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Describe your local organizational issue, guiding questions, and interview questions, and develop a data collection plan that
incorporates both quantitative and qualitative approaches to understanding the issue.
Introduction
In this assessment, you will be practicing early stages of an Applied Improvement Project (AIP). When developing an applied research project, it is important to begin with a local organizational issue that represents a current or future improvement need. Once this issue is identified, the next steps involve the development of guiding and interview questions which can help in the identification of the processes and activities that are not performing as desired in the organization. Following this, researchers conduct a gap analysis—something that you will do in a future course—in which they examine the effect of the gap on the organization. The gap analysis is followed by a root cause analysis that will identify key themes emerging from the causes that give rise to the effect or local organizational issue. From these processes, researchers are able to identify local problems of practice that will form the basis of an AIP. After this problem is identified and an intervention chosen as a solution to the problem, researchers develop data collection and data analysis plans that will allow them to examine the efficacy of the intervention.
Framing a Local Issue
In this assessment, you will identify and describe a significant issue that is a current or future improvement need or opportunity at your organization or school. You will explain the performance gap and potential causes as you currently understand them and provide evidence that such a problem exists and is worthy of action research.
The issue you choose should be neither too narrow or trivial nor too broad in scope. Assessments 2, 3, and 4 constitute a mini-inquiry project that involves data collection and analysis with a focus on understanding the problem. This, in turn, leads to recommendations for action. If your issue is too narrow, you will not have enough material to maximize the value of the assessments. The issue should be one about which you can find additional information in the research and professional literature. For this course exercise, avoid issues you know to be contentious. Your issue may be an area of interest to you and the project may eventually provide useful background information and context for your Applied Improvement Project.
The issue should be one about which you have access to organizational data or evidence. Rarely, however, does an organization have complete information. Try to select an issue for which stakeholder input or perception data of staff, leaders, parents, community, students, faculty, administrators are needed or desirable. It is important to be sure that your topic of investigation for this course is not the same as the topic you anticipate investigating as part of your AIP development. The purpose for the project and activities in this course is to have you practice specific applied research techniques through conducting individual or group interviews of stakeholders to gather additional data about the issue, and to develop expertise with conducting interviews, coding data, and conducting emergent theme analysis.
Data Collection
Next, you will plan to collect data from human subjects: your colleagues, organizational leaders, administrators, or others. Although this is categorized by the IRB as “classroom research,” you should avoid unnecessary risks related to your participants. These risks may include confidentiality issues, bias, conflicts of interest, and other potential sources of harm. Please read Research and Ethical Guidelines [DOC] for specific instructions for data collection in this course. Your data collection will be in the form of individual or focus group interviews.
When collecting data, first be sure of your facts. You should have examined available records and existing data, and consulted the literature to be sure you understand the issue you have chosen. Do this before preparing your data collection instruments. Your own data collection may have the purpose of verifying existing data, supplementing existing data where incomplete, gathering perception data from stakeholders about the issue, or all of these.
Your data collection instrument, including your interview questions, must be reviewed by your instructor before you conduct interviews. You will also collect data in the form of your own observations and insights about the issue throughout the course. Maxwell calls these types of notes “memos,” (see pages 18–21 and page 105). Others may refer to a research journal as a place for your notes, insights, reflections, or observations. Begin keeping these notes as soon as you have identified your issue.
During this course, please respect the needs and preferences of your practice site and anticipate how your data collection exercise could impact the site. Can you think of potential ripple effects of your practice data collection exercise? Does anyone at your site need to be informed that you will need to conduct individual or group interviews?
Applied Research Methods
A substantial component of this assessment focuses on comparison of applied research methods. You will explore how qualitative data collection such as interviews can be used in a hypothetical research project, including identifying sources of data and potential interview questions. You will also explore how quantitative methods such as surveys and focus groups could be used in a hypothetical research project.
Important Note
You must complete this assessment before moving on to Assessments 3 and 4. After you have completed Assessment 2 and received approval for your data collection plan, you will collect your data in as timely a manner as possible so that you can move on to Assessment 3, where you will code your data and analyze ethical issues.
Preparation
In this assessment, you will be planning to conduct informal data collection in the form of interviews. Use the modified informed consent form below with your participants. It is not necessary to obtain a signed consent form from your participants—your participants can just type in their initials and email you a copy. You can explain that the research is informal and that you are using the informed consent form to inform them about the informal research and to get some practice using an informed consent form. Later in the program when you interview participants while conducting your Applied Improvement Project, you will use a more detailed IRB informed consent form and you will need to follow the IRB protocols for that informed consent process.
Informed Consent Form [DOCX]. This consent document has instructions and information in blue font that will need to be modified to fit with your study. Follow the instructions and replace blue font instructions with your information in black font.
Instructions
In this assessment, you will:
Explain the context for your issue and identify the available data as well as the data to be collected.
Formulate a data collection plan.
Analyze and compare the qualitative research approach you have been learning and planning so far to the potential use of a quantitative survey approach that you could use to collect data regarding an organizational issue that needs to be resolved or organizational process that need improving.
Use the Applied Research and Data Collection Template [DOCX] to complete the assessment. Complete the following in a single document with three headings: “Framing an Issue and Data Collection Plan,” “What If?,” and “Qualitative vs. Quantitative Research. “Be sure to organize content so ideas flow logically with smooth transitions, and include ample evidence and analysis that clearly supports the main topic in each paragraph. Paraphrase or summarize to represent ideas from external sources and clearly apply ideas from external sources to your own i

nterpretation of a topic or scenario.
Part 1: Framing an Issue and Data Collection Plan
Describe a significant issue that is a current or future improvement need or opportunity.
