Qualitative Research An Introduction

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Qualitative ResearchAn Introduction

• AEF 801
• Mary.Brennan_at_ncl.ac.uk

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Qualitative Research

• Qualitative research is an interdisciplinary,
  transdisciplinary, and sometimes
  counterdisciplinary field. It crosses the
  humanities and the social and physical sciences.
  Qualitative research is many things at the same
  time. It is multiparadigmatic in focus. Its
  practitioners are sensitive to the value of the
  multimethod approach. They are committed to the
  naturalistic perspective, and to the
  interpretative understanding of human experience.
  At the same time, the field is inherently
  political and shaped by multiple ethical and
  political positions.
• Nelson et als (1992, p4)

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Qualitative Research

• Qualitative Researchinvolves finding out what
  people think, and how they feel - or at any rate,
  what they say they think and how they say they
  feel. This kind of information is subjective.
  It involves feelings and impressions, rather than
  numbers
• Bellenger, Bernhardt and Goldstucker, Qualitative
  Research in Marketing, American Marketing
  Association

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Qualitative Research

• Qualitative research is multimethod in focus,
  involving an interpretative, naturalistic
  approach to its subject matter.
• Qualitative Researchers study things (people
  and their thoughts) in their natural settings,
  attempting to make sense of, or interpret,
  phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring
  to them.

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Qualitative Research

• Qualitative research involves the studied use and
  collection of a variety of empirical materials -
  case study, personal experience, introspective,
  life story, interview, observational, historical,
  interactional, and visual texts-that describe
  routine and problematic moments and meanings in
  individuals lives.
• Deploy a wide range of interconnected methods,
  hoping always to get a better fix on the subject
  matter at hand.

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The Qualitative Researcher as Bricoleur

• Bricoleur
• A Jack of all trades or kind of professional DIY
  person
• Produces a bricolage, that is a pieced together,
  close-knit set of practices that provide
  solutions to a problem in a concrete situation
• The solution which is a result of the bricoleurs
  method is an emergent construction that changes
  and takes new forms as different tools, methods
  and techniques are added to the puzzle.

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The Qualitative Researcher as Bricoleur

• The Qualitative Researcher as Bricoleur uses the
  tools of his methodological trade . The choice
  of research practices depends upon the questions
  that are asked, and the questions depend on their
  context, what is available in the context, and
  what the researcher can do in that setting.
• The Bricoleur is adept at performing a large
  number of diverse tasks ranging from interviewing
  to observing, to interpreting personal and
  historical documents, to intensive
  self-reflection and introspection.

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The Qualitative Researcher as Bricoleur

• The bricoleur understands that research is an
  interactive process shaped by his own personal
  history, biography, gender, social class, race,
  and ethnicity and those of the people in the
  setting.
• The product of the bricoleurs labour is a
  bricolage, a complex, dense, reflexive,
  collage-like creation that represents the
  researchers images, understanding and
  interpretations of the world or phenomenon under
  analysis.
• The bricolage will connect the parts to the
  whole, stressing the meaningful relationships
  that operate in the situations and social worlds
  studied.

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Positivist Paradigm

• Emphasises that human reason is supreme and that
  there is a single objective truth that can be
  discovered by science
• Encourages us to stress the function of objects,
  celebrate technology and to regard the world as a
  rational, ordered place with a clearly defined
  past, present and future

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Non-Positivist Paradigm

• Questions the assumptions of the positivist
  paradigm
• Argues that our society places too much emphasis
  on science and technology
• Argues that this ordered, rational view of
  consumers denies the complexity of the social and
  cultural world we live in
• Stresses the importance of symbolic, subjective
  experience

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The Five moments of Qualitative Research

• Traditional Period 1900s-World War II
• Wrote objective colonising accounts of field
  experiences that were reflective of the
  positivist scientist paradigm
• Concerned with offering valid, reliable, and
  objective interpretations in their writings.
• The subject who was studied was alien, foreign,
  and strange.

