Theme 6: Qualitative and case study research

Qualitative research

I read the paper From Moodle to Facebook: Exploring students’ motivation and experiences in online communities. The paper examines the motivating and inhibiting factors that influenced students’ engagement in online discussions via Moodle and Facebook. The paper uses an exploratory qualitative orientation with interviews as the main instrument for data collection. A benefit of qualitative research is that you can get a deeper understanding for an issue, but it is usually very time consuming. 

Qualitative and quantitative research can often complement each other. Usually you cannot generalize conclusions with qualitative research, but can originate hypotheses whose general validity can be verified for a large number of cases with quantitative method.

Case study research

A case study is a research method that aims to provide in-depth knowledge of what they are investigating.  The method aims to give a deeper understanding through empirical data. Case studies often combine data collection methods and the evidence can be both qualitative and quantitative. A case study can be used to accomplish numerous aims such as providing description, testing or generating theory.

The case study paper I chose is called ”Structuring the discourse on social networks for learning: Case studies on blogs and microblogs”. The paper presents an investigation on the structure of messages on blogs and microblogs, two different categories of social networks. This research was conducted making use of a multiple exploratory case study based on two contexts: blog and microblog. On both case studies, questionnaires with open and closed questions were distributed, as online forms, at the end of the established activities. Also, some interviews and applications logs were used for data convergence. Blogs supported the interaction and collaboration among students. Through postings, the students showed their work and sent comments in order to contribute to their colleagues’ work. Using blogs also improved students’ participation on the learning activities. Finally, using blogs also improved learning the subject.