Chapter 5 of Robson

Colin Robson's textbook Real World Research Chapter 5 was our course of study this week and focused on fixed design and its features, how to establish trustworthiness, how randomized controlled trial studies are the gold standard of research designs, and the different types of experimental and non-experimental designs. Honestly most of the information in the chapter was way over my head, being way too scientific for my taste, but some of the comments in the chapter really made me think. As I've said in my Blackboard post for Week 4, there were two quotes that stood out the most to me in the chapter. One was this sentence from page 100, which was a great way of describing how researches should establish trustworthiness and really I think for any design, fixed or flexible : "You persuade others by clear, well-written and presented, logically argued accounts which address the questions that concern them." I think if researchers can at least achieve this goal, they go a long way to making their research not only accessible to those interested in this kind of study, but for general scholarship purposes as well. Another point Robson made in Chapter 5 was on page 108, where he is discussing generalizability/external validity and brings up a very good point: "It is easy to guarantee unreliability. Carelessness, casualness and a lack of commitment on the part of the enquirer help, as does a corresponding lack of involvement by participants. Reliability is essentially a quality control issue. Punctilious attention to detail, perseverance and pride in doing a good job are all very important, but organization is the key." I think he's saying that participants in your study may not always be reliable, but with the researcher maintaining attention to detail, pride in your work and organization, reliability can be achieved. I understand that with the constant displacement of the foster care clients from one home to another that it might be hard to gather the research, especially if I have not gotten all the major permissions out of the way beforehand (which could seriously slow down the research process, but I would definitely do that before I started the study as this would be a priority). My plan was to administer the surveys at a large function, such as the Foster Parent Annual Conference where the majority of foster parent and children would be available at one location and probably ask the parents to help with the under 11 kids and the teens to do the survey on their own.