PhD Thesis Methodology: Qualitative Research Design and Procedure

This article presents an excerpt from Dr. Mohammad Hossein Hariri Asl’s PhD thesis, focusing on the methodology of establishing an effective online learning community. It discusses qualitative research design, purposeful sampling, participant selection, and the procedures used in an online English conversation class with 42 students. The study explores content-based instruction, synchronous online learning, and the transition from Skype to Discord to improve online privacy, classroom management, and academic interaction in a virtual learning environment.

Research Design and Purposeful Sampling

The three design strategies of qualitative research (i.e., emergent design flexibility, purposeful sampling, and naturalistic inquiry) show that this ongoing qualitative research might be subject to change throughout investigation as the data were collected and the samples were selected (Best & Kahn, 2006).

In this study, the researcher consciously adopted a purposeful sampling design to conduct this qualitative research so as to study a particular sample of persons (meticulously selected participants) and their documents (e.g., transcribed interviews and completed questionnaires), because according to Best and Kahn (2006), in this design, the sample’s usefulness is of primary importance and the researcher is thus aimed at explaining a phenomenon (i.e., establishing an effective and informative online learning community) rather than making a generalization, which is ubiquitously adopted in quantitative research.

Participant Selection and Eligibility Criteria

On the other hand, if it was noticed that the participants’ Internet connection was not appropriate for having high quality voice conferences, or the participants evaded the main assignments of the course, i.e. making one suitable question and replying to one of the existing questions with regard to the specified topics in the comment forms, they were not allowed to participate in our virtual classes.

Procedure

Online English Conversation Class and Content-Based Instruction

In this study, the researcher focused on the data collected and analyzed from an English conversation class with 42 students, which was held on Wednesdays, from 21:00 to 22:00 according to Iran’s standard time in a group voice conference initially on Skype; and subsequently, on Discord. This conversation class adopted a CBI approach to language teaching. That is to say, in each session, the participants’ attention was called to one specific thought-provoking, inspirational and informative theme, such as getting out of your comfort zone, carpe diem, paradigm shift, subconscious mind, motivation, keys to success and so forth.

Learning Materials and Preparation for Online Discussions

To provide the participants with some necessary background information about the assigned themes, each session started with a presentation or lecture on the selected theme (either video or audio), which was embedded in the corresponding post under the tile of Relevant Audio/Video File. This file, which was a starting point for discussion, was available online on Fridays, and the participants were required to study (watch or listen to) it in the meantime to be able to answer the questions developed by the researcher immediately after the embedded file. Between audio and video files, the researcher showed a stronger preference for the latter because, according to Ockey (2007), language learners develop more engagement with video stimulus in computer-based listening tests in comparison with still images.

Using Skype for Synchronous Online Communication

At the outset of our online synchronous classes, we utilized Skype as the main VoIP medium of communication to hold our English conversation classes in the form of voice conferences. Thanks to Skype, the students could send and receive text messages and share files with each other in addition to attending voice conferences. Moreover, the researcher could share his desktop with the participants in a way that his computer display technically played the role of an electronic blackboard for the participants (Dudeney & Hockly, 2007; Friel, 1986; Manning & Johnson, 2011).

Online Privacy and Classroom Management Challenges

After a while, the researcher noticed that Skype, irrespective of having a myriad of advantages, could not provide the participants with requisite online privacy. To be more precise, the new or inconsiderate participants, who were not familiar or compliant with our class regulations, used to call our conferences on Skype or exchange text messages in them not for academic purposes, which was actually considered to be an untimely interruption and a flagrant violation of our class regulations (Manning & Johnson, 2011) due to the fact that, according to Dudeney and Hockly (2007), “using chat needs to have a clear purpose for learning” (p. 71). Furthermore, during our voice conferences, occasionally, we used to receive spam messages or calls, which impeded our supposedly smooth experience in voice conferences (Manning & Johnson, 2011; Tu, 2002).

Transition from Skype to Discord

As a consequence, we consciously utilized Discord as a recently developed VoIP communication tool in the place of Skype, TeamSpeak or Mumble. On Discord, the researcher created nine different voice channels and two text channels. We held our conversation classes in the Conversation Class voice channel. The researcher could perfectly monitor all of the participants’ activities on Discord to dispose of any disruptive behaviors and non-academic purposes on an exclusive server he had created on Discord. For instance, he assigned special roles to the participants, namely Admin, Teacher, Student, etc., and specified particular capabilities for each role. For example, the Student Role could merely speak, hear and exchange text messages exclusively in the Conversation Class voice channel.

References

1. Best, J. W., & Kahn, J. V. (2006). Research in education. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.
2. Ockey, G. J. (2007). Construct implications of including still image or video in computer-based listening tests. Language Testing, 24(4), 517-537. doi:10.1177/0265532207080771