Qualitative Research

• Qualitative research


  A collection of methods and techniques used in the study of social phenomena or action
• Qualitative research


  • In-depth approach to understanding social action
  • Focuses on the 'insider perspective'
  • Studies phenomena in its natural setting
  • Seeks to describe and understand human behavior
• Qualitative research is important in studying new areas, that have not yet been explored
• Qualitative research is important in areas where variables are unknown or where little is known or understood about a phenomenon
• Several qualitative methods can be applied to such studies
• The choices of methods is informed by the paradigm or perspective from which the research is approached
• Paradigms


  All-encompassing systems of interrelated practice and thinking that define for researchers the nature of their inquiry
• Dimensions of paradigms


  • Ontology
  • Epistemology
  • Methodology
• Ontology


  Specifies the nature of reality that is to be studied and what can be known about it
• Epistemology


  Specifies the nature of the relationship between the researcher and what can be known
• Methodology


  Specifies how researchers may go about practically studying whatever they believe can be known
• Paradigms explored in this chapter

  • Interpretive
  • Social constructionist
• Interpretive paradigm


  Researcher believes that what is to be studied consists of people's subjective experiences of the external world
• Constructionist paradigm


  Researcher believes that reality consists of a fluid and variable set of social constructions
• Ontology, Epistemology, Methodology for Interpretive paradigm


  • Internal reality of subjective experience
  • Empathetic
  • Interactional
  • Interpretation
  • qualitative
• Ontology, Epistemology, Methodology for Constructionist paradigm


  • Socially constructed reality
  • Discourse
  • Power
  • Suspicious
  • Political
  • Observer constructing versions
  • Deconstruction
  • Textual analysis
  • Discourse analysis
• Interpretive perspective


  • Takes people's subjective experiences seriously as the essence of what is real for them
  • Makes sense of people's experiences by interacting with them and listening carefully to their stories
  • Makes use of qualitative research techniques to collect and analyze information
• Interpretive research


  • Involves understanding in context
  • Positions the researcher as the primary instrument by which information is collected and analyzed
• Understanding in context


  Knowing not only what the author intended to mean, but also understanding the context in which the author writes
• Understanding phenomena from the perspective of the subject

  The self as instrument
• Interpretive research draws on our everyday practices– interacting with people in an empathetic manner in everyday naturalistic settings
• Interpretive research requires special skills such as listening and the ability to describe and interpret their own presence appropriately in a research project
• In interpretive research, it is the researcher who is the primary instrument for both collecting and analyzing data
• Interpretive research does not use questionnaires/scales or statistical packages
• Listening and interpreting are important for interpretive researchers
• Social constructionism


  The approach that seeks to analyze how signs and images have powers to create particular representations of people and objects
• Social constructionist methods


  • Qualitative, interpretive, and concerned with meaning
• Interpretive researchers focus on subjective understandings and experiences of individuals or groups


  Social constructionists want to show how such understandings and experiences are derived from larger discourses
• Interpretive approaches treat people as though they were the origin of their thoughts, feelings and experiences


  Social constructionist approaches treat people as though their thoughts, feelings and experiences were the products of systems of meanings that exist at a social rather than individual level
• Both interpretive and social constructionist approaches draw on qualitative research methods
• Social constructionism and language

  Social constructionism takes language seriously and considers the human life-world as constituted through language and language itself as the object of study
• An interpretive researcher would seek to understand how people experience stress and what it means for them


  A social constructionist researcher would seek to understand the ways in which stress discourse informs people's perceptions and experiences of stress
• Social constructionist researchers


  • Focus on language used to tell stories
  • The actual stories that are told
  • The discursive strategies used to communicate certain messages
• Social constructionism


  An attempt to introduce an explicitly critical element to social science research
• Social constructionism presents certain political dangers: idealism (tendency to reduce everything to language) and relativism (idea that there are many truths)
• These paradigms inform the methodologies that we choose for our research
• Narrative Research (NR)

  • Narrative is both method and the phenomenon of study
  • Narrative research focuses on people's experiences as expressed in lived and told stories
• Narrative


  A spoken or written text giving an account of an event/action or series of events/actions that are chronologically connected
• Narrative research

  • Focuses on studying one or two individuals
  • Gathering data through a collection of their stories
  • Reporting on individual experiences, and
  • Chronologically ordering their meaning
• Narrative stories


  Tell of individual's experiences and shed light on identities of the individuals and how they see themselves