Qualitative Research Methods

Session 3: 23 October, 2021

Check In Activity
‘Understanding and Applying Research Paradigms in Educational
Contexts’ – download the reading from the course room on BB.

• Re-read the Article (assuming that you have read it once)

• Highlight the most inspiring statements

• Discuss them with the partner sitting next to you

(10 minutes)
From the Previous Session
• What are the philosophical assumptions of quantitative research?

• What is the critic on quantitative research?

5 minutes: Small group discussion

Quantitative Research Methodology: Philosophical
Assumptions
• A fixed social reality exists that may be measured and described.
• Human behaviour is predictable.
• Focusing on uncovering of truth.
• Study of behaviors.
• Guided by Positivism.
Criticism on Quantitative
• Quantitative research can involve little or no contact with people or
field settings.

• Statistical correlations may be based upon ‘variables’ that are

arbitrarily defined by the researchers themselves.

• After-the-fact analysis about the meaning of correlations may

involve some very common-sense reasoning or even speculation
that the research claims to avoid.
 Non-Positivist Paradigm
• Questions the assumptions of the positivist paradigm.

• Argues that our society places too much emphasis on science and technology.

• Argues that this ordered, rational view of consumers denies the complexity of the social and
cultural world we live in.

• Stresses the importance of symbolic, subjective experiences.

 Non-Positivist : Interpretive Research

‘Interpretive studies assume that people create and associate their own
subjective and intersubjective meanings as they interact with the world
around them. Interpretive researchers thus attempt to understand
phenomena through accessing the meanings participants assign to them’
(Orlikowski and Baroudi 1991).

‘Interpretive methods of research start from the position that our knowledge
of reality, including the domain of human action, is a social construction by
human actors and that this applies equally to researchers. Thus, there is no
objective reality which can be discovered by researchers and replicated by
others, in contrast to the assumptions of positivist science’ (Walsham 1993).
Read the statements and write down your views about interpretive research.
Interpretive View of Knowledge

‘Social process is not captured in hypothetical deductions,……. Instead, understanding

social process involves getting inside the world of those generating it’.

The researcher can never assume a value-neutral stance, and is always implicated in the
phenomena being studied’.

‘There is no direct access to reality unmediated by language and preconception’.

(Orlikowski and Baroudi 1991)

Alternative Perspective: Guided by anti-positivist view of
knowledge

knowledge is social and historical

product - constructed/co-constructed
How would
Social phenomena exist not ‘out there’
but in the minds of people and their
your research
interpretations look like, if
you take this
Subjective views position?
Understanding actions/meanings rather
than causes
Methodological Decisions

• Qualitative
• Micro-concepts: individual, perspective,…
• Small scale
• Flexible design
• Non statistical
• Personal involvement of the researcher
• Subjectivity
• Case study/action research/ethnography etc.
Qualitative Research
‘QR is a form of inquiry that explores phenomena in their natural
settings and uses multi-methods to interpret , understand, explain and
bring meaning to them’. [Anderson: P:119].

Assumption:
A profound understanding of the world can be gained through
conversation and observation in natural settings rather than through
experimental manipulation under artificial conditions.
Interpretive: Qualitative Research

‘Qualitative Research…involves finding out what people think, and

how they feel - or at any rate, what they say they think and how they say
they feel. This kind of information is subjective. It involves feelings
and impressions, rather than numbers’.
[Bellenger, Bernhardt and Goldstucker, Qualitative Research in Marketing, American Marketing Association ]
 Qualitative Research
• Qualitative research is multimethod in focus, involving an interpretative, naturalistic approach to
its subject matter.

• Qualitative Researchers study “things” (people and their thoughts) in their natural settings,
attempting to make sense of, or interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to
them.

The choice of research practices/methods depends upon the questions that are asked, and the
questions depend on their context, what is available in the context, and what the researcher can do in
that setting (Nelson et al’s, 1992: 4)
Based on the discussion, how would you define qualitative research – write your definition 2
minutes.
Qualitative Research: Theoretical Assumptions (Interpretive)

• Discovery of how people make sense of their social worlds.

