Question

Imagine you are an educational researcher who wants to learn about the type of psychological atmosphere in which middle school students feel most comfortable and best able to concentrate on their studies. You plan to look at a wide variety of factors that might contribute to such an atmosphere—both physical factors (e.g., cleanliness and colorfulness of the school building) and social factors—(e.g., teacher–student relationships, general tolerance for diverse behaviors and beliefs). You realize that students might identify important factors that you yourself haven’t even thought of. In this situation, your best choice would probably be:

Answer 1

The correct answer would be a qualitative study.

Qualitative research focuses on using methods of investigation to understand social phenomena in naturalistic settings through processes such as observation, interviews, thematic analysis, discourse analysis and so forth all without using numerical data as would be the case in quantitative research. In this scenario the researcher could interview the students and teaching staff to gain their opinions and insight into the subject matter of the research. The researcher could also observe behaviors of the students as another method of investigation.