PSYC 6213

Research Methodology

Yorkville University
Faculty of Behavioural Sciences
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Richards, Lyn.

Readme first for a user’s guide to qualitative methods / Lyn Richards, Janice M. Morse. — 3rd ed.

p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4129-9806-2 (pbk.)

1. Social sciences—Research—Methodology. 2. Qualitative research. I. Morse, Janice M. II. Title. III. Title: Read
me first for a user’s guide to qualitative methods.

H62.M6612 2013
001.4´2—dc23 2012001310

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

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 Part I
THINKING RESEARCH

Chapter 2. The Integrity of Qualitative Research

Chapter 3. Choosing a Method

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 2
The Integrity of
Qualitative Research

W
hen commencing a qualitative research project, it is essential
that the researcher understand not only the variety of methods
available but also that in each there is a relationship between
research question, method, and desired results. In this chapter, we introduce
the researcher to choosing a topic, and, considering context, how this leads
to a method. Choice of method will locate the project, indicating what is
possible for the research to achieve, what the researcher can ask and hope to
have answered, and how it is to be done. Thus, question, method, data, and
analysis fit together. Once a researcher recognizes this fit, the choice of a
method for any particular study is never arbitrary, and qualitative research,
although a venture into the unknown, is purposeful and goal directed.
Not all qualitative methods integrate all aspects of the project in the
same manner, and most contain considerable variety. In this overview, we
stress the two principles of qualitative methods that inform the rest of this
book: methodological purposiveness and methodological congruence. We
illustrate these by comparing five very different and widely used qualitative
methods.

METHODOLOGICAL PURPOSIVENESS
There is almost always a best way to do any research project, a particular
method best suited to each particular problem. The choice of best method
always comes from the research purpose.

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 Of course, the choice is never entirely open. It is always constrained by
something—the researcher’s familiarity with methods, the researcher’s
resources, or sometimes the data themselves. Researchers starting from the
availability of particularly interesting data will quite normally have their
methodological options predetermined. Although this can be restricting,
such researchers may well be envied by others confronting too many
choices: a general topic area, many possibilities for making data, and no
methodological direction. Researchers in the latter group, in turn, may be
tempted to claim constraint (“I have to do a grounded theory study because
that’s the only sort of qualitative research accepted in my school”). But
that’s where the danger lies—in a topic shoehorned into a particular method.
Some seasoned researchers work the other way around, through
commitment to one method, which means they ask only (even, it might
appear, can ask only) certain sorts of questions. But they start with
questions, and they must always be open to the possibility that a question
requires a different method.
Especially when choice of method seems constrained, it is important to
understand the process by which a method is selected, and to see the
selection as deliberate and as reflecting research purpose. The purpose may
be to learn about a specific problem (e.g., “Why do residents not use the
facilities?”) or to understand a situation (“I wonder what the experience of
… is”). Or the purpose may be no more specific than to learn more about a
particular topic or to do justice to those interesting data that suddenly
became available. In such a project, exploring the literature and spending
time in the setting will help the researcher focus on a clearer problem and
frame a sharper research question, and the data will direct further inquiry. A
decision about method does not just happen by default. A purpose, however
unspecific, guides the researcher to a more focused research question and,
hence, to a choice of method.
The researcher actively creates the link between purpose and method
through a process of reflecting on purpose, focusing on a researchable
question, and considering how to address it. That link is never, of course, a
simple one­way causal connection. It is helpful to commence with an
opening armchair walkthrough, considering several routes and several
methodological vehicles. The appropriate approach may not be a qualitative
method. Sometimes the research purpose opens out to several research
questions, each requiring a different qualitative method, or the interplay of
qualitative and quantitative methods. But, however it is arrived at, the link
of purpose to method is what gets a project going.

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Why Are You Working Qualitatively?
Why did you select a qualitative method? Often, the researcher has a
very practical goal for beginning the project. It may be to understand an
unanticipated problem area in the classroom or a particularly puzzling
patient situation that the experts seem unable to explain. It may be to throw
light on an area in which patterns of behavior are statistically clear (changes
in the birthrate, for instance) but researchers can only guess at reasons for
these patterns without an understanding of people’s own accounts of their
behavior. It may be to inform a policy area (such as urban planning) where
the best­laid plans are thwarted by apparently irrational choices (incredibly,
the slum dwellers didn’t want to be relocated!). In each of these cases, the
researcher chose to work qualitatively, with complex unstructured data from
which new understandings might be derived. Below, we summarize the two
major reasons for working qualitatively—the research question requires it,
and the data demand it.

The Research Question Requires It

For many of us, the first really good moment in a project occurs when
we see how the research purpose can be pursued by one but not another
means. In retrospect, this may be blindingly obvious. For instance, you need
to understand what children mean to parents in this society before you can
predict fertility rates, so what you must do is listen to parents’ stories of
parenthood rather than ask predetermined questions about birth control. The
only way of making sense of classroom problems is to get an understanding
of the latent processes of power—observe, listen to what is said in the
classroom and the staff room, and examine the words and their meanings
rather than simply distribute a questionnaire. What if the apparently
irrational behavior of slum dwellers makes sense to them? The only way to
find out is to hang around and observe their daily life, rather than assume
that the condition of their housing is their top priority. Each of these
purposes points toward one of the methods we compare throughout this
book.
Researchers who are brought (sometimes kicking and screaming) to a
qualitative method driven by the topic often combine qualitative with
quantitative methods. They may recognize their need to understand and to
develop meaning prior to or subsequent to, rather than instead of, a
quantitative study. Perhaps they require a larger­scale inquiry or systematic

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testing of hypotheses. In such situations, a qualitative component may
precede a quantitative project and provide different types of findings for
richer results, or input into the questions to be asked in a subsequent survey.
Or results of the quantitative study may be explored in detail through
qualitative study of particular cases. (We address ways in which qualitative
and quantitative methods can be combined in Chapter 5.)

The Data Demand It

It may be, however, that you have no such research purpose directing
you to work qualitatively. What, then, might lead you to a method? A
powerful push can come from recognition of what data you can possibly,
and properly, use. Some data can be obtained only through the use of a
particular strategy. For example, it is not possible to interview some
participants; very young children who cannot talk or elderly persons with
Alzheimer’s disease may not be able to provide coherent responses. In these
situations, researchers may use observational strategies, obtaining data in the
form of field notes or video recordings. This will be the first of many times
in the project when data seem to be driving the study. Recognizing such
imperatives will always take you forward, because qualitative methods are
properly responsive to discoveries in data.
Many quantitatively trained researchers first started working
qualitatively because they recognized that the statistical analyses of
particular survey responses did not seem to fit what those in the situations of
interest said or what people wrote in their open­ended answers. In avoiding
the temptation to dismiss their participants’ open­ended responses or to use
them merely to illustrate the reports, perceptive researchers sought ways to
analyze them. Action researchers might be brought to qualitative methods
by complex social or political situations in which understanding all sides of
a controversy is essential but the available documents and discussions defy
neat categorization. For a study to be useful, the researcher must make sense
of such a situation. Practitioners might observe and record the complexities
of clinical situations that seem to be denied by tidy reports of patient
compliance; in seeking an understanding of that complexity, they find they
need ways of doing justice to the data.
Coming to a qualitative method because your data require it provides
high motivation but often high stress, too. The survey must be reported, the
action group informed, the patients helped; it seems that you must

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become an instant qualitative researcher. If this is your situation, we
recommend that you go carefully through the nine points we list in Chapter
13 under the heading “How Do You Start?”

Should You Be Working Qualitatively?

The obvious first question is whether the research purpose is best
answered by qualitative methods. We hope we have made it clear that we
see nothing morally or methodologically superior about qualitative
approaches to research. Other things being equal, a quantitative project will
often be faster, easier for a researcher lacking qualitative training, and
arguably more acceptable in many research contexts. Moreover, the research
world is replete with questions that are properly and effectively answered
quantitatively and that will be badly answered, or not answered at all, if a
qualitative method is imposed on them. Forcing such questions into
qualitative methods has the same effect on projects and researchers as
Cinderella’s ugly stepsisters’ forcing the glass slipper onto their feet had on
their marriage prospects—it won’t work, it will hurt a lot, and the result is a
loss of credibility.
Our goal in this book is not to examine the philosophical origins of
qualitative methods or the approaches to evidence and “reality” behind
different methodologies, but it is important to note that we see no chasm
between qualitative and quantitative techniques. In our experience, many
qualitative projects involve counting at some stage, and many questions are
best answered by quantification. But given that we aim here to give those
embarking on qualitative research an understanding of what it will be like,
we assume that you, the reader, are about to embark. Thus, the obvious first
question is whether you should do so.
Qualitative methods are the best or only way of addressing some
research purposes and answering some sorts of questions, as in the
following cases:

1. If the purpose is to understand an area where little is known or where

previously offered understanding appears inadequate (thin, biased,
partial), you need research methods that will help you see the subject
anew and will offer surprises. Put bluntly, if you don’t know what you
are likely to find, your project requires methods that will allow you to
learn what the question is from the data.

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 If the purpose is to make sense of complex situations, multicontext data,
and changing and shifting phenomena, you need ways of simplifying and
managing data without destroying complexity and context. Qualitative
methods are highly appropriate for questions where preemptive reduction of
the data will prevent discovery.
If the purpose is to learn from the participants in a setting or a process the
way they experience it, the meanings they put on it, and how they interpret
what they experience, you need methods that will allow you to discover and
do justice to their perceptions and the complexity of their interpretations.
Qualitative methods have in common the goal of generating new ways of
seeing existing data.
If the purpose is to construct a theory or a theoretical framework that
reflects reality rather than your own perspective or prior research results,
you may need methods that assist the creation of theory from data.
If the purpose is to understand phenomena deeply and in detail, you need
methods for discovery of central themes and analysis of core concerns.

Each of these suggestions has a flip side. If you know what is being
hypothesized and what you are likely to find, if you do not need to know the
complexity of others’ understandings, if you are testing prior theory rather
than constructing new frameworks, or if you are simply describing a
situation rather than deeply analyzing it, it is possible that you should not be
working qualitatively. Perhaps the research question you are tackling with
in­depth interviews would be more properly addressed with a survey. In
such a case, our best advice is that you review your general purpose and ask
yourself if it can be addressed better that way. Many purposes are perfectly
served by survey data, and very many purposes require surveys. Important
examples are research questions seeking to establish the associations among
easily measured factors across a group or setting. If your goal is to establish
that women in the paid workforce use neighborhood services less than do
women who don’t work outside the home, a survey will do it. But maybe
what you really need to ask is how women in the paid workforce perceive
neighborhood relations.
Or perhaps the research purpose can be addressed through the use of
more straightforward techniques, such as quantitative content analysis. If
you wish to know which words dominate discussions of medical

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treatments, rather than the meanings the participants give those words, a
qualitative approach is likely to delay your answer. But maybe you want to
find out more—for example, maybe you want to discover whether dominant
discourses underlie those discussions.
On reflection, in either of the above cases there might be aspects of the
research topic that would be best addressed through a combination of
qualitative and quantitative data. As we will show in Chapter 5, such
combinations fit easily with many qualitative methods.
Qualitative research is a proper response to some, but not all, research
needs. We have both learned to be alert to risk in projects where the
researcher is working qualitatively for the wrong reasons. These include
reasons that are negative rather than positive (“I hate statistics” or “I can’t
use computers”). We warn against assumptions that qualitative research is
more humanistic, moral/ethical, worthy, feminist, radical, or admirable. The
techniques we describe in the chapters that follow are often invasive,
intrusive, and morally challenging; the only good reason a researcher should
consider using them is that the research problem requires them.
Our point here is not just that you need a good reason for working
qualitatively because of both practical and ethical considerations but also
that you need to have thought your way to this method if you are to start
learning it. Good qualitative research requires purpose, skill, and
concentration, and unless you recognize this and your purpose is clear and
committed, the task will quickly become onerous.

How Should You Be Working Qualitatively?

What we have described as a fit between research question and method
is never a simple cause-and-effect relationship. As you decide on the focus
and scope of your study, the firming up of research question will indicate the
best method for you to use, and your reading on methods will suggest ways
in which you can focus the study. In this and later chapters, we illustrate this
fit by comparing just five of the qualitative methods commonly described in
textbooks: ethnography, grounded theory, phenomenology, discourse
analysis, and case study method.
These five methods answer quite different sorts of questions (see Table
2.1). Ethnography offers researchers tools to answer questions such as
“What is happening here?” Researchers are directed to grounded theory by
questions of interaction and process: “How does one become a …?” Usually
(but not always), phenomenology best addresses a question about meaning:
“What is the experience of …?” But if your focus is on people’s own
accounts of their world, you may need discourse analysis. And if you want
to understand that world through detailed comparison of particular
examples, read up on case study method. The link between question and
data is obvious when one contrasts these five “classic” methods.

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Table 2.1 The Fit of the Question to the Method

Type of Question Method That

Might Be
Appropriate
Observational questions (e.g., What are the behavioral Ethnography
patterns of …?) and descriptive questions (e.g., What is
going on here?) about values, beliefs, and practices of a
cultural group
Process questions about changing experience over time Grounded
or its stages and phases (e.g., What is the process of theory
becoming …?) or understanding questions (e.g., What
are the dimensions of this experience …?)
Questions about meaning (e.g., What is the meaning of Phenomenology
…?) and about the core or essence of phenomena or
experiences
Questions about the construction of social Discourse
understanding (e.g., How is social reality formed analysis
through talk or writing?) or about the structure and
content of discourse (e.g., How can we see power
relationships by analyzing patterns of dominance in
conversation?)
Focus and illustration questions (e.g., How do these Case study
problems appear in practice? How does one
person/department/industry encapsulate the bigger
picture?) or comparative questions (e.g., How different
can the experience of communities be in different
settings?)

From Selecting a Method to Making Data

As the purpose points to the research question and the research question
informs the choice of method, so the method fits the type of data to be
collected. (As shown in Table 2.2, the types of data required by particular
methods overlap a lot.) However, selecting a method and making data are
not discrete events in the research process; rather, they are aspects linked by
common ways of thinking.

