Case Studies

This week class discussion is on the case studies, technology studies and mixed method studies. Regarding case studies some social scientists said, case study does not imply the use of a particular evidence. case studies can be done by using either qualitative or quantitative evidence. The evidence may come from fieldwork, archival records, verbal reports, observations, or any other combination of these. My question is former sentence and later idea  seems to me ambiguous. Again Miles said case studies can be conducted systematically. So why people use this method.

Ethical Methods in Children and Young People

Heath, Sue and others wrote in their paper that one researcher should need consent from their research participants. If any researcher do his research without consent it is one kind of crime in developed country like the U.K. Moreover they again mentioned that on research which sought to identify contemporary practice in this area amongst researchers working in the fields  where research participants are often constructed as vulnerable within the research process, and where their potential involvement tends to be mediated by institutional gatekeepers.drawing on telephone interview and focus group data they focuses specifically on the experiences of researchers working with children and young people.Their study highlights the tensions experienced by many researchers between a personal commitment to an ethical framework which seeks to prioritise the agency and competency of children and young people, and the conditions imposed upon them by working within institutional settings where these principles may be undermined. On the other hand they suggested that the consent practices of child and youth-oriented institutions, however much frowned upon, tend to go largely unchallenged by researchers , to the detriment of rights of children and young people to opt in and out of research on their own behalf. In the University of Toronto, research ethics are also strictly maintained. According to research ethics of U of T, one researcher need to take permission to take interview from other area except Toronto. One can not take interview of the person under 18. So it is mandatory for the researcher. My question is if any researcher do not follow this ethics what will affect him . 

"Pragmatic" Research Timeline

Someone always say that you learn from work. That is very true. Even though, I have read Knight's Chapter 7 "Doing It" 2 weeks ago, it wasn't speaking to me until now I finally sit down to write my research proposal. Knight(2002)'s "Being Pragmatic" becomes my guideline in designing my research timeline. I find Knight's "nine common difficulties" in small-scale social science research very helpful in helping me to design the timelines of my research. According to Knight (2002), it is almost a "must happen" issue when data collection delays. I am not sure if I will be lucky enough to avoid this, but at least I can reduce the potential damage by planning at least one to two days extra to allow my some room between my schedules. Preparing for a rather low response rate, I will propose a sampling scale of at least 100 participants if I am planning to get 20 respondents. A friend of mine lately distributed her research survey on breast feeding through Survey Monkey via Facebook. Based on her feedback, she distributed 500 online surveys and stopped when she received 100 responses. However, her questionnaires were all multiple choices and the research topic was more general. My research topic, instead, is a salsa-dancing one that is targeted a specific ethnic community group. In other words, what worked on her would not work on me. In terms of this, the "snowball" method mentioned by Dean last week becomes essential for me to develop my focus group. Nonetheless, online distribution is still my primary method because majority of my research target group are cyber users.

An insider's perspective

I've read, among others, four books about participant observation (just for fun, nothing to do with the 5500-word research proposal that's due in three days). One essay in Anthropologists in the Field, titled "Doing Ethnography in one's own Ethnic Community: The Experience of an Awkward Insider," by Val Colic-Peisker, was very interesting to me personally. It is noteworthy the researcher, who is of Croatian origin, was not simply studying other Croatians, but Croatian immigrants in Australia, where she had immigrated to escape political persecution in her own country.
A truly touching section of her essay detailed her shock upon viewing a map from 1993 in a university library, and finding "a blank dark blue area" where her home country should have been. For the first time, she felt like a second-class citizen.
I identified very closely with her experiences as she described straddling two worlds, her simultaneous role as an outsider and insider, the tension between her role as an active participant and detached observer. It is an excellent case study of "auto-ethnography," defined as the moment the writer analyzes his or her personal experiences to be directly involved in “larger social formations and historical processes” (Stockl 2006, p.1). Once the object of research is or becomes an intrinsic component of the researcher's identity, it becomes difficult to differentiate the subjective and the objective. I have long rejected the stereotype of the scientist or researcher as some sort of observing robot, and as I will attempt to argue in my research proposal, what may be mistakenly perceived as hurdles to overcome when performing ethnographic research are actually assets. Yes, granted an outsider studying a foreign community can assume a detached role more easily than a member. Yet I would argue an insider/outsider like Colic-Peisker offers a balance of detachment and empathy necessary for a successful ethnographic study.

Ethical Considerations of Rare Disease Patients: The Benefits of the Private Sector

Following the lecture on research ethics and in particular my question regarding ethical obligations as they pertain to the medical data of international subjects, I began to worry. My concern was that according to the Research Ethics Board (REB), I may have to gain research approval by some ethics body. What I quickly realized following the lecture was that my case and site of analysis is interesting because it is not subject to the same medical privacy laws. In a patient-practitioner relationship, the practitioner is subject to strict privacy laws. For example section 33 of the Personal Health Information Protection Act prohibits health custodians from collecting marketing data for marketing purpose. When the health custodian is removed from the transaction, and the patient provides that data, marketing use of personal health information is permitted.

This shift of control and information usage raises some important questions regarding patient attitudes regarding personal revelation. I found it interesting that a question regarding ethics directly strengthened my claimsmaking or "so what" claims within my proposal.

Theoretical Framework for proposal

I've been perusing the blogs (not just ours but those from other groups as well) and I seem to be the only person struggling with the "theoretical framework" that I will be applying to my research, analysis and discussion. Is that true? Am I really the only one? I have been sitting at my laptop for hours, days actually, collecting relevant literature for my lit review and finding articles and citations that contribute to all sides of the discourse on my chosen topic. So, my question is, how then does this differ from the theoretical framework that I am going to use?

Doesn't it stand to reason that my framework will come from my literature review? Won't I be looking at all the information in front of me and selecting that which I believe applies most closely to my area of interest and the method that I've chosen? I think that this is right and it seems logical to me so I will forge ahead in this vein and should anyone get to this post before our class Monday, I'd love to get your feedback. Thanks and happy writing!

Lest we forget

I thoroughly enjoyed Dean Sharpe's lecture today and could completely understand how one could dedicate their career to the ethics of research.

While at times I'm sure this position can be rife with conflict, I was impressed by the passion he had for developing policy and protecting the rights of participants.

I couldn't help but think of those 'research scandals" he alluded to and in particular found myself thinking of the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment. I remember studying this case while doing my undergrad and being horrified at how these research projects could have been done. Forget the policy for a moment. How could anyone, let alone academics from reputable institutions be responsible for some of these outrageous and shocking cases? Is it because it is reflective of the innate evil nature of those with power to corrupt those without it? I'm not sure, but whatever the reason, I sit down to my research proposal tonight giving more thought than ever to the ethical considerations and the methods I am choosing.

Out of interest here is a link for a summary of the Stanford Prison Experiment http://www.economicexpert.com/a/Stanford:prison:experiment.html

And just as a reminder so that as researchers we never forget the impact that our research may have on a participant -- The Milgram Experiment on Obedience conducted at Yale University. No matter how important the research question, we cannot let academia and the search for knowledge cloud our judgements and thoughts on first what it means to be human.
http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/a/milgram.htm

Now off to that proposal and the daunting task of "framing" my own research proposal.