Home Office Ahrentzen, Article Critique Example

Are the basic characteristics of qualitative studies mentioned?

Yes. The method was that of naturalistic inquiry designed to maintain a measure of flexibility.

Is the specific type of qualitative strategy of inquiry to be used in the study mentioned?

• Yes. The author defines purposeful sampling as the design strategy.
• Is the history of, a definition of, and applications for the strategy mentioned?
• Yes. The history of homework in general is mentioned. Furthermore, the author demonstrates how homerwerokers have faired by the mid-80s and reiterates viewpoints about specicialization of labor between genders.

Does the reader gain an understanding of the researcher’s role in the study (past historical, social, cultural experiences, personal connections to sites and people, steps in gaining entry, and sensitive ethical issues)?

Yes. The outcomes of the study included ideas about community cohesiveness, self-containment, and security.

Is the purposeful sampling strategy for sites and individuals identified?

Yes. The author tells the reader how participants were selected and by what criteria.

Are the specific forms of data collection mentioned and a rationale given for their use?

Yes. The author mentions that the data collection method would be personal interviews based on certain open-ended questions. There was also a segment about a self-administered questionnaire.

Are the procedures for recording information during data collection procedure mentioned (such as protocols)?

Yes. The more important enlacements were communicated. The actual protocol itself was not included, but it was unnecessary based upon the flexibility and variability of its application.

Are the data analysis steps identified?

No. The analysis was confined mostly to descriptive data. As such, the discussion portion was more a consolidation of what was learned from the interview and survey process.

Is there evidence that’s the researcher has organized the data for analysis?

Yes. Even if the analysis was not strictly statistical, the author was required to organized participant responses in such a way as to make the most salient ideas available.

Has the researcher reviewed the data generality to obtain a sense of the information?

Yes. She included participant features such as gender, location, income, household composition, and financial obligations to define the sample to some extent.

Has coding been used with the data?

Yes. Coding procedures have necessarily been conducted with the data, but the specifics were not mentioned. It seems that to gain a deeper appreciation for homework space design an ethereal-multifaceted approach was used.

Have the codes been developed to form a description or to identify themes?

No. This would have been too rigid for the study at hand. The researcher here was not only attempting to identify trends and preferences within homework spaces, but she was also deliberately not getting caught up in them.

Are the themes interrelated to show a higher level of analysis and abstraction?

Yes. She also goers on to define the changing opinion about home and work separation especially from the viewpoint of people who have worked from home for years.

Are the ways that the data will be represented mentioned—such as in tables, graphs, and figures?

Yes. The author presents participant demographics in tables.

Have the bases for interpreting the analysis been specified (personal experiences, the literature, questions, action agenda)?

Yes. Having gathered and analyzed the data, the author purports to apply the finings to dichotomies that are based on historical viewpoints of working from home as well as emergent ideas about it as a work method.

Has the researcher mentioned the outcome of the study (developed a theory, provided a complex picture of themes)?

Not really. She attempts to simplify the information. It was already probably complex enough by the time it was all gathered.

Have multiple strategies been cited for validating the findings?

Not really. It is assumed that a strictly linear method would preclude validation, and at this stage of inquiry, such stricture would impose artificial constrains upon observation.