Linking Research Design, Research Problem, and Research Questions Essay

Linking Research Design, Research Problem, and Research Questions - Essay Example ’. Qualitative research questions deal with individual cases and provide greater depths and understanding of each case while looking only at the practical and pertinent information. There are five most common approaches used in qualitative research. These are ethnography, grounded theory, case study, discourse analysis, or phenomenology. The method that is to be used in this qualitative study is ethnography. Ethnography helps to get an in-depth understanding on the aspects of culture which influence the phenomenon under study. It is often used to gather data that is derived from experiments and observation rather than from theory. Ethnography is particularly done with the end purpose of enabling the researcher to describe the people targeted by the study. The research topic proposed in this paper concerns finding the reasons for the increasing rate of dropouts from institutions of higher education. The research topic can be better phrased as â€Å"Curbing the increasing rate of school dropouts from institutions of higher education†. The purpose of this research is to find out the reasons that lead to students dropping out of school. By being able to get a clear understanding of why students drop out from school, this data can be used by the government ministry in charge of education, school boards and other key players in the sector to devise policies and strategies which will gradually bring down this drop out rate. Problem statement The rate at which students are dropping out is increasing at an alarming rate. All over the world, there are headlines that detail the numbers of students that drop out of school, especially higher education. According to a report by the US Department of Education’s National Center for Educ ation Statistics (NCES), there are two principal classifications of factors which contribute to students dropping out of school. These are financial and social. The NCES also reports that the rates of dropouts have been increasing over the last decade. For example, between 1992 and 2002, the status rate which is the rate of students dropping out without completing school increased from 14.6 to 22.5 per cent. In South Africa, the high rate of university dropouts, which was at 11.2 per cent in 2008, is deemed to be a monumental threat to the future of the country. This is the situation in many countries. Much has been done to try and curb the rate of dropouts but these numbers are astonishing. Something needs to be done urgently to help this pathetic situation. How ethnography is used There are two main types of data that will be collected for this research. These are primary and secondary data. The former will be collected through structured interviews with key respondents such as sc hool principals, district education officers, lecturers, tutors, mentors, students and other key people in the ministry involved with education, interviewer observation and field notes. Focus discussion groups (FDGs) may also be held to get insight on what are the reasons for this phenomenon. FDGs involve having the researcher as the facilitator or moderator as the group discusses the factors that lead to dropouts and initiatives that can be implemented to help curb this. The FDGs will mostly comprise of students in higher education institutions and recent graduates. The ideal age would be between 18-26 years. Secondary data will be collected from reflexive journals, analysis of published and unpublished documents and reports and also other data that will be relevant to this study. Research Questions A research question can be defined as the question or questions posed that the research answers. It is usually a

Can violence,or force, or the threat of threat of force help to lessen Essay

Can violence,or force, or the threat of threat of force help to lessen or eliminate racism - Essay Example But whether the use of such violent means justify and succeed in eliminating racism, is the fundamental question, that is being probed in this paper. I personally feel that such a question cannot be answered in a meaningful and rational manner with a specific ‘yes’ or ‘no’, particularly considering the background: the historical circumstances as well as the present day conflicts; which has evoked such a deliberation. Any rational individual, in my view, would not consent to use of violence as a legitimate means of overcoming racism unless, it is the only means available to defend personal values and it justifies the cause to fight a greater evil. There exists a moral / ethical dilemma regarding the use of force or threat for safeguarding one’s own interest and defending integrity of the suppressed population. Thus, while on one hand we have a considerable section of the society, believing in non violence who would unanimously negate the use of any for m of aggression or dominance to counter suppression and prejudicial behavior, and promote non violent and subtle means as a more favorable and rational action, and yet on the other hand, there are those who claim that violence is justified if it is used to eliminate greater evils. The choice that this question offers, gives rise to contradicting ideologies, which challenges our moral judgment, since theoretically, violence is generally condemned by societies as an illegitimate and irrational action that does not justify any cause, and yet factually, we may find several instances where violence was successfully used to eliminate social evils. For instance, the aggressive revolt led by Nat Turner, a black slave, in the early 1830s against the tyranny of white Americans, in a bid to escape racist laws and reinstate dignity and self empowerment for the blacks, which eventually led to bloodshed