Conducting

1
Chapter 10

• Qualitative Research

2
Characteristics of Qualitative Research

• The Natural Setting
• The Researcher as Instrument
• Emergent Approach
• Interpretive Approach
• A Holistic View
• Reflexivity and Subjectivity
• Use of Deductive and Inductive Reasoning
• Strategies of Inquiry

3
The Natural Setting

• Qualitative researchers must physically go to the
  people, site, institution, or field

4
The Researcher as Instrument

• Build trust, rapport, and credibility with
  subjects
• Observation
• Complete participation
• Observer as participant
• Participant as observer
• Complete observer

5

• Interviews
• Closed quantitative
• Standardized open-ended
• Interview guide
• Informal conversational
• Content analysis
• Process in which a researcher examines a class of
  social artifacts to describe specific
  characteristics of a message

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Emergent Approach

• Research question may change or be refined as
  researcher learns more about subject under
  investigation

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Interpretive Approach

• method for deciphering
  indirect meaning and a reflective practice for
  unmasking hidden meaning beneath apparent meaning
• Constant comparison
• Reduce, code, and disply the major themes or
  patterns that emerge
• Integrate categories and compare them to one
  another or the themes
• Delimit and refine the themes
• Provide examples from the data that show how the
  themes were derived

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Trustworthiness of Qualitative Data

• Credibility ( validity)
• quotes, field notes, checks by participants
• Transferability ( validity)
• detailed description of setting, thick data
  descriptions
• Dependability ( )
• document research plan, triangulate
• Confirmability ( )
• clearly describe observations, provide
  alternative explanations

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A Holistic View

• Broad studies rather than microanalysis or
  focusing on the relationship between independent
  and dependent variables

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Reflexivity and Subjectivity

• Reflexivity systematic reflection on how
  personal assumptions, biases, and values shape a
  study

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Use of Deductive and Inductive Reasoning

• Inductive reasoning (from specific to broad) is
  more prevalent, but deductive reasoning (from
  brad to specific) can be appropriate

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Strategies of Inquiry

• Use multiple strategies
• Mixed-method combination of both quantitative
  and qualitative research methods

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What is Qualitative Research?

• naturalistic inquiry being in the natural
  environment to gather data
• holistic, inductive, dynamic, subjective,
  humanistic, exploratory, process-oriented

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Qualitative vs. Quantitative Studies
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Types of Qualitative Research

• Grounded Theory
• Life Histories
• Case Studies
• Phenomonology
• Ethnographical Research
• Basic/Generic Qualitative Research

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Grounded Theory

• Form of data collection and analysis that uses
  comparison as an analytic tool to generate
  concepts and hypotheses
• Goal is to group parts together to form a core
  variable

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Life Histories

• Narrative research or biographical research
• Studies cover lives of individuals or the that
  result from one or more individuals providing
  stories about their lives

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Case Studies

• Involves studying an event, activity, program,
  process or one or more individuals
• Holistic understanding of single unit or bounded
  system
• Can be based on realistic ( ) or
  confessional ( ) tales

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Phenomenology

• Goal to describe and clarify subjects
  experiences without any previous assumptions
  about their meanings
• Try to determine the of an
  experience
• No interview schedule (flexibility)
• Go with the flow

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Ethnographical Research

• Describes and interprets a cultural or social
  group.
• Uncovers and describes beliefs, values, and
  attitudes that structure the behavior of a group.

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Process of Qualitative Reserach

• Conceptualizing the Research
• Framing the Research Question
• Collecting Data
• Analyzing Data
• Writing up the Research

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Conceptualizing the Reseach

• Curiosity and intuition play an important role
• What concept or puzzling phenomena is
  interesting?

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Framing the Research Question

• No hypothesis to test
• Questions What, Why, How seek to be
  answered
• Process of discovery

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Collecting Data

• Goal Produce a description
• Methods
• Direct Observation
• Focused Interviewing
• Document Analysis
• Photographs and Videos
• Supportive Quantitative Data

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Direct Observation

• Participant-observers become involved in the
  social setting they are studying
• Nonparticipant observers more removed from the
  social process
• use key informants
• Both kinds of observers collect field notes

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Focused Interviewing

• Range from structured to unstructured
• Interview schedule list of flexible, open-ended
  questions
• convey interest, try to pull out
  more information from subject
• Focus group interviews guided by a facilitator

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Document Analysis

• Examination of records
• newsletters, news releases
• student records
• minutes from meetings
• code of ethics
• philosophy statements
• diaries, letters

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Photographs and Videos

• Use to gain insight into how people view and
  interpret their world

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Supportive Quantitative Data

• Attendance counts, injuries, scores can tell
  about attitudes and trends
• process of
  cross-checking across different methods

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Writing up the Research

• No formal conventions
• Writer tries to convince plausibility
• Present quotes from subjects, field notes, other
  primary data
• Present alternative explanations, points of view,
  and problems with the study