TY - GEN
T1 - Challenges to ensuring quality in qualitative research
T2 - 119th ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition
AU - Walther, Joachim
AU - Sochacka, Nicola Wendy
AU - Kellam, Nadia N.
PY - 2012
Y1 - 2012
N2 - Qualitative research methods are increasingly being used in engineering education research. In this context there is an ongoing discourse in the community around ways of ensuring interpretive research quality. This paper presents a process-oriented framework of research quality that was developed while undertaking a study that was recently published in the Journal of Engineering Education. Drawing on the concept of Total Quality Management (TQM), the framework consists of two components i) a procedural view of the research process, broadly defined as Making Data and Handling Data, and ii) a flexible typology of fundamental processes of validation (theoretical, procedural, communicative, pragmatic) and the notion of process reliability. Both of these aspects of the framework are illustrated with examples from the aforementioned study. Future work is planned to further develop the conceptual framework as a language for the engineering education community to engage in a discourse around shared, contextual and flexible understandings of research quality.
AB - Qualitative research methods are increasingly being used in engineering education research. In this context there is an ongoing discourse in the community around ways of ensuring interpretive research quality. This paper presents a process-oriented framework of research quality that was developed while undertaking a study that was recently published in the Journal of Engineering Education. Drawing on the concept of Total Quality Management (TQM), the framework consists of two components i) a procedural view of the research process, broadly defined as Making Data and Handling Data, and ii) a flexible typology of fundamental processes of validation (theoretical, procedural, communicative, pragmatic) and the notion of process reliability. Both of these aspects of the framework are illustrated with examples from the aforementioned study. Future work is planned to further develop the conceptual framework as a language for the engineering education community to engage in a discourse around shared, contextual and flexible understandings of research quality.
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M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85029037761
SN - 9780878232413
T3 - ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference Proceedings
BT - 119th ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition
PB - American Society for Engineering Education
Y2 - 10 June 2012 through 13 June 2012
ER -