PSYC 204 Unit 9

• Qualitative Research


  Quite different from the quantitative research that we’ve mostly focused on so far
• Examples of Qualitative Research Question:

  • How do homeless people in London experience their lives?
  • What social and environmental barriers do parents and children see to healthy eating, physical activity, and child obesity prevention programs?
  • How do Cohabiting same-sex couples think about and manage their finances?
  • How is male and female sexuality represented in women’s magazines?
  • How is prejudice like racism ‘done’ in and through language?
  • These are all real examples
• Main aspects of Quantitative Research:

  • Numbers used as data (and when words are used it is limited options)
  • seeks to identify the relationship between variables with the aim of generalizing the findings to a wider population
  • Data is shallow and broad (not a lot of detail from each participant, but many participants take part)
  • Aims to reduce diversity to an average response
  • Tends to be deductive (theory-testing)
• Main aspects of Qualitative Research:

  • Words (and images) used as data and often require participants to get answers in their own words and analyze
  • Seeks to understand and interpret local meanings; sometimes produces knowledge that comes to more general (Ex: Sarah Sangster PhD thesis down syndrome diagnosis in Sask.)
  • Generates narrow but rich data and ‘thick descriptions’ (detailed accounts from each participants; only a few take part)
  • Seeks patterns and differences
  • Tends to be inductive (theory-generating)
• Sarah Sangster PhD dissertation:

  Note that it was on the experience of people in Sask, a pre or postnatal down syndrome determination, and what their life was like raising a child w/ down syndrome
• Methods of Data Collection for Qualitative Research:

  • Interviews
  • Focus groups (group interviews)
  • Surveys
  • Researcher-directed diaries
  • Obtaining pre-existing textual data
  • Newspapers, magazines, textbooks, advertisements, websites, blogs, political speeches, Instagram comments, any other “fragments of culture”
• Title of Quantitative Example


  Assessment of sexual behaviors, sexual attitude, and sexual risk in Sweden (1989-2003)
• Research aim

  To identify changes in the general, Swedish populations, attitudes, knowledge, beliefs, and behaviours related to HIV/AIDS over time
• Sample


  Random sample stratified for age generated from the general population in 1989 1994 1997 and 2003 (n=4000 each year)
• Method of data collection

  Survey-quantitative questionnaire (closed-response), consisting of 85-90 items, delivered by mail
• Method of data analysis

  Statistical, Multiple logistic regression, a statistic method that determines the relative influence of multiple variables on a particular outcome
• Key results in Quantitative Example

  • Neither hypothesis supported. Significant increase in casual sex without condoms and with multiple partners between 1989 and 2003; attitudes to 'sex' outside relationships was more permissive in 2003 than 1989
• This type of research can show

  1. Changes in sexual attitudes and practises (at a population level)
  2. Factors that might predict outcomes
  3. Why these changes occurred
  4. The meanings of different experiences
• Our evaluation of Quantitative Example

  1. useful for mapping large population level patterns
  2. Can inform interventions
• Qualitative Example Title: 


  ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ — Sexuality and risk in HIV-positive youth in Sweden
• Qualitative Example Research Aim


  To explore perceptions of sexual risktaking among HIV positive youth, and their understanding of why they contracted HIV.
• Qualitative Example Research Questions

  1. How do HIV-positive youth perceive sexual risktaking?
  2. How do HIV-positive youth understand why they contracted HIV?
• Qualitative Example Sample


  sample of 10 HIV positive Sweden residents, (five female, five male seven born in Sweden, three born abroad) aged between 17 and 24. Participants were recruited through HIV clinics/organizations
• Method of data collection in Qualitative Sample


  In depth semi structured interviews; tape recorded, transcribed verbatim
• Method of Data Analysis in Qualitative research example

  Grounded theory. Multiple stages of coding and recoding the data into core categories and sub categories.
• Key results of Qualitative Research example

  Identified two main clusters of factors that limited individuals possibilities for choice and sexual interactions.
• Conclusions of Qualitative Research example:

  Sexual experience and practises are context, bound. Power, and gender affect most experiences
• This type of Qualitative research can show:

  1. Can offer insights into the lived complexity of individuals
  2. Can help understand how and why young people are at risk for HIV
• This type of Qualitative research cannot show

  1. General patterns across the population
  2. Cause and effect
• Our evaluation

  1. Useful for gaining a deep understanding of what a topic really is like for people in their lives
  2. Can inform interventions
• Common Characteristics about Qualitative Research

  1. Qualitative research is about meaning not numbers
  2. Qualitative research does not provide a single answer
  3. It acknowledges that there is more than one way of making meaning from the data essentially more than one “story”
  4. Interpretations from a given interview/focus group can be true
• Qualitative research treats context as important

  1. Quantitative researchers: level of control, eliminate impact of extreme factors, isolate impact of IV on DV
  2. Qualitative researchers: attempt to develop a holistic understanding of participants subjective experiences
• Qualitative research can be experimental

  • Experimental: validates views, perspectives, and experiences
  • Driven by desire to know peoples own perspectives
  • Participants interpretations are prioritized accepted and focused on
  • Participants interpretations are more important than researchers
  • To “get inside the person head“
• Qualitative Research can be critical

  • Critical: takes an interrogative stance toward the meaning or experiences expressed in the data
  • Language is understood as the main mode in which the reality of our world is created
  • Doesn’t take data at face value
  • Researchers interpretations take precedent
  • Focus on how languages is used “out there“ in the world
• Transcription


  Transcription: the process of turning audio or video recordings into written text

  1. many different ways of transcribing, it is up to the researcher to choose
  2. Transcription depends on how much detail is needed for the analysis
  3. depends on the methodology being used and the analytic methods
• Coding:

  1. The process of identifying aspects of the data that relate to your research question
  2. First step of majority of qualitative research
  3. Summarizing what’s in your data in regards to your research question
• Methods of Analysis:

  1. Thematic Analysis
  2. Interpretative Phenomenon Analysis
  3. Grounded theory
  4. Narrative analysis
  5. Discourse analysis
• Thematic analysis


  Identified patterns of meaning across a data set in relation to research question
• Interpretative Phenomenon Analysis


  Focuses on how people make sense of their lived experience
• Ground theory


  Focuses on building theory from data; emphasis on understanding, social processes
• Narrative Analysis


  Exploration of human experience as its represented in narratives
• Discourse Analysis


  Concerned with patterns and language use connected to the social production of reality; concerned with how accounts are constructed and particular ways
• Interrogating Qualitative Research


  Applying quantitative criteria, like validity and reliability to qualitative research is illegitimate; like Catholic questions directed to a Methodist audience
• Trustworthiness

  1. Credibility
  2. Transferability
  3. Dependability
  4. Confirmability
• Credibility


  Confidence in the ‘truth’ of the findings

  1. Member checking: returning the analysis to participants to see if it’s accurate
  2. Triangulation: comparing the results of one study to other study studies of similar topics
  3. Negative analysis: presenting cases that go against the dominant narrative
  4. Peer-debriefing: Discuss their study with peers in their field