Reference no: EM132313580 , Length: word count:4000
Assignment - Research Methods portfolio
Description of assessment task - This assignment involves your completed portfolio containing 3 examples of research methods application you have developed throughout this unit, referred to as practical tasks (1500 words) and a reflexive essay drawing together your unit learnings, experiences in applying the research methods and possible applications of this combined knowledge to your prospective professional directions or industry (2500 words).
This portfolio is intended to be a show case of how you have applied your research methods knowledge to problems presented during the course of this unit. It should present your learning journey in developing applied knowledge of research methods to deliver in a professional communications context.
Part A - Pick 3 examples of your application of a research method to a problem from the practical tasks we have conducted during the course of this unit. You will need to include at least one practical task from topics 7 & 9 and make up the rest from topics 1, 2, 3, 5 or 6.
You can refine and polish the practical tasks you've covered during the trimester and present them in Part A of your portfolio. (1500 words)
Part B - In part B, you will draw on the resources and descriptions we have provided in Topic 10 on reflexive research practice and structure your essay to demonstrate the following aspects.
1. What you learnt through the process of applying the three research methods case studies that you chose to present in Part A.
2. A consideration of how the application of these methods has refined your understanding for ways to approach industry problems.
3. Reflection on the impact of undertaking this research methods unit on your professional pathway and the possible applications you see for this knowledge within industry practice.
Please draw on the literature provided to you in the reading list and other scholarly sources to support your reflective essay. You should aim for a minimum of 10 references in your reference list.
Practical task: ethical considerations of data collection from social media
Research ethics is a fundamental aspect of conducting research. Gray (2018, p. 75) outlines the ethical principles that direct research practice which include:
- Avoid harm to participants. [HARM]
- Ensure informed consent of participants. [CONSENT]
- Respect the privacy of participants. [PRIVACY]
- Avoid the use of deception. [DECEPTION]
In your own words, write down what each of these principles actually means.
As your first exercise in research ethics, consider how using social media as your data collection source may raise ethical issues. You can do a bit of research on this to get you started, including reading these ethics guidelines from AoIR and these guidelines.
Here's the question you need to answer: "What specific ethical considerations does using social media as a data source raise?"
To narrow this task down:
- select a particular social media platform, such as Whats App, Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.
- Then think about five features and ways the social media platform or App can be used.
- Identify the types of data that can be collected from each of these features.
Response table: You can use this format to guide your responses and organise the insights you have found.
Feature - Describe a particular feature of the social media you have selected here, i.e. status update, direct message, .gif sharing, image sharing.
Identify data collection practice - Describe the kinds of data you can collect from how a person uses this feature.
Ethical considerations raised - Describe which of the four ethical principles you are considering and the ethical considerations that are raised by collecting this particular kind of data.
Reflect on this activity. What did you learn that you hadn't been aware of previously? How do you think framing data collection through an ethical approach affects research outcomes?
Practical task: designing a question schedule
Develop an interview schedule to understand the project needs of a client.
Aim: To gain insight into the industry problem presented by the client and the key areas they would like to see a response, a service and/or recommendations developed for.
Brief: You are a communications professional consulting with a new client. You will conduct a stakeholder interview with the client to establish the kind of service/recommendations that you can offer in response to their industry problem. That means you must first get them to articulate their industry problem, unpack the different elements of it and articulate the kind of response/services or recommendations that they are looking for. To nuance this, you will need to understand more about their organisation and the groups in the organisation that will be involved in the problem response approach.
The client has provided you with their specific business problem, framed as a question, below. In this case, the client is the Fitzroy Sacred Heart Mission Op Shop. The manager is seeking to raise the visibility of the shop within the community as it is located at the low foot traffic end of the busy Brunswick street shopping precinct.
RQ: How do we raise the visibility of the Sacred Heart Mission Op Shop in Fitzroy with the local community?
Write a minimum of five question probes or conversation topics that you'd like to use to direct this informational interview with your client. You'll need to learn more about the context of the opshop, how it's linked to the organisation, and the purpose for increasing the visibility of the Op Shop with the local community. You'll also need need to understand what the capacities of the shop and the organisation are so that that this can shape any recommendations you make.
Practical task: design a simple survey
Design and deliver a simple survey instrument.
Brief: You want to find the level of community awareness surrounding the location, services and charity focus behind the Sacred Heart Mission (SMH) Op Shop on Bruwnswick St in Fitzroy.
RQ: What is the level of community awareness of the SHM Op Shop in Fitzroy?
