Conducting qualitative research: a practical guide for school counselors

This article discusses the general [i]or[/i] abstract notion of school counselor as researcher. Qualitative research is defined, explained, and differentiated from quantitative research. gymnasium counselor questions that lend themselves to qualitative research are explored. The article also discusses the paces of qualitative research in profundity including developing questions, identifying gatekeepers, conducting interviews and observations, and analyzing data.

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Embarking upon a research project can be an exciting journey. As place of education counselors take questions they have been curious about, and station out on an adventure to find answers, they begin to diocese how rewarding conducting research can be. at the same time those who are new to the proces of research repeatedly doubt their competence. When I discuss research assignments with my place of education counseling students, the initial reaction is many times one of fear and dread. Unfamiliar words and confines can be intimidating for the novice researcher. level the word researcher, which implies something other than counselor, can make counselors have feeling that they are embarking upon a path that is beyond the tendency of their capabilities. Yet as practitioners, we are all researchers each day. We study our environments and draw conclusions based upon our observations. We gather information about scholars and generate our own theories about them. We also make predictions and experiment these out. In essence, academy counselors are researching all the time.

The aim of this article is to help you diocese that as a school counselor, you, too, can be a natural researcher. Your organ of visions and ears can be sources for collecting data. The drift of collecting data is simply to inform what you already do. The more you know about a given situation or question at issue the better equipped you are to apply this knowledge to your work. In this article, I discuss by what mode one knows when a qualitative research course is warranted, the definition of qualitative research, and the specific processs one uses in carrying on the outside a qualitative research study.

QUALITATIVE V QUANTITATIVE PROCEDURES: WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?

The first pace in any research study is defining your research question. That is, ask yourself, "Specifically, what is it that I want to discover?" one time you have clearly determined your question(s), you can decide what emblem of procedure will best labor for you. Qualitative approaches are used when you want to add richness or thick description to your findings.

Let's say your goal for discovery is "I want to understand more about the parents of my scholars in order that I may collaborate more effectively with them." You then must ask yourself, "What specifically do I want/need to know?" Perhaps your questions are individuals that can be clearly defined and quantified, of the like kind as "How old are greatest in quantity parents in my community? What is the education horizontal of parents in my community? Which topics would parents be interested in heating about upon Parents Night?" A quantitative approach like as conducting a survey in which participants are asked to rejoin to a list of brief questions will certainly be greatest in quantity time-efficient. You also will be able to include more race in your study.

Sometimes, however, you will find that your question is individual that requires a deeper horizontal of exploration that would necessitate dialogue with parents. For example, presuppose you notice that you have difficulty relating to parents from different cultural collections You would like to understand more about what the experience of that cultural collection is like in order that you may understand, relate to, and work with parents more effectively. Your questions are likely to be open-end You bewilderment things such as "What is the everyday experience of race in this minority culture? by what mode do members of this tillage experience the school environment?" You may not plane be quite sure what it is you want to know. You just know that you ne to know something. A qualitative approach might be in order--one in which you disburse time with, observe, and ask questions of clan in order to understand their cultural patterns.

WHAT DEFINES QUALITATIVE RESEARCH?

The distinguishing characteristic of qualitative research is that it "calls for the investigator to come into into the lives of the someones being studied as fully and naturally as possible" (Stainback & Stainback, 1988 p 1) The goal is to gain an in-depth, holistic perspective of clusters of people, environments, programs, circumstances or any phenomenon one wishes to inquiry by interacting closely with the clan one is studying. According to Creswell (1994) "The researcher tries to minimize the distance between him--or herself and those being researched" (p 6) It is important to note that qualitative practices can never be completely value-free. Qualitative researchers deal with the fact that their have a title to values cannot be kept on the outside of the experience by admitting the value-laden nature of the experience (Creswell) and discussing their have biases and the implications for findings.