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[gracelzh_education]

     Hello, every one here! As a doctoral student in China, I am eager to gather my dissertation data on the students of for-profit higher education institutions in the U.S.A. I have tried many  ways as following :
1. I sent a lot of emails to the faculties to some for-profit higher educaiton institutions for an email interview, but no response;
2. I tried to call the University of Phoenix, however got nothing helpful. They pushed me to the research line and I left some messages, but no response;
3. I thought I could do it here in the forum but was told not a permitted way.
     I really feel nervous and helpless. The time is limited and I still could not get anything. I am so far way and it is too expensive for me to come to the U.S.A. I have read a lot about this topic in English and have finished the theorectical part of my dissertation. And the interviews and questionnaires are only one part of my work, however, it's a necessary part. Please help me! Thank you very much!

Best regards,

Grace Lee

 

[username2]

Why not a survey using mechanical turk?

[marigolds]

Why can't your dissertation adviser help you with developing a methodology that will work? And isn't learning sbout methodology a part of the dissertation research process?

I'm sorry you're in a bind.  I wish you luck.

[gracelzh_education]

Thank you for all the suggestions. I'll try to figure out what the mechanical turk can help me. Is the Amazon Mechanical Turk a good one? In my university, we focus on theoretical construction. We seldom do interviews or gather data by questionnaires. I know I have challenged myself too much, and my advisor worries about me.
However, there is no retreat. My prvious posts about my topic has caused some criticism. I'm sorry about that. I didn't mean to break any rules or offend anybody here. I'll just keep silent and learn from all of you here quietly from now on. Thanks again.

[betterslac]

Lee 小姐, I think that you will just have to come to grips with the fact that you will have to come to the US to conduct your research. In fact, I don't see how you could possibly do a credible study on a particular nation's educational system without doing so. My advisor used to describe such attempts at comparative studies by American students (this is in politics) "research through a telescope". I agree with him that the results of such efforts are usually abysmal,

The reason for such bad results is due not just to the refusal to go on site, but also the attitude that does not see such activity as necessary. It is part of a sterile approach to conducting research that conceptualizes the foundation of a study as "gathering data". You shouldn't just gather data; you should set about gathering all sorts of information and understandings, much of which is not quantifiable even if your basic methodology is quantitative. For example, you need to come over to see whether the questions you want to ask of American make sense culturally, linguistically and experientially. Those you posted elsewhere on these fora just don't hang together well, and the reason you don't recognize that is that you don't have sufficient in-country experience.

Find some way of getting the resources to come to the US. We won't bite (usually) and you will find that doing the work on site provides a much better understanding of the phenomena you are exploring.

[totoro]

It will be hard to get a visa unless someone in the US invites her. I think the first step should be to contact US faculty who do similar research.

[zharkov]

By definition, a for-profit university is a business, and most US businesses are not willing to divulge any information about their internal operations.  An exception is when a US prof researches a business, and access to any business requires lengthy and careful negotiations, with the possibility that such access will be refused by this or that executive.  I strongly suspect that faculty at for-profit schools are under strict orders not to respond to external requests for information.

As "Plan B," you might consider using publicly available data about these for-profits, of which there is a ton, since they need to submit both business (corporation) and education data to the relevant regulators.

[gracelzh_education]

    betterslac, I agree with you and your advisor. Yes, it's much better to do research on site, and it should be the only right attitude when we talk about  research. However, as we all know, many researchers in developing countries do not have these resources, and they still have to do comparative researches. As totoro has pointed out, the visa will be a problem; and aslo as zharkov has pointed out, I might not find any access to the for-profit universities. And the logging, the food, the tickets for travelling etc. My advisor suggeted me to fly to USA for half a month and pay for myself, but I don't think it works. If I go, I'll stay at least half a year, and will arrange everything before I go. But up to now, I haven't seen any possibilities of this. About zhakov's Plan B, yes, I have got a ton of publicly available data, and read a lot of the most current thesis about it. Anyway, thank you for all the suggestions from every one of you. I will try my best.