Research Methods I- Qualitative Research- SWRK 653

Qualitative Research– 653

Typos: courtesy of Itamar Danziger

Mason: Qualitative thinking Chapter 1

Ontology: ones assumptions about the world

Epistemology: how one sees knowledge – what is acceptable evidence – epistemology leads to assumptions about the world (ontology)

-when there is a research study going on, it is trying to explain one of the following:

  • developmental: how X came about
  • mechanical – how something works
  • comparative: how x and Y are similar or different
  • causal/predictive: how one effects another thing

-important – have a good reading of the theoretical background – to avoid irrelevant or duplicate studies (!!!)

Main questions of research

  • what is your ontological framework?
  • What is your epistemological framework/
  • Hat is your broad research area
  • What is your intellectual puzzle/research questions
  • Aims/purposes of your research

Chapter 2 – designing qualitative research

Qualitative research strategy and design

-need a research plan – it lays out your strategy – but it is usually more flexible/dynamic in design than quantitative research designs

-you gotta tie in your research question with the methods you choose to use

i.e.:

  1. what methods are available/appropriate?
  2. What can these methods tell me (ontological)
  3. On what basis do I think that (epistemology)
  4. What research questions will that method help me address?
  5. What theory/literature will they relate to?

Research question Data sources/methods Justification



-alternatively –

Research question Data sources/methods Justification practicalities Ethical issues

-you also wanna see alternate options of building a study and see what others did – and explain why your design is best for what you need.

-you need to be able to properly extrapolate from your research design to your conclusions.

-you may want/need to integrate different methods to come to answering your research questions.

Integrating the methods:

  • technical: you gotta make the different methods comparable: i.e. to make the survey and semi-structured interview align on the scoring level
  • ontological: i.e. legal documents and people's experiences are different. You gotta find a way to relate them
  • integration at the level of knowledge/evidence: do the various methods used stem from comparable epistemologies? For example: the legal expert will look at the written worn as binding, whereas the psych guy will look at the motives “behind the words” (therefore, the divorce rate between couples where one is a lawyer and one is a social worker is high! – I just made that up)
  • integration at the explanation level: does everything (all the sub-methodologies) fit together to make a coherent conclusion? Even though this is the end-stage of your study, you may want to plan your study with foresight into what may come up.

-you need to keep in mind strategic as well as technical implications of choosing one design over another.

-qualitative methodology tries to study the subject at hand with its context

Important ideas:

  • validity: did we study what we really wanted? Does our study really connect with the concepts
  • generalizability: hopefully, our conclusions can be generalized and are not specific/localized
  • reliability: can we be crosschecked? Are our tools accurate (i.e. measure the same thing consistently, or do they vary according to weather, etc…

ethics: we also have to look at the ramifications of our study as well an even how we phrase and frame our studies and study designs.

Research designs will include:

  1. research question
  2. background to the research
  3. methodology approach and research strategy
  4. proposed methods/techniques of data generation
  5. sampling/access (i.e. how the data will be collected/scored)
  6. how the data will be handled/analyzed
  7. plans for pilot study (including formulizing aim, rationale, design, and review/analysis technique
  8. ethnical/moral/political issues are to be dealt with
  9. How long is the project expected to take?
  10. What resources are requires?
  11. Who will do the research? What skills are needed?
  12. Dissemination plans/proposed uses of the research
Howard Goldstein – Ethnography, Critical Inquiry and Social Work Practice The difference between qualitative research and practice is clinical distorted. Quantitative tries to isolate factors, and make it objective while qualitative tries to seek the subjective. Constructivism: tried to construct the meaning and subjective reality as created by dialogue between two people –i.e. in a therapeutic relationship

-qualitative research ties to be holistic, true to context, and not reduce the situation to mere numbers.

