that you want to improve
• Only feasible if you have to power to make changes to practice;
usually you would be involved in that practice (e.g. you want to
improve your own practice) but might be invited in as a
catalyst/facilitator of change
• The participants are the people affected by, or observers (key
informants) of, the practice
• Multiple sources of data e.g. observations (yours and others’);
reflections (e.g. a reflective diary); documentary evidence (policy
documents, course descriptions, learners’ work & evaluations,
recordings of teaching sessions etc.); focus group and interview
data

Classic cycle is: Plan, Act, Monitor, Reflect
Levy’s (2003; 100) representation of the process
At each stage you may
be drawing on existing
data and creating new
data

• Data analysis will relate to the research aims & may
use other frameworks or theories (e.g. educational
theories)
• Malenfant, Hinchliffe and Gilchrist (2016) introduce
special issue or C&RL with action research projects
from the Assessment in Action initiative
• Describe it as “an emergent developmental form”
(p143) (improving practice and developing the
community of inquiry involved in the action research)

Example of using different approaches to
tackle a similar problem

Over to you!
• Form groups of about 4
• Each group takes one of the research approaches
• Follow the prompts on the handout to decide how to
use your research approach
• Make a Google slides /flip chart poster with the key
points
• Be prepared to present in the final part of the
workshop

Sheila Webber
Information School
University of Sheffield
Email: s.webber@sheffield.ac.uk
Twitter : @SheilaYoshikawa
Dr Pamela McKinney
Information School
University of Sheffield
Email: p.mickinney@sheffield.ac.uk
Twitter: @ischoolpam
http://information-literacy.blogspot.com/
http://www.slideshare.net/sheilawebber/
Orcid ID 0000-0002-2280-9519
https://www.slideshare.net/PamelaMcKinney
Orcid ID 0000-0002-0227-3534
Pictures by Sheila Webber (mainly taken in Second Life, a
trademark of Linden Lab) except where otherwise stated

Deciding on the Research Approach

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