Psychology Assignment 3 : Qualitative research and analysis

Word/time limit: 3000 words (+/- 10%)

The word limit includes in-text references but excludes your reference list. You must state your word count on the assignment. If you exceed the word limit by 10%, your assignment may only be marked up to that word limit +10%. It is considered academic misconduct to declare an incorrect word count (±50 words). This will be dealt with through normal disciplinary channels. Remember, the electronic copy of your assignment can be used to verify your word count.

Formatting: See the Assignment briefcase

Weighting: 25%

Due date: 11.59 pm NZT Wednesday 1 October (Week 11)

Late penalty: Assignments that are handed in after the due date will receive a late penalty unless you obtained an extension from the Course Coordinator prior to the due date. Assignments submitted up to five days late without an official extension will lose 5% of the total possible marks per day. That is, if the assignment is out of 100 marks you will lose five marks per day for every day late. Assignments more than five days late without an official extension will not be marked.

After you have read this information, go to the Assignment 3 Q&A discussion board to ask any questions and see what your peers are saying about this assignment.  You can also view Frequently Asked Questions (and their answers) for Assignment Three.

Assignment overview

In this assignment, you will interview, transcribe, code and reflect on qualitative research. This assignment supports course learning outcome 5.

 Assignment details

Complete this assignment by following Steps 1–7, as outlined below. Most steps will include a reference to supporting materials in the modules that can be used as a guide.

Step 1: Identify a topic and frame a question

Identify a topic that you think would be suitable for answering using a qualitative method. Choose a ‘safe’ topic that is unlikely to upset or offend. Do not choose sensitive or risky topics. For example, a ‘safe’ topic that is unlikely to upset or offend and is not sensitive or risky could be ‘What do you like about dogs?’ or ‘What do you like to do on the weekend?’.  Write down the topic you want to explore—this is your overarching research question—then write an open-ended, non-leading interview question about your topic.

For more guidance on completing this step, see 9.4 Activity 1: Framing effective interview questions.

Step 2: Record interviews with two people

Use your interview question to interview two (2) people—this could be anyone, including a friend or family member, or two fellow students from this course. Contact your study group and ask for two people to be interviewed. This is a great way to experience interviewing and being interviewed.

As with all research, this project requires ethical approval. Ethical approval has been obtained from the University of Auckland Human Participants Ethics Committee. Reference Number UAHPEC22185. Each student has ethical approval for two interviews with participants over

18 years old. Before the interviews, you must provide participants with this Participant Information Sheet Download Participant Information Sheet. You must also ask for and obtain written permission to record the interviews using this online Consent Form Links to an external site.. We will send a confirmation email to your student email address once we have received both consent forms from your participants. You do not need to wait for this confirmation email before interviewing your participants. You can provide them with the PIS and the link to the online Consent Form before the interview, and ask them before the interview if they have submitted their consent form electronically. If the answer is “yes”, you can proceed with the interview. If both your participants have answered “yes” but you have not received a confirmation email, please email Michelle (m.burstall@auckland.ac.nz) ASAP using your student email address. We would suggest checking your student email regularly during this time.

Throughout the interview, you may need to provide the interviewee with additional prompts in order to draw out rich content. For more guidance on completing this step, see 9.5 Activity 2: Conducting your interview.

Your interviews should be no more than 4–5 minutes in length, and can be recorded using a voice recorder or your phone. You may wish to investigate using an app on your phone that will automatically transcribe the recorded conversation, which could be useful for the next step.

Note: Ethics approval means that interviews cannot be repeated or redone. You can have a brief practise interview that you do not analyse and don’t need written consent for if you want to check your technology or questions. In exceptional circumstances, if a participant withdraws consent, or if you do not have two useable interview recordings, please contact the course coordinator as soon as possible. There is not ethics approval to interview people under the age of 18.

Step 3: Reflect on your interview skills (1000 words max.)

Using the Top-ten tips for semi-structured interviewing (select the following heading to reveal), reflect on the skills you exhibited in the two interviews. Provide a balanced reflection of your performance, describing strengths, areas for improvement and what you would do differently next time.

Top-ten tips for semi-structured interviewing

1. Practice your introduction. Introduce yourself and the purpose of the research so that you build trust and rapport.
2. Create an interview guide with a range of key questions and practice it on someone you know.
3. Use open-ended questions that encourage extended responses.
4. Do not follow a strict structure; allow the interviewee to take the conversation in the direction they wish to.
5. Speak clearly.
6. Try to keep the interview casual/informal to relax the interviewee and make them feel comfortable sharing their thoughts with you.
7. Avoid questioning that ‘hints’ that one answer is more desirable than another.
8. Be non-judgemental and respectful.
9. Listen to the answers and ask follow-up questions, e.g. ‘why was it good?’
10. Be respectful of the interviewee’s time and thank them for their contribution.

