research questions - phase 2

Some reminders for this phase:

Keep revisiting the questions that drive this part of the study:

• Why was a particular evaluation approach chosen and how successful was it?
• (ALT) why did you choose not to evaluate?
• How can we overcome barriers to successful evaluation praxis?
• How does perception influence evaluative practice?

Case studies help to answer these how and why questions.

These are really the Level 2 questions of the case study (as opposed to the Level 1 questions which are those asked in the interviews). The verbal line of enquiry (level 1) is different from the mental line of enquiry (level 2). (Yin, 2009, p 87).

Level 3 questions are those asked about the pattern of findings across multiple cases. In my study, we want to find out whether there were similar issues encountered with the evaluation and how such issues were dealt with.

Level 4 questions - about the entire study. How do findings relate to other literature or to say phase 1 of my study.


Case study evidence can (and should) come from multiple sources. These may include documents, interviews, participant observation, direct observation, physical artifacts and archival records. In this study the first four types were used.

Analysis of Phase One

The research questions for this phase are:

1. What evaluation forms and approaches have been used in Macquarie funded learning and teaching projects? [easy to answer from the interview data.]
2. What are the issues and challenges in evaluating learning and teaching projects?
   
   [This was the original Q11 in the interviews. Briefly, items would include:
   lack of skills - guidelines and support/resources needed
   initial plans too ambitious
   insufficient use of Stakeholders
   insufficient money/budget - to pay for extra help or input when needed i.e. admin support
   no feedback at any stage in the project
   lack of time
   • to plan
   • for reflection/learning
   • too busy with teaching and other demands]
3. What is understood by evaluation? [can look at the misuse or confusion in terminology.
   For example Evaluation vs. Research and Evaluation vs. Project in terms of both planning and results. There is also some misinterpretation between evaluation and feedback. Also look at Q12 from the interviews.]
4. How does perception influence how evaluation is carried out in practice? Or, What influences how evaluation is carried out in practice....... [for this i think i need to go through the data and pull out all examples where perception is discussed, albeit implicitly most times. Also need to look for other papers that have done this and see how they have done it. Need to refer back to the theoretical approach of the project as well as the realism paradigm]