One of my university graduates who is a Teacher of English is interested in doing a qualitative research on her students' perception about their high school English course. From my side, I strongly believe that it is possible but other teachers reject the idea since they think that perception is a psychological dimension that can only be treated quantitatively. I am very eager to encourage my alumna not to give up the idea but with very serious arguments and tools. Can you help with this?
I think you can do, but end up you will face problem with generalization of findings, the most notable issue with qualitative research design. for more visit http://methods.sagepub.com/reference/sage-encyc-qualitative-research-methods/n314.xml
With location specific qualitative research, genralisation is not usually one of the aims.
Your research may be aiming to:
[…] portray what it is like to be in a particular situation; to catch the close-up reality and thick descriptions of participants lived experiences of, thoughts about and feelings for, a situation (Cohen et al., 2011, p.290).
The results of such findings can lead to a democratisation of decision making processes, and changes in institution policy.
There are plenty of journals that are interested in purely qualitative research - good luck and go for it.
Many thanks to all.
It is grateful to receive your comments and suggestions. They are really helpful to me.
I would have thought qualitative methodology very appropriate for this project. It is likely to be a small case study exploring the nuances of the particular context, therefore generalisation does not really apply. It would be worth looking at Gary Thomas’s ideas on phronesis and case study research. The analysis drawn out from a qualitative approach seems most likely to lead to findings which may be useful in helping the practitioner, and therefore in due course, also the learner.
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