Ghania Zgheib's Ph.D. Portfolio

Description:

This is an advanced research seminar that integrates qualitative and quantitative approaches, methods, and data in a single study. The course covers the paradigms and “mental models” that inform both approaches, and the ways in which qualitative and quantitative goals, questions, methods, and interpretive strategies can be productively combined.

Reflections:

In both my master’s theses and a current study that I am working on, I used mixed methods as an approach. However, I did not have the knowledge or the basics of how to conduct a mixed methods study. I used to collect data using qualitative and quantitative instruments, present the results from both tools separately and analyze the data separately. This course was so useful in introducing me to existing mixed methods studies, analyzing them and coming up with a design map for a mixed methods pilot study of my own. The process of conducting mixed methods studies turned out to be different from what I thought it to be. I learned that both qualitative and quantitative methods inform each other right from the begining and the mixing should be evident in the results and analysis section. After all they should look homogeneous and continue each other; in other terms they should be “dialectical”. I believe that I will end up using both qualitative and quantitative methods in my dissertation because they complement each other and one method can answer what the other cannot answer (inside-outside process). As an outcome of this course, I was able to design a conceptual map and a valididty matrix for a pilot study on the use of social media in higher education which I am planning to implement in the Fall of 2012.

Module 1- Analysis of a mixed methods study, Module 2- Design map and Memo, Module 3- Validity matrix and memo