Assume the role of a chief researcher for the state Department of Education who is examining two groups with similar educational deficiencies. One group involved in the study is a rural, ethnically-defined, aboriginal group with a high rate of health issues including diabetes, vision impairment, and heart disease. The other group is also a rural group living on family-owned farms (as opposed to corporate farms) that are in severe decline as a result of years of decreasing rainfall and drought. Both groups exhibit achievement test scores that are more than one standard deviation below the mean at all grade levels, and excessive high school drop-out rates.

General Requirements:

Use the following information to ensure successful completion of the assignment:

• Instructors will be using a grading rubric to grade the assignments. It is recommended that learners review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment in order to become familiar with the assignment criteria and expectations for successful completion of the assignment.
• Doctoral learners are required to use APA style for their writing assignments. The APA Style Guide is located in the Student Success Center.
• This assignment requires that at least two additional scholarly research sources related to this topic, and at least one in-text citation from each source be included.

• You are required to submit this assignment to Turnitin. Refer to the directions in the Student Success Center. Only Word documents can be submitted to Turnitin.

Directions:

Use the scenario presented above to write a paper of 1,000-1,250 words that addresses the use of qualitative research as a means of studying the two groups in the scenario. Include the following in your paper:

1. A rationale for using qualitative research methods instead of quantitative research.
2. A statement of how the worldviews and paradigms of the researcher may create bias when applying qualitative research to the given scenario.