QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES SEMINAR

1
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES SEMINAR
Tom CooperMathematics, Science and Technology
EducationKelvin Grove

• Giving position, theory technical points
• Activities re your research
• Needs your questions/suggestions/arguments -
  want to be useful

2
Like to acknowledge the traditional owners of
the land on which we are meeting Like to welcome
you all to this seminar and I hope I can be of
use to you
3
THIS PRESENTATION
My position Nature of qualitative
research Technical issues Your questions/Your
examples
4
ACTIVITY ONE

• Research question Why do secondary
  mathematics teachers not use computers to
  help teach mathematics?
• Context Most secondary schools have computer
  labs and good software to assist with
  mathematics learning exist. Many of the
  maths teachers are also technology teachers.
• Questions
• - What qualitative design could we use? What
  about participants? Data gathering
  methods? Procedure?
• - How can you ensure you are getting the REAL
  reasons for maths teachers not using
  computers?

5
MY POSITION QUESTIONS
6
My situation

• Hillbilly in 50s Unemployed in 60s
  Scholarship boy
• 31 years lecturing This place still feels
  alien to me
• PhD in pure mathematics Lecturer-researcher in
  education
• Started supervising in the 80s Reason came to
  this place
• Love research Love the struggle to know Love
  the wonder of it Love the courage it
  requires The way it changes you
• Stupidly overloaded Involved in setting up a
  new research Centre, 6 research projects plus
  a ridiculous writing program still applying
  for funding 10 research students
• No real time to prepare for this For anything

7
My beliefs

• Knowledge is an invention/construction of the
  mind it is not a discovery
• No way to logically compare we are
  responsible for all choices the only
  position I can give you is mine to
  understand it means you have to know me
• Knowledge is therefore consensus (Feyeraben)
  a social and political act that often
  benefits some against the many
• Research degrees are the hurdle you leap to be
  accepted Criteria are set by community For
  writing it is the ability to follow a line of
  argument
• Real insight could lead to failure unless
  consensus is ready for a revolution (Kuhn)

8
My beliefs

• Sceptical that even the best research will
  uncover truth Hopeful it will bring
  understanding
• Believe that the best research will change the
  researcher Not afraid to see this as part of
  the research process and part of the research
  outcomes
• See thinking and growing as a cycle (dialetic,
  hermeneutic) of thesis antithesis
  synthesis (Hegel)
• In the research act literature -
  thesis findings - antithesis conclus
  ions - synthesis
• Methodology is to develop the antithesis

9
HEGELIAN DIALECTIC CYCLE
Thesis (plan/theory)
Thesis
Synthesis (reflection)
Synthesis
Antithesis
Antithesis (action)
Underlies Action Research, Design Experiments
the hermeneutic cycle of Guba and Lincoln (1989)
10
PHILOSOPHY

• Positivist uncovering Surveys, interviews
  discovering
• Interpretive Inventing Case
  study (Phenomenology Observation/Interview
  Hermeneutics Document analysis Grounded
  theory) Biography Design experiments
• Critical Post-colonial Action
  research Feminist Discourse
  analysis Design experiments
• Subjective Post-modern Special types of
  above Multiple approaches

11
How I see a thesis The classical thesis
structure
INTRODUCTION What I want to do LITERATURE
What others say about it DESIGN My plan for
doing it RESULTS What happened when I did it
DISCUSSION What this means CONCLUSIONS
What I found out
Driven by research objectives
12
How I see design The APA design structure
METHODOLOGY PARTICIPANTS DATA GATHERING
METHODS PROCEDURE ANALYSIS
TRUSTWORTHINESS
Driven by research objectives and literature
13
ACTIVITY TWO

• Your situation?
• What do you believe?
• - Is knowledge invented? Is knowledge
  discovered?
• - Do people have to know you before they can
  understand what you are saying? Or can
  their be shared understanding (and what
  knowledge does someone have to have to be able
  to share)?
• - What is your philosophy? Positivist,
  interpretive, critical, post-modern

