Lesson 4: Basic Concepts in Qualitative Methods

Reviewer
CHARACTERISTICS OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH Be Flexible: Trustworthiness
– We need to be FLEXIBLE when carrying out a • We sometimes say that we trust a person. With
qualitative study. this we mean that his behavior is predictable in
– There are many methods we can use to achieve the that similar behavior is expressed at different
same learning objective. occasions and we believe that the person is not
The theoretical framework is – Also, we can ask different kinds of questions to learn lying. A trustworthy person is someone who tells us
not predetermined but the same information. the “truth” and dose so consistently.
The Primacy of data
derives directly from – So, if we find that a method or question, we are using
the data. isn’t being understood or isn’t working well, we can What then, is trustworthy research?
change methods or use a different question. – How can we judge what findings are worth believing?
Qualitative is context bound, – This is unlike a household survey where methods and – Several criteria have been established within both
Contextualization and researchers must be questions are fixed before we start collecting data. quantitative and qualitative research to judge their
context sensitive. trustworthiness or rigor:
Bias
Researchers immerse – “Bias means having only part of the truth, but we
themselves in the natural use the information as if it were the whole truth” Four Criteria for Assessing Trustworthiness
Immersion in the settings setting of the people whose – Since bias is having only part of the truth, we reduce
thoughts and feelings they bias by getting more information.
wish to explore. – We get more information by looking at something in
different ways.
Focus on the views of the
people involved in the Triangulation
The ‘emic’ perspective research and their – Reduce bias by using team members with different
perceptions, meaning and experiences and perspectives
interpretations. – Continuously cross-checking information using
different methods and types of informants.
Describing the location, – Actively identify bias at the end of each day
people within it, visual picture – Decide how to manage bias in days ahead
Thick description
of the setting, events,
verbatim, etc. Levels of triangulation A. Truth Value: Credibility
• Data • The ability of the study to capture what the
Based on the position of • Investigators research really aimed at studying, meaning that
The research relationship
equality. • Methods the result is not simply the product of research
Several methods, data • Information design errors, misunderstandings, or influence of
Triangulation unknown factors.
collections, investigators.
• = Internal validity in quant

AIMS OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH: How can we improve the credibility of a study?

