Considerations in Designing a Qualitative Study

Considerations in Designing a Qualitative Study

            Courtney, Kiernan, Guerin, Ryan, and McQuillan’s article is titled “Mothers’ perspectives of the experience and impact of caring for their child with a life‐limiting neurodevelopmental disability.” The purpose of the study is to investigate the experiences of mothers caring for children with life-limiting neurodevelopmental disabilities. The study also aims to understand the perceptions of mothers and impact that caring for a child with special needs has on the family (Courtney et al., 2018). The primary research question from the article is: To understand the perspectives of mothers and impact on themselves and their families when caring for a child with a life-limiting neurodevelopmental disability.

The article clearly presented the research design. The authors have designated a part in the article that names and describes the research design. The research design chosen by the authors is subjective interpretivist strand that they plan to use to gain a deeper insight into the issues involved when caring for a child with the named disability (Courtney et al., 2018).

Through an interpretivism research design, researchers explore crucial elements of the research study (Yale University, 2015). The authors also explain the participants and the sampling methods, which support the research design. They choose participants from a charitable organization that supports families of children with adverse neurodevelopmental disabilities. The choice of the participants helped enhance the research design because the researchers can have a strong foundation where to start the research. Understanding the type of data to collect helped the researchers in crafting a suitable research design (Courtney et al., 2018). Also, the research design is well-crafted because the researchers started by developing a research question. The research question helps articulate the purpose and design of the study (Yale University, 2015). The researchers did not miss any details in crafting and developing a research design. The research question, purpose, and methodology clearly shape the design.

Positionality refers to the development of the researcher’s identity or stand in regards to the study. It also explores how external and internal aspects of the researcher shape their identity in the study (Ravitch & Carl, 2016). The positionality of the researchers appears early on in the article, where the authors present data and sources arguing that the numbers of children with complex disabilities are on the increase. Also, the authors’ position is that many mothers and families with children with complexes disabilities such as neurodevelopmental conditions experience various pressures and stress (Courtney et al., 2018). The position of the authors does not waiver throughout the study as they use the research findings to show the specific ways that mothers and their families are affected.

Reflexivity occurs when the investigation or action reflects back and affects the researchers (Ravitch & Carl, 2016). Reflexivity does not happen in the research study. The researchers’ background and experiences do not relate to the issue at hand. However, the authors have, for years, been researchers in social sciences and may have encountered problems affecting children with disabilities. The lack of reflexivity in the article helps in the elimination of bias. The authors have also used multiple sources of information to back up their findings, and this eliminates bias. To enhance credibility, the authors subjected some of the transcripts from the data collected to independent verification (Courtney et al., 2018). The results from the independent analysis were then compared to those of the study’s primary analyst.

 

 

References

Courtney, E., Kiernan, G., Guerin, S., Ryan, K., & McQuillan, R. (2018). Mothers’ perspectives of the experience and impact of caring for their child with a life‐limiting neurodevelopmental disability. Child: Care, Health & Development, 44(5), 704–710. https://doi.org/10.1111/cch.12580

Ravitch, S. M., & Carl, N. M. (2016). Qualitative research: Bridging the conceptual, theoretical, and methodological. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Yale University. (2015, June 23). Fundamentals of qualitative research methods: Developing a qualitative research question (Module 2) [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0HxMpJsm0I