The synergy of teaching and assessment that reflects student learning in a qualitative research methods class

Saras Henderson
Curtin University of Technology

Keywords: qualitative research; interactive teaching; student learning

In teaching qualitative research to postgraduate students it never ceases to amaze me the number of students who demonstrate difficulty in understanding the concepts underpinning qualitative research. For some students, qualitative research seems to be another data collection method. By that I mean the students perceive that as long as they are conducting in-depth interviews or participant observation, they are doing qualitative research. Others seem to have difficulty coming to grips with the language of qualitative research and insist on using quantitative research terms with qualitative research. Still others cannot seem to appreciate the subtle nuances that exist between the various qualitative approaches. After much reflection I have come to the conclusion that the ability to think critically is crucial for students learning to do qualitative research. Students need to understand qualitative research within its philosophical, empirical and epistemological contexts before they can move on to data collection. Students need to understand the role of literature, how to write the research questions and analyse the narrative texts. In order to help students learn I use various interactive teaching strategies. These strategies have shown to be effective via the many assessment tools I use to ascertain learner outcomes. In this paper I show how assessment has to be congruent with leaner outcomes with teaching strategies the means by which this is achievable.