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Table 2.2 The Fit of Method and the Type of Data

Chosen Method Likely Data Sources

Ethnography Primary: participant observation; field notes;
unstructured or structured interviews or focus groups
(sometimes audio or video recorded) with people in the
identified site
Secondary: documents, records; photographs; video
recordings; maps, genograms, sociograms
Grounded Primary: interviews (usually audio recorded);
theory participant and nonparticipant observations;
conversations recorded in diaries and field notes with
sample decided by research topic
Secondary: comparative instances; personal experience
Phenomenology Primary: audio recorded, in­depth interviews or
conversations with usually a very small number of
participants; phenomenological literature
Secondary: poetry; art; films

Discourse Primary: interviews (usually audio recorded)

analysis Secondary: written sources such as documents, diaries,
media accounts
Case study Selection of a small number of particular cases
(instances or settings) to address a question or issue
Primary: participant observation; field notes;
unstructured or structured interviews; focus groups
(sometimes audio or video recorded)
Secondary: documents, records; focus groups

The distinction between a method and a way of making data is not at all
rigid. For example, both focus groups and participant observation are ways
of making data, appropriate for several different methods. But many
researchers would consider them methods in their own right: Each has a
substantial literature, setting out goals that fit these ways of making data.
And case studies can be conducted by several different methods

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(most commonly, ethnography and grounded theory); “case study method”
is regarded as special because of the questions it asks and how they are
answered.
In the chapters to come, we discuss types of data, ways of handling data,
and analytic techniques that belong to no particular method and are used in
many. For now, our goal is to suggest the ways some data fit some methods.
This does not mean that a way of making data is a method or implies a
method. The fact that you are interviewing people tells an observer nothing
about why, or about what you will do with those data. But the content and
form of interviews and what you see in them will be different for different
methods. This is because how you think about the data differs from method
to method.

From Choosing Sources and Sorts of Data to Managing and

Analyzing Data
There is a further link in this methodological chain of research purpose,
research question, choice of method, and the type of data needed. It is hardly
surprising that the ways the researcher handles, manages, explores, and
analyzes data are all part of the same chain. Consider, for example, that each
of the methods sketched in Table 2.2 can use unstructured interviews. Most
transcribe them. But the form of the interview and what they do with the
interview transcript may be very different. Ethnographers use description to
seek patterns and categories; grounded theorists use narratives and aim to
create theory from them; phenomenologists initiate conversations and
develop themes and seek meaning; discourse analysts dissect interviews in
detail, and case study researchers compare them with those from other cases.
Thus, the difference is not in the technique per se but in the form of data
and the way data are used. Different ways of approaching the research will
mean the data are handled differently and the analytic techniques are used in
different ways to produce different results. For example, researchers using
very different methods may all code and, while coding, use the same
technique—selecting a portion of text and assigning it to a category. But the
similarity ends there. For each of them, the way of approaching and thinking
about the data means that codes are applied in a particular way, and this
results in a particular way of linking data to ideas.
The differences show when we ask questions such as the following:
What is a category? What data are coded there? Is the collection of data

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for a category the end or the beginning of analysis? How do you think about the
category, and how do you use categories? The answers are very different from method
to method. Although different qualitative methods may utilize similar strategies, how
you think while using particular strategies differs. And how you think will be
indicated by the method selected, which in turn is affected by why you are doing this.
And, as shown in Table 2.1, the method will have been selected to best answer the
question the researcher was to think about. The purpose of the research will also,
therefore, influence whether a study is more descriptive or more theoretical. This is a
distinction we will explore in later chapters.
We can expand Table 2.2, adding the mode of handling data and the analysis that
fits; the results are displayed in Table 2.3.

Table 2.3 The Fit of Method, Data, and Analysis Techniques

Method Analysis Techniques

Ethnography Thick description, rereading notes, storing information,
storying; case analysis
Coding, diagramming to show patterns and processes

Grounded Theoretical sensitivity, developing concepts, coding into

theory categories, open coding for theory generation
Focused memoing, diagramming, emphasis on search for
core concepts and processes

Phenomenology Finding and exploring themes, phenomenological reflection

Memoing and reflective writing to identify meanings

Discourse Finely grained study (often by a set of protocols) of very

analysis detailed transcripts of spoken or written words (including
pauses, turn taking, etc.) to identify ways in which social
processes are constructed through conversations,
deconstructing texts, and studying their patterns and
contexts, often with the goal of unveiling hidden meanings
or social processes

Case study Data from a small number of cases selected to inform a

particular issue or problem are thoroughly described
Coding and summarizing data are focused by prior
questions of theory to inform detailed understanding and
comparison by contextual analysis of factors, events, or
condition of interest

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 METHODOLOGICAL CONGRUENCE
In explaining the purposeful nature of qualitative inquiry, we arrive at our
second principle of qualitative methods. Tables 2.1 through 2.3 show the
way projects acquire methodological congruence—that is, fit between the
research problem and the question; fit between the research question and the
method; and, of course, fit among the method, the data, and the way of
handling data. All these components of the research process mesh to help
you provide the best possible answer to that question. Thus, each method is
a distinctive way of approaching the world and data.
The concept of methodological congruence does not mean that data
sources or analysis methods are predetermined once the researcher has
chosen a method. It isn’t that easy. Nor does it mean that a researcher has no
flexibility once embarked on a particular path. Rather, it indicates that
projects entail congruent ways of thinking. The researcher working with
phenomenology must learn to think phenomenologically if the fit of
purpose, method, and data is to work well. If you are working with
grounded theory, it is important that you learn how to think as a grounded
theorist. The same sorts of data (e.g., field notes) will be interpreted
differently by researchers using different methods, and similar data analysis
techniques (e.g., coding) employed by researchers using different methods
will have quite different analytic results, because each researcher is thinking
a different way.
Qualitative research is not just a matter of performing techniques on
data; rather, each qualitative method has a specific way of thinking about
data and using techniques as tools to manipulate data to achieve a goal. Each
component of the research process is linked to the next, and the chosen
method dictates combinations of strategies to be used in particular ways to
ensure consistency throughout the research process.

Seeing Congruence by Doing It

The webs of methodological congruence are most easily illustrated by an
exploration of the different ways a real research topic can be handled. In
what follows, we present a fictitious project concerning human attachment.
If you have data from a previous study or a growing sense of your

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research interest, you might try applying what you read below to your
approaches to that topic.
What is “human attachment”? Which literature should we look to? We
have many choices—we could look at the literature on bonding between
mothers and infants, at the family studies literature on family relationships,
or even at the social support literature. We could extend this to the
relationship literature on interaction, the literature on marriage, or the
literature on mothering. We could choose a situation in which we could
observe the concept as well as obtain personal accounts of attachment. From
our broad topic and scan of the literature, let’s choose to study public
displays of attachment behavior at the arrivals and departures gates at
airports. There, we could observe attachment (and detachment) behaviors as
passengers depart or as they greet family and friends on arrival. We could
interview individuals (the passengers themselves or their relatives and
friends) about the experience of greeting and leaving. Or we may consider
interviewing “experts” who have observed many passengers greeting or
leaving each other (porters, staff at car rental booths, security personnel
waiting to check carry­on luggage, cleaning staff, and so on).
Given this topic (human attachment) and having identified a research
context, our next step is to create a research question. Different questions
will lead us to particular methods, and the method in turn will help us decide
details of the research design, such as who the participants will be, what the
sample size should be, how data will be created and analyzed, and, most
important, what type of results we will obtain.
Let us explore the topic by conducting an armchair walkthrough— that
is, by taking a mindful stroll through the topic and visualizing what it might
look like when we anticipate doing the study using each of the five major
methods sketched above. The first concern of all qualitative researchers is
locating the project. The setting for the research must be one in which the
phenomena of interest are likely to be seen—frequently and in an intense
form. Those we choose to interview must be “expert participants,” with
much experience with the phenomena of interest. We must deliberately and
purposefully select a setting or context where we will best see what we want
to study. We do not usually choose a place or a sample randomly, for we
would then have to rely on luck to see what we are interested in; we do not
choose the “average” experience, as then the characteristics of the
phenomena are diluted and less evident.

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 THE ARMCHAIR WALKTHROUGH
How does one prepare to do a research study? Obviously, one may approach
a particular problem in several different ways, developing several different
questions, so that each one could be answered using a different method and
could produce a slightly different result. Which one is best, and how is that
determined?
One way to reduce the uncertainty is by conducting an armchair
walkthrough (Morse, 1999)—that is, by mentally going through the process.
If I ask this research question, then I will need to use this particular method,
seek this type of data and involve these participants, ask these interview
questions, and handle and analyze data this particular way, and the results
will be in this form. On the other hand, if I do it using that method, then I
will ask the questions that way, use that method, and involve those
participants; data will look that way, and my results will be in that form.
By conducting an armchair walkthrough, we are trying to predict the
research process and the outcome rather than going into research blindly. In
this way, without losing flexibility or the ability to change some of our
choices, we can focus on the data rather than on decisions about the
administration of research. Although this type of conceptualizing will not
detect every problem that may be encountered, it lets us get some sense of
what we may learn by using each method. It allows for some level of
informed choice about which method has the potential to provide the most
suitable type of results, and it is helpful as we make preliminary preparation
for writing the proposal. On the other hand, we need to be aware that such
decisions are not carved in stone, and we should always be prepared to
reevaluate and make changes if necessary. Table 2.4 displays the thinking
that came out of the armchair walkthrough for our hypothetical project,
“Arrivals and Departures: Patterns of Human Attachment.”

AND NOW—YOUR TOPIC?

“What are you studying?” is possibly the most common question asked of
the researcher, and it is also quite often the most troublesome one.
Interestingly, the issue of how to find a topic is not answered in any of the
textbooks on qualitative research. This is because when you select a topic,
you still have not started the research project. Selecting a topic involves also
seeing the purposiveness of the study and the congruence of question,
method, and what your project will be like.

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Table 2.4 Comparison of Five Methods to Conduct a Hypothetical Project,
“Arrivals and Departures: Patterns of Human Attachment”

Source: Morse (1994a). Reprinted in part with permission from SAGE Publications, Inc.

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 Selecting the topic also involves selecting where you will go to do the
study—it is not the research question you ask when you get there, or the
method you use to answer it. If you find yourself telling inquirers, “I’m
doing classroom authority/nurses’ experiences of chosen
childlessness/inflicting pain …” listen to the words you are using. The
researcher does not “do” a topic as the mindless tourist “does” Belgium,
checking off museums between France and Scandinavia. The topic of a
research project is where it is located, where you are going to place your
study—not what you will ask, how you will ask it, or how your research will
provide answers when you are there. (Incidentally, the term comes from
Aristotle’s Topics, which contains common place arguments, from the Greek
topikos, “of a place.”)
A topic may be any researchable area, subject, or experience (such as an
organization, living in a community, or having a particular learning
disability), a concept (such as corporate structure, classroom learning, social
support, or coping), a setting (such as a boardroom, a school, a village, or a
hospital ward), a group of persons (such as teachers, doctors, or teenagers),
some aspect of their everyday activities (such as teachers’ talk in the
lounge), or activities that are unusual (case studies of teaching students with
dyslexia). Those are all research locations or areas within which research
questions can be defined. A topic may combine perspectives, so a researcher
may be able to make an important argument for studying one of the above
topics in a particular group by asserting that the experience of that group is
sufficiently different from the experiences of other groups reported in the
literature.
You may have several topics burning to be researched. The challenge,
then, is to walk through each, asking how questions would be framed and
what sorts of research they would require and, importantly, whether you
could do this, given your skills and resources. Or you may have no topic but,
instead, a requirement that you get a project up and running. It seems harder
to start that way, because then research presents itself as the push of duty,
not the pull of interest in a topic. Wanted: a good topic!

How to Find a Topic

Any attempt to summarize reasons for selecting a topic runs the risk of
appearing to present the process as orderly. It usually is not. Insights

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about suitable topics occur to researchers as they stand on high hills, while
they are in the shower, or when they are in the library; topics demand
attention when you are trying to do something else. A sort of typology is
possible, however. If you are stumped, try locating your research in each of
the five ways listed below. But remember to locate the project to ask how
your topic would be studied and what the outcome project would be like.

You Are Already There

“Already being there” is undoubtedly the most common reason for topic
selection. It is also the most exciting and the most dangerous. Because you
are there, you possibly have, or may be convinced that you have, intimate
knowledge of the topic as a participant. It seems you can get going fast—the
preparatory work has been done. You are familiar with the setting and
comfortable with the people there. But be careful: You were there for
reasons other than research (such as employment or group membership or
shared experience). These required a different type of preparatory work for
you to become a good participant observer or impartial interviewer in the
setting. Being a researcher there may perhaps provide you with the
opportunity to contribute new knowledge to an area you care about. And so
you may, but you will have to ensure that your contribution represents
valued research results and not merely what you wanted to prove or get done
as a participant. If these ends are the same, you will have to be especially
careful to establish that they were the same and that your study is rigorous.
Being there means you already feel you know what matters—or who is a
problem—the importance of particular people (including you), and the ways
they are seen. How do you plan to deal with these preconceptions?

There Is a Gap in the Literature

Topics amenable to qualitative inquiry have often been relatively
ignored in the literature. Of course, this may be because they are
inaccessible to researchers or, worse, simply uninteresting. The fact that
nobody has studied a particular topic is not a good reason for taking it up.
On the other hand, such topics may be neglected because they are areas in
need of qualitative inquiry, areas where framing clear questions is not easy,
areas that are difficult to access, or areas obscured by received
interpretations.

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 Of course, this is a double­edged sword. If a topic has not been
investigated, you will have an explorer’s challenge of discovering a new
place, mapping the area, displaying it to an admiring world, maybe even
getting your name on it. Classic qualitative research projects have opened up
whole areas of investigation in this way. With the second wave of feminism,
qualitative studies returned to topics in the hitherto taken-for­granted social
lives of women, opening up research areas addressing motherhood, social
support networks, and even housework.
However, undiscovered places are hard to sell. This is particularly
important if you are a student applying for funding for research expenses.
Research into topics that are “fashionable”—that is, topics that a number of
other researchers are also investigating (or have investigated)—is generally
easier to get funded, but there is usually a considerable amount of literature
on those topics in the library already.

Another Way of Looking Is Needed

You might suspect that the literature is poorly focused or that there is
something wrong, invalid, or inaccurate about the presentation and
interpretation of the topic. Perhaps the received knowledge does not fit with
the evidence, or results of the studies reported in the literature have been
presented within the context of a theory that is invalid or inappropriate. It is
time to take a fresh look at the phenomenon and reexamine the theory from
within, taking into consideration the perceptions of those being studied. In
recent decades, women’s studies and studies of health and illness exemplify
this approach, as qualitative studies challenged the functionalist paradigm,
reopening questions of power and conflict.

