I also finished entering the data and transcripts for the LOC study (except for the one student's who is mislabeled). Just to bring you up to date on this study - we looked at a new research method that we are calling a multi-point referral method. This is a modification of the traditional snowball technique which is commonly used in qualitative research (Creswell, 2008); in the snowball method a group of informants, known to the (single) researcher are contacted and asked for referrals. However, this method is rarely used in quantitative or mixed method research due to the criticism that it limits the diversity of the informants (Taylor & Bogdan, 1998). In the present study we started with 8 student researchers from across the US who were instructed to ask for referrals from their social network, with the rule that their final participants must not be known to them. Some results for you:
We ended up with 42 participants, 45% were white and the rest of different minorities. This is extremely diverse which suggests that we are on the right track. According to the US Census 75% of the US describe themselves as white. For you stats types - the race of our student researchers was strongly correlated with race of subject (r(41) = .61, p <.0001). So something to consider in the future.
Highest education level achieved: 4.8% had not finished high school, 14.3% had graduated high school or got a GED, 45.2% reported some college, 21.4% received a Bachelor's degree and 14% had graduate work. According to the US Census 19.6% of the US have not completed high school, 28.6% completed high school, 27.4% some college, 15.5% Bachelor's, 8.9% graduate work. So our sample was more highly educated than the US in general. I will pass along more results as it becomes available.
Creswell, J.W. (2008). Educational research: Planning, conducting an evaluating quantitative and qualitative research. Columbus, OH: Prentice Hall.
Taylor, S.J. & Bogdan, R. (1998). Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods: A guidebook and resource, 3rd ed. NY: Wiley.
US Census.gov
Those statistics are interesting and given this type of sampling method along with those statistics, it remains important to consider diversity at every step of this process.
ReplyDeleteI wonder, when Taylor and Bogdan used this method, were their ‘RA equivalents’ diverse? Did these authors look at similar statisics such as the correlation between source of referal and participant?
It will be useful to continue with this sampling method in the new study so that we can learn more about its strengths and limitations.
We are the first to use this method. Taylor and Bogdan wrote a textbook on methods and discussed the limitatons of the snowball method
ReplyDeleteThanks for clarifying...how exciting to be in new territory ;-)
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