14
NATURE OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
15
CONTINUA

• Goetz and Le Compte (1984)
• Generative Confirmative
• Inductive Deductive
• Constructive Enumerative
• Subjective Objective
• Qualitative Quantitative

16
CYCLE
TheoreticalConceptual
Confirmative
Generative
Passive ObservationInterviewSurvey
Intervening/Validating Action researchDesign
experiments
17
DEVELOPMENT
Uprichard Englehardt
TheoreticalConceptual
Open (Naturalistic observation, Case study,
Semi-structured interview)
Generative
Systematic (Structured interview,
Survey, Triangulated observ.)
Confirmative
Intervening/Validating
18
RESEARCHER AS INSTRUMENT
Your role as instrument
Reduce self
Declare self
Hermeneutic
Attitude of mind
Techniques
Categorisation
self ?? observation
Theory driven researchDesign experiments
Clinical interviewPhenomenography
19
TYPES (AERJ)
Emic Etic
Interpretive/Ethnographic Systematic
(triangulation) Journalistic/Artistic Theo
ry driven Quality ?? Impact (relationship to
service) Deep ?? Shallow (relationship to
participant size and detail in the analysis)
20
1. Theoretical/Conceptual

• In the mind
• - Literature review
• Reconceptualising
• New theoretical framework
• - Design/Results ? Nil

21
2. Open/Emergent

• Getting started
• - Literature
• Open exploration (observation, unstructured
  interviews)
• Categories/Comparison with literature
• Emergent theory

22
3. Clarifying/Enumerating

• Probing deeper
• - Literature/General framework
• Exploration (semi-structured interviews,
  surveys, artefacts)
• Findings
• New specific theory

23
4. Validating/Theory driven
Intervening - Literature/Initial theory
(THESIS) Design/results (ANTITHESIS) (observat
ions, pre-post tests/surveys, interviews) Discus
sion/Final theory (SYNTHESIS)
24
5. Confirmatory/Quantitative
Evidence based - Literature/Hypotheses
Design (hypotheses, tests/surveys/structured
interviews, external data) Results/Testing
Significance/Confirmation
25
RELATION TO QUANTITATIVE?

• Mixed methods
• Quantitative ? Qualitative
• - quantitative is used to select participants
  for qualitative so results better reflect
  population
• Qualitative ? Quantitative
• - qualitative finds the hypotheses that are
  the bases of quantitative study
• Qualitative and quantitative
• - participants analysed both ways

26
6. Mixed method
Triangulating - Literature/Hypotheses De
sign (everything that is relevant) Results/Testi
ng Significance/Confirmation
27
ACTIVITY THREE

• Your research?
• Where is your research in terms of
• Your topics development how much is known?
• Passive ?? Intervention?
• Open ?? Systematic ?? Intervention
• Your role? Participant ?? Non-participant?
• Emic ?? Etic?
• Deep ?? Surface?

28
TECHNICAL ISSUES
29
PARTICIPANTS

• How many?
• - one, few, many?
• How to choose them?
• - random, purposive, pragmatic?
• Particular characteristics?/Ethics?
• No participants
• - document analysis/discourse analysis
• Comparison participants

30
DATA GATHERING METHODS

• Observations
• - Schedules, checklists, write like crazy
• - Own feelings
• Interviews?
• - open ?? semi-structured ?? structured?
• - face-to-face OR distance
• - Who interviews, how to dress, approach to be
  used?
• - Repetition/difference how to arrange?
• Interventions?
• - Pre-post instruments, input ?? reactions?
• Video, audio, field notes?