What’s Going on Here?

Qualitative methods are frequently used to discover the answers to quite
pragmatic questions, such as “What is going on here?” or “How are we
doing with this innovation?” Evaluation studies are of this type: The
researchers are trying to understand and describe efficiently the processes or
structures of particular phenomena. Much action research sets out to find out
“what is going on here”—the topic is “here,” this community, this fight, this
local government organization, and so on.
Many such studies produce reports that are more descriptive than
theoretical. Their goal is to do a really good job of describing what’s going

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on, giving vivid illustrations so the problem or situation can be clearly seen
by the reader. Thus, a researcher evaluating an educational innovation is not
likely to divert to reflections on the meanings of education or try to create a
new theory about the relation of teacher and pupil. The researcher’s task is
to do a good job of observing and reporting the evaluation and its effects.
Case study method is often used in such studies to highlight different
responses or important common experiences.

Supplementing Quantitative Inquiry

The topic may be an area where there is considerable knowledge of
events or patterns from quantitative research, or where quantitative work
needs prior backgrounding. The qualitative project may form the
groundwork for subsequent quantitative inquiry or be used to supplement
quantitative inquiry, or quantitative inquiry may be used to illustrate
qualitative inquiry. The end result of a qualitative project may be insight into
a problem, a rich description, a hypothesis, a theory to be tested further in
quantitative research, or a qualitatively derived theory that is ready to use.
You should consider the purpose of the qualitative project before
commencing the project and selecting the method.

Now, Consider the Research Context

Once you have a topic—and maybe even a research question—there are
many other considerations for selecting a method, and this section is
intended to make you street­smart before you make your choice. While your
choice comes from what you want to be the end results, constraints and
benefits arise during the course of doing the research.

Considering What You Want to Know

First and foremost, think about the nature of your study. Do you want to
describe what is there, exactly as it is presented, or to reveal what is there
but not normally noticed? Or do you want to stand back and describe
structures that are larger than normally viewed? Such descriptive research
has its own set of standards, own methods, own data collection strategies,
and own ways of ensuring validity and reliability. Think of it as looking at
life, or slices of life, and recording as accurately as possible what

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is going on. Descriptive methods include ethnography, ethology, ethnology,
video ethnography, and historical methods. They record: They may use
photographs, videos, recorded dialogue, and documents such as maps,
sociograms, and kinship charts. They document and evaluate. Because they
have data in a form that can be verified, checked and rechecked, certain
procedures for determining the rigor of the study are important—these often
include interrater reliability checks. Data have been recorded in a permanent
form (videos, recorded conversations, documents) that can be rechecked,
reviewed, reexamined, and reanalyzed, or the researcher can return to the
field and reexamine the evidence.
Or do you need to use more interpretive methods, methods that provide
access to more subjective phenomena, or “softer” data—experience,
perception, opinions, values, meanings, beliefs, dreams, things that are not
directly accessible or sometimes not even evident on the surface? Access
may be helped by the use of a theoretical perspective (for instance, feminist
theory ties together observations about gender imbalances). Phenomenology
and hermeneutics are examples of interpretive methods. For more on
interpretive methods, see Smith, Flowers, and Larkin (2009) and Thorne
(2008).
Or would you be best served by methods that use both description and
interpretation? Grounded theory is in this category, commencing inquiry
with descriptive method to identify the process but using interpretive
methods later in the process to identify the core variables (Strauss, 1987) or
the basic social process (Glaser, 1978), the theme that ties the process
together and makes sense of the data. Most ethnographic methods both
describe and interpret.

Considering What You Are Studying

Now, there are constraints depending on what you are planning to study.
Is the phenomenon concrete, tangible, stable—will it always be there for
you to see and photograph and touch? Or is it hidden, shadowed, internal
experience? Is it a moving target? Do you have just one shot at seeing it? Is
it unique, or will it reoccur? Is it patterned? Does it change over time or
disappear in certain conditions? In other words, how will you see/record
whatever you are studying? These questions will inform your research
design. Will you have direct access to the people you want to understand or
have to rely on others’ observations of the phenomenon you are
researching? Such “shadowed data” (Morse, 2001) will

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require a different design. For instance, when studying a bereaved family,
we may interview other family members about the behaviors of the most
bereft member. Another “indirect” method may be to use modeling (for
instance, if lay births cannot be observed, you might ask the lay midwife to
show you how she positions the laboring women and collect information
that way).

Considering the Setting

Privacy legislation and the right of participants must always be
considered when accessing populations. Is the setting in which you want to
conduct your study private or public? Obviously, a person’s home is private
and you may not enter without permission or begin your study without
consent. But privacy has other levels. Institutions, such as hospitals or
schools, are protected environments, and many levels of permission are
necessary before a researcher may enter. We consider ethics issues and
processes in detail in Chapter 12.

Considering What You Want to Do

Researchers usually have a goal or agenda for conducting their research
—and some of these reasons for doing a project are less problematic than
others.
The best reason for doing a project may be “because it is fascinating” in
itself. You can’t stop thinking about, reading about, and talking about the
topic. This is a great start because your fascination provides that impetus to
keep you motivated through the months ahead, and gives you determination
to complete your project when the going gets tough and the research tasks a
little arduous.
Perhaps the most common reason for doing a project, however, is the
researcher’s personal experience. Perhaps they have recently divorced,
experienced the death of a parent, or have some professional specialty and
are convinced that nobody understands. Suddenly, doing a qualitative study
seems to be a way to communicate their experience. One method—
autoethnography—is designed for such reflection. Our advice is that
qualitative research is not usually an effective way to work through your
problems.
A third reason is perhaps the most risky—the researcher has an “axe to
grind.” You have noticed a problem at work or an injustice that needs

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to be explored—a fired coworker or some unfortunate caregiving experience
or teaching incident. Investigating such issues seems a way to right the
world. An inexperienced student may be accepted quickly in groups tackling
such political issues. But this does not promise a good research design. As
for all the examples above, the message is that you must be clear about why
you are interested and want to tackle the topic you have selected, and how
this will impact the research.

Considering Issues in Finding Participants

There are obvious constraints on finding and approaching participants
for any research, and there are considerable specific constraints if your
research is qualitative.
At the beginning of your project, you ask who you need to talk to for
this project, and whether it will be possible. Whether it will be ethical is the
next question (see below). Often, the answer to both is negative. Obviously,
you cannot explore infant pain by interviewing the preverbal. Would it do to
conduct behavioral coding and analyze the nature and patterns of crying?
You cannot interview the elderly with advanced Alzheimer’s disease, but is
the alternative of some type of observational research satisfactory? Access
to potential participants may be blocked, for instance in trauma care,
because care is the first priority. In the case of family violence, the actual
incident cannot be observed, so you must use retrospective data—interviews
from participants about the experience.

Considering Ethical Constraints

At the earliest stage, the researcher must consider the ethical
implications of what their topic and method seem to require. We consider
these issues in detail in Chapter 12 when we return to the process of
beginning your project.
Almost all the methods discussed above ensure invasion of privacy.
Some seriously threaten a participant’s rights. From the beginning of your
project, these issues should be foremost in your concerns. Sensitivity about
context and the participants’ expectations is a necessary condition for good
research design. Ethical as well as practical considerations must be
explored. If you are planning to do research with vulnerable populations
(such as groups in schools, prisons, hospitals, or some cultural groups), you
must obtain special permission at the institutional level as well as from the
guardian or parent, care provider, and individual. But “ordinary

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people” also require full protection of their privacy. Once you have obtained
access, you must have in place strategies to protect the participants’
identities. Consider early who will have access to the raw data. How will it
be stored? How will identities of participants or places be protected? Who
will have access to the final report? And who will need to review it or
approve it prior to publication?
Working with the appropriate bodies is essential to ensure acceptable
practices. Attention to the impact of the proposed research, and to changing
conditions, allows researchers to negotiate access and allows ethics bodies
to ensure that the access is appropriate. For instance, Morse was denied
access for recording trauma care (audio and video) in the mid­1990s in
Canada but was permitted access in the United States, where such video
recording is a routine part of quality assurance. Video files were secured
until consents were obtained, and if consent was not obtained the recording
was destroyed. Once the Canadian ethics review committee considered how
such procedures worked, on reapplication, they permitted the project to
proceed.

From Topic to Researchable Question: Focusing Qualitative

Inquiry
Deciding on a topic locates your research; this is where you are
researching. Framing a qualitative question is harder because it requires that
you think about what needs to be asked and of whom in this research
location, as well as what you can practically and ethically ask and
reasonably expect to have answered given your resources and skills. A
research question is a starting point only if it is researchable.
One of the most difficult tasks for the beginning researcher is to think
qualitatively before the research begins. A researchable qualitative question
is not the most obvious outcome of reflecting on a topic. The big first
questions are as follows:

What needs to be asked?

How should it be asked? What data are required, and where will the
researcher have to go to find answers to these questions?
Can it be asked? What access to the setting is necessary and what
protection of the informants? What sort of a researcher or research
stance is needed?

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 WHAT CAN YOU AIM FOR?
By now it should be clear that qualitative researchers are aiming for an
outcome that is more than just a good story. It’s the fit of method, data, and
analysis that makes the difference between journalism and qualitative
research. Good journalism and good qualitative research share goals of
understanding people’s situations, thoroughly researching and vividly
illustrating what’s found. But all qualitative methods aim for abstraction and
analysis, a “higher” level of reporting that is not only description. (Robert
Park, a founder of the Chicago School of Sociology and a journalist by
training, called sociology “the Big News.”)
And it will be a particular sort of analysis. In all the examples given
above, the outcome is something new—a better, fuller account of the data or
a discovery from the data. This goal explains much in the techniques for
handling data throughout this book. Qualitative coding, for example, aims to
retain the detail of the data so it can be explored and rethought. The
researcher resists, or delays, reducing that detail to numbers, since doing so
would prevent further discovery. Unlike much (though not all) quantitative
research, the qualitative project is unlikely to be testing existing theories.
Much more likely is that a new theory or a new explanation of the
phenomenon studied will be created from the data.
These are not unreachable goals. Discovered theories may be very small
and local. In Chapter 8, we discuss the task of abstraction and the ways it is
done. Meanwhile, as you work toward a topic, ask what you could aim for.
What would be a good outcome of this study? What would be good enough,
and what would be excellent? (For discussion of possible study outcomes,
see Richards, 2009, Chapter 7.)

SUMMARY
We see the principles we have discussed in this chapter—the purposiveness
of qualitative inquiry and methodological congruence—as the hallmarks of
good qualitative research. They mean that a project’s goals and its methods
cannot be considered separately or severed from the strategies of a research
design. A research strategy is only a tool, and how one uses a tool depends
on the purpose of inquiry, the method used, and the

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type of data. This is important: One may learn a strategy, but the way one
uses it depends on the method.
In this chapter, we have emphasized the wholeness of methods—the fit
of question, data, and analysis. In Chapter 3, we address the flip side of this
wholeness: Although qualitative methods are congruent, they are not always
complete, and they do not always fully direct each stage of the project. We
compare the same five methods discussed above in terms of completeness,
showing how some convey full instructions for the entire project whereas
others leave the researcher to choose a methodological path.

RESOURCES
Read different types of qualitative research studies to get a feel for the
differing results.
Brizuela, D., Stewart, J. P., Carrillo, R. G., & Garbey, J. (2000). Acts of
inquiry and qualitative research. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Educational
Review.
Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (Eds.). (2011). The SAGE handbook of
qualitative research (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Ezzy, D., Liamputtong, P., & Hollis, D. B. (2005). Qualitative research
methods. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Maxwell, J. A. (1998). Designing a qualitative study. In L. Bickman & D. J.
Rog (Eds.), Handbook of applied social research methods (pp. 69–100).
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Morse, J. M., & Field, P. A. (1995). Qualitative research methods for health
professionals (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Richards, L. (2009). Handling qualitative data: A practical guide (2nd ed.).
London: Sage.
Seale, C., Gobo, G., Gubrium, J., & Silverman, D. (Eds.). (2006).
Qualitative research practice. London: Sage.
Wertz, F. J., Charmaz, K., McMullen, L. M., Josselson, R., Anderson, R., &
McSpadden, E. (2011). Five ways of doing qualitative analysis:
Phenomenological psychology, grounded theory, discourse analysis,
narrative research, and intuitive inquiry. New York: Guilford.

Qualitative Research by Discipline

Not surprisingly, methods differ between disciplines. The following are
suggested readings in different areas.
Daymon, C., Holloway, I., & Daymon, C. (2002). Qualitative research
methods and public relations and marketing communications. London:
Routledge.
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Eisner, E. W., & Peshkin, A. (Eds.). (1998). Qualitative inquiry in
education: The continuing debate. New York: Teachers College Press.
Frost, N. (2011). Qualitative research methods in psychology: Combining
core approaches. Berkshire, England: Open University Press.
Gilgun, J. F., & Sussman, M. B. (Eds.). (1996). The methods and
methodologies of qualitative family research. New York: Haworth.
Golding, C. (2002). Grounded theory: A practical guide for management,
business, and market researchers. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Holloway, I. (2005). Qualitative research in health care. Oxford, UK:
Blackwell Science.
Latimer, J. (Ed.). (2003). Advanced qualitative research for nursing. Oxford,
UK: Blackwell.
Mariampolski, H. (2001). Qualitative market research: A comprehensive
guide. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Merriman, N. B. (1997). Qualitative research and case study applications in
education. Toronto: John Wiley.
Munhall, P. L. (2012). Nursing research: A qualitative perspective (5th ed.).
Boston: Jones & Bartlett.
Padgett, D. (2008). Qualitative methods in social work research (2nd ed.).
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research and evaluation methods (3rd
ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Seale, C., Silverman, D., Gubrium, J., & Gobo, G. (Eds.). (2007).
Qualitative research practice. London: Sage.
Shaw, I. S., & Gould, N. (2001). Qualitative research and social work.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Ulin, P. R., Robinson, E. T., & Tolley, E. E. (2005). Qualitative methods in
public health: A field guide for applied research. San Francisco: Jossey-
Bass.

