Author Archives: Marissa Levitan

Summary of Activity on this Site


Number of Posts: 3
Number of Comments: 2

About Marissa Levitan

5.08119E+15

The Advocacy and Participatory Framework

The Advocacy and Participatory worldview “holds that research inquiry needs to be intertwined with politics and a political agenda” (Creswell, p.9), therefore, there is a specific agenda for a study with this framework that aims for reform. In a study using this framework, social issues pertinent at the time are addressed “such as empowerment, inequality, oppression, domination, suppression, and alienation” (Creswell, p.9), and are really the focus of the study. This type of research offers a voice to participants and gives them the ability to form an agenda for reform.

Kemmis and Wilkinson (1998) offer four key features of the advocacy/participatory framework of inquiry:

1. Participatory actions are focused on bringing about change, and at the end of this type of study, researchers create an action agenda for change.

2. It is focused on freeing individuals from societal constraints, which is why the study begins with an important issue currently in society.

3. It aims to create a political debate so that change will occur.

4. Since advocacy/participatory researchers engage participants as active contributors to the research, it is a collaborative experience.

Creswell, J.W. (2009). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods        Approaches. (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

Kemmis, S., Wilkinson. M. (1998). Participatory Action Research and the Study of Practice. In B.  Atweh. S. Kemmis, & P. Weeks (Eds.), Action Research in Practice: Partnerships for Social Justice in Education (pp.21-36). New York: Routledge.

A Phenomenological Study on Employee Appreciation

I have an interest in employee communications, and how to make employees feel appreciated through employee communications in particular. In large corporations with thousands of employees, it’s easy for individuals to feel lost, and as though their contribution to the company is not appreciated. Companies can communicate to their employees through an employee intranet, emails, webcasts, town halls, and weekly newsletters.

I chose to examine a company’s weekly newsletter, and my research question is: Do weekly employee newsletters make employees feel appreciated and promote a feeling of belongingness to the large corporation?

My study will use a phenomenological approach. The phenomenon is how individual employees feel appreciated by their employer in a large corporation. Through a focus group, I will examine whether a weekly employee newsletter affects this phenomenon, and if so, how it does.

Marissa Levitan

I am in the Corporate Communications Master’s program at Baruch. I also work at a Human Resources Consulting firm in the Health & Benefits consulting department. I studied Art History in college.



Comments:

"This chapter is very useful as I plan to conduct interviews for my study. Since I would like to examine employees' interaction with their employer's or vice versa, it is very important to note that I should not be interviewing employees at my own company. How to find a good sample, set up interviews, and record the data are all things I will need to consider."
posted on Jun 12, 2013, on the post Chapter 7: Data Collection

"The summary of this chapter is a very good explanation of the different types of qualitative studies. The use of the specific examples for each type of study was most helpful, because I don't think I would fully understand the reason for choosing a certain type and be able to choose which is most useful for my own mini-study without the examples. I would like to do my research on something related to employee communications, and from this summary and examples I think the ethnographic approach is best for me. I can interview employees to evaluate how they absorb and react to their employers' communication and if it is engaging."
posted on Jun 12, 2013, on the post Chapter 5