31
PROCEDURE

• Entry
• - credentials/credibility - reasons for
  being there (role)? - gatekeepers - who to
  collaborate with? - baseline data
• Activity
• - sequencing data gathering/interventions -
  follow up
• Exit
• - strategy/reasons for leaving - leaving
  participants better off (empowerment) -
  closing off interventions

32
ANALYSIS

• Organising/collating
• - Transcribing/marking/coding
• - Rich descriptions
• Immersion
• - Reading, re-reading
• Data reduction
• - Rewriting, summarising
• - Similarities/differences (matrices)
• - Categorisation
• Hypothesis generation
• - propose relationships/check proposals
• Theory building

33
ANALYSIS continued

• Dependability/Legitimacy - objectives ?
  literature ? design - methodology - data
  gathering methods
• Trustworthiness
• - make visible the analysis procedure
• - low-inference findings ? inferences
• - inferences ? hypotheses ? theory
• Trust your mind
• - respect ideas that emerge as doing research

34
Analysis Writing up

• When you think about how you are going to analyse
  and then write up your research you need to think
  about ways to gather your data together in order
  to interpret it, and explain it e.g.
• Systematic (making a matrix)
• Concept map (building relationships)
• Flow chart (what impacted on what)
• Simulation (how it can be done given your new
  theory)

35
ACTIVITY FOUR

• A student wants to study stress in Welfare
  workers. What options are there for a
  qualitative design?
• How do these options relate to possible aims of
  the thesis?

36
ISSUES

• Relationship with participants
• - explaining your role/sharing data
• Analyse continuously ?? Analyse at end?
• - cumulate/build theory across analyses?
• Contingency?
• - change interventions/data gathering as a
  result of earlier analysis
• Role of theory?
• - data ? theory (emergent)
• - theory ? data ? new theory (constructivism)
• - general theory ? data ? specific theory

37
WRITING

• Detail of what observed or in interviews, etc.
• Low vs high inference
• Line of argument
• - across chapters and sections
• - within sections
• Consistency and substantiation
• Rewriting and restructuring

38
FINAL POINT
Actually the process of doing research is a
rather informal, often illogical and sometimes
messy-looking affair. It includes a great deal
of floundering around Somewhere and somehow, in
the process of floundering, the researcher will
get an idea. In fact s/he will get many ideas.
On largely intuitive grounds, s/he will reject
most of her/his ideas and will accept others as
the basis of extended work (APA, Education
and Training Board, 1959, p. 169)
39
YOUR QUESTIONS AND EXAMPLES
40
Questions and examples

• Your opportunity to
• - ask questions
• - put forward your examples for
  perusal/discussion
• What about your own study? Do you have any
  questions regarding your design?

41
References

• Chalmers, A. F., 1977, What is this thing called
  Science? (call no 501.10/3)
• Lincoln, Y.S. Guba, E.G., 1985 Naturalistic
  Inquiry, Sage Publicatoins, Newbury Park, CA. .
• Feyerabend, Paul, 1975, Against method, Verso,
  London.
• Geotz, J. LeCompte, M. 1982, Problems of
  Reliability Validity in Ethnographic Research,
  in Review of Educational Research, vol 52, No. 1,
  31-60
• Guba, E. G. Lincoln, Y. S. 2004, Competing
  Paradigms in Qualitative Research theories and
  Issues, Oxford University Press, New York.
• (call no 001.42.71)

42
References

• Guba, E. G., Lincoln, Y. S.,1989, Fourth
  Generation Evaluation, Sage Publications, Newbury
  Park, CA
• Kuhn, T. 1970, The Structure of Scientific
  Revolutions, University of Chicago Press,
  Chicago.
• Mills, C. Wright, 1959, The Sociological
  Imagination, Oxford University Press, New York.
  (ISBN 0195133730)
• Smith, Linda Decolonising Methodologies, by Linda
  Smith (ISBN/ISSN 9781856496230)
• Uprichard, A. Edward Engelhardt, J., 1986, A
  Research Context for Diagnostic and Prescriptive
  Mathematics, in Focus on Learning Problems in
  Mathematics, vol. 8, no. 1, 19-38.
• Willis, Paul E., 1977, Learning to Labour How
  working class kids get working class jobs, Saxon
  House, Farnborough, Hants. (Call no 305.562.1)