Ethnography: studies the experiences of ethnicities: it is a kind of qualitative research. This approach is more welcomed by the participants, and they tend to be less resistant to the researcher

-critical inquiry: a form of inquiry which looks at practice in a critical way – without the numbers crap of course, but it is the meta-rule of qualitative research. Just like ethnologies, it assumes that there are multiple realities, socially/personally created. It is kind of “consciousness raising”. Assumption: you need to be somewhat part of world in order to understand it. In a sense, practitioners do ethnography by trying to ender the clients' world.

Quantitative it top-down: bring the researcher's schemas into the field. The qualitative research is bottom-up – in where it creates schemas from the field. Its kind of like a market study – just for consumers who are generally underrepresented.

In short: qualitative research tried to avoid reducing reality to dry variables.



Sept. 4, 2008

Issues to be discussed in class


stages


-here, the people are the center of our research.

Learning outcomes:


Assignments

  1. assignment 1 – position yourself as a researcher
    1. sept 25
  2. paper outlining your research question
    1. oct 16
  3. interview and analysis assignment
    1. oct 30
  4. student presentation
    1. nov 13/20
  5. research proposal
    1. nov 27

written assignment guidelines



Why are we here?

-improve effectiveness/efficacy of practice

-understand problems better

-Policymaking is influenced by research. It is very important to fit in the qualitative… it is still lacking in the policymaking world

-seeing if practice and policy decisions regarding appropriate assessments and treatments

What is qualitative research

Multi-method


Multi-source


-sees subjectiveness as important

-natural source =is most important – more than manipulating situation.

The observer is the key instrument. This has reflexivity;

-in qualitative studies, the studier is mitigates what he says. Therefore we have to know his position

Descriptive: data is the words and not the numbers.

Concerned with the process rather than outcome. Asks how instead of why something happens

Inductive analysis/interpretive - seeks to discover – not to test seeks to understand experiences - looks for themes

Meaning and subjectivity are central – how do people make sense of their lives? What is the participant's perspective?

Tradition of inquiry

  1. case study – exploration of a system or case (1+). There are many kinds of case studies: interviews/focus groups/etc…
  2. Ethnography: to learn about a group: implies long term engagement
  3. grounded theory: looking at the group and then building a theory
  4. narrative: look at the stories which are told – look at single person's experiences
  5. phenomenology: an examination of meanings of people's experiences – look at a singular phenomenon – i.e. parent to ADHD – not individual's experience but the experience of someone who has X

Qualities of a good researcher

-people mentioned things similar to individual intervention things – empathy, humor, able to listen, etc…

Assignment#1 Why do you personally want to study topic X as opposed to other topic what is it about it that interests you? What do you bring into the social locations that you bring to the exploration of this topic? What are the values/goals of there different social locations? how do those locations and your philosophy positions shape:

  1. kinds of questions that you want to ask
  2. theories that you will choose
  3. setting/populations that you intend to work with
  4. types of methods you might choose
  • no references




Sept. 11, 2008 class

Qualitative research has 3 principles:

  1. you can learn something from interactions/relationships. Values human interaction and human perspective. The participant is central/the way they say/represent/describe.
  2. Compared to quantitative, qualitative likes to use their language/quotes.
  3. The participants shapes the study– voice/representation

Historical influences

  1. anthropological tradition
  2. reflexive paradigm – questioned positivism
  3. feminist
  4. postmodern

you gotta have:



reflexive paradigm


Post-modern critique:


Third methodological method:

  1. mixed methodology (mix of qualitative and quantitative)
  2. assumption is that quantitative came before qualitative
  3. each “side” is seeking superiority
  4. multiple ways of contextualizing research through integration of approaches

5 guiding assumptions

  1. multiple nature of reality (ontological)
  2. Close relationship between researcher and participant (epistemological)
  3. Value laden aspect of inquiry (axiological issue)
  4. Personal approach to writing the narrative (theoretical issue) – social workers study things because “We think it is important!”
  5. Emerging inductive methodology of the process of research (the methodological issues). i.e. you speak more about who the person was in the study. This approach allows the researcher to be more open to the possibility that the participants will set the tone and not the researcher will set the schematic category.