• Many social realities exist due to varying human experience.
• Human behaviour is context bound.
• Research provides insight into social realities.
• Study of meaning of behavior, instead study of behavior.
Qualitative Research Methodology
It is conducted through intense contact
within a ‘field’ or real- life setting.
Themes that emerge from the
data are often reviewed with
[Answers research questions rather than test informants for verification.
a hypothesis.]

The main focus of research is

The researcher’s role is to gain a ‘holistic’ to understand the ways in
or integrated overview of the study,
including the perceptions of participants -
which people act and account
[Obtained detailed information from for their actions.
interviews, content analysis, or
observations.]
What does this image represent?
Paradigm, methodology and methods
Methodology is the bridge that brings a researcher's
philosophical standpoint (on ontology and
epistemology) and method (approaches and tools)
together.
Nature of Inquiry
What would be your methodological framework? Why?

Guided by: Positivist vs. Alternative

Quantitative vs. Qualitative

Write few sentences to justify nature of your research?

5 minutes
The Five Moments of Qualitative Research

Traditional Period: 1900’s-World War II

• Wrote objective colonising accounts of field experiences that were

reflective of the positivist scientist paradigm.

• Concerned with offering valid, reliable, and objective interpretations

in their writings.

• The ‘subject’ who was studied was alien, foreign, and strange.
The Modernist Phase
Post war-1970’s

The modernist ethnographer and sociological participant observer

attempted rigorous, qualitative studies of important social processes,
including social control in the classroom and society.

• Researchers were drawn to qualitative research because it allowed

them to give a voice to society’s ‘underclass’.
1970-1986
• Research strategies ranged from grounded theory to the case study methodology.
• Methods included qualitative interviewing and observational, visual, personal and documentary
methods.
• Computers were becoming more prevalent.
• Boundaries between the social sciences and humanities had become blurred.
• Social science was borrowing models, theories and methods of analysis from the humanities.
• Researcher acknowledged as being part of the research process.
Mid 1980’s-Current Day
• Made research and writing more reflexive and called into question the issues of
gender, class and race.
• Interpretative theories were more common as writers challenge old models of
truth and meaning
The Fifth Moment
Current Day
• Defined and shaped by the dual crisis of representation and legitimisation
• Theories now beginning to be read in narrative terms as ‘tales of the field’
• Concept of an aloof researcher has finally been fully abandoned
• More action oriented research is on the horizon
• More Social criticism and social critique

The search for grand narratives is being replaced by more local, small-scale theories
fitted to specific problems and specific situations.
Popularity of Qualitative Research
No better way than qualitative research to understand in-depth the
motivations and feelings of consumers.
• It is conducted through intense contact within a ‘field’ or real- life
setting.
• The researcher’s role is to gain a ‘holistic’ or integrated overview of
the study, including the perceptions of participants.
• Themes that emerge from the data are often reviewed with informants
for verification.
• The main focus of research is to understand the ways in which people
act and account for their actions.
Qualitative Research as a Process

• Theory
• Method
• Analysis

• All three interconnect to define the qualitative research process

Theoretical Approach
Deductive & Inductive

Deductive Theoretical Approach

• Seek to use existing theory to shape the approach which a researcher adopts to the qualitative research
process and to aspects of data analysis

Analytical Procedures

Pattern Matching
• Involves predicting a pattern of outcomes based on theoretical propositions to explain what you
expect to find.

Explanation Building
• Involves attempting to build an explanation while collecting and analysing the data, rather than testing
a predicted explanation as in pattern matching.
Inductive Approach
Inductive Theoretical Approach
• Seek to build up a theory which is adequately grounded in a number of relevant cases. Referred to
as Interpretative and Grounded Theory
Art of Interpretation
• Field Text: Consists of field notes and documents from the field
• Research Text: Notes and interpretations based on the filed text
• Working interpretative document: Researhers initial attempt to make sense out of what he has
learned
• Public Text: The final tale of the Field
Qualitative Research Methods
• Case Study
• Content Analysis
• Ethnography
• Phenomenology
• Action Research
Ethnography
What are the cultural patterns and perspectives of this group in this
setting?
• Roots in anthropology
• Studies naturally occurring behavior of a group
• Focus on culture and societal behavior
• Describes beliefs, values and attitudes
• Data collection primarily participant observation
• Immersion in site important
• Holistic description of context and cultural themes
Content Analysis
• Roots in communication studies
• Uses written or visual materials or artifacts
• Describes the characteristics of the materials or identify bias, or propaganda in content
• To analyze types of errors
• To describe prevailing practices
• To discover levels of difficulty
• To study relative importance of or interest in pecify what is to be investigated
• Formulate initial categories
• Decide on a sampling plan
• Train coders if using coders
• Analyze materials
Phenomenology
What is the experience of an activity or concept from the perspectives of these
particular participants?
Roots in philosophy
Concerned with essence of phenomenon
Interprets meanings
Includes investigator’s firsthand experience
Interview data
Rich description of invariant structures

