Paper Example on Teenage Mothers & Low-Income Communities: Experiences of Teen Pregnancy

My dissertation topic is "the experiences of teenage mothers about the socio-economic aspects of teen pregnancy in a low-income community." That is, my study is aimed at understanding the social and economic consequences of adolescent motherhood, especially among teenage mothers from the low socioeconomic background. Because of this, the target population will be comprised of young mothers (below the age of 19 years). Only adolescent mothers from low-income communities will be recruited for the study. Therefore, the inclusion criteria for this study include a) Teenage mothers and b) Living in a low-income neighborhood.

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Because participants who meet the strict inclusion criteria are needed to provide data capable of addressing the research topic, then the purposive sampling method is appropriate for the study. A purposive sample is suitable for the proposed dissertation topic it allows the researcher to select individuals who can and are willing to give information based on their experience or knowledge of the phenomenon of interest to the study (Etikan, 2016). Consequently, for this dissertation topic, only individuals who have had a first-hand experience of teenage motherhood and are living in a low-income community will be sampled. Purposive sampling can be described as a sampling approach used for the identification and selection of information-rich cases (Barglowski, 2018; Benoot, Hannes, & Bilsen, 2016). That is, only respondents who are knowledgeable about the phenomenon of interest to the study (e.g., socio-economic experiences of adolescent motherhood) are identified and selected for the study.

It is also worth emphasizing that because the dissertation seeks to understand the experiences of teenage mothers about the socio-economic aspects of teen pregnancy in a low-income community, a phenomenological research design is most suitable for addressing the aim of the study. Phenomenology is appropriate for this study because it explores participants' experiences based on their accounts (Tuffour, 2017). According to Jordan (2019), phenomenology is a type of qualitative research approach aimed at gaining an in-depth understanding of human behaviors and experiences via the eyes of the respondents in the study.

Phenomenological research design seeks to understand human consciousness regarding a particular phenomenon and participants' reflection of real-world experience of a specific issue (Katsirikou & Lin, 2017). Because the study seeks to understand respondents experience of the socioeconomic consequences of teenage motherhood, interviews comprised of open-ended questions is suitable for data collection. The suitability of such a data collection approach is attributed to its ability to allow respondents to respond to all aspects of the study without being limited to the answers to questionnaire items.

Consent and Precautions the Institutional Review Board (IRB) may need for my Study

A study involving human participants must adhere to research ethics and must meet the requirements of the IRB. First, the IRB requires that the participants voluntarily agree to participate in the study. Voluntary participation in a study means that the potential respondents are not coerced into agreeing to participate in a research study (Smit, 2018). Voluntariness is vital because by willingly agreeing to participate in a study, there is an increased likelihood that the participants will cooperate with the researcher in all providing data and information needed to address the purpose of the research and the research problem.

Second, because some of the respondents will be below the legal age of giving informed consent to participate in the study, the type of approval that will be appropriate for the research is parental consent. When minors or children are required to provide information, the guardian or parent must permit a child's participation by signing the parental permission consent document (Shahnazarian, Hagemann, Aburto, & Rose, 2017).

Another precaution that the IRB may require for my research study is the risk and benefits of participation in the research. The term benefit refers to the desired outcome or advantage of participating in research while risk refers to the likelihood of getting injured (economically, socially, psychologically, or physically) as a result of participating in a research study (The Regents of the University of California, 2019).

Outlining the risks and benefits of participation enables potential respondents to make informed determination to participate in the study or not. It is also worth noting that maintenance of data privacy must be met in any research that involves human research participants (Haythornthwaite, Andrews, Fransman, & Meyers, 2016; Walden University, 2020). Maintaining privacy ensures that participants' data and information are not made public or shared with third parties.

How the Research design, Methods, Participants, and Data Affects IRB Requirements

All aspects of the proposed study are qualitative. The research method, design (phenomenology), sampling (purposive), sample (purposive), and data are qualitative in nature. There are three levels of institutional review based on the risk and the subject matter addressed in a study- full board review, expedited, and exempt (University of New Hampshire, 2020). The proposed research will fall into a full board review level because it will involve teenage mothers who have not attained the legal age of giving informed consent. The full review board is also needed because adolescent pregnancy is a sensitive topic.

References

The Regents of the University of California. (2019). Assessing risks and benefits. Retrieved from https://research.uci.edu/compliance/human-research-protections/irb-members/assessing-risks-and-benefits.html

Barglowski, K. (2018). Where, what and whom to study? Principles, guidelines and empirical examples of case selection and sampling in migration research. In R. Zapata-Barrero & E. Yalaz (Eds.), Qualitative Research in European Migration Studies (pp. 151-168). New York, NY: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76861-8_9

Benoot, C., Hannes, K., & Bilsen, J. (2016). The use of purposeful sampling in a qualitative evidence synthesis: A worked example on sexual adjustment to a cancer trajectory. BMC Medical Research Methodology, 16(21), 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12874-016-0114-6

Etikan, I. (2016). Comparison of convenience sampling and purposive sampling. American Journal of Theoretical and Applied Statistics, 5(1), 1-4. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajtas.20160501.11

Haythornthwaite, C., Andrews, R., Fransman, J., & Meyers, E. M. (2016). The sage handbook of e-learning research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishing.

Jordan, M. (2019). A Methodological Consideration and Methodological Design Suitable to Examine Teenage Pregnancy. In Socio-Cultural Influences on Teenage Pregnancy and Contemporary Prevention Measures (pp. 33-42). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.

Katsirikou, A., & Lin, C. S. (2017). Revealing the "essence" of things: Using phenomenology in LIS research. Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Libraries, 2(4), 469-478.

Shahnazarian, D., Hagemann, J., Aburto, M., & Rose, S. (2017). Informed consent in human subjects' research. Retrieved from https://oprs.usc.edu/files/2017/04/Informed-Consent-Booklet-4.4.13.pdf

Smit, S., Cees Th. (2018). Ensuring research integrity and the ethical management of data. Hershey, PA: IGI Global.

Tuffour, I. (2017). A critical overview of interpretative phenomenological analysis: A contemporary qualitative research approach. Journal of Healthcare Communications, 2 (52), 1-5. DOI: 10.4172/2472-1654.100093

University of New Hampshire. (2020). IRB review levels. Retrieved from https://www.unh.edu/research/irb-review-levels

Walden University. (2020). Research ethics & compliance: IRB office hours. Retrieved from https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/researchcenter/orec/guides