Write a minimum of five (5) questions to cover:
You need to start with whether they are Op Shoppers or whether they donate to charities.
You'll also need to establish how they become aware of equivalent businesses and whether they engage with them online. Through this, you'll need to establish the kinds of visibility that make sense for the community (if these are place based or online means).
You'll need to know if they've ever been to any SMH opShop and if they've been to the Fitzroy store specifically. If they have, you'll need to establish the frequency with which they visit the stores.
Practical Task: coding an original study
This practical task is set to prepare you for your first assessment task and should not be included in your final assessment task. You do not need to share this task for feedback.
In order to deepen your knowledge of this week's topic further, you are encouraged to engage with the following activity:
STEP 1: Identify the article that you will review for assessment 1
STEP 2: Read and code the article
STEP 3: pull out the components you will include in your analysis
STEP 4: Write up your analysis in essay format
Follow the procedural tips provided below.
Coding the article - In your reading of the article, you can start off by coding the article. An abbreviated version of the table presented by Shon (2015, pp. 5-6) follows here and is a very useful general coding approach that you may like to use as you learn how to identify the elements in a research paper or original study report.
Identify the key components for your analysis in an original study
- Create a table with the following column headings: Components for analysis, description from study, definitions and insights from external sources.
- For row headings use the areas identified in the assessment task description that you will need to critique.
- Review the article and identify and add into the table a description of each of the areas linked to the row headings.
- Identify scholarly sources that will assist you in critiquing each of these areas and add key definitions and critical approaches in the third column drawn from the literature that will assist your analysis.
- Find the onward citing literature for the study you have selected and review it for further tips in how other authors have analysed and positioned this study.
Practical task: locating industry reports
For this practical task you will need to retrieve an industry report related to your MComm specialisation or particular industry focus.
First, access the IBIS world database from the library catalogue. Once you are in the database, you will be looking for an industry report within the Australian context. You are likely to find relevant industries in these two meta headings:
Information Media and Telecommunications
Professional, Scientific and Technical Services
Select your industry report and review the key statistics presented on the top page and take notes of general trends identified. Then go through the remaining tabs and identify five key pieces of information that you see as critical to the sector as it is currently or that points towards future trends.
Practical task: designing a case study
Practical task - This case study task has been adapted from Weerakkody (2015, pp 268-269).
Design a case study to examine the production and reception (viewing by audiences) processes of your favourite drama, using multiple methods of data collection (for example, depth interviews, focus groups, field observations, documentary and archival data) and the relevant informants and participants (for example, writers; actors; technical crews; production staff such as directors, producers, production assistants and executive producers; industry union of cials; agents and managers of actors; extras; and viewers and fans).
a. Prepare a list of research questions or hypotheses to be examined.
b. Decide on the boundaries of the case study (for example, time and space).
c. Examine what methods of data collection would be suitable for which population.
d. How would you design the entire study (the 'How?' and 'Why?' questions you need to ask)?
e. What types and forms of triangulation can you use (for example, data sources, methodologies, theories and investigators)?
f. How would you choose respondents from each group of people?
g. How would you gain access to the case settings and respondents?
h. Develop a list of interview questions to be posed to respondents from each group/data collection method.
i. How would you develop and conduct the pilot study? (What would be your study protocol?)
j. Apart from respondents, what other sources of data would you use (for example, documents, archival materials and physical artefacts)? Give specifcs.
k. How would you maintain a case study database and logical chain of evidence?
l. How would you analyse the data using 'progressive focusing' and 'assertion'?
m. Who would be the audience for your case study report?
n. Can you prepare the report in a non-written format?
Practical Task: content analysis
News media analysis
Brief: You are an investigative journalist working for a news media outlet. A rival outlet has come under fire recently from community groups for reporting on gun violence in the USA with a biased perspective. Your news media outlet is concerned that they might have also presented those events with bias and has asked you to conduct a sample audit of their content.
Research Question: What bias was presented in news reports about gun violence in the USA by your news media outlet?
Sub RQ 1: Is gun violence being framed positively or negatively in the news reports?
Sub RQ 2: What frames are being used to discuss gun violence by your media outlet?
Sub RQ 3: Which views/information were presented with bias (i.e. with excessive conviction, and/or without a counter view).
Sub RQ 4: To what extent did these biases dominate and skew the information presented?
Steps to take in conducting content analysis
Step 1: Select two news items - may be a journal article or video clips - and analyse the content according to the research questions.
Step 2: Define the biases you will look for. What will be included as content for analysis, and what will be excluded?
