ontology & epistemology week 9

• Quantitative


  Numbers, generates shallow but broad data, identifies relationships between variables to explain or predict, experimental methods (hypothetico-deductive approach, hypothesis testing), has a fixed method, aims to generalise to wider population, values detachment and impartiality (objectivity)
• Qualitative


  Words, generates 'narrow' but rich data, seeks to understand and interpret more local meanings, non-experimental (inductive, exploratory approach), has flexible method that can be adjusted as the study progresses, sometimes generates knowledges that contributes to more general understandings, values personal involvement and partiality (reflexivity)
• Why do qualitative research?


  • To understand why or how something happens
  • To understand people's experiences on various topics and how these have affected them
  • To do preliminary work in an under-researched area
  • Allows much greater flexibility in terms of the information gathered, which can help to identify new processes, understanding
  • To provide detailed and nuanced analysis of how people discuss a particular topics/issues/experiences
  • If it best answers the research question you want to ask
• Epistemology


  Concerned with the nature of knowledge, how knowledge is acquired, meaningful ways of producing knowledge, and to what extent knowledge is possible
• Ontology


  The nature of being, what is real, and what exists
• Theories of Reality In Qualitative Research: Ontologies


  • Positivism- dominant epistemological framework underpinning scientific research; it assumes that an objective reality
  • Realist (Post)positivism – small q qualitative
  • Relativist : non- positivist- big G qualitative
• Theories of Knowledge in Qualitative Research: Epistemologies

  • Positivism- dominant epistemological framework underpinning scientific research; it assumes that an objective reality
  • Contextualism- views knowledge and people who created it, as contextually situated, partial and perspectival
  • Constructionism- a normative relationship between research, language and knowledge – research practices produce rather than reveal evidence
• Epistemology and ontology in qualitative research


  • Ontology = Subjectivist/Relativist
  • Epistemology = Typically Social constructionist
• Research questions in qualitative research


  • Experiences: What are neurodivergent young people's experiences of sexuality education?
  • Influencing factors: What factors influence people with alcohol addiction to enter treatment?
  • Understandings and perceptions: What are expert professionals' views of risk in relation to sexual coercion for men who have sex with men (Braun et al., 2009)?
  • Representations: What are the representations of migrants in the tabloid press?
  • Constructions: How do government documents construct alcohol use and abuse?
  • Language practices: How do people construct and mitigate their own drinking practices in interaction?
• Qualitative data collection


  • Interviews/semi-structured interviews
  • Focus groups
  • Ethnography/participant Observation
  • Self-report diaries
  • Broadcast and print media
  • 'Naturalistic' data obtained from everyday or institutional settings
  • Online data/blogs
• Semi-structured interviews


  • Interviewer follows a schedule which serves as a guide, rather than a strict plan
  • Interviewer conduct the interview as a guided conversation, not a spoken questionnaire
  • Interviewer is able to deviate from the question guide and free to probe interesting areas that arise
  • Ordering of questions is less important than in structured interview
  • Use of open-ended questioning
  • Attempt to establish rapport between the interviewer/interviewee
• Collecting online data


  • Internet communities... are rich sources of qualitative data
  • Internet-data-as-topic
  • Internet-data-as-resource
  • The internet offers opportunities for researchers who "seek to understand secretive, illicit social activities and access groups who are hard to locate and engage"
  • Groups or behaviour that only exist online
  • Collecting naturally-occurring data
  • Ethical considerations of using online data
• Methods of analysis


  • Thematic Analysis (TA)
  • Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA)
  • Grounded theory
  • Narrative analysis
  • Discourse analysis
  • Discursive psychology
  • Foucauldian discourse analysis
  • Conversation analysis and study of gesture
  • And combinations of these!
• Ethics in qualitative research


  • Ethics in qualitative research are potentially more uncertain, complex and nuanced than in quantitative research
  • The potential interpretation and use of findings
  • Informed consent more complex because of the open-ended nature of qualitative research
  • Broader claims are unknown at the start of data collection
  • Confidentiality – more possibility of identifying participants/Interpreting participants' experiences – "fearing a participant's anger or pain in hearing my interpretation of their experience"
  • Analysis is "an act of betrayal, no matter how well intentioned or integrated the researcher"
  • The researcher/participant relationship
  • Subjective interpretations of data, and the design itself
  • A researcher's deception or disclosure of damaging information can occur
  • Researchers are obligated to anticipate the possible outcomes of an interview and to weigh both benefits and potential harm
• What makes a sensitive topic


  • Any topic can be sensitive
  • Those that have the potential to cause harm to participants, eliciting powerful emotional responses
  • Also… topics that may cause distress to the research team
• Examples of sensitive topics in qualitative research


  • bereavement
  • death and dying
  • suicide
  • illness or pain
  • disability
  • abuse
  • trauma
  • race
  • sexuality and sexual activity
  • 'non-normative' lifecourses
• Some Ethical Procedures


  • Integral part of ethical practice
  • Comprehensive language
  • Researcher's responsibility to COMPLETELY inform the nature of the study, the participants' potential role, the identity of the researcher and the financing body, the objective of the research, how the results will be published and used
• Some Ethical Procedures: Newman guidelines