Step 4: Transcribe your interviews

You can only make use of interviews that you have written consent for. Listen back to your consented interviews and accurately transcribe what was said (your transcription should resemble a script). Use this Transcription convention document as a guide. If you are using an automatic transcriber for this step, it is important that you reformat the transcript appropriately and amend any errors, as this technology has varying degrees of accuracy. The transcripts for both interviews must be included in your final submission. Do not include the name of your interviewees or any identifying information. The people must be nonidentifiable.

Step 5: Use content analysis to analyse your interview responses (1000 words max.)

Present your findings, including themes, sub-themes and agreed codes, if appropriate, supported by illustrative quotes. You can use a table to present the data if you like. Discuss your findings (Did anything surprise you? Why? How difficult did you find the coding of the interviews?).

For more guidance on this step, see 9.6 Qualitative analysis.

Step 6: Reflect on your experience (1000 words max.)

Reflect on your experience of conducting qualitative research, including ethical issues that arose. Did this method provide you with the results you wanted? What other research methods could have been used? Discuss the pros and cons of alternative methods for your research question.

Step 7: Submit your final report

Submit all parts of this assignment via the link on this page, paying close attention to the following instructions.

• Submit all of the files outlined below once all of your files are finalised for the assessment. Do not submit consent forms to Canvas. If your participants have completed these electronically (see Step 2), we will have emailed you confirmation of this.
• Submit your interview question, reflection on interview skills (1000 words max.), content analyses of two interviews (1000 words max.), and reflection on experience (1000 words max.) in ONE Word or PDF document. Name this ‘Reflection and Content Analyses’.
• Submit the transcripts of your two interviews (not included in the word count) as TWO separate documents. Name these “Transcript Participant A” and “Transcript Participant B”.
• Submit an audio file for each interview as an attachment in the ‘comments’ section of the assessment. Name each file with your name and Participant A or B – e.g. ‘MBurstall Participant A’. You cannot submit a video recording. Canvas will accept the following audio files:

MP3 – Digital Audio Format.

WAV – Waveform Audio File.

WMA – Windows media audio. WMV – Windows Media.

Before submitting your assignment, ensure you have followed any relevant formatting guidelines set out in the Assignment briefcase.

Important: Before submitting your assignment

Before submitting your assignment, we strongly recommend that you submit a copy of your work under Originality report submission. Note this only applies to work that includes citations and references. The Originality report submission enables you to check your work for similarity to published works on the internet, in articles and books.

Assignment criteria

Your work will be assessed using the following marking guide:

Assignment 3 marking guide

Assessment declaration

Auckland Online – Assessment Declaration and Statement of Authorship

Before submitting your assignment please ensure you have completed and understood the University of Auckland Academic Integrity Course.

By submitting my assignment, I declare that:

• I have read and understood the University’s Student Academic Conduct Statute, as well as the University regulations, statutes and guidelines on Academic Integrity.
• What I am submitting is an original piece of work and no part has been completed by a person or persons other than myself.
• No part of this work has been copied or paraphrased from any other source except where this has been clearly and correctly acknowledged in the body of the assignment and included in the reference list.
• I have not used generative artificial intelligence (Gen-AI) to write my assessment. I have followed the guidelines on the permitted use of Gen-AI tools for this course.
• I have retained a copy of this assignment in the event of it becoming lost or damaged.

I agree and acknowledge that:

• I have read and understood the declaration and statement of authorship above.
• I accept that use of my University of Auckland account to electronically submit this assignment constitutes my agreement to the Auckland Online Assessment Declaration and Statement of Authorship.
• If I do not agree to the Auckland Online Assessment Declaration in this context, the assignment will not be valid for assessment purposes and will not be included in the aggregate score for this course.
• I am aware that it is not acceptable to resubmit the same piece of work (in part or as a whole) for multiple assessments without permission from the Course Coordinator.

Further information relating to the penalties for plagiarism, which range from a formal instance of academic misconduct through to cancellation of a student’s enrolment at the

University, is contained in the University of Auckland Statute for Student Discipline (2013).

Submissions details overview

This assignment will be submitted through Canvas. When you are ready to submit your assignment, select the ‘Submit Assignment’ button on this page. You will be taken to the ‘File Upload’ tab where you can choose your file.

If your assignment has multiple files, select ‘Add Another File’ for each subsequent file before ticking the ‘Agree’ check box, then select ‘Submit Assignment’.

Please note: When you submit your assignment through Canvas, you are also submitting the assignment through Turnitin. Turnitin is a text-matching service that compares your work with an international database of information sources. You will need to agree to using it.