Journals
Ethnography Field Methods Forum: Qualitative Social Research
(http://qualitative-research.net/fqs/fqs-eng.html)
International Journal of Qualitative Methods
(http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/IJQM/index)
International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education
International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health & Well-Being
Journal of Contemporary Ethnography
Qualitative Health Research
Qualitative Inquiry
Qualitative Report (http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/)
Qualitative Research (http://qrj.sagepub.com/)
Qualitative Research Journal
(http://www.informit.com.au/products/ProductDetails.aspx?
id=L_QRJ&container=qualitative-research-journal-link)

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 3
Choosing a Method

T
o those new to qualitative inquiry, the choice of research methods
can appear overwhelming. But it has to be made, since the key to
doing qualitative research is selecting the “best” method to answer
your research question. How can you prepare to understand the choice and
select the best?
It helps to start with commonalities. These are all called “qualitative”
methods, and they do have a lot in common. All qualitative research seeks
understanding of data that are complex and can be approached only in
context. The methods we sketch in this book differ widely in how they do
this and what the results look like, but all aim at constructing a new
understanding using analytic processes that do justice to the data.
Some analytic strategies may appear common to several methods, and
the ways they are applied within each method make those methods different
from one another. The key to their differences is in the way the researcher
thinks about the data and subsequently conceptualizes—that is, “thinks up”
from data. In later chapters, we address some of the generic processes of
coding, categorizing, and theme­ing and reintroduce the strategies that make
methods distinct from one another. But here, our focus is on differences and
choice.
The best method for your project will be the one that best helps you
think about your data and work with data in the way best suited to your
research goals. It may not be the one with the most unpronounceable name
or the most scholarly aura. It is also unlikely to be the one your friend is
using or the one you attended a workshop about or happen to have a book on
or, as mentioned in the previous chapter, the method taught in your school.
Rather, the best method is the one that promises to address your sort of
research question, and to provide the results your project requires, as
efficiently, effectively, and “on target” as possible. It will be the method that
best enables you to access the slice of life you

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need to study, and best report and reveal it to others. It is most likely to
provide you with a new and exciting understanding of your topic—and
might even earn you a degree, a publication, a chance to assist people in the
studied situation, or another desired outcome.
In this chapter we will briefly sketch the five methods introduced in the
previous chapter, according to the sorts of questions they ask, how they are
asked, and what the outcomes look like. This overview is to offer you a map
of methods so you may start thinking about matching your topic with a
method. In the next sections we will address how to use research strategies
and discuss how these strategies are used in each of the most commonly
used methods.

DESCRIPTION AND INTERPRETATION

To the new researcher, many of these methods appear similar or
overlapping. Two methods may seem the same because they have certain
procedures in common (such as a type of coding) or share some features
with other methods (such as categorizing or “theme­ing”). Yet each method
has an underlying logic that provides a distinct and different perspective on
reality, and each method has its own particular approach to the strategies
involved. While methods may share some of these strategies (or techniques),
their analytic perspective gives each a unique and distinct way of thinking
about the data and reflecting on these data.
How to distinguish them? To help you find your way with this map of
various methods, we start with the distinction made in our previous chapter
between description and interpretation. All methods describe and interpret,
but they vary in the emphases they put on these tasks. The differences in
research goals drive the emphases on description and interpretation,
resulting in very different outcomes.
The more descriptive methods are those whose primary goal is to
describe a situation or phenomenon vividly and in detail, to give a clear
picture of “what is going on.” They are used when the researcher aims to
reveal what is there, or link processes. The results may clarify problem
situations, highlight differences in lifestyles, or make our lives richer by
expanding our horizons or increasing our awareness of what we already
know. Descriptive methods are used extensively to evaluate a program or
organization, or to determine, detect, or monitor change. They are varied
and often combined—and few stop at description.

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 The traditional descriptive method is ethnography. Originating in
anthropology, its central approach to studying reality is a focus on the
cultural context of behavior. Ethnography always uses the sometimes long-
term and demanding technique of participant observation, often treated as a
method in itself. Now used across disciplines, ethnography takes many
forms, most interpretive and many aiming at critical reflection. Action
research is often done by ethnographic techniques, and the researcher aims
not just to describe but to involve participants in rigorous research and,
through it, to change the situation over time.
Is any qualitative research entirely descriptive? Of the methods we
compare in this chapter, the answer is no. For example, case study method,
like ethnography, aims at very good description (often using ethnographic
techniques). But any research starts with a goal, and for case studies, there is
a prior reason why these cases were selected. So the project design should
reach beyond description, usually to comparison of cases and elucidation of
the issue or problem of which they are cases.
Across disciplines, possibly the most common source of descriptive
research is the sometimes short­term, rapid technique of conducting focus
groups. Like participant observation, it is often treated as a method in itself
and has its own considerable literature. Focus groups provide a way of
gathering sometimes complex data rapidly (which we explore in Chapter 6).
Those data may be quickly and descriptively reported, as, for example, in
short­term market research. (If the focus groups are conducted to gauge
reactions to a new product label, the client wants a description of those
reactions and will not be pleased by a subtle analysis of the ideological
meanings of product labeling.) But focus groups are used in many methods
for many different research purposes, some aimed at describing and others
theorizing.
Most qualitative research is done with more interpretive methods that
move “up” from descriptions to theories about processes and experiences
discovered. These are for projects aiming to see both “what is going on” and
also what it means, or how it could be explained. Some may use theory from
previous studies or literature to guide the perspective, and some construct or
contribute new “midrange” theory as an explanatory tool, aiming for
insights that would not otherwise be accessible or available if they stopped
at description. In very different ways, such a combination of description and
interpretation is offered by grounded theory and discourse analysis. Studies
using either may draw on existing higher­level theory or may use their own
data to discover and build new theory.

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 Some methods, however, are primarily interpretive. They place much
less emphasis on description; rather, they focus on interpretations of the
discovered world, what is experienced by those studied, and how their
perceptions might be understood. Phenomenology is the classic example,
often regarded as a philosophical perspective as well as a social research
method. It is used in many disciplines and takes very many forms.
Phenomenological research may produce studies full of feeling, reflectively
describing meaning, emotions, and experience, pulling and using similar
emotional responses from the reader. Their role is to identify the essence of
the phenomenon and perhaps to construct and explore concepts. But note,
there is description behind these outcomes.
Now, consult your research goal. It will indicate the relative need for
description and interpretation. When researchers are thinking about their
topic, they usually decide at what level of analysis the main phenomenon of
interest needs to be accessed. They will usually also have a practical or
political agenda, which often is the reason they are doing the research. Thus,
in a study to improve patient care, an action research approach might be
used to expose problems, an evaluation framework to report performance,
and a phenomenological approach to explore the patients’ experiences. Each
purpose has suggested a different method, which will focus and frame the
research differently. Each of these studies may use some form of
ethnography, but different data will be gathered and handled differently in
the analysis. For instance, what the researcher ignores as “irrelevant” or
attends to as pertinent, significant, and interesting differs according to the
focus of the research question. And, of course, while all the ethnographies in
these examples may be based on the same broad assumptions about culture,
they will be differently led by theories and literature used to inform the
research, and by the researcher’s perspective and stance. These differences
within and among methods give each method—and every study—a unique
purpose or function and lead to different types of results.

STARTING SIMPLE
We offer this map of methods to assist you in starting out toward your own
project with one method. Once you can recognize each method’s approach
and way of looking, and the sort of study it can produce, you

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will be able to locate the approach most appropriate to ask and answer your
question and most likely to provide the needed outcome. Once familiar with
and able to recognize the different kinds of qualitative research, you will be
able to learn more about the appropriate method and, from there, to start
designing your project. Locating your project in one method, you can get to
know it well and start thinking that way. Remember, all methods have
integrity—there is a fit of question, data, and analysis. So in selecting the
method that best enables you to achieve your goals and best answers your
research question, it is wise to understand the method as a whole. As you
read texts and explore real examples of studies using this method, you will
discover what your selected method does to data.
Why just one method? Experienced researchers often mix and match
approaches from many methods, even melding them into a new research
approach. But for a new researcher, it is too easy to create methodological
messes, violate assumptions, and create a weakened design and fragmented
study that will not answer the question or be publishable. If you are just
starting out, we strongly advise that you find the appropriate method for
your project and work within it, rather than taking techniques from several.
For novice researchers, we also advise against starting in what is often
termed mixed­ or multiple­methods design, where studies are built from a
combination of segments conducted by different methods. Such designs can
be most useful when a single method does not adequately answer the
question but may be answered by combining the results of more than one
data set in the analysis of one project. But method combinations require very
careful research design, and the workload amounts to two (or more!) studies.
We strongly recommend, for your first project, that you start simple and
small.
The same advice applies to research designs that combine a number of
studies on a topic (sometimes termed metasynthesis). Here, the researcher
“pools” the results from the findings of many studies to compare and
contrast, to combine or synthesize the concepts and theory to produce results
of great scope or certainty. By examining the similarities and differences, by
“smoothing” or merging them into a “mega model,” the findings may move
the area forward more quickly than would conducting yet another context-
bound study. But the task of bringing multiple studies together can be
daunting. (Studies combining multiple projects in these ways are discussed
in Chapter 4.)

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 FIVE METHODS
In the following sections, we sketch each of the five very different
qualitative methods already introduced. Each is explored under five
headings. What sorts of questions are asked? What is the researcher’s
stance? What sorts of data are needed? What do the results look like? And,
finally, what are some of the different approaches to working in this
method?
These sketches aim to help you identify relevant methods to explore for
your own work, to find a fit of your question with a method. When that fit is
found, follow the suggested reading to get a fuller understanding of the
method and its varieties, and to make an informed choice about the
approach. A resources section ends each method’s sketch, and more
resources at the end of the chapter will direct you into the literature. Your
goal is to assess methods for their usefulness to your research and, within
those methods, assess approaches. Keep assessing, even when the claims for
a method or approach are apparently authoritative (or dogmatic)—and
especially then.
We return in Chapter 9 to these five methods, to suggest how it would
feel to work in each, their different ways of making data, and different
analysis strategies.

ETHNOGRAPHY

What Sorts of Questions Are Asked?

Ethnography traditionally involved the researcher, usually an
anthropologist, traveling to some “primitive” tribe and asking how they
lived and what their culture was like. The goal would be to live with them
for several years, thereby learning (and recording) their language and
documenting their culture—their kinship system, work patterns, ways of
life, beliefs and values—as comprehensively as possible. It is often termed
field research because the goal is for the researcher to enter the “field” of the
setting to be studied and ask what is going on there.
Since that time, the role and function of ethnography has changed
considerably: Ethnography is now used far more widely and usually topic
focused. Researchers are now using ethnographic methods to explore

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smaller subcultural units, such as institutions—in particular closed
institutions (e.g., prisons, hospitals, and nursing homes)—and to study
loosely connected groups of people (e.g., hockey teams or motorcycle
gangs), those with particular occupations (e.g., university professors or
politicians), and persons with particular characteristics, such as a shared
difficulty or illness (e.g., earthquake victims or stroke patients).
An ethnographer may go into a setting with a particular research
question or with the more open goal of describing the culture. Davis (1983,
1986/1992), for instance, describes the meaning menopause holds for
women of Grey Rock Harbour, “taking into account both the collective and
idiosyncratic elements of village life which help explicate the emic
perspective of menopause. These include (1) the semantics of menopause,
(2) lay semantics and (3) local institutions and the moral order” (Davis,
1986/1992, p. 151). Cassell (1987/1992) used ethnographic methods to
explore the work of surgeons, as well as the ethos and “the set of traits
distinctive of that profession.” She also examined some of “the dynamics
and the personal cost and benefits of maintaining the ethos and the set of
traits” (pp. 170–171).

The Researcher’s Stance

The ethnographer is always a “participant observer.” This is a role with
its own literature and its own challenges. If you are considering working
with ethnography, you must understand the requirements for good
participant observation. A useful early indication of the challenge is to try
seriously observing, and recording your observations, in a situation where
you want to be a genuine participant (Richards, 2009, pp. 40–42).
How much will you expect to participate, and what will be the
challenges? Participant observation can vary from a situation in which the
researcher is a complete observer, outside looking in, to one in which the
researcher is a complete participant, fully participating in all that is
observed. More common are the situations between, where the researcher is
mainly participant or mainly observer. It is important to be “up front” about
these roles—especially if you are entering a situation (such as a community
or family setting or work environment) in which you could well be expected
to assist. What you are told and allowed to see will be affected by the degree
of trust and acceptance you achieve, thus affecting the quality of the data
and the study itself. Establishing good relationships takes time, so you
cannot expect excellent data to be gathered

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immediately. Critical to the success of participant observation is the
relationship between those observed and the researcher. As the field
experience is being negotiated, the researcher must reflect on and negotiate
their role with the group whilst obtaining permissions and consents.
Traditionally, ethnographic research explores phenomena within cultural
contexts from the emic perspective—that is, from the perspective of the
members of the cultural groups involved. The perspective used in data
analysis is from the participants themselves. Compare this with the etic
perspective, or the perspective of the outsider/researcher, which is usually
the perspective used in quantitative inquiry. But there is always a tension
between these perspectives. Because cultural assumptions, beliefs, and
behaviors are embedded within a cultural group, they are not always evident
to those who are a part of the group. If a researcher shares the participants’
culture (so can take the emic, or insider, perspective), they will find it
difficult to “see” the beliefs, values, practices, and behaviors embedded in
everyday life. The research will be easier, and the differences more evident,
if the researcher is an outsider to both of the cultures being compared and
contrasted.
Ethnography is always conducted in the natural setting, or the field, so
that the researcher can study the lives of members of the cultural group
directly, in their everyday setting. Ethnographers work to become
participants, as integrated as possible into the lives of the people they are
studying. Recall that the researcher’s stance is outside the group being
studied, yet the data collection procedures are designed to elicit emic data
(i.e., data reflecting the “native” point of view). The researcher is a
“student” of the group under study, learning and being taught by, yet not
truly one of the group—a role Agar (1996) termed a “professional stranger.”
An ethnography usually has distinct stages and phases, during which
different types of data are collected and the researcher’s effectiveness as an
analyst varies (Morse & Field, 1995, pp. 71–73). The first phase is “getting
in,” during which the researcher is a stranger to the setting and the primary
task is negotiating entry, finding a role and fitting in. The researcher feels
awkward and self­conscious. Wax (1971) notes that one should not become
an ethnographer unless one can tolerate feeling “out of place” and “making
a fool of one’s self” (p. 370). Usually, during this phase the researcher does
not understand the setting or the participants, so interpretation is premature.
Thus, data making at this stage should focus on relatively concrete tasks,
such as making maps of the setting or becoming acquainted with who’s who
in the community under study. The researcher keeps a diary of initial
impressions and uses field notes to record observations.

