Learning about Qualitative Research

If you're an engineer who thinks of undertaking a similar "qualitative research" project this post may be of interest to you.  My intent is to reflect on the self-education process I've undertaken and recommend a book that I found helpful.
   
As a person who thinks of himself as an engineer first, with other interests riding well behind, I undertook this sabbatical project in what now seems a naïve way. My belief was that I would create a survey and talk to faculty at the relevant institutions (all 17 accredited AE schols) and write up the state-of-the-art in teaching architectural engineering design.  I knew that I would have a number of apparently technical problems collecting the data and ensuring that I drew valid conclusions from that data.  I knew too that I was entering a field that is essentially a humanities or social sciences field, but I didn't really understand what that meant.
   
In the months since the project was approved I've formulated the survey and have started the interview process.  Talking with colleagues from other disciplines, picking the software I'd use (NVivo), and continuing my reading about my topic I've learned a great deal, much of which is humbling.  I've become far more aware of the complexity of this process and the many different approaches that have evolved in different fields to understanding phenomena like the one that interests me.
   
I recently read with great care Readme First for a User's Guide to Qualitative Methods 2nd Edition, by Richards and Morse - 2006, Sage.  It's written primarily for people like me, beginners in the field who need orientation and specific steps to ensure that what you produce meets the standards of good qualitative research.  Probably most important for me was the early delineation of the three major approaches to qualitative research: Phenomenology, Ethnography, Grounded Theory.  My early explorations in the area of qualitative research brought up Grounded Theory so I had assumed that's what I was doing.  The authors' careful delineation of the purposes and methods of each of these approaches made it clear to me that in fact what I was doing was a form ethnography, which in turn implied a different approach to collecting and analyzing the data. 
   

Of course I'm not an expert from having read a single book, but thanks to it I feel that I have a much greater likelihood of producing something that has a reasonable chance of withstanding critical scrutiny.

Approaches to Teaching AE Design

One of the questions I've asked on the survey/questionnaire that I'm developing is which approaches to teaching AE Design do the faculty use.  I've included links to most of them below to help anyone who's uncertain of the meaning I intend.

• Lecture 
• Architectural Studio 
• Modified Studio - Architectural Studio modified, especially by emphasizing team-based projects 
• Case Study
  
• Problem-Based Learning 
• Guided Design 
• Socratic 
• Other
  

Computers as Tools - An Initial Reflection

The computer is the essential tool for most design work today. Programs are analogous to the computation methods that were the critical components that I learned when I was in school. What a good education these days should do (in part) is

• Teach engineering critical thinking which involves
  
  
  
  • Learning the limits of computation tools
  
  
  • Identifying when each is appropriate
  
  
  • learning how to check the output in a meaningful manner - usually by hand, but not always
  
  
  
  


• Learn the variety of tools that are available


• Learn how to adopt new tools


• Understand the principles that lie behind each of the tools


• Learn common methods and assumptions that extend across tools


• Learn data transfer methods


• Learn how to present data to others in a way that is meaningful

If students can learn these skills I think we’ll have served them well.

To do so we probably have to learn several tools in a shallow manner to address learning techniques and at least one in depth to be able to assess limits.

I’d argue at the moment that these ideas should apply to my study of design for the sabbatical.