1. Prolonged Engagement (Stay in the field until data

Explore the behavior, saturation occurs.)
perspectives, feelings and - counters distortions from researcher's
Qualitative Researchers experiences of people and impact on the context
what lies at the core of their - limits researcher biases
lives. - compensates for effects of unusual or
Focus on culture and seasonal events
Ethnographers 2. Persistent Observations (Consistently pursue
customs.
interpretations in different ways in conjunction with a
Investigate social
Grounded Theorist process of constant and tentative analysis. Look for
processes and interaction
multiple influences. Search for what counts and
Consider the meanings of
what doesn't count)
Phenomenological experience and describe
the life world.
 Lesson 4: Basic Concepts in Qualitative Methods
Reviewer
3. Triangulation (The best way to elicit the various C. Consistency: Dependability ぢ Ethnography
and divergent constructions of reality that exist • A form of observation.
An inquiry must also provide its audience with
within the context of a study is to collect information • A process in which the researcher participates in
evidence that if it were replicated with the same or similar
about different events and relationships from people’s everyday lives for a sustainable period.
respondents (subjects) in the same (or a similar) context, its
different points of view.) • Aims to understand the cultural and symbolic
finding would be repeated.
o ask different questions aspects of people’s actions.
o seek different sources • Usually focuses on a specific group of people or a
ぢ Increasing Dependability
o utilize different methods case involving culturally significant practices.
4. Referential adequacy (What materials are To enable readers of the research report to develop
available to document your findings? Video tape a thorough understanding of the methods and their ぢ Conversation Analysis
provides a good record but it can be obtrusive.) effectiveness, the text should include sections devoted to: ❖ The study of talk-in-interaction
5. Peer Debriefing (This is done with a similar status
• The research design and its implementation, ❖ Interdisciplinary approach to understanding social
colleague (not with a junior or senior peer) who is
life
outside the context of the study and who has a describing what was planned and executed on a
❖ Assumes that (1) talk is a form of action; (2) talk is
general understanding of the nature of the study strategic level.
structurally organized; (3) talk creates
and with whom you can review perceptions, • The operational detail of data gathering, addressing
intersubjectivity (shared experiences)
insights, and analyses.) the minutiae of what was done in the field.
❖ Looks at how people do/produce social order
- tests working hypotheses • Reflective appraisal of the project, evaluating the
❖ Uses a naturalistic data – ordinary conversation,
- helps develop next step effectiveness of the process of inquiry undertaken.
institutional talk or both.
6. Negative case analysis - involves the conscious
search for data that don’t fit the current working D. Neutrality: Confirmability
hypothesis, within existing data as well as in DISCURSIVE PSYCHOLOGY
• To what extend are our findings affected by
planned data collection. personal interest and biases. • the central topic is discourse – talk and text or
7. Member Checks - is an activity that entails bringing • This is the degree to which the findings are image as part of practice
back the results to the members of the studied the product of the focus of the inquiry and not • recognizes the primacy of the social/relational
group. of the biases of the researcher.) nature of life
At different levels: • focus on what people do in the settings that they
o Transcripts ぢ Confirmability Audit Trail live their lives, in the everyday and in institutional
o Preliminary report situations
What to do: An adequate trail should be left to enable the auditor to • the materials for study are recordings of people in
o corrects errors determine if the conclusions, interpretations, and particular locations
o provides additional information recommendations can be traced to their sources and if
o puts respondent on record they are supported by the inquiry FOUCAULDIAN DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
o assesses the overall adequacy of the data in • discourses as sets of statements that construct
addition to individual data points Methodologies: objects and an array of subject positions
➢ Ethnography • explores the role of discourse in subjectivity and
B. Applicability: Transferability ➢ Conversation analysis selfhood, links discourse to power, to institutions
➢ Discursive psychology and social practices
ぢ Thick Description
➢ Foucauldian discourse analysis • asks “how does discourse construct subjects and
Because transferability is a naturalistic study ➢ Memory work objects?”
depends on similarities between sending and receiving ➢ Narrative Psychology • Example: Discourse among teenage pregnancy
contexts, the researcher collects sufficiently detailed ➢ Phenomenological psychology
descriptions of data in context and reports them with sufficient ➢ Interpretative phenomenological analysis
detail and precision to allow judgments about transferability to ➢ Grounded theory
be made by the reader. ➢ Action research
➢ Social representation
ぢ Purposive Sampling ➢ Q methodology
In contrast to random sampling that is usually done
in a traditional study to gain a representative picture through
aggregated qualities, naturalistic research seeks to maximize
the range of specific information that can be obtained from and
about that context by purposely selecting locations and
informants that differ.
 Lesson 4: Basic Concepts in Qualitative Methods
Reviewer
MEMORY WORK JOHN DEWEY (THREE-DIMENSIONAL SPACE
o collective analysis of experience NARRATIVE STRUCTURE)
o examines the social production of experience, looks
at the process of appropriation - the relationship
between objective social structures and subjective
experience
o a group of people write memories and analyze their
memories for a period of time
o Memory work is a methodology and method first
introduced by Frigga Huag and others in Germany
and appeared in academic publications in 1980s.
o It involves writing a memory in the third person in
relation to a question or theme. Memory works is an
approach that enables emotions to come to the fore,
particularly emotions that are not easily voiced. Phenomenological Psychology

Phases of memory works: – aims to capture as closely as possible the way in

which the phenomenon is experienced within the
1. Phase 1 – the individual’s reflection indicates the
context in which the experience takes place.
processes of constructions
– analysis attempts to discern the psychological
2. Phase 2 - involves a collective examination of the
essence of the phenomenon
memories in which the memories are theorized and
– derives the psychological meaning or sense of
new meanings result
people’s description of their lived experiences
3. Phase 3 – materials provided from both the written
memories and the collective discussion of them is
Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis
further theorized. A recursive process in which the
insights concerning the “common sense” of each set – Aims to explore in detail how participants make
of memories is related back to the earlier sense of their world
discussions and to theoretical discussions within the – involves detailed examination of the participant’s
wider academic literature. lived experience and subjectivity
– assumes a “double hermeneutic” – a two-stage
interpretation process; (1) participants making
NARRATIVE PSYCHOLOGY sense of their world, (2) researchers making sense
• argues that narrative pervades everyday life of participants
• concerned with how human make sense of the – The origins of IPA are credited to Jonathan Smith, a
world through narrative (stories)- an organized health psychologist in the United Kingdom (Smith et
interpretation of a sequence of events al., 2009). Smith (2004) sought to develop an
• can look at biographical or topic-focused narrative experiential qualitative approach that honored the
interviews pluralistic roots of psychological disciplines at a time
• narratives are analyzed in terms of structure and when more reductionist research methods
content. dominated.

MICHELLE BUTINA’S NARRATIVE APPROACH: Grounded Theory

– a flexible set of inductive strategies for building
The narrative thematic analysis process I used consisted of
theories “grounded” from the data
five stages:
– start inductively with cases or focused data -
researcher creates categories and make theoretical
a) organization and preparation of the data,
sense of the data – gathers specific data to refine
b) obtaining a general sense of the information,
categories and theoretical explanations
c) the coding process,
– a set of systematic guidelines for gathering and
d) categories or themes, and
analyzing data to construct theory
e) interpretation of the data.