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 During the second phase, the researcher becomes better acquainted with
the routines in the setting, and the participants become more comfortable
with the researcher. Data making now consists of nonparticipant
observations and informal conversations. Key informants are identified, and
initial participants are selected and perhaps interviewed. With acceptance
into the setting come initial analytic hunches about the situation studied.
Trust has developed between the participants and the researcher by the
third phase, which is marked by cooperation and acceptance. Data making
is most productive in this phase. The researcher now understands what is
happening in the setting, and the data become more focused; the researcher
also uses the data to verify hunches and to develop theoretical formulations.
At the end of the third phase, the researcher may feel relaxed and
integrated into the setting, to the extent of becoming acculturated. This may
introduce a problem if they identify more with the cultural norms of the
group than with their own research agenda, losing objectivity in conducting
observations and analysis. The fourth phase is, therefore, one of withdrawal.
The research focus at this stage is primarily on data analysis, with any
further data collection focused on gathering data to resolve ambiguities, fill
in thin areas, and verify previous data. The task of the last phase is analysis;
the research is completed and the ethnography written.
Awareness of self during data collection is vital. Crucial to good
ethnography is the researcher’s awareness of his or her own cultural values,
beliefs, and biases and the way they influence what data are collected. The
researcher must also be aware of roles and relationships with others in the
field, what data are collected, and why, and must record all these self-
observations in a research diary. A good research diary can have a profound
impact on how the researcher moves through the process of making sense of
the data, affecting whether they see the obvious and the less obvious.
Relationships established between the researcher and those in the field, the
development of trust, and the degree of the researcher’s inclusion as a
member of the group—all these factors have some influence on the type and
quality of data that are collected and available for analysis.

What Sorts of Data Are Needed?

Ethnography provides many strategies for obtaining data that will enable
the researcher to describe cultural norms, perspectives, characteristics,
behavior, and patterns. But within this variety, the primary data of
ethnographic studies will always be field notes and other documentary or

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visual records of what is seen and experienced or learned by observation or
through conversation. Good field researchers take very thorough and
detailed field notes and also keep a diary, recording not only the detail of
what is discovered but also the researcher’s experience and responses.
Data are not usually of a single type. The research purpose and question
dictate the types and forms of data collected. Observational data (recorded
as field notes or in the form of photographs, video recordings, and so forth)
may be supplemented by interviews (recorded as field notes or audio
recorded and transcribed), the researcher’s ongoing theoretical notes in a
diary, plus historical records or other documentary data that may be
relevant. In turn, these data may take various forms. For instance, interviews
may be unstructured, semistructured, or structured; they may include
questionnaires, surveys, or special techniques such as sentence frames and
card sorts to elicit particular kinds of responses that fall within the
parameters of whatever is being studied. Quantitative data may also be
included.
When an ethnographic researcher is gathering data, the fact that culture
is shared among all group members theoretically means that any member of
the group may serve as a participant in the study. However, the researcher
must consider the characteristics of good informants (i.e., having the ability
to reflect on and describe the culture, being articulate and patient) and the
type of data required. Participants who work most closely with and interpret
the culture for the researcher are known as key informants. They serve to
inform and instruct the researcher about the culture, although the researcher
compiles these data and may verify them with data from other participants.
During data collection and analysis, the researcher must consistently reflect
on the results in the context of the cultural values, beliefs, and behaviors of
the group being studied.
Where ethnography is used in more limited settings, in organizations or
social groups where much of the information sought is documented, the
ethnographer seeks and sorts this information, learning from the differences,
for example, between formal accounts of institutional rules and observation
of what in fact goes on.

What Do the Results Look Like?

The main goal of most ethnographic research is what has been
classically termed thick description (Geertz, 1973): an account that
describes richly and in detail all features of the culture.

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 Cognitive ethnography (Spradley, 1979) may include presenting data as
taxonomies or classification systems, whose function is to identify objects
that are culturally significant, but implicit in the culture, and to display the
relationships among them, thus creating a framework for unique insights
into the culture. A taxonomy permits the researcher to display classes of
objects according to common characteristics as well as the subcategories of
related objects within a particular class, but it does not account for
processes.
Ethnography, perhaps more than any of the other methods sketched here,
has undergone major changes in recent years. You will find that the
literature contains a lively debate about the rival goals of description and
theorizing. The results may look like theoretical monographs or like
documentary films and articles on some aspect of daily life (e.g., eating,
dance, health beliefs), special circumstances (e.g., childbirth, funeral
ceremonies), or representation (e.g., use of media such as art, drama, dance).

Different Approaches Within Ethnography

Ethnography may take several forms, depending on the type of research
question, its scope, and the researcher’s perspective or location.
Focused ethnography is a term created to deal with departures from the
traditional image of ethnography. “Only long­term field studies, it seems,
epitomise what may rightly be called ethnography. With this ideal derived
from anthropology, many of the ethnographies done in sociology and other
fields frequently appear to fall short or to be ‘deficient’” (Knoblauch, 2005).
It recognizes the increasing trend for ethnography to be used where, as
Muecke (1994) notes, the topic is specific and may be identified before the
researcher commences the study. Focused ethnography might be conducted
with a subcultural group rather than with a cultural group completely
different from that of the researcher. It may also be used to study
institutions, focusing on how the lives of those in institutions are “embedded
in social relations, both those of ruling and economy” (Smith, 2005, p. 31).
For example, Gubrium (1975) studied a nursing home, and Germain (1979)
studied a cancer ward. Ethnographic studies may focus on groups of
participants who share some feature or features, such as a particular
disability. In such studies, participants may not know one another, but the
researcher focuses on their common behaviors and experiences resulting
from their shared features, such as being treated the same way by care
providers. This enables the researcher to apply the

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assumptions from a shared culture. In focused ethnography, data making
may include only some of the strategies that define ethnography. For
instance, fieldwork may be less important than interviews.
Autoethnography is, as the name suggests, ethnography of the
researcher’s own experience. Rather than study “others,” these writers
analyze personal narratives in the light of sociological literature (see Ellis &
Bochner, 1996, 2000). The field raises complex questions of the researcher’s
role and reflexivity. Autoethnography uses the methods of ethnography, but
with very different purposes and results. The researcher records and writes
narrative, reflects and makes field notes, and may use a diary and other
forms of documentation to refresh their recollection of the event and add
details. But the researcher is also the subject, and the purpose is usually to
research experiences they consider unique, important, and unforgettable.
They are usually “milestone” events that have significance for their own
lives—uncommon, extraordinary events. Auto­ethnographers sometimes
feel that the sharing of and reflections on their own experiences will
somehow assist others, make them feel less alone or in the same despair
they felt, or will support and encourage them. Sharing their experiences will
enable others to seek therapy, to persevere, or at least to understand what has
happened to them and that they are not alone.
Critical ethnography emerged, with broader “critical theory,” in the
1960s and ’70s, challenging established social values and power relations.
Feminist and postmodern approaches insisted on “ethical responsibility to
address processes of unfairness or injustice within a particular lived domain”
(Madison, 2005, p. 5). Thomas (1993) gives a wide definition: “Critical
ethnographers describe, analyze, and open to scrutiny otherwise hidden
agendas, power centers, and assumptions that inhibit, repress, and constrain.
Critical scholarship requires that commonsense assumptions be questioned”
(pp. 2–3). Critical ethnography assumes that the researcher cannot be value-
free and should direct efforts toward positive social change (Carspecken,
1996, p. 3). Criticism of fieldwork conducted mainly by male
anthropologists was extended to the ethnographic methods themselves, from
the focus of the research question to data collection and the presentation of
the results, revealing how the contribution of women had been silenced by
omission.
Participatory action research (PAR) follows the ethnographic methods
of conducting field research using strategies of interviews and observations,
but it challenges the researcher–participant relationship. Rather than

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conducting research on people, practitioners of PAR conduct research with
the people being studied (Reason & Bradbury, 2008). They believe that such
cooperative inquiry is less likely to “undermine the self­determination of
their participants” (p. 4). Participants discuss and agree on what they want to
research, the nature of the questions, modes of data collection and analysis,
the way data are written up, and how the findings are distributed.
Action research (AR) is research also conducted by a team of
professional action researchers and stakeholders—members of the
organization or community being studied—with the goal of seeking to
improve their situation. As in PAR, they jointly define the research problem,
cogenerate relevant background knowledge, identify and learn research
methods, and interpret and implement the findings. Thus, “AR democratizes
the relationship between the professional researcher and the local interested
parties” (Greenwood & Levin, 2007, p. 4).
Film, and now primarily video, has been an important medium for
ethnography since Bates and Mead (1942) used film to document fieldwork.
In visual ethnography, video or film is used to record the scene, the daily
lives of participants, interviews, and those events that cannot accurately (or
with detail) be stored as field notes. Researchers may use video recording in
two ways: to record, catalog, and gather data to supplement participant
observation or as a stand­alone strategy for interpretation (for example,
researchers may manipulate video recorded data, slowing down or speeding
up the recording, to explore interactions or nonverbal gestures in
microanalytic detail). In addition, video enables researchers to examine
dialogue, along with its accompanying gestures, in detail (see Goldman-
Segall, 1998).

GROUNDED THEORY

What Sorts of Questions Are Asked?

Grounded theory has its origins in symbolic interactionism, taking the
perspective that reality is negotiated between people, always changing, and
constantly evolving (Blumer, 1969/1986). Research questions in grounded
theory are about process and change over time, and the methods of making
and analyzing data reflect a commitment to understanding

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the ways in which reality is socially constructed. The assumption is that
through detailed exploration, with theoretical sensitivity, the researcher can
construct theory grounded in data.
Grounded theory studies usually begin with questions about “what’s
going on here.” This is an appropriate method for the researcher wishing to
learn from the participants how to understand a process or a situation. The
questions themselves suggest the examination of a process. Thus, grounded
theory studies are usually situated in experiences in which change is
expected, and the method has become dominant in research areas where the
understanding of change and process is central, such as in health and
business studies. For instance, Lorencz (1988/1992) explored the
experiences of predischarge schizophrenics with at least 2 years of illness.
Morse and Bottorff (1988/1992) studied mothers who were breast feeding to
find attitudes to breast milk expression. Turner (1994) gives a detailed
account of his techniques for discovery of a grounded theory in his
description of the organizational processes that led to a ferry disaster.
The method was originally developed by Glaser and Strauss (1967), with
equal attribution; as we show below, the idea of theoretical sensitivity
(Glaser, 1978) and the techniques for creating theory grounded in data
(Strauss, 1987; Strauss & Corbin, 1990) were developed separately by the
two authors. In their works, Glaser and Strauss presented researchers with
what at the time was a radical proposal—that theory should be developed
“in intimate relationship with data, with researchers fully aware of
themselves as instruments for developing that grounded theory” (Strauss,
1987, p. 6).
Such theory will usually be small­scale, midrange, and focused, and
techniques will emphasize the “continuous interplay between analysis and
data collection” (Strauss & Corbin, 1994, p. 273) until a theory fitting the
data is created. The process involves a data­driven design (theoretical
sampling). The key goal is the creation of new theoretical concepts from the
data and the seeking of core concepts (Strauss, 1987), or the pursuit of what
Glaser (1978) terms the basic social process or the basic social
psychological process.

The Researcher’s Stance

The concept of theoretical sensitivity is crucial in grounded theory. The
researcher seeks theory, constantly working with data records and

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records of ideas to tease from them the concepts and the linkages that might
generate theoretical insight. Those emerging concepts are also in constant
interplay with the data as the researcher seeks integration and synthesis.
The perspective that reality is constantly changing and being negotiated
leads the researcher to active inquiry into the event over time. There is an
emphasis on detailed knowledge, constant comparison, and the trajectory of
the event. The researcher consistently asks not only “What is going on
here?” but “How is it different?” The method of grounded theory promotes a
stance of refusal to accept a report at face value, a sort of methodological
restlessness that leads the researcher to seek characteristics, conditions,
causes, antecedents, and consequences of events or responses as ways of
drawing them together in an integrated theory.

What Sorts of Data Are Needed?

Grounded theory research does not require any particular data source,
but it does require data within which theory can be grounded. The goal of
discovering theory from data sets high standards for the data, both in depth
of detail and in coverage of process. However the data are made, the records
must support the probing and friction of constant comparison and reflection.
A study may commence with an observational phase in the field or with
interviews—narratives about the event, told sequentially from beginning to
end. Such interviews are much more able to support the method than are
semistructured interviews or brief accounts.
Researchers should beware of attempting grounded theory research with
structured data records, which preemptively limit what they will hear in
response to their preconceived questions. In such data, it is difficult to
identify the process or discover categories derived from the meanings held
by others.

What Do the Results Look Like?

Grounded theory is undoubtedly the label most popularly applied to
qualitative research, and undoubtedly the most misapplied, often being taken
as synonymous with qualitative (Lee & Fielding, 1996). We share a concern
that researchers should understand the true nature of grounded

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theory; it is a unique and highly demanding method, with strong
congruence. If you don’t know what method you are using, it is highly
unlikely to be grounded theory.
The explicit goal of grounded theory studies is to develop theory. So
reports will feature theory that is limited and local—theory derived from,
and grounded in, the data. A study using grounded theory will usually have
a single story line, offering a core concept and its attendant theory as a way
of making sense of the data. These are new theoretical offerings, not seen
before that particular study because they are the product of it. Often, the
core concepts are also new, not everyday, concepts.
A grounded theory study is densely argued; the researcher identifies the
concepts involved and develops theory by exploring the relationships
between these concepts in the stages or phases of the process and the core
category or variable (or basic social process). This one category is the
theme that runs through the data and accounts for most of the variance. A
grounded theory study attempts to account for the centrality of the core
concept by telling the story of its emergence. Reports may include diagrams
of the process, or summary typologies, indicating the presence or absence of
selected factors.

