Critique of a Qualitative Research

Abstract

This essay entails a qualitative research study critique. The main research study that will be critiqued is Mr. Seda’s Identity theft and university students: do they know, do they care? Published in 2014.  Mr. Ludek Seda lectures at Flinders Business School. He has different qualifications such as Bachelor of Legal Studies (Police University of the Czech Republic), Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) (Flinders University), Certified Fraud Examiner (Association of Certified Fraud Examiners), among others. His responsibility includes FBS Academic Integrity Coordinator. Throughout his research study, Mr. Ludek used semi-structured interviews that were periodically scheduled. The interviews served as the primary tool for the collection of data. Twelve undergraduate students from Flinders Business School were sampled out of the entire population for the purpose of research. There were six females and six males and a face-to-face interview design were used.

The purpose of the research was to offer an explanation of factors influencing the relationship between University student’s awareness of identity theft risks and the prohibitory steps they take. My critique of Mr. Seda’s Identity theft and university students: do they know, do they care?  Will involve holistically evaluating the study as an epitome of qualitative research. Moreover, I will base my arguments on factors that must be considered when developing research questions and research approaches for qualitative research (Seda, 2014).

Critique of a Qualitative Research

The Identity theft and university students: do they know, do they care? Has two research questions. The first question- Do university students know about identity theft? The second question- Do university students care about identity theft? These two research questions are valid and within the scope of the research study. The research uses these questions as a guide for his research. They focus on identity theft. The questions have exploratory verbs and specify the participants. The research questions are developed with long-term agenda. Furthermore, they are well defined (Bryman, 2012).

The qualitative research approach used in the study is semi-structured interviews.  The following are the ways in which the researcher develops the design: The first thing is that he prepares the questions ahead of time. At this stage, the interviewer gets ready for the data collection by scheduling his dates of carrying out the interviews. Consequently, the questions set are open-ended. The open-ended questions provide the opportunity for discussions that diverge from the guide of the interview.  The researcher is able to tape-record the interviews and analyze them after the transcript. However, the disadvantage of the semi-structured interview is that it is difficult to conducting interviews and putting down notes simultaneously. Developing dialogue and rapport is essential in offsetting the difficulty of recording the interview while conducting the interview. Mr. Ludek uses semi-structured interviews that are periodically schedule (Rowley, 2012).

The research study contains logical and clear connections with the components. The design choice puts ethical implications into consideration. For example, Seda chooses to interview six female and six male students. His choice of design is fair and just to gender divide because it does not show gender discrimination. Identity theft is a problem affecting both female and male students (Australian Crime Commission, 2011).

Conclusion

In conclusion, Seda’s Identity theft and university students: do they know, do they care? is a qualitative research study whose research questions and alignment exemplify all the requirements for a perfect qualitative study. Seda uses quality research questions that lead to the answers to identity theft among college students.

References

• Australian Crime Commission . ( 2011). Organised Crime in Australia, Australian Crime Commission,. Australia.
• Bryman, A. (2012). Social Research Methods. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Rowley, J. (2012). Conducting research interviews”, Management Research Review (Vols. 35 Nos 3/4, ). Retrieved 10 13, 2016
• Seda, L. (2014). \”Identity theft and university students: do they know, do they care?\”. Journal of Financial Crime, Vol. 21( 4), .461 – 483. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JFC-05-2013-0032