Qualitative Research Report
MSc Psychology
Qualitative Research Report – 50% of the final grade
Aim of the qualitative project
This assignment aims to test your ability to analyse qualitative interview data and write up a qualitative research report. You will be using interview data that you have collected.
Instructions
Word limit: 1,500 words. The 1,500 word limit applies to the main body of the text (Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion and Conclusions). It does not include the abstract, the table of participants and table of themes, the quotes used in the results section, the references, or the appendices.
During the first session on interviews and focus groups you will get into groups of ideally five students (between four and six students per group is acceptable). This will form your research group. Through discussion within your group, and in consultation with the module leader, you will define your topic for your qualitative research project, design a semi-structured interview schedule, participant information sheet, and consent form.
In your own time (ideally during reading week) you will conduct one semi-structured interview lasting approximately 20-30 minutes using the participant information sheet, consent form and interview schedule. You will then transcribe and anonymise your transcript and share this with other members, who will also share their transcripts with you.*
During the second seminar session in Week 6 you will have the opportunity to analyse your interview transcripts. It is recommended that you use thematic analysisfor the analysis. However, groups or individuals that wish to use a different analytic method are able to if they receive the approval of the module leader.
Each student must produce an individual write-up of their qualitative research study. This write-up can be based on the themes identified during the group analysis of the transcripts or on further qualitative data analysis conducted by the individual student. Thus, the writing up of the report is not a collaborative effort. Whilst all reports will be scrutinised for plagiarism prior to marking, the nature of any plagiarism will form the basis of this scrutiny. That is, it is accepted that different reports from the same group are likely to share some features in common such as description of interview questions, names of themes, and quotes used to illustrate these themes.
*Please note that any student who does not engage with the group activity for this assignment and who does not produce an interview transcript that is shared with whole group, will be required to conduct their own study collecting at least three interviews, analysing the data, and writing up a research report.
Writing up your project
The structure of your assignment needs to follow the general requirements of scientific journals.
1. Title:
• Brief
• Explicitly state qualitative methodology
• Include method of analysis
2. Abstract:
• Purpose
• Methods (including study design and statistical methods)
• Results
• Discussion
3. Introduction
• The focus and rationale for the study supported by literature.
4. Methodology
• Participants with table of participants (table not included in word count)
• Design
• The interview
• Procedure
• Ethical considerations
• Data analysis method
5. Results
• Table of themes and sub-themes (not included in word count)
• Description of themes, illustration of themes (using quotes), interpretation of themes
• The results section can focus on a selected number of themes and does not need to cover all of the themes identified during analysis
• Illustrate themes with selected quotes (quotes not included in word count)
• Analyse rather than describe
6. Discussion and Conclusion
• Pull together your findings
• Refer back to the existing literature during Discussion
• Briefly describe any strengths and weaknesses of your study
• End with a brief summary of what you found, situate your results in the context of what is currently known about your topic. Make suggestion as to how/if your findings could be useful in practice and if further research in this area could be useful.
7. References
8. Appendices:
• Copy of participant information sheet and consent form (unsigned)
• Copy of semi-structured interview schedule
• Full,anonymisedinterview transcript preferably with coding (coding can be handwritten)
• Any additional workings demonstrating how the final table of themes was generated