Methodology Rationale for Action Research Project: how can I develop the time management tool to help neuro-diverse students organise study tasks more effectively?
METHODS
Formative feedback from a work colleague
An initial conversation with my peer at UAL where I gathered some immediate feedback early in the research process really instigated the research question. University of Cambridge (2023) defines a ‘trigger’ in research as ‘the event or action that initiated change’.
I introduced my peer to the time management tool and a week later asked for her feedback. Professor and researcher Creswell (2007) writes that data collected from an individual who has experienced the phenomenon under investigation aligns with a phenomenological approach to qualitative inquiry and research design (Creswell, 2007, p. 61). It seemed relevant to seek data and information from someone with firsthand experience of the tool, but also with the neuro-diversity.
Researchers Sutton and Austin (2015) explain that phenomenolgy ‘focuses on understanding how human beings experience their world’. I wanted to understand her experience of using the tool and I valued her feedback from her experience and wanted to acknowledge this in my research process.
To formalise her feedback to a degree, the UAL peer wrote up her experience from being introduced to and using the original Eisenhower tool, feedback which can be found in the Findings Blog, and which contributed to my interest in the time management research.
Closed questionnaire for staff colleagues who are UAL specialist study skills tutors
Closed questionnaires are useful for generating responses more quickly than interviewing (Bryman, 2012). This questionnaire is very short and aims to gather feedback of the developed time management tool from my 4 colleagues for me to further refine the tool with this data. The sampling can be deemed ‘stratified purposive sampling’ because it is comprised of ‘individuals within subgroups of interest’ (Bryman, 2012, p. 419), and we are a subgroup of tutors working at LCF and LCC, sharing a specific student pool.
Researcher Bryman (2012) advises keeping closed questionnaires brief to avoid ‘respondent fatigue’ (p. 233). A disadvantage of closed questionnaires is that there is no interviewer to prompt or probe responses for richer detail (Bryman, 2012, p. 234); however, I arranged a follow up conversation to discuss responses with the purposive sample of my 4 peers. The risk of discussing responses in the group was research bias, as some colleagues may have given feedback of positive responses to be encouraging to my research process and experience.
This questionnaire has two parts. Part 1 focuses on phrasing and has two questions and part 2 focuses on colour, with a chance to rate 6 preferable colour palette options to the viewer. The questionnaire was seeking to collect data on the presentation of the adapted time management tool, as well as the language used to label the quadrants of the tool.
I thought the content of the questionnaire sufficient to generate authentic data in a time period that is sensitive to my colleagues’ workload and available time.
Informal discussion of post questionnaire responses with colleagues
The time available at the weekly staff catch up was the opportunity to be together and share feedback. Researchers Swain and King (2022) argue that informal conversations ‘create a greater ease of communication and often produce more naturalistic data’. Not only this, but they also believe that informal conversations can be a main method of research as well as work well alongside other methods. Therefore, I felt the closed questionniare worked well to introduce my colleagues to the research topic providing me with some initial data, and the informal conversation at the catch up meeting was a chance to gather more detailed and rich data collected with my note-taking. The staff conversation was a form of qualitative data, almost like an unstructured interview that ‘requires the interviewer to follow the lead of the interviewee and allow for open and natural discussion’ (Cultural and Historical Studies, 2023).
References
Bryman (2012) Social Research Methods. 4th Ed. Oxford University Press.
Creswell, JW (2007). Five Qualitative Approaches to Inquiry. In J.W. Creswell (Eds). Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: choosing among five Approaches (pp. 53-84) Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Cultural and Historical Studies (2023) Interviews. UAL
Sutton J, Austin Z. (2015) Qualitative Research: Data Collection, Analysis, and Management. Can J Hosp Pharm. 2015 May-Jun;68(3):226-31. doi: 10.4212/cjhp.v68i3.1456. PMID: 26157184; PMCID: PMC4485510.
Swain, J., & King, B. (2022). Using Informal Conversations in Qualitative Research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 21. https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069221085056 (accessed 4/12/23)
University of Cambridge (2023) Improving Improvement. Available at: https://www.iitoolkit.com/resources/terms.html#Trigger (accessed 4/12/2023)