Qualitative Research

Guide

Since your groups will all be choosing different topics and participants for your projects, your essays will look a little different. However, since all of your topics will be related to social work, you can start off your essay thinking about who you are as an emerging social work and then begin writing about your expectations for those you will interview in your topic area. We need to remember that we have all experienced, the impact of COVID 19 on all facets of our lives during 2020/21 and that story is also wrapped up in your life and that of your participants. You might choose to have a specific question about that in your interview guide.

I would like you to write an essay starting with your own experiences in mind. In writing your subjectivity essay, please consider the following (you should write this as an essay and incorporate the various points, rather than just answer the prompts):

• Who you are (gender, age, ethnicity, etc.)? (do you have a unique connection to your topic?)
• What is your connection to social work? What has been your driving force to pursue a social work master’s degree at this time?
• What was your COVID 19 interruption story (thinking back to March 2020 and bringing it forward)? What happened? What were your feelings at the time? How have those changed? (a few paragraphs here)
• How are members of your study population likely to perceive you?
• What are your assumptions about members of your study population?
• What are your assumptions about your topic?
• How might these assumptions influence the conduct of your research and your findings?
• What are some steps that you can take to increase the trustworthiness* of your research and your findings?
• Please add anything else you feel is relevant to this assignment and your study

*Trustworthiness is a form of research rigor. It does not mean getting the person to trust you. Check out this term in the Padgett text (Chapter 8) so you have an understanding of what is being asked in this question.

Format

• Must have Title Page or a header with your name/date
• Between 3-4 pages
• 12point font