https://slideplayer.com/slide/13695337/
Qualitative Data Collection Techniques

• In-depth Interviewing – Semi-structured Interviews

• Focus Groups
• Participant Observations
• Document Analysis
Analysis Qualitative Data:

An Approach
• Categorisation
• Unitising data
• Recognising relationships and developing the categories you are using
to facilitate this
• Developing assumptions /arguments to reach conclusion
Interactive Nature of the Qualitative Process
• Data collection, data analysis and the development and verification of
relationships and conclusion are all interrelated and interactive set of
processes.
• Allows researcher to recognise important themes, patterns and
relationships as they collect data.
• Allows researchers to re-categorise existing data to see whether
themes and patterns and relationships exist in the data already
collected.
• Allows researchers to adjust their future data collection approach to
see whether they exist in other cases.
Tools for helping the Analytical Process
• Summaries
• Should contain the key points that emerge from undertaking the
specific activity
• Self Memos
• Allow you to make a record of the ideas which occur to you about any
aspect of your research,as you think of them
• Researcher Diary
 Assignment 1: A critique of qualitative research (2 000 words)

As part of this assignment each student is to individually select a research

article/report, using a qualitative approach to research (Ethnography, life history,
case study etc.- please note mixed method is not acceptable.) and critique the
methodology, literature review and techniques used in the research study. The
following directions need to be followed for the critique submitted:
(a) The Critique should be of 2000 words
(b) Attached with the critique must be a copy of the material critiqued (in case if it
is a thesis or a large report then include an abstract and indicate where the
material can be found).
(c) The critique will carry 30 points
1) Introduction 3
2) Summary/description 8
3) Critique /your review 15
4) Language, APA etc. 4
________________________________
Your learning from the pre-session reading

Chapter 2: Designing a Qualitative Study Page 13- 26 [Creswell, 2003)

[The first five rows]

Tracy Qualitative Quality: Eight ''Big-Tent'' Criteria for Excellent

Qualitative Research (2010 – last five rows)

10 minutes followed by presentation

Doing Research: What does this framework suggest?
From Maxwell, 2003
Goals: Why is your study worth doing? What issues do you want it to clarify, and what practices and policies
do you want it to influence? Why do you want to conduct this study, and why should we care about the results?
Conceptual framework: What do you think is going on with the issues, settings, or people you plan to study?
What theories, beliefs, and prior research findings will guide or inform your research, and what literature,
preliminary studies, and personal experiences will you draw on for understanding the people or issues you are
studying?
Research questions: What, specifically, do you want to learn or understand by doing this study? What do you
not know about the things you are studying that you want to learn? What questions will your research attempt
to answer, and how are these questions related to one another?
Methods: What will you actually do in conducting this study? What approaches and techniques will you use to
collect and analyze your data, and how do these constitute an integrated strategy?

Validity: How might your results and conclusions be wrong? What are the plausible alternative interpretations
and validity threats to these, and how will you deal with these? How can the data that you have, or that you
could potentially collect, support or challenge your ideas about what’s going on? Why should we believe your
results
Tracy 2010: Designing Research- what does
each criteria mean?
Worthy topic
Rich rigor
Sincerity
Credibility
Resonance
Significant contribution
Ethical
Meaningful coherence
Types of Qualitative Research

1. Ethnography Explores the nature of a specific social phenomenon, often using a

small number of cases.

