Because of the nature of this study, there was no hypothesis and the only intended outcome was a desire that attitudes toward public engagement will be more positive once students were equipped with the tools to engage.
All of the data collected was analyzed qualitatively. I chose qualitative for this study because I wanted to report on many factors impacting students’ attitudes and behaviors related to civic engagement and help illustrate a bigger picture than other forms of quantitative data might show (Creswell 176). The data was gathered in a traditional educational setting, not a contrived or sterile environment; the design was emergent, loosely constructed, which allowed for
modifications where necessary; and I approached the purpose and design from a theoretical lens (Creswell).
I elected to gather the concluding information through focus groups rather than surveys or one-on-one structured interviews because participants in focus groups are able to provide historical information to an extent that cannot be gathered using another method (Creswell 179). My purpose was to “uncover factors that influence opinions, behavior or motivation” (Krueger and Casey 19), to understand why students feel the way they do about engagement (Harrell and Bradley 82; Krueger and Casey 19), and focus groups “can provide insight into complicated topics when opinions or attitudes are conditional or when the area of concern relates to multifaceted behavior or motivation” (Krueger and Casey 19).
One of the studies that influenced my own study design is the 2012 study out of Tufts University’s Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement
(CIRCLE), entitled “That’s Not Democracy: How Out-of-School Youth Engage in Civic Life and What Stands in the Way.” The Executive Summary of the CIRCLE study explains its focus group choice, noting that “survey research is not ideal for determining why young people do or do not participate.”
The second study that influenced my own design is Giovanna Mascheroni’s qualitative study of Italian youth political uses of the web, which she discusses in her article “Online Participation: New Forms of Civic and Political Engagement or Just New Opportunities for Networked Individualism.” In both of these studies, researchers conducted semi-structured, mini- focus groups comprised of young people (both college students and non-college young adults) in an effort to discern some of the attitudes and influences surrounding their online civic and political practices. Having read the two studies, I decided focus groups and reflection essays would be the best sources of information. However, in an effort to gauge degree of familiarity and existing attitudes at the start of the semester, I did distribute a short initial survey. The goal was not to analyze in depth the group as a whole, but to very quickly gather snapshots of each student’s existing knowledge and skillset, as well as attitudes and behaviors related to civic engagement at the onset of the semester. The most efficient way to do this was to distribute a 15- minute survey.
I elected to hold focus groups, as opposed to individual interviews, because focus groups present a very natural environment for qualitative data collection, “because participants appear to be influencing and influenced by others – just as they are in real life” (Locke, Spirduso, and Silverman 107). Because conversations are natural in a focus group, the responses will be more authentic, which will “lend a useful degree of authority to the data” (Locke, Spirduso, and Silverman 107). Additionally, in focus groups, the discussions can be rich and dynamic, useful
for a researcher who seeks to gather a depth of information without gauging the degree of emphasis of one point or idea over another (Harrell and Bradley 10).
Neither the CIRCLE nor the Mascheroni study looks at behaviors and attitudes in a way that is directly linked to academic instruction. In this way, my study will contribute new
information to the field. First, both studies include participants who are not yet old enough to participate fully in citizenship activities (voting, military service, independent financial decision- making). The CIRCLE study in particular studies age as a primary demographic. It does not study a group of exclusively college students, for example. While age is relevant to the study of a link between teaching civic literacy and increasing civic engagement, my primary focus is on the education piece. As a writing instructor at a two-year college, our students – even our freshmen – are a wide variety of ages. I am interested in studying how their acquired knowledge and skills on civic engagement and new media impacts their attitudes and behaviors towards this type of engagement. I want to understand this because it is important to know if this kind of work is valuable in writing studies, whether it has a lasting impact on student engagement in learning and participation outside of and beyond the classroom.
Additionally, this project involved some historical research on relevant methods of engagement and activism that most closely resemble the kinds of engagement that can be
undertaken digitally. It involved study of the history of new media and activist/alternative media, as well as various pedagogical practices in composition studies surrounding new media and multimodal composition. The information gathered through examination of other historical and theoretical practices has led me to establish what I see as some best practices in teaching civic engagement through new media in composition studies (discussed further in Chapter 5).
My research on study design has helped inform my choices to gather information qualitatively through focus groups, but I recognize that method is not without flaw. Following are some of the potential drawbacks I have had to be aware of as I made sense of the findings:
The researcher’s presence may bias participant responses (Creswell 179).
Not all participants are equally articulate and perceptive (Harrell and Bradley).
Participants can tend to intellectualize their responses and not tap into emotions sufficiently, and emotions are “key drivers” of behaviors (Krueger and Casey 13).
The validity and value of the findings can be called into question for a number of reasons: “participants could make up answers,” “dominant individuals can influence results,” and the groups can “produce trivial results” (Krueger and Casey 14-15). Ultimately, the best way to overcome these negatives is to use focus group research in concert with other forms of data collection (analysis of student projects, student reflection essays, etc.) and measure the findings against one another, so this is what I have done.