Different Approaches Within Grounded Theory

The founders of grounded theory came from contrasting backgrounds
and worked as co­investigators on high­profile projects. For two decades,
based on the original work of Glaser and Strauss (1967), grounded theory
was presented as a coherent and complete method—but as one method.
Over the next two decades, as each author worked independently, the
method evolved and diverged, with Glaser (1978) and Strauss (1987)
separately writing significant and very different methodological texts. At
that time, most researchers using the techniques assumed there was a single
set of methodological procedures for grounded theory research.
Divisions between Glaser and Strauss appeared in the early 1990s with a
publication by Glaser (1992) in which he rejected Strauss’s book coauthored
with Corbin (1990). Instead of generating a methodological debate, this
created in some locations two “schools” of grounded theory, termed
Glaserian and Straussian grounded theory (Stern, 1994, p. 219).
Researchers in these areas are increasingly (and, arguably, regrettably)
expected to choose between two distinct sets of procedures, using as

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their primary source either Glaser’s (1978) or Strauss’s (1987) text, which
was in turn developed and, arguably, greatly changed in joint publication by
Strauss and Corbin (1994, 1998) and after Strauss’s death (Corbin &
Strauss, 2008).
All methods evolve, and should do so. Below we outline four variants.
We share a hope that the various strands of grounded theory will be used to
fit projects as appropriate, and we encourage you to explore and, if
appropriate, draw on both these groups of techniques. But you should be
aware that the following distinctions are commonly made.

Glaserian grounded theory: Glaserian grounded theory takes the

more objectivist perspective: Data are both separate and distant from
both the participants and the analyst (Charmaz, 2006). Glaser focuses
his attention on the data to allow the data to tell their own story (Stern,
2009; Stern & Porr, 2011). The Glaserian analyst attends to the data
and asks, “What do we have here?” (Stern, 1994, p. 220). As in the
original documents on grounded theory, analysis focuses on
components of the theory—on the processes, categories, dimensions,
and properties—and the development of, and interaction between,
these components allows the theory to emerge. In Glaserian
approaches, the theory is more often diagrammed to illustrate the
relationships between concepts and categories.
Straussian grounded theory: Straussian grounded theorists examine
the data and stop at each word or phrase to ask, “What if?” Thus, the
analyst “brings to bear every possible contingency that could relate to
the data, whether it appears in the data or not” (Stern, 1994, p. 220).
Straussian grounded theorists are concerned with striving to rise
above the data to develop more abstract concepts and their
descriptions (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). Theories are created in
interaction with the data and (as in Glaserian approaches) retain the
emphasis on categories, dimensions, and properties. There is a strong
emphasis on “open coding,” best exemplified in the recorded research
conversations in Strauss’s (1987) book. Theories are the product of
reflection, discussion, and detailed examination of text, constructed
from memos and dense coding (Corbin, 2009). Straussian researchers
rely less on diagrams than do Glaserian grounded theorists.

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 Dimensional analysis: A third early version of grounded theory (and one
very different from the other two) is dimensional analysis, developed by
Schatzman (1991), a colleague of Glaser and Strauss. Dimensional analysis
allows for the “explicit articulation of the analytic process” and provides “an
overarching structure to guide analysis” (Kools, McCarthy, Durham, &
Robrecht, 1996, p. 314). Based on comparative analysis, dimensional
analysis was presented as providing a fuller approach to social life than
could grounded theory (Bowers & Schatzman, 2009).
Constructivist grounded theory: In contrast to the Glaserian method and
Strauss and Corbin’s “objectivist” method, constructivist grounded theory is
presented as more interpretive—both the data and the analysis are created
from shared experiences and relationships with participants.

Constructivist inquiry starts with the experience and asks how

members [i.e., participants] construct it. To the best of their ability,
constructivists enter the phenomenon, gain multiple views of it, and
locate it in its web of connections and constraints. Constructivists
acknowledge that their interpretation of the studied phenomenon is
itself a construction. (Charmaz, 2006, p. 187)
Situational analysis: Recently developed by Adele Clarke (2005, 2009),
situational analysis focuses on the situation—context and people, and their
relations, actions, and interactions. It uses interview, observational, and
other sources. Situational analysis “allows researchers to draw together
studies of discourse and agency, action and structure, image, text and
context, history and the present moment—to analyze complex situations of
inquiry broadly conceived” (Clarke, 2005, p. xxii). Thus, it differs
dramatically from process­oriented grounded theory in that the theory is not
constructed around a basic social process. Rather, it is organized by a
situation­centered framework developed by Anselm Strauss, using three
types of mapping data, to organize “key elements, materialities, discourses,
structures, and conditions that characterize the situation of the inquiry”
(Clarke, 2005, p. xxii). In this way, “the situation becomes the unit of
analysis, and understanding its elements and their relations is the primary
goal” (Clarke, 2005, p. xxii; italics in original). More closely aligned with
ethnography than is traditional

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grounded theory, it enables the analysis of “highly complex situations of
actions and positionality, of heterogeneous discourses … and situated
knowledges and positionality, of the heterogenous discourses … and of the
situated knowledges of life itself” (Clarke, 2005, p. xxiii).

We urge you to discover the differences in these approaches and evaluate

their significance, avoiding the abyss created by claims that there is only one
way to achieve grounded theory. Such claims ossify methods and prevent
researchers from modifying recommended procedures or developing new
ways of combining them. Our advice is that you return to the earlier works
of the founders and note the tone of those writings. Strauss wrote in 1987
that the methods he describes “are by no means to be regarded as hard and
fixed rules for converting data into effective theory” (p. 7). Rigid rules, after
all, are particularly inimical to grounded theory approaches.
Researchers need to be alert not only to the constraints and challenges of
research settings and research aims but to the nature of their data. They must
also be aware of the temporal aspects or phasing of their researches, the
open­ended character of the “best research” in any discipline, the immense
significance of their own experiences as researchers, and the local contexts
in which the researches are conducted (Strauss, 1987, pp. 7–8).

PHENOMENOLOGY
Phenomenology is an important philosophical movement of the 20th
century. Founded by Edmund Husserl (1859–1938), it is used to refer to
both a philosophy and a research approach. As a method, it has undergone
many shifts in orientations and approaches.
Here we describe the hermeneutical phenomenology, as a method. From
this perspective, phenomenology offers a descriptive, reflective, interpretive,
and engaging mode of inquiry from which the essence of an experience may
be elicited. Experience is considered to be an individual’s perceptions of his
or her presence in the world at the moment when things, truths, or values are
constituted (van Manen, 1990).

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 Four existentialisms guide phenomenological reflection: temporality
(lived time), spatiality (lived space), corporeality (lived body), and
relationality or communality (lived human relation) (van Manen, 1990).
People are considered to be tied to their worlds—embodied—and are
understandable only in their contexts. Existence in this sense is meaningful
(being in the world), and the focus is on the lived experience. Human
behavior occurs in the context of relationships to things, people, events, and
situations.
Two major assumptions underlie phenomenology. The first is that
perceptions present us with evidence of the world—not as it is thought to be
but as it is lived. The lived world, or the lived experience, is critical to
phenomenology. The second assumption is that human existence is
meaningful and of interest in the sense that we are always conscious of
something. Existence as being in the world is a phenomenological phrase
acknowledging that people are in their worlds and are understandable only
in their contexts. Human behavior occurs in the context of the four
existentialisms introduced above: relationships to things, people, events, and
situations.

What Sorts of Questions Are Asked?

Phenomenological inquiry may not be formalized as a question per se.
The researcher may have an interest targeted toward simply understanding
the meaning of the lived experience in a particular phenomenon, with
questions arising as inquiry proceeds. Therefore, these questions are what
sensitize inquiry in the study. For instance, in considering his experiences as
a parent of a child undergoing a heart transplant, Smith (1989/1992)
describes his frustration with the delays in obtaining postoperative analgesic
for his child:

The interviewer does not simply ask a question of whose interests

are being served—the parents’ or the child’s? But rather, he asks,
how can a medical decision be made in presumably the best interests
of the child by ignoring those of us who have been responsible by
now for the welfare of the child? If we, the parents of a particular
child, want to remain close to our child, what might we be up against
when a crucial medical decision is made as to what should be done
for our child? What sort of logic would deny fundamental
responsibility we feel for our child? (p. 106)

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 In published reports, the research questions are often embedded in the
introductory remarks that set the context of the study. For instance, Kelpin
(1984/1992), in her study of birthing pain, notes that the pain of childbirth
has a particular “centrality” for women’s relationships as mothers and as
human beings. The way Kelpin considers her research topic provides us
with an excellent example of the way phenomenologists consider their
research questions:

What do the pains of birth tell us about ourselves, about our

sufferings and our joys? Is there something in the pangs of childbirth
which holds true for all women: those who pleasure and ride above
the pain? Those who endure it? And those who suffer? Some
birthings are short and intense, some are long and exhausting, and
some in need of medical intervention and treatment with forceps,
medication and Caesarian delivery. Is it possible that viewing pain-
as­lived may reveal sublimity and joy as well as the agony, the
hurtfulness of the pain of childbirth? Our immediate appraisal of
pain­as­experienced may bring light to inner meanings that go
beyond theoretical and practical approaches. By coming to an
understanding of the pain as experienced by women we may be able
to come to grips with the significance or essence of the pain. (pp.
93–94; reprinted with permission from the University of Alberta and
SAGE)

Van Manen (1990) notes that stating a question directly often simplifies
the problem, so in phenomenology, the actual research question may be left
implicit. Clarke (1990/1992), for instance, explores her child’s experience of
asthma in light of her own reflections on her child’s experience. She does
not state the question explicitly but introduces it in the phenomenological
way, using voices of her daughter’s essay (“Memories of Breathing”), voices
of poets as illustrators, and voices from the phenomenological literature,
while her own voice guides our insights into the experience.

The Researcher’s Stance

When thinking phenomenologically, the researcher attempts to
understand, or grasp, the essence of how people attend to the world (using
the four existentialisms), remembering that a person’s description

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is a perception, a form of interpretation (Boyd, 1993; van Manen, 1990).
Every day, we consciously experience concrete objects through intuition.
Giorgi (1997), on the other hand, notes that presences are the experience of
many phenomena that are not “realistic” but are vital to the understanding of
the lived experience. These are such things as dreams and delusions.
Intentionality is the essential feature of consciousness. Consciousness is
always “directed to an object that is not in itself conscious, although it could
be, as in reflected acts” (p. 236).

What Sorts of Data Are Needed?

Phenomenological researchers aim to bracket all a priori knowledge
about the topic; by writing their assumptions, knowledge, and expectations,
they hope to enter the conversation with no presuppositions. These early
writings are themselves data. They most frequently gather new data by using
audio recorded “conversations” without predetermined questions, following
a “clue­and­clue­taking process” as the conversations proceed (Ray, 1994, p.
129). They then transcribe these recorded conversations and use them as a
basis for reflection. During analysis, phenomenologists also reflect on
personal experiences, observations, and the experiences of others—even
those expressed in poetry, literature, and film.

What Do the Results Look Like?

Phenomenology gives us insights into the meanings or the essences of
experiences we may previously have been unaware of but can recognize.
This experience of confirmation is known as the phenomenological nod. The
essence may be presented in an essay as several segments or perspectives,
each describing a different dimension of the experience. Phenomenological
researchers may share the results of their studies in essays or in book-length
works.

Different Approaches Within Phenomenology

All phenomenologists subscribe to the belief that being human is a
unique way of being, in that human experiences and actions follow from

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their self­interpretation (Benner, 1994, p. ix). But phenomenological
methods have evolved in more than one direction and take several forms
that have some commonalities. Van Manen (2011) has classified the
following orientations:

Transcendental phenomenology (Husserl and his collaborators:

Eugen Fink, Tymieniecka, Van Breda, and Giorgi): This interpretation
is presuppositionless and based on “intentionality” (“all conscious
awarenesses are intentional awarenesses”) and “eidetic reduction”
(vivid and detailed attentiveness to description). Transcendental
phenomenology explores the way knowledge comes into being, and
knowledge is based on insights rather than objective characteristics,
which “constitutes meaning.”
Existential phenomenology (Heidegger, Sartre, de Beauvoir,
Merleau-Ponty, Marcel, and others): According to this perspective, the
observer cannot separate him­/herself from the lived world. “Being-
in­the­world” is reality as it is perceived, and a reciprocal relationship
exists between the observer and the phenomenon that includes all
thoughts, moods, efforts, and actions within the life­world that is man
situated. Pre­reflected experiences, the life­world, and phenomena
constitute existence, or human reality.
Hermeneutical phenomenology (Heidegger, Gadamer, Ricoeur, and
van Manen): In this orientation, knowledge comes into being through
language and understanding. Understanding and interpretation are
intertwined, and interpretation is an evolving process. Hermeneutic
phenomenologists use culture (symbols, myth, religion, art, and
language), poetry, and art in their interpretations. Van Manen’s (1990)
method starts with the exploration of a pedagogically grounded
concept within the everyday lived experience. Through processes of
reflection, writing and rewriting, and thematic analysis, the researcher
may describe and interpret the essence or meaning of the lived
experience.
Linguistical phenomenology (Blanchot, Derrida, and Foucault): This
orientation takes the perspective that language and discourse reveal
the relations between “understanding, culture, historicality, identity,
and human life.” Meaning “resides in language and the text, rather
than in the subject, in consciousness, or even in lived experience.”

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 Researchers use heuristic phenomenology (Moustakas, 1994) when they
seek to understand themselves and their lived worlds. Although such
research is autobiographical, the questions it answers may have social, and
even universal, significance. Heuristic research “unfolds” through initial
engagement, immersion into the topic and the question, incubation,
explication, and culmination of the research in “creative synthesis”
(Moustakas, 1990).

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
Briefly, discourse analysis is the study of “language in use”—not just the
study of language to say things but to “do things. People use language to
communicate, co­operate, help others, and build things like marriages,
reputations, and institutions. They also use it to lie, advantage themselves, to
harm people, and destroy things like marriages, reputations, and
institutions” (Gee, 2011, p. ix).
At first glance, there could hardly be greater contrast than that between
phenomenology and discourse analysis. They seem to represent the
extremes of interpretive flight and disciplined description. Where the
phenomenological researcher is positing meanings and essences of a
phenomenon, the discourse analyst is intent on interpreting what is said and
written.
But there is a strong link between this method and the others considered
so far. All are based in the conviction that social reality is socially
constructed. The ethnographer watches that reality unfold, the grounded
theorist examines the processes of acceptance or challenge, and the
phenomenologist directs attention to the meanings “reality” gives to our
lives and their parts.
For the discourse analyst, the focus is on speech and written
communication. Speech includes the speaker’s nonverbal cues (such as
gaze, gesture, and action), the listener, and relevant context. By examining
these, we can, it is argued, gain insight into the social construction of our
lives.

What Sorts of Questions Are Asked?