2. Grounded theory Uses the interplay between analysis and data collection to produce
theory.
3. Phenomenology Explores how people’s taken for granted world is experienced and
how structures of consciousness apprehend the world.
4. Content Analysis

5. Case Study : In depth study of a specific ‘bounded system’, e.g. a person or

institution/phenomena .
6. Action Research Implies an effort on the part of people to understand the role of
knowledge as a significant instrument of power and control.
Continued
Narrative analysis: The analysis of a chronologically told story,
exploring how various elements are sequenced.
Gender studies: Explores the process of constructing and
differentiating gender and particularly gender inequalities.
Tracy 2010: Designing
Worthy topic : The topic of the research is Relevant , Timely, Significant , Interesting
Rich rigor: The study uses sufficient, abundant, appropriate, and complex [Theoretical constructs; Data and time
in the field , Sample(s), Context(s), Data collection and analysis processes]
Sincerity: The study is characterized by [ Self-reflexivity about subjective values, biases, and inclinations of the
researcher(s) ; Transparency about the methods and challenges]
Credibility: The research is marked by [ Thick description, concrete detail, explication of tacit (nontextual)
knowledge, and showing rather than telling; Triangulation or crystallization, Multivocality ]
Resonance: The research influences, affects, or moves particular readers or a variety of audiences through
[ Aesthetic, evocative representation, Naturalistic generalizations, Transferable findings]
Significant contribution: The research provides a significant contribution [Conceptually/theoretically • Practically
• Morally • Methodologically • Heuristically
Ethical The research considers • Procedural ethics (such as human subjects) • Situational and culturally specific
ethics • Relational ethics • Exiting ethics (leaving the scene and sharing the research)
Meaningful coherence The study • Achieves what it purports to be about • Uses methods and procedures that fit its
stated goals • Meaningfully interconnects literature, research questions/foci, findings, and interpretations with eac
What criteria does a researcher use to select the research
tradition/methodology?

• Researcher's Theoretical Position

• Research focus /question
• Methods/Audience
• Significance / relevance
• Comfort level with structure /Personal skills

(From Anderson)
Role of a Researcher
• Maintain physical (emotional?) proximity to research participants.
• Demonstrate ‘theoretical sensitivity’.
• Be insightful.
• Perceive situations holistically.
• Be sensitive to personal bias (reflexivity).
Strengths and Weakness of Qualitative
Research
Strengths
Depth of understanding
Flexibility

Weaknesses
Subjectivity
Validity
Suggestive, not definitive
Limited generalizability

 Mixed methodology is possible

Ways to address weakness

• Triangulation

• Reflexivity
Triangulation
Triangulation requires the multiple data sources (Ferrance ,2000; Ravitch &
Wirth, 2007).

‘The use of multiple data sources is an important guarantor of validity’

(Ferrance ;2000, p. 17) .

E.g. Examining children engagement in mathematics classrooms.

What could be the possible sources of data to ensure validity of the data?
Triangulation
Triangulation
For example, researchers may consider a wide range of sources, including
interviews, student portfolios, field notes, photographs, journals, audio and video
recordings, test results, report cards, attendance records, and samples of student
work, projects, and ongoing written reflection before, during, and after data
collection Ferrance (2000, p. 17) suggests th.
Reflexivity
Reflexivity involves conscious, critical self-awareness by researchers
and co-researchers about their own preconceptions, biases, and
assumptions both before the research begins and as it unfolds.
Tracy 2010:849

Good qualitative research is like a crystal, with various facets representing

the aims, needs, and desires of various stakeholders including
participants, the academy, society, lay public, policy makers, and last, but
certainly not least, the researcher (Ellingson, 2008).
Qualitative researchers will continue to face stakeholder audiences that
require rationale for the goodness of our work. In demonstrating
methodological excellence, we need to take care of ourselves in the
process of taking care of others.
The most successful researchers are willingly self-critical, viewing their
own actions through the eyes of others while also maintaining resilience
and energy through acute sensitivity to their own well-being.
Action research done, individually or in teams, the success or failure of
the interventions attempted must be evaluated by the researchers
themselves. All of these elements contain potential threats to validity.
Reflective journal - as on ongoing analysis of . . . field notes, research
journals, memos, and collaborative logs could help to address issues of
validity in a structured way” (p. 86 - Caro-Bruce et al., 2009)
Action Research: Summary

• Research in action rather than about action

• It has a sequence of events (within a cycle)
• Aims to transform change and/or solve problems in analytical ,
reflective series of actions, evaluations and further actions – Self
consciously analytical]
• Transformation and social justice
• High level of reflexivity