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The Modernist PhasePost war-1970s

• The modernist ethnographer and sociological
  participant observer attempted rigorous,
  qualitative studies of important social
  processes, including social control in the
  classroom and society
• Researchers were drawn to qualitative research
  because it allowed them to give a voice to
  societys underclass

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Blurred Genres1970-1986

• Researchers had a full complement of paradigms,
  methods and strategies
• Applied qualitative research was gaining in
  stature
• Research strategies ranged from grounded theory
  to the case study methodology
• Methods included qualitative interviewing and
  observational, visual, personal and documentary
  methods.
• Computers were becoming more prevalent
• Boundaries between the social sciences and
  humanities had become blurred
• Social science was borrowing models, theories and
  methods of analysis from the humanities
• Researcher acknowledged as being part of the
  research process

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Crisis of RepresentationMid 1980s-Current Day

• Caused by the publication of a book called
  Anthropology as Cultural Critique (Marcus and
  Fischer, 1986)
• Made research and writing more reflexive and
  called into question the issues of gender, class
  and race.
• Interpretative theories as opposed to grounded
  theories were more common as writers challenge
  old models of truth and meaning
• Crisis of Representation and Legitimisation
  
  
  

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The Fifth MomentCurrent Day

• Defined and shaped by the dual crisis of
  representation and legitimisation
• Theories now beginning to be read in narrative
  terms as tales of the field
• Concept of an aloof researcher has finally been
  fully abandoned
• More action oriented research is on the horizon
• More Social criticism and social critique
• The search for grand narratives is being replaced
  by more local, small-scale theories fitted to
  specific problems and specific situations

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Qualitative v.'s Quantitative
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Popularity of Qualitative Research

• Usually much cheaper than quantitative research
• No better way than qualitative research to
  understand in-depth the motivations and feelings
  of consumers
• Qualitative research can improve the efficiency
  and effectiveness of quantitative research

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Limitations of Qualitative Research

• Marketing successes and failures are based on
  small differences in the marketing mix.
• Qualitative research doesnt distinguish these
  differences as well as quantitative research can.
• Not representative of the population that is of
  interest to the researcher
• The multitude of individuals who, without formal
  training, profess to be experts in the field

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Qualitative Research as a Process

• Theory
• Method
• Analysis
• All three interconnect to define the qualitative
  research process

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Theoretical ApproachDeductive

• Deductive Theoretical Approach
• Seek to use existing theory to shape the approach
  which you adopt to the qualitative research
  process and to aspects of data analysis
• Analytical Procedures
• Pattern Matching
• Involves predicting a pattern of outcomes based
  on theoretical propositions to explain what you
  expect to find
• Explanation Building
• Involves attempting to build an explanation while
  collecting and analysing the data, rather than
  testing a predicted explanation as in pattern
  matching

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Inductive Approach

• Inductive Theoretical Approach
• Seek to build up a theory which is adequately
  grounded in a number of relevant cases. Referred
  to as Interpretative and Grounded Theory
• Art of Interpretation
• Field Text Consists of field notes and documents
  from the field
• Research Text Notes and interpretations based on
  the filed text
• Working interpretative document Writers initial
  attempt to make sense out of what he has learned
• Public Text The final tale of the Field

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Qualitative Data Collection Techniques

• In depth Interviewing
• Focus Groups
• Participant Observations
• Ethnographic Studies
• Projective Techniques

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Analysis Qualitative Data An Approach

• Categorisation
• Unitising data
• Recognising relationships and developing the
  categories you are using to facilitate this
• Developing and testing hypotheses to reach
  conclusion

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Interactive Nature of the Qualitative Process

• Data collection, data analysis and the
  development and verification of relationships and
  conclusion are all interrelated and interactive
  set of processes
• Allows researcher to recognise important themes,
  patterns and relationships as you collect data
• Allows you to re-categorise existing data to see
  whether themes and patterns and relationships
  exist in the data already collected
• Allows you to adjust your future data collection
  approach to see whether they exist in other cases

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Tools for helping the Analytical Process

• Summaries
• Should contain the key points that emerge from
  undertaking the specific activity
• Self Memos
• Allow you to make a record of the ideas which
  occur to you about any aspect of your research,as
  you think of them
• Researcher Diary