The questions asked by all sorts of discourse analysis concern the
meanings and implications of words spoken or recorded, and how the

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taken-for­granted messages behind these words have social implications.
But different approaches will pursue these questions in different ways and,
thus, have different emphases on interpretation and description.
Phillips and Hardy (2002, pp. 34–38) provide a useful tabulation of
selected examples of studies. They include studies from political, business,
organizational, media, and cultural enquiries, which have tackled small and
huge questions. In a later chapter, they outline in detail how they framed the
research question in their own study of refugee politics. “In this study, we
examined the way in which organizations used power to discursively shape
the conceptualization of a refugee in ways that protected their interests” (p.
61).
For some discourse analysts, the questions cover wide enquiry about
discourse as a creator and reflector of social reality. “Whereas other
qualitative methodologies work to understand or interpret social reality as it
exists, discourse analysis endeavors to uncover the way in which it is
produced” (Phillips & Hardy, 2002, p. 6). Discourse for these researchers is
“an interrelated set of texts, and the practices of their production,
dissemination, and reception, that brings an object into being” (p. 3).
Importantly, the questions may come from the texts. Crawford (1995, p.
126), in her analysis of a talk show discussion of date rape, offers an
extended example of questions raised by texts, using the show transcripts
and researcher’s reflections on them.
As mentioned in Chapter 2, such questions are tackled also by the
method of conversation analysis. The contrast is so sharp that you will find
conversation analysis sometimes discussed as a separate method. Discourse
analysis is interpretive, focuses on language use, prepares the text
differently, uses different analytic methods, and answers different types of
questions than does conversation analysis (Morse considers them to be
different). On the other hand, because its focus is on analysis of speech and
texts, Richards sees conversation analysis as a variant of discourse analysis,
considering the main aim of conversation analysis to be elucidating the
structures of talk. Here the questions may be about repetitions, hesitations,
or turn taking in conversation. “They study talk because they want to know
about talk” (Cameron, 2001, p. 1).
The questions asked, not surprisingly, vary widely. Discourse may be
studied to elicit differences in gendered experience (see Wodak, 1997) or the
ways one political approach is made to seem “natural.” Or, for the
conversation analysis, the recording of speech enables talk and interaction to
be explored “at a site where intersubjective understanding about the
participants’ intentions is created and maintained. It therefore gives

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access to the construction of meaning in real time” (Peråkylå, 2004, p. 168).
The questions asked are detailed, about “the architecture of interaction, and
the attendant expectations” (Wooffitt, 2005, p. 7).

The Researcher’s Stance

Since the emphasis is on discourse as part of the social construction of
everyday life, it is not surprising to find that discourse analysis strongly
argues for “reflexivity.” This is a demand common across qualitative
methods, where attention is increasingly paid to the researchers’ ability to
reflect on and acknowledge their place in and impact on what is studied.
Discourse analysts argue that their methodology unusually directs
researchers, who are investigating their own social worlds and languages, to
reflect on their part in what is studied, their selection of the voices to be
heard, and their ability to challenge or question the texts studied. Phillips
and Hardy (2002, p. 85) provide a table of aspects of reflexivity.
A strong tradition in discourse analysis is “critical”; here the researcher
stands in defiance against taken­for­granted assumptions and justifications.

What Sorts of Data Are Needed?

Usually, the discourse analyst will examine many episodes of texts or
talk and their interrelationships. Transcription is required and is usually
“broad” (that is, accurate text including expressions such as “laughs, or
coughs” and pauses, and line numbers). This type of transcription may be
contrasted with narrow transcription conventions used in conversation
analysis (see Titscher, Meyer, Wodak, & Vetter, 2000, p. 58). There is
usually also a preference to use bodies of text, “because it is the
interrelations between texts, changes in texts, new textual forms, and new
systems of distributing texts that constitute a discourse over time” (Phillips
& Hardy, 2002, p. 5). Depending on the research question, these data are
supplemented with data about the society and current context.
Conversation analysis has a different, “data­centered” emphasis.
Sampling of texts is done carefully to represent aspects of the problem
studied (see Titscher et al., 2000, p. 58). Because all accounts of the
situation are problematized by the method, there is “a principled reluctance
to draw on ethnographic characterizations of the setting and its

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participants in the analysis” (Wooffitt, 2005, p. 63). Focus on the text means
that other “external” issues such as power or gender relations become
relevant only if made so by that text. Moreover, issues about the text may
become the entire focus of the study, as the researcher observes turn taking
or hesitations.

What Do the Results Look Like?

Such studies always surprise. The goal of the discourse analyst is to get
behind taken-for­granted meanings of language or text. So reports will
challenge assumptions, deconstruct apparently straightforward accounts, and
display hidden meanings. For a reader unfamiliar with such research,
articles in discourse analysis are often startling. Taking a few passages of
text, these methods expand analysis to sometimes extraordinary complexity,
since any particular phrase or repetition may lead to a reflection on its
significance. Thus, most studies start very focused, on a text or a
conversation, and work in great detail through its parts and possibilities.
From the minutiae of conversation, they move to often high­level social or
political claims.

Different Approaches Within Discourse Analysis

There are many forms of discourse analysis, the main one being critical
discourse analysis. Critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2010) focuses on
power and “hidden agendas,” on what is “wrong with a society (institution,
an organization, etc.) and how the ‘wrongs’ might be ‘righted’ or mitigated,
for a particular normative standpoint” (p. 7). Fairclough emphasizes that this
approach is more than the analysis of discourse but “some form of
systematic transdisciplinary analysis of relations between discourse and
other elements of the social process” (p. 10).

CASE STUDY METHOD

We have sketched four very different qualitative methods, each challenging
for the newcomer. These ways of approaching social questions are not
immediately familiar. Each has its origin in a wider theoretical tradition.

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Each has its own fit of question, data, and outcome, and to achieve that fit,
the researcher will have to learn a new way of thinking about reality and
new skills to design and conduct research.
By contrast, our fifth method, case studies, seems much more
approachable. Everyone knows what a case study is; descriptions of “case
studies” adorn website marketing and brochures for products from
investment portfolios to governmental programs. These case studies offer
cheery thumbnail sketches of the (always positive) experience of a small
number of people who have used the product or tried the program, usually
studded with quotations of their own enthusiastic words. As a quick way to
a deadline, this sounds easy. But be warned: As for all qualitative research,
what works for the marketing manager can spell disaster for the PhD
student!
In the introduction to his classic text, Yin (2009) comments that “using
case studies for research purposes remains one of the most challenging of all
social science endeavors” (p. 3). Why should this be so?

What Sorts of Questions Are Asked?

Case study is usually seen as a study of a particular social unit or system.
Most writers emphasize that a case is “bounded” and studied in its natural
setting as a whole. Usually, the larger question is to understand the wider
social phenomenon of which it is a case. Stake (1995) explains,

Custom has it that not everything is a case. A child may be a case. A

teacher may be a case. But her teaching lacks the specificity, the
boundedness, to be called a case. An innovative program may be a
case. All the schools in Sweden can be a case. But a relationship
among schools, the reasons for innovative teaching, or the policies of
school reform are less commonly considered a case. These topics are
generalities rather than specifics. The case is a specific, a complex,
functioning thing. (p. 2)

This is a method, then, that seeks understanding of a social situation or

process by focusing on how it is played out in one or more cases. In other
words, the cases studied are always cases of something. The researcher has
started with a question and moved to locating it in a microcosm, one or a
few bounded cases.

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The Researcher’s Stance
Case studies have long been used in social research, traditionally by
researchers wishing to give voice to less­prominent social groups or types.
The relevant tradition in British sociology is “community studies,” and in
the United States, the work of the Chicago School, picturing the lives and
contexts of slum neighborhoods and their occupants.
“Case study method” is a more recent arrival—and still a highly
controversial one—with very different meanings across disciplines. You will
find some collections of case studies designed simply to assist a reader in
gaining a vivid picture of examples of an innovation or sites of a problem,
whereas others aim more at meta­analysis (see Chapter 4), bringing together
conclusions from many research sites.
Almost always, there is a commitment to qualitative techniques, to
methods seeking to understand how those under study experience their
world. In some texts, including Yin’s (2009), case study method is treated as
the alternative to experiment, survey, archival, or historical analysis; here
“case study” appears sometimes to encompass any qualitative research. In
others, a “case study” is a particular way of pursuing qualitative inquiry,
distinguished from other qualitative research by its own design rules (for
two recent examples, see Swanborn, 2010, and Thomas, 2011; see also the
collection edited by Gomm, Hammersley, & Foster, 2000). Many authors,
particularly in educational and business studies, write “with some sense of
advocacy” (Stake, 1995, p. xii)—not for those they are studying but for the
method itself, promoting case studies as the most desirable and convincing
way of conducting and presenting research.

What Sorts of Data Are Needed?

Case study research, ideally, will need detailed data on that case,
thoroughly analyzed, to provide “a rich picture—with boundaries” (Thomas,
2011, p. 21). The goal is to understand the case or cases as completely as
possible. Most case study texts offer the full palette of qualitative data-
making methods, with a particular emphasis on field research by participant
observation and interviewing. Some include, and a few emphasize,
quantitative methods.
So case study research is unlike the other methods sketched in this
chapter in that it is defined by the location and focus of the study, not by

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an intellectual and methodological tradition. It may use methods from many
traditions. Stake (1995) says his view of case studies “draws from
naturalistic, holistic, ethnographic, phenomenological and biographic
research methods” (p. xi).
Studies are conducted within a limited geographical scope (in a single
institution, unit, family, village), are located within a single program or
incident, or may even be bounded by a single person’s experience. The
researcher gathers in­depth data, focusing on the particular problem and
analyzing all data obtained from that particular case in context, within the
identified boundaries.

What Do the Results Look Like?

A good case study is usually a good read. This is because it is focused,
offering a powerful representation of the situation or person studied. It may
look like a story or a journalistic account, as did the classic studies of the
Chicago School vividly conveying city lives and their contexts (Platt, 1992).
Or it may look like a thorough dissection of all the factors and forces
affecting a program or site. Whatever its presentation, it will offer intensive,
detailed descriptions of the case and a sense that the case is thoroughly
understood.
It will usually not claim generalization beyond the case or offer external
comparison.

The real business of case study is particularization, not

generalization. We take a particular case and come to know it well,
not primarily as to how it is different from others but what it is, what
it does. There is emphasis on uniqueness, and that implies
knowledge of others that the case is different from, but the first
emphasis is on understanding the case itself. (Stake, 1995, p. 8)

Note that this mode of handling data is very different from the synthesis
of grounded theory or ethnography, in which data for each category from
each participant are merged and analyzed as a category, separate from the
participant. Herein lies the challenge of case study research. The study will
stand or fall on the quality of the analysis of one or a few cases. It is all too
easy for such a study to become simply richly descriptive.

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Different Approaches Within Case Study Method
Given the variety of purposes and approaches, it is not surprising that
studies using “case study method” are highly diverse, recommending
different procedures, research techniques, and rules. But unlike the other
methods discussed in this chapter, there are, as yet, no clearly defined
methodological “schools” with their own approaches.
Several texts do offer typologies of case studies. Stake (2005) suggests
three types of case studies—not as different approaches to the method but as
different research designs for different questions. Intrinsic case studies are
basically about the case—there is an intrinsic interest in it. Instrumental case
studies, by comparison, are for a wider purpose, to answer a question
through study of a particular case. And collective case studies are designed
where it is necessary to compare cases, identifying patterns.
For the newcomer, Thomas offers a summary of several typologies of
case study research, based on their goals, the researcher’s stance, or their
methods, and suggests the ways these can be used to chart an “investigative
path” (Thomas, 2011, pp. 91–95).
The uses of case studies vary considerably between disciplines. Go to
readings in your research area to find the methodological standards applied.

SUMMARY
We have illustrated methodological congruence with sketches of only five
methods. Myriad other methods exist in qualitative research, and more are
being proposed at any time.
The appropriate method for your study may not be one of the five
discussed here. Working from your research question, you may be led to
another qualitative approach, which you will recognize as better able to ask
your question or more likely to produce the outcome you seek. When you
meet a new method, ask of it the questions we posed above—what questions
will it answer, how is the researcher positioned, what data are needed, and
how will this study look when finished? Keep looking until you find a fit
with your project, and resist pressures to fit the project to a method.

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 Working this way, from question to method, you will not be tempted to
approach qualitative research as though it were done by one generic method.
A researcher who does so can get far into a study, even all the way through
it, with a result that invites the question, “So what?” That outcome will be
descriptive rather than analytic, the researcher going through the motions of
identifying a question, conducting interviews, and then sorting data by
identifying themes or categories. The report will locate patterns but will
rarely produce a theoretical outcome. “Sorted data” as an end result are only
as interesting as the data themselves. Such a study may be very interesting,
but if conducted without the benefit of a coherent method, it will usually end
at this descriptive level.
You will encounter many examples of such work. Our aim is not to
condemn descriptive work but, rather, to show how it differs crucially from
research within a congruent qualitative method and why such descriptive
work is often not regarded as qualitative or accepted for publication in
qualitative journals (Morse, 1996). Concerned with the problems of
researchers’ attempting to retrofit a congruent qualitative method to data-
sorting and pattern­finding tasks, Richards (2000) has labeled such
descriptive work “pattern analysis.” In short­term pragmatic studies
especially, researchers may have no goals beyond seeking and reporting
patterns in data—for example, by demographic variables such as gender or
structural factors such as socioeconomic settings of schools studied. If the
task is to find out whether the responses to an idea addressed in focus
groups vary by gender, or to establish whether the level of acceptance of an
initiative in schools is different in lower­ and upper­class areas, unstructured
data may be necessary and relevant, and analysis may not require
abstraction. Often, such studies combine qualitative and quantitative data
skillfully and usefully, with the discovery of patterns in the unstructured
data illuminating the statistical analysis. If your goal is pattern analysis,
many of the techniques discussed in this book may assist you in discovering
and reporting patterns. But don’t represent your study as grounded theory.
The lens provided by a method is what enables abstraction from data, the
emergence and construction of theory about the data, and the linking of the
results to the literature and other theories. In this chapter, we have tried to
convey that each method will have a different fit of question to research
process and outcome. That fit will set the researcher’s perspective. To do a
phenomenological study, you must think as a phenomenologist; to do an
ethnography, you must think as

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an ethnographer; to discover a grounded theory, you must think as a grounded
theorist; and so forth. This is so important that Morse says she has “different
tracks” in her brain for thinking in the various ways demanded by individual
methods. Within the perspective of each method, the researcher manipulates
data by using analytic techniques. Although these analytic techniques appear
similar for all methods, how they are used with the data is what makes a method
a particular method. Different methods may use similar techniques, but the
individual method’s strategy (the way the techniques are used) gives it a unique
application and produces a unique result.
The goal of all qualitative inquiry is not to reproduce reality descriptively
but to add insight and understanding and to create theory that provides
explanation and even prediction. The best way to gain an appreciation for these
differences is to read completed studies that provide examples of the various
methods. Ask yourself: How do these studies differ? What contributions do
each offer? What level of abstraction or theory development has each reached?
Can you begin to identify how each of the authors has obtained abstraction and
has, at the same time, come to understand the phenomenon in context?