Step 3: Define the 'units of data', that is, the content you will include in analysis - images, words, sentences, sequences of video, a combination of these. Identify key words and attitudes towards the subject that are reoccurring throughout the news items.
Step 4: Develop a coding frame that includes these key words and media/public orientations towards the party. Define each of the themes you will code for and develop a rule for when they are applied.
Step 5: State whether you will count instances of bias or consider them thematically, or a combination.
IF YOU COUNT THE INSTANCES OF WORDS OR IMAGES OF BIAS FOLLOW THESE STEPS:
Step 6: Create an Excel spreadsheet with the codes (from your coding frame) in the first column, counts (number of times each code appears) in the next column and comments (about its context in the overall media, its potency, etc) in the last column.
For your reflection task:
Step 7: Look through the two media and code themes and count occurrences in all of them.
PAUSE: After you have done this, put your work down and step away. Come back to it the next day (this gives you thinking and reflection time).
Step 8: Reflect on what you have learned through this process and the themes or biases you have identified.
Write this up for your Practical Task Reflection piece (500 words).
NOTE: If you submit this Practical Task as one of your items in your Assessment 3 - Portfolio, you must submit the news items with your assessment - the content must be available to your examiner. Please download the content to make it available offline to your examiner. If you select a video and cannot download it, please ensure that it is content that will be available at the time of examination.
Reflection points:
- Describe what the articles were about and take a step back. Did they take a balanced approach, or could you see any particular framing or bias in them?
- Once you worked out your coding frame, what helped you to identify up to five aspects for how this bias or framing could be identified?
- Did the coding frame assist you to examine whether the phenomena you are studying more systematically?
- Briefly describe what you learnt about the process of conducting content analysis through this exercise (rely on your personal experience, NOT text books).
Some background on data selection: An analysis of coverage of a topic requires the researcher to decide what media will be covered, which edition will be selected, and how topics will be identified within the selected publications. If analysing more than one article, then the selection of issues, transmissions and dates follows. The time period over which the analysis takes place is the context for what the findings mean socially at the time of publication. Usually, the transmission dates selected will depend upon the nature of the topic and research questions linked to the topic under consideration.
Practical Task: App walk through method
Introduction - The aim of this practical task is to get you familiar with the analytical aspects of an Application on your smartphone. In this brief, you will characterise the kinds of data you can find using the App Walk Through Method.
"The method involves establishing an app's environment of expected use by identifying and describing its vision, operating model and modes of governance. It then deploys a walkthrough technique to systematically and forensically step through the various stages of app registration and entry, everyday use and discontinuation of use. The walkthrough method establishes a foundational corpus of data upon which can be built a more detailed analysis of an app's intended purpose, embedded cultural meanings and implied ideal users and uses. The walkthrough also serves as a foundation for further user-centred research that can identify how users resist these arrangements and appropriate app technology for their own purposes." (Light, Burgess & Duguay
Reading - You will need to read this paper to get an overview of how this method works and then do the following steps.
Light, B., Burgess, J., & Duguay, S. (2016). The walkthrough method: An approach to the study of apps. New Media and Society, 20(3), 881-900.
Instructions - Pick an app that you don't already have loaded up on your phone. Identify the following aspects of the App first before you download it.
1. Vision: An app's vision involves its purpose, target user base and scenarios of use, which are often communicated through the app provider's organisational materials.
2. Operating model: An app's operating model involves its business strategy and revenue sources, which indicate underlying political and economic interests.
3. Governance: An app's governance involves how the app provider seeks to manage and regulate user activity to sustain their operating model and fulfil their vision. Governance is reflected in the app's rules and guidelines. Governance is often enacted through formal Terms of Service (TOS) documents and informally by encouraging users to behave in ways that align with the norms of the ideal forms of user the app is targeted at.
Now download the app onto your smart device and begin a technical walkthrough. This activity involves the researcher engaging with the app interface, working through screens, tapping buttons and exploring menus.
4. Registration and entry: This is often the starting point of a walkthrough, involving description and analysis of how a user sets up an account for a particular app. Take note of the process and how it compares with your experiences in other apps. What requirements does the app have from you to register and are you comfortable with these?
5. Everyday use: This stage refers to activities that registered users regularly engage in. This part of the walkthrough method focuses on recording the functionality, options and affordances that the app provides to users.
6. App suspension, closure and leaving: The process of account suspension, closure or leaving may not always represent a total break of the relationship between user and app. The walkthrough may reveal ways that leaving invites new modes of participation.
Attachment:- Assignment Files.rar