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MOOC: week 2 reading – Cohen

Cohen’s research focused on the student experience of participating in an distance learning drawing class. She used two primary methods: grounded theory interviews (qualitative) and a content analysis of the critiques. As she notes in her paper, content analysis can be considered to be qualitative or quantitative. She and her dissertation board agreed that her content analysis, following as it did, France Henri’s model, constituted a quantitative approach. Continue reading “MOOC: week 2 reading – Cohen”

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MOOC: week 2 reading – Trochim

Trochim’s stance on the qualitative-quantitative debate is that it’s ‘much ado about nothing’ (Trochim, 2006). He believes in the value of a ‘mixed methods’ approach and goes so far as to claim that, ‘At the level of the data…there is little difference between the qualitative and the quantitative.’ He claims that, ‘All qualitative data can be coded quantitatively,’ stating that ‘Anything that is qualitative can be assigned meaningful numerical values.’ Continue reading “MOOC: week 2 reading – Trochim”