Video

Questions of qualitative research

-interested in circumstances of every day life.

Ethnography uses


Textual observation: uses


applications examples:

  1. circulation of audio-visual material from terrorists. You can study them better with qualitative and less from quantitative methods
  2. doing business in a foreign country – gotta know the culture

gatekeeper: the contact person – the middle man between the researcher and his participants from different “cultures” or social groups

Punch, M. (1998). Politics and ethics in qualitative research. In N. Denzin & Y.S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Landscape of Qualitative Research: Theories and Issues (pp. 156-184). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
This article discusses potential issues of research:
  • the researcher is not neutral
  • politics of context/organization might disturb the study
  • codes/consent
  • deception
  • privacy/harm/identification
  • confidentiality
  • trust and betrayal (especially hard for populations like people involved in crime)
Andersen, M. (1993). Studying across differences: Race class, and gender in qualitative research. In J. Stanfield & D. Rutledge (Eds.), Race and Ethnicity in Research Methods (pp. 39-52). Newbury Park: Sage Publications
This article ponders how/if it is possible to study people in different cultures/statuses than the qualitative researcher. The assumption is that there is a cultural difference which makes the understanding of the participant difficult if not impossible. There is also an element of arrogance/status differences – in which the researcher is seen as “above” the participant The conclusion drawn in this article is that it is somewhat possible – with the researcher's ability to self-reflect his assumptions and positions.
Gerber, R. (2004, March). Review note: Will van den Hoonard (Ed.) (2002). Walking the tightrope: Ethical issues for qualitative researchers. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 5, 2, 1-5, (AN 14613597). http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/2-04/2-04review-gerber-e.htm
-Brings up issues with research ethics, especially qualitative research -In qualitative research, ethic issues which come up mostly are:

  • anonymity
  • confidentiality
  • consent
  • harm

ethical questions which come up:

  • using data not for the proscribed thing
  • anonymity over the internet
  • emotive content coming up which the study did not initially intend
  • qualitative study does not necessarily know fully the research questions until initial study is underway
  • is voicing researcher's “voice” over the one of the participant

themes in ethics writings:

  1. difference between ethics and morality (ethics are the specific rules of morality)
  2. dealing with ethics committees and policies – harder for qualitative research
  3. research processes – i.e. knowing in advance/anonymity/confidentiality/informed consent/silenced voices
  4. research ethics trend: ethics needs to be more explicit about new technology used in studies – i.e. the internet and possible privacy needs
  5. combining the narrative and ethical issues

For qualitative studies, research ethic boards need to:

  1. recognize the complexity of social settings
  2. not knowing the extent of the data in the beginning
  3. avoiding as much as possible the literature
  4. emphasizing accuracy
  5. seeking out deviant or negative cases

Sept 18, 2008

Ethics of concealment: deception & disclosure

Usually comes up in the consent form. The question is how much you tell.

Range: disclosureàneglectàdeceit

Neglect is when you don't tell people at all that you are observing… i.e. if you are observing people on the street.

Deceit: when purpose of study and researcher's role in unknown (=full deceit).

Confidentiality and privacy

Anonymity –researcher doesn't know the participant's details or what category that they are in. the confidentiality –someone knows who you are but the person being evaluated (i.e. teacher) does not know who said what -Tenet: never reveal the identity of the responder

Distress and Emotional Harm

Principle of least harm – you have to make arrangements for professional referral prior to your study!

Informed consent


coercion/deform consent


incentives/payback


risk to the researcher


power



Violation of the moral code


socially responsible research


Assignment 1: Positioning Yourself as a Researcher (15%)
Due date: September 25, 2008

In this paper (3 pages, double-spaced, 1” margins), discuss the reasons why you want to do your proposed study. Reflect on the different social locations that you bring to the study. What are the values and goals of these different social locations? How do you think your various locations and philosophical positions will shape the kinds of questions you want to answer, the theories you choose, the setting or population you intend to study, and the kinds of methods you will adopt?

-why am I interested in this?

-who you specifically are – and how this ties into to your study


Sept 25, 2008

Examining research design

-2nd half of class – mapping the concepts – for out research design

Reseach components


using philosophic assumptions/theoretical frameworks/guiding assumptions


conceptualizing the research process (methodology)



Introduce the study


Picking who/what you interview depends:


sampling stratagies

In small groups:
  • Discuss relationships you see among concepts.
    • For example, if you’ve drawn lines between the concepts, think about directionality.
    • Think of concrete examples.
    • Brainstorm various ways of arranging the concepts.
    • Ask your colleagues if they understand the connections you’ve made.

For 2nd paper – 16th of october -state problem leading to your study

Formulating the central purpose of the study

Providing the research questions

àlit. review leading up to the research question. APA format



Family Pathology

àprotective factors = no repetition of pathology

àn protective factors = mediating factors in learning the pathology

Question: does next paper include lit review?

Oct 2, 2008

-get your questions ready for next class


characteristics of research questions



Example



Your research questions need to take account of



Who will help you enter the field?

Gaining entry: common questions from those in the setting

1) What are you actually going to do?

2) will you be disruptive?


Gatekeeper: people within the community who will help you accessed them.

  1. What are you going to do with your findings?
    1. Decide how you will use the material; share this decision/information with your participants.

  1. What will we get out of this?
    1. Decide what you are prepared to give.



Difference between research questions and interview questions

If you are conducting interviews in your study:


Research interviews are different than clinical interviews:


framing your study




Achieving coherence;


What type of information will you collect? (Lofland, 1984)


structure of interview


structured interview


Unstructured interview


-unstructured interview is harder to code – but you are looking for themes in such interviews

Semi-structured interview:


Thinking of what to ask:



Factors that shape the questions you ask


Who do you interview?

Depends on...


Types of questions


àbetter to record – so you won't be stuck taking notes. You may want to write down key words

Questions to include



Questions to avoid




Questions to ask yourself and others about your interview questions (Manson, 1997)


Small group work

  1. on own, write 1 problematic interview question
  2. discuss the problematic question
  3. revise the question and share with group

  1. so, did you actually abuse your child, and how could you?

Anderson, K. & Jack, D.C. (1991). Learning to Listen: Interview Techniques and Analyses. In Sherna Berger Gluck and Daphne Patai (Eds.), Women’s Words: the Feminist Practice of Oral History (pp. 11-25). New York: Routledge.

3 factors are named as thwarting the interviewee from on reflecting on experiences:
  1. organization/interviewer agenda
  2. not [fully] shifting from traditional to feminist [narrative?] paradigms
  3. conventions of social discourse

shedding agendas

-many times, important experiential and subjective information is lost in the interview due to the interviewer [or organization's] agenda ài.e. sticking to facts/certain details and experiences while not to others/face value of information

The problem of not [fully] shifting from traditional to feminist [narrative?] paradigms

-important to suspend our prevailing schemas when interviewing – this allows for the subjective to emerge

Conventions of social discourse:

  • if you want to got the subjectiveness of people from cultures which are pragmatic in their way of speaking, then speaking solely in their form of speaking will not elicit enough subjectiveness
  • some interviewers fear asking about subjectiveness for lack of clinical training
  • interviewers might feel tension between their interviewing interests and cultural norms (i.e. in groups where you can't question elders, then asking the younger generation about their subjective experiences on the matter might be hard, especially in front of those elders)
  • gotta ask about the meaning of the language used – i.e. what does “nervous breakdown”, “good wife”, “good husband” mean [to the person speaking/interviewee] àthis allows to see how a person experiences living up to his or her ideals
  • sometimes, there are messages in our questions, such as shifting topic in our questions – possible message: can't speak to much about this or that emotion/topic

3 techniques of understanding the narrator (Jack):

