Choosing the appropriate methodology for your study

1. Choosing the appropriate methodology for your study Anne-mariereid, susan Jamieson, valeriefanrsworth & members of the RMG

2. MethodologICAL choices THE METHODOLOGY RELATES TO THE PHILOSPOHICAL UNDERPINNING OF THE RESEARCH DESIGN WHICH PROVIDES A FRAMEWORK FOR DATA COLLECTION METHODS • Consider how your backgrounds and beliefs about research might influence your methodological choices • IDENTIFY different research paradigms which underpin different methodologies • Match studies to appropriate research paradigms -the research question drives everything!

3. RESEARCH ASSUMPTIONS • How we understand the nature of being IN RELATION TO OURSELVES AND THE WORLD (ontology) • How we CONSIDER WHAT COUNTS AS KNOWLEDGE AND EVIDENCE (epistemology) • HOW THESE INFLUENCE How we do research (methodology)

4. APPROACHES TO KNOWLEDGE KEY PARADIGMS • POSITIVISM- INDICATES AN OBJETCIVE REALITY WHICH CAN BE MEASURED AND KNOWN • CONSTRUCTIVISM – NO SINGLE TRUTH OR REALITY – WHAT COUNTS AS EVIDENCE IS OPEN TO INTERPRETATION AND SUBJECT TO RESEARCHERS’ OWN BELIEFS AND ASSUMPTIONS

5. Research paradigms Adapted from Bunniss & Kelly, 2010; Ward, 2016; Zukas, 2012

6. METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES AND ASUMPTIONS • EXAMPLES FROM rmg members

7. Student transitions in learning Looking at Undergraduate medical students, I am asking: • How do students’ dispositions to learning change over the first year, if at all, and what impact does the curriculum appear to have on these changes? Why this question? • Small scale exploratory study justifiable • Underpinned by a theoretical framework • Lends itself to theorising a potential relationship between disposition and the curriculum

8. Theoretical framework

9. METHODology • Not quite evaluation of intervention – not studying change in ability mindset • Interviews in Year 2 (9 medical students): • looking back at year 1 transition • Explore ideas about ability mindset and learning orientation • Map out the transition in relation to the curriculum and things that supported it • Follow up with a focus group (year 1) and email commentary

10. Contextualist and interpretivist approach I am sensitised to certain concepts that follow from my theoretical framework: • Ability mindset (fixed and growth) • Learning vs performance orientation • Transition as a situated process (curriculum as the context) Further concepts that have emergedː • Individual regulation • Self regulated learning

11. Analysis As asking questions of your data • What’s happening for students as they adjust their learner orientation and how do they explain these changes? • How should we think about/how can we understand this transition? (E.g. crossing a threshold to a new orientation or negotiating a learner identity?) • How can we support this transition for others? • Does meta cognition and reflection informed by theory (e.g. ability mindset) help? • Is it something about the curriculum that helps them along in this transition?

12. Benefits and limitations • Contextualist and interpretivist approach can be used to study: • Relations between individuals and learning environment • Process of change • Mechanisms enabling change and/or dialectical relationships? • Methodological learning points from this study: • Settle for post-hoc reflection • Props can be good to use but they take time! • Be open to findings you had not anticipated • Revisit your hypotheses in light of the data

13. Group discussion Discuss in your group: • Any specific methodological approaches you have chosen and why you chose that approach • What benefits did you find? • Any issues/challenges which arose?

14. Feedback from groups • Coise one example form your group to feedback