The significant local issue or problem should be at your organization or school.
Frame the issue or problem carefully, explaining the performance gap and potential causes as you currently understand them.
Provide evidence that such a problem exists and is worthy of action research.
Explain how this organizational evidence and data supports your framing of the problem. Be specific.
Describe additional institutional or publicly available information (that is, state-level data on student outcomes from standardized tests, corporate data on employee retention, or other quantitative data available to you) you will examine to deepen your understanding of the problem.
Discuss the influence of the larger systems related to your issue or problem.
Do NOT offer solutions. That is not the purpose of the project for this class.
Describe how your experiences with the Interactive Learning Module: “What’s Going On With Our Reading Scores” helped influence your development of guiding and interview questions to help better understand the problem or issue.
List the three interview questions you developed at the end of the simulation to help elicit input from the teachers regarding the issue of whether to keep, replace, or modify the existing reading program.
What considerations did you consider with the development of these questions and how did this experience help you formulate the interview questions you plan to use for your local organizational issue?
Explain how a specific guiding question will help direct data collection efforts to better understand the chosen problem or issue.
Explain how the guiding question is related to the issue or problem that will guide your data collection and planning process.
Explain why you need this information and how it will potentially lead to a better project design.
Explain how it will help you formulate interview or focus-group questions.
Discuss how qualitative interview data will be collected from stakeholders, including an explanation of the interview plan.
Include two or three stakeholders.
Collect this data collection using one-on-one interviews or one focus group with all of your participants together.
Identify those with whom you will need to collaborate.
Describe your initial plan for gathering this information, including those who will need to answer questions and provide you with information.
What other data collection methods could you pursue at a later date (not for this class) in addition to individual or focus-group interviews that might help answer the guiding question?
Please review Research and Ethical Guidelines [DOC] for specific instructions for data collection in this course.
Very Important Note: you MAY NOT interview students, direct reports, or minors. Try interviewing graduates who are over 18 years old instead of students. Try interviewing peers or managers not in your line of reporting instead of direct reports.
You will be transcribing each interview word-for-word AND allowing your participants to review the transcripts for accuracy. Thus, do not plan to interview more than three people or you may run out of time.
Note: Plan now for interviews to take place soon. You may start as soon as your interview questions from this assessment are graded and approved by your professor. Anticipate that you will spend several hours interviewing, transcribing, and having participants review your transcripts for accuracy. Block off some time in your calendar for this process.
Provide a list of interview questions (these are different from guiding questions) that will elicit information from your participants to help fill the information gap regarding the issue or problem at your organization or school.
When writing interview questions, ensure that they are open-ended. Avoid closed-ended questions that result in yes or no answers. Consider starting your sentences with Why, How, In what way, In your experience, Tell me your thoughts on…
Provide a clear rationale for the interviews (why these 2–3 people? Why interviews? Or why a focus group?).
Describe an appropriate sample and method for gathering data and indicate any limitations.
For the sample, identify the two or three participants.
For the method, you might choose interviews or a focus group.
Indicate any limitations that would result in you needing to get additional data at a later date.
Indicate if there are any information needs that your participants may not be able to provide.
Part 2: What If?
Explain how an organizational issue or process that needs improving could be examined if a quantitative descriptive survey approach was used to collect data instead of qualitative approach to collect data. Describe the organizational issue or process. Describe the purpose of the survey and what data would be collected with the survey.
This is a hypothetical explanation. You will not conduct quantitative research for your course project, but it is useful to consider how quantitative data could contribute to your project.
Explain the differences between conducting quantitative surveys and carrying out a qualitative method, such as one-on-one interviews or focus groups.
Describe specific differences between these two types of methods (surveys vs. interviews or focus groups) as they apply to your topic.
What might your data collection have looked like if you had chosen to conduct descriptive survey research (that is, quantitative surveys)?
What would your sample need to look like in terms of number of participants and who the participants were?
Why would a quantitative design be appropriate in relation to the purpose of your study?
What would your anticipated outcomes be? In other words, what do you think the surveys might reveal, and why would they be useful instead of a qualitative study with interviews or focus groups?
Compare applications of quantitative and qualitative methods with a specific organizational issue or process that needs improving in an educational setting other than that of the course project that might be investigated by each method.
Describe the purpose for which the issue might be researched with a quantitative survey approach.
Describe the educational setting involved (type of environment, age and level of learners, and other relevant characteristics).
Describe the purpose for which the issue might be researched with a quantitative survey approach.
Describe a purpose for which the issue or problem might appropriately be researched with a qualitative method.
What would your anticipated outcomes be? In other words, what do you think the surveys might reveal, and why would they be useful instead of a qualitative study with interviews or focus groups?
Part 3: Qualitative vs. Quantitative Research
Compare quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research approaches and their differences.
See Creswell and Creswell, pages 12 and 16–21.
Reflect on the role of the literature review as it relates to the different research methodologies.
Discuss a project that brings together a worldview, designs, and methods.
Address a topic that you would like to study.
Apply the worldviews, designs, and research methods in Figure 1.1 (Creswell and Creswell, page 5). Review Chapter 1 of the Creswell and Creswell Research Design text for more.
Identify whether this would be quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods research.
Develop a quantitative proposal based on the topic addressed in Part 1, “Framing an Issue and Data Collection Plan.”
Read Creswell and Creswell, pages 147–160, to understand how to propose a survey design.
Draw a visual model of the variables in the theory using the procedures for causal model design discussed in Creswell and Creswell (pages 49–73).
Provide a diagram for your quantitative proposal based on what you learned about diagrams from reading Creswell and Creswell.