  1. listening to the person's moral language: seeing the discrepancy between self-concept and social norms. i.e. being a good woman might be understood as being dependant on husband àwe might need to rephrase such statements in strengths lingo: need for closeness, and how it is not answered by the morals of the male-dominated society
  2. meta-statements: statements about statements. i.e. “what does morality mean to you?” àhelps the person see discrepancies within the self. It help expose the categories used to monitor one's thoughts.
  3. Logic of the narrative: seeing consistencies and contradictions in one's narratives of themes. Seeing assumptions and beliefs about interpretation of one's experience. i.e. thinking “one should serve others” as well as “serving only oneself” might lead to a hopeless experience àhard to balance self and others.

àbalancing isolation and subordination.

àintersection of unresolved personal issues ad conflicting social ideals might lead to difficulties of forming positive/realistic image of the self

àthus, depression could be seen on the individual level but can also be seen in social/historical perspective

Conclusion:

-interviewing can help us sharpen conflicts/complexities of life. Historians should look at more subjective aspects of the interview while psychologists should give more weight to contextual elements

-this article tried to help people shift focus from fact-finding to process/interactional uncovering [can't focus on non-verbal cutes in textual studies!]

Moving from informational to interactive processes requires skills (Anderson):

      1. actions/things/events are accompanied by emotional experiences which give them meaning
      2. some of those feelings exceed the boundaries of accepted/expected norms
      3. people must explain what they mean in their own terms

Further points to sharpen our attention to interactive processes

  1. listening to the narrator
    1. questions need to be open-ended to allow narrator to tell own story. Narrator's interpretation and experiences guide the interview
    2. if question are not answered, then what/whose questions are their answering?
    3. What are the feelings about facts/events described?
    4. How is the interviewer understanding what happened? What is the meaning of those events? Does the narrative see the issue in more than one way? How does s/he evaluate what is being described?
    5. What is being left out? What is “absent”?
  2. listening to ourselves (as interviewers)
    1. not cutting off the interviewee and not steer to our concerns
    2. trust out hunches/feelings/responses that arise through listening to others
    3. notice our own areas of confusion or of too great a certainty about what the narrator is saying àthose are areas to probe further
    4. notice out personal discomforts – those are alarm bells alerting us to the discrepancy between what is said and what the narrator is feeling

-oral history interviews allow going beyond the storyline through the interaction of researcher and subject. It allows for a revelation of experience which is less culturally edited.

àyet the interviewer has to be careful not to intrude: gotta follow the narrator's lead. It may be hard to balance privacy and the promotion of expressiveness


October 9, 2008

Data collection

Components o the research design


preparation for the research interviews


Some interview tips –Berg, 1992, 57-58


Using documents as a data source


Visual data


participant observation


Gold's typology of observer roles – 1958

-roles are not static àpeople may move positions depending on interactions


how does the participant-observer role differ from our everyday role as an observer?


How do we select people/places to study?


Recording information:
writing field notes


-in the course of collecting/reflecting upon data

Field notes


Fieldnotes: Descriptive/Substantive and Reflective




Recording the information you gather

What are substantive field notes?


what are you looking for?


What should be in a field log? (Burgess, 1982)

    1. Substantive field notes

Making the notes:



-keep notes in your original language as you are listening àtranslate later àbetter to keep the original language

Clues for recalling data (Berg, 1995)


Interview assignment



Morgan, D.L. (1996). Focus groups. Annual Review of Sociology, 22, 129-152.
Focus group - is a group interview. It began as a marketing thing it allows for:

1) data collection
2) interactional information
3) researcher's active role in creating the group discussion

-focus groups are not therapeutic groups, or leaderless groups. the point is that there is specifically a researcher who tries to collect data

Group interviews are different that focus groups because Group interviews
(i) are conducted in informal settings
(ii) use nondirective interviewing; or
(iii) use unstructured question formats

-there is a debate as to how much directiveness one needs in a focus group
Focus groups are used social sciences, such as in: communