Qualitative Methods in Psychology

The research study was conducted to understand the different factors of the sports and the sports development in athletes competing on the world class stage in the area of the sports psychology. The whole research study was completed by using qualitative research method. Literature review was conducted for developing the rationale of the research study. After that the data were collected by interviewing the sports personnel. In this concern, 14 athletes were interviewed or understanding what they think about the sports development. Out of the 14 athletes, 7 were male and other 7 were female sports personnel. The age group selected for this purpose was 21years to 48 years. Most of the sports personnel had medaled in a major championship. The research design of this study was the exploratory research design. The interviews were conducted by using some open-ended questions (Hays et al. 2007). The interviews were semi-structured in nature. The researchers have followed an interview guide for conducting the semi-structured interviews. They have divided the results of this research study into two categories. The first one is the sources of the confidence regarding the sports and the second one is the types of sports confidence. After collecting the data, the sources of the sports confidences were categorized into 9 different global dimensions (Hays et al. 2007).

Strengths of the research study:

The main advantage of this research study is the use of the human participants for conducting the research work. As the data were collected from some well developed sports personnel, the data might be reliable. The researcher have considered both of the male and females for collecting the data (Hays et al. 2007). This was a great advantage of the research study as the psychology of men and women are different. In order to get a balanced response from the respondents, the researchers have chosen both of the male and female respondents. Use of the open ended questions in the interviews, helped the researchers to get the detailed information about the perceptions of the sports personnel. They were not bounded to answer some specific facts of the area of sports confidence. This helped a lot to gather the in-depth knowledge about the perceptions of the sports personnel in sports confidence (Hays et al. 2007).

Weaknesses of the research study:

The main limitation of this research study also associated with the sample selection. Firstly, the sample size of the research study was too small. Gathering the research data from only 14 sports personnel are not enough for concluding the research findings in the area of psychology. Another limitation of the research study was that the sport personnel were from individual sports fields. The findings of the research study were unable to focus in the area of the team sports. Therefore, the research study was unable to provide a generalized view about the confidence in sports field. The sample size of the research study was small due to the time limit of the research study (Easterby-Smith, Thorpe and Jackson 2012). The method of the research study was also responsible for the small size of the sample population. The data collection procedure of the research study was only the interview. Interviewing a large number of people is not an easy task to be conducted as the sports personnel are not always available. The data analysis procedure of the qualitative research is also very complex. Analyzing the transcripts of the interviews and then fund the key findings from them with the details about their perceptions about the sports confidence is very complicated. The validity of the samples could not be guaranteed as fully reliable source as there was no way to be confident about that the transcripts of the interviews are stating the actual perceptions of them regarding the sports confidence.

Future Direction:

Future research study should be done in this field by considering greater sample size for the data. Only 14 sport personnel are considered for collecting the qualitative data of the research study. Smaller sample size is drawback of the qualitative research approach. Use of only interview method is not enough for collecting the data about the perception of the sports personnel. In order to use greater sample size, the research study should be conducted by using some quantitative data also (Chandra and Sharma 2013). The quantitative data should be collected from the sport personnel from different areas and different sports field. More area should be covered for the data collection of the future research study in this area. Different sport personnel of different field and the sports personnel who are used to participate in team sports should be considered as the sample population of the future research study. The research work should also give focus on the area of the area of the developing sport personnel. The environment of the sports is changing day by day and different types of sports are rising in the area of the global sports environment (Cameron 2009). Therefore, the new sports should be considered for the research study. It is very important to understand how the sports personnel of the new sports are thinking about the confidence in the specific sport field. The future research should cover a vast area where only the successful sports personnel will not be considered, more focus will be given for understanding the perceptions all the lower level and upper level employees. The findings of this research study will be used as the empirical data in the future research study in this area. Based in these data and other data from the previous literature, the hypothesis would be developed in the future research and the new data will be collected and then compared with these data for understanding the general viewpoint regarding the sport confidence (Creswell et al. 2010). Future research study by using the mixed research method will help to reduce the limitations of the research in the area of the sports psychology.

Mixed Research method:

According to Yin (2011), the mixed research methods are the most effective for conducting the academic research work. This research study also will be able to provide more effective results in future by using the mixed research methods. The literature research will be used for developing background details about the sports psychology. The data gathered from the literature research will be the secondary data of the research study. The research studies done by using both of the primary and secondary data and both of the quantitative and qualitative data are referred as the mixed method of the research work. The mixed research study of this research study will focus on the literature research for developing hypothesis (Easterby-Smith, Thorpe and Jackson 2012). The interviews will be conducted with the senior sports personnel such as coach, organizers etc. The data that will be collected from the interviews will be considered as the qualitative data of the research study. The limitations of the small sample size will be removed by the use of quantitative research method. A huge amount of data will be gathered from the sport personnel about what they are thinking about the sports confidence. In order to do that, a survey will be conducted among the sport personnel. The statistical analysis of the quantitative data will be simpler than the huge amount of the qualitative data. The survey will be conducted by using a survey questionnaire. Some closed ended questions will be given in the questionnaires (Creswell et al. 2010). The questions will be about the different point of views of the sports confidence. The limitation about the complexity of the data analysis will also be removed by the use of mixed research method. The quantitative data from the different sports areas will help to get more generalized psychological views of about the sports confidence. The data analysis procedure of the quantitative and qualitative data will be different. Statistical analysis will be conducted for the quantitative data of the research study and the deep observation will be conducted for the qualitative data of the research study.

References:

Banister, P. 2011. Qualitative methods in psychology: A research guide. McGraw-Hill Education (UK).

Cameron, R. 2009 'A sequential mixed model research design: design, analytical and display issues', International Journal of Multiple Research Approaches, 3(2), 140-152.

Chandra, S. and Sharma, M. 2013. Research methodology. Oxford: Alpha Science International Ltd.

Creswell, J., Hanson, W., Clark Plano, V. and Morales, A. 2010. Qualitative Research Designs: Selection and Implementation. The Counseling Psychologist, 35(2), pp.236-264.

Easterby-Smith, M., Thorpe, R. and Jackson, P.R., 2012. Management research. Sage.

Hays, K., Maynard, I., Thomas, O. and Bawden, M., 2007. Sources and types of confidence identified by world class sport performers. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 19(4), pp.434-456.

Yin, R. K. (2011). Applications of case study research. Sage.