RESOURCES

Ethnography: Methodological Resources

Agar, M. H. (1986). Speaking of ethnography. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Agar, M. H. (1996). The professional stranger: An informal introduction to
ethnography (2nd ed.). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Atkinson, P., Coffey, A., Delamont, S., Lofland, J., & Lofland, L. (2001).
Handbook of ethnography. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Bernard, R. H. (1988). Research methods in cultural anthropology. Newbury
Park, CA: Sage.
Boyle, J. S. (1994). Styles of ethnography. In J. M. Morse (Ed.), Critical issues
in qualitative research methods (pp. 159–185). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Carspecken, P. F. (1996). Critical ethnography in educational research. New
York: Routledge.
Ellis, C., & Bochner, A. P. (Eds.). (1996). Composing ethnography: Alternative
forms of qualitative writing. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira.
Ellis, C., & Bochner, A. P. (2000). Autoethnography, personal narrative,
reflexivity: Researcher as subject. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.),
The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 733–768).
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Fetterman, D. M. (2010). Ethnography: Step-by-step (3rd ed.). Newbury Park,
CA: Sage.
Goldman­Segall, R. (1998). Points of viewing children’s thinking: A digital
ethnographer ’s journey. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. (See also website
at http://www.pointsofviewing.com)

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Greenwood, D. J., & Levin, M. (1998). Introduction to action research: Social
research for social change. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Hammersley, M., & Atkinson, P. (1983). Ethnography: Principles in practice.
London: Tavistock.
Knoblauch, H. (2005). Focused ethnography. Forum Qualitative
Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 6(3), Art. 44.
Retrieved from http://nbnresolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114­fqs 0503440
LeCompte, M. D., & Preissle, J. (1993). Ethnography and qualitative design in
educational research. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Madison, D. S. (2005). Critical ethnography: Method, ethics, and performance.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Muecke, M. (1994). On the evaluation of ethnographies. In J. Morse (Ed.),
Critical issues in qualitative research methods (pp. 187–209). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Reason, P., & Bradbury, H. (2008). The SAGE handbook of action research:
Participative inquiry and practice (2nd ed.). London: Sage.
Schensul, J. J., & LeCompte, M. D. (Series Eds.). (1999). Ethnographer ’s
toolkit (7 vols.). Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira.
Smith, D. E. (2005). Institutional ethnography: A sociology for the people.
Toronto, Canada: AltaMira.
Spradley, J. P. (1979). The ethnographic interview. New York: Holt, Rinehart &
Winston.
Spradley, J. P. (1980). Participant observation. New York: Holt, Rinehart &
Winston.
Tedlock, B. (2000). Ethnography and ethnographic representation. In N. K.
Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research
(2nd ed., pp. 455–486). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Thomas, J. (1993). Doing critical ethnography. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Van Maanen, J. (Ed.). (1995). Representation in ethnography. Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage.
van Manen, M. (2011). Orientations in phenomenology. Retrieved January 17,
2012, from http://www.phenomenologyonline.com/inquiry/orientations-in-
phenomenology/
Wolcott, H. F. (1999). Ethnography: A way of seeing. Walnut Creek, CA:
AltaMira.

Reading Ethnography
Applegate, M., & Morse, J. M. (1994). Personal privacy and interaction patterns
in a nursing home. Journal of Aging Studies, 8, 413–434.
Cassell, J. (1992). On control, certitude and the “paranoia” of surgeons. In J. M.
Morse (Ed.), Qualitative health research (pp. 170–191). Newbury Park, CA:
Sage. (Original work published 1987)
Davis, D. L. (1992). The meaning of menopause in a Newfoundland fishing
village. In J. M. Morse (Ed.), Qualitative health research (pp. 145–169).
Newbury Park, CA: Sage. (Original work published 1986)
Germain, C. (1979). The cancer unit: An ethnography. Wakefield, MA: Nursing
Resources.

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Morse, J. M. (1989). Cultural variation in behavioral response to parturition: Childbirth
in Fiji. Medical Anthropology, 12(1), 35–44.
Spradley, J. P. (1970). You owe yourself a drunk: An ethnography of urban nomads.
Boston: Little, Brown.

Grounded Theory: Methodological Resources

Bowers, B., & Schatzman, L. (2009). Dimensional analysis. In J. M. Morse, P. N. Stern,
J. Corbin, B. Bowers, K. Charmaz, & A. E. Clarke (Eds.), Developing grounded
theory: The second generation (pp. 86–124). Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
Charmaz, K. (2000). Grounded theory: Objectivist and constructivist methods. In N. K.
Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed.,
pp. 509–535). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Charmaz, K. (2006). Constructing grounded theory: A practical guide through
qualitative analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Charmaz, K. (2009). Shifting the grounds: Constructivist grounded theory. In J. M.
Morse, P. N. Stern, J. Corbin, B. Bowers, K. Charmaz, & A. E. Clarke (Eds.),
Developing grounded theory: The second generation (pp. 127–154). Walnut Creek,
CA: Left Coast Press.
Chenitz, W. C., & Swanson, J. M. (1986). From practice to grounded theory. Reading,
MA: Addison­Wesley.
Clarke, A. (2005). Situational analysis: Grounded theory after the postmodern turn.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Clarke, A. (2009). From grounded theory to situational analysis: What’s new? Why?
How? In J. M. Morse, P. N. Stern, J. Corbin, B. Bowers, K. Charmaz, & A. E.
Clarke (Eds.), Developing grounded theory: The second generation (pp. 194–234).
Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
Corbin, J. (2009). Taking an analytic journey. In J. M. Morse, P. N. Stern, J. Corbin, B.
Bowers, K. Charmaz, & A. E. Clarke (Eds.), Developing grounded theory: The
second generation (pp. 35–53). Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
Corbin, J., & Strauss, A. (2008). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and
procedures for developing grounded theory (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Glaser, B. G. (1978). Theoretical sensitivity: Advances in the methodology of grounded
theory. Mill Valley, CA: Sociology Press.
Glaser, B. G. (1992). Basics of grounded theory analysis: Emergence vs. forcing. Mill
Valley, CA: Sociology Press.
Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for
qualitative research. Chicago: Aldine.
Morse, J. M., Stern, P. N., Corbin, J., Bowers, B., Charmaz, K., & Clarke, A. E. (Eds.).
(2009). Developing grounded theory: The second generation. Walnut Creek, CA:
Left Coast Press.
Schreiber, R. S., & Stern, P. N. (Eds.). (2001). Using grounded theory in nursing. New
York: Springer.
Stern, P. N. (1994). Eroding grounded theory. In J. M. Morse (Ed.), Critical issues in
qualitative research methods (pp. 212–223). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

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Stern, P. N. (2009). Glaserian grounded theory. In J. M. Morse, P. N. Stern, J. Corbin, B.
Bowers, K. Charmaz, & A. E. Clarke (Eds.), Developing grounded theory: The
second generation (pp. 55–84). Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
Stern, P. N., & Porr, C. (2011). Essentials of accessible grounded theory. Walnut Creek,
CA: Left Coast Press.
Strauss, A. L. (1987). Qualitative analysis for social scientists. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Strauss, A. L., & Corbin, J. (1994). Grounded theory methodology: An overview. In N.
K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (pp.
273–285). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Strauss, A. L., & Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and
procedures for developing grounded theory (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Reading Grounded Theory

Corbin, J., & Strauss, A. L. (1992). A nursing model for chronic illness management
based on the trajectory framework. In P. Woog (Ed.), The chronic illness trajectory
framework: The Corbin and Strauss nursing model (pp. 9–28). New York: Springer.
Glaser, B. G. (Ed.). (1993). Examples of grounded theory: A reader. Mill Valley, CA:
Sociology Press.
Lorencz, B. J. (1992). Becoming ordinary: Leaving the psychiatric hospital. In J. M.
Morse (Ed.), Qualitative health research (pp. 259–318). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
(Original work published 1988)
Morse, J. M., & Bottorff, J. L. (1992). The emotional experience of breast expression. In
J. M. Morse (Ed.), Qualitative health research (pp. 319–332). Newbury Park, CA:
Sage. (Original work published 1988)
Stern, P. N., & Kerry, J. (1996). Restructuring life after home loss by fire. Image:
Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 28, 9–14.
Turner, B. A. (1994). Patterns of crisis behaviour: A qualitative inquiry. In A. Bryman &
R. G. Burgess (Eds.), Analyzing qualitative data (pp. 195–216). London: Routledge.

Phenomenology: Methodological Resources

Benner, P. (Ed.). (1994). Interpretive phenomenology: Embodiment, caring, and ethics
in health and illness. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Boyd, C. O. (1993). Phenomenology: The method. In P. L. Munhall & C. O. Boyd
(Eds.), Nursing research: A qualitative perspective (2nd ed., pp. 99–132). New
York: National League for Nursing.
Giorgi, A. (1997). The theory, practice, and evaluation of the phenomenological
methods as a qualitative research procedure. Journal of Phenomenological
Psychology, 28, 235–281.
Moustakas, C. (1990). Heuristic research: Design, methodology, and applications .
Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Moustakas, C. (1994). Phenomenological research methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Ray, M. A. (1994). The richness of phenomenology: Philosophic, theoretic, and
methodologic concerns. In J. M. Morse (Ed.), Critical issues in qualitative

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 research methods (pp. 117–133). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
van Manen, M. (1990). Researching lived experience: Human science for an action
sensitive pedagogy. London, Ontario: Althouse.
van Manen, M. (2011). Orientations in phenomenology. Retrieved January 17, 2012,
from http://www.phenomenologyonline.com/inquiry/orientations-in-
phenomenology/

Reading Phenomenology
Clarke, M. (1992). Memories of breathing: Asthma as a way of becoming. In J. M.
Morse (Ed.), Qualitative health research (pp. 123–140). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
(Original work published 1990)
Kelpin, V. (1992). Birthing pain. In J. M. Morse (Ed.), Qualitative health research
(pp. 93–103). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. (Original work published 1984)
Smith, S. J. (1992). Operating on a child’s heart: A pedagogical view of
hospitalization. In J. M. Morse (Ed.), Qualitative health research (pp. 104–122).
Newbury Park, CA: Sage. (Original work published 1989)
van Manen, M. (1991). The tact of teaching: The meaning of pedagogical
thoughtfulness. London, Ontario: Althouse.
van Manen, M. (Ed.). (2011). Textorium. Retrieved January 17, 2012, from
http://www.phenomenologyonline.com/sources/textorium/

Discourse Analysis: Methodological Resources

Cameron, D. (2001). Working with spoken discourse. London: Sage.
Crawford, M. (1995). Talking difference: On gender and language. London: Sage.
Fairclough, N. (2003). Analysing discourse: Textual analysis for social research. New
York: Routledge.
Gee, P. J. (2011). How to do discourse analysis: A toolkit. New York: Routledge.
Peråkylå, A. (2004). Conversational analysis. In C. Seale, G. Gobo, J. F. Gubrium, &
D. Silverman (Eds.), Qualitative research practice (pp. 165–179). London: Sage.
Ten Have, P. (1999). Doing conversation analysis: A practical guide. London: Sage.
Titscher, S., Meyer, M., Wodak, R., & Vetter, E. (2000). Methods of text and discourse
analysis. London: Sage.
van Leeuwen, T. (2008). Discourse and practice: New tools for critical discourse
analysis. New York: Oxford University Press.
Wodak, R., & Meyer, M. (2009). Methods for critical discourse analysis. London:
Sage.
Wooffitt, R. (2005). Conversation analysis and discourse analysis: A comparative and
critical introduction. London: Sage.

Reading Discourse Analysis

Antaki, C., Finlay, W. M. L., & Walton, C. (2007). Conversational shaping: Staff
members, solicitation of talk from people with intellectual impairment. Qualitative
Health Research, 17, 1403–1414.
Barnard, R., Cruice, M. N., & Playford, E. D. (2010). Strategies used in the pursuit of
achievability during goal setting in rehabilitation. Qualitative Health Research, 20,
239–250.

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Caldas­Coulthard, C., & Coulthard, M. (1996). Texts and practices: Readings in critical
discourse analysis. London: Routledge.
Crawford, M. (1995). Talking difference: On gender and language. London: Sage.
Fairclough, N. (2010). Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language.
Harlow, UK: Longman.
Gee, J. P. (2011). Hope to do discourse analysis: A toolkit. New York: Routledge.
van Leeuwen, T. (2008). Discourse and practice: New tools for critical discourse
analysis. New York: Oxford University Press.
Wodak, R. (Ed.). (1997). Gender and discourse. London: Sage.

Case Study Method: Methodological Resources

Gagnon, Y.­C. (2010). The case study as research method. Boisbriand, Quebec, Canada:
Presses de l’Université du Quebec.
Gomm, R., Hammersley, M., & Foster, P. (Eds.). (2000). Case study method. London:
Sage.
Platt, J. (1992). Cases of cases … of cases. In C. C. Ragin & H. S. Becker (Eds.), What
is a case? Exploring the foundations of social inquiry (pp. 21–52). New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Stake, R. E. (2005). The art of case study research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Swanborn, P. (2011). Case study research: What, why and how? London: Sage.
Thomas, G. (2011). How to do your case study: A guide for students and researchers.
London: Sage.
Yin, R. K. (2009). Case study research: Design and methods (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage.

Reading Case Study Method

Aldinger, C., & Whitman, C. V. (2009). Case studies in global school health promotion:
From research to practice. New York: Springer.
Kinuthia, W., & Marshall, S. (2010). Educational technology in practice research and
practical case studies from the field. Charlotte, NC: Information Age.
McNabb, D. (2010). Case research in public management. New York: M. E. Sharpe.
Yin, R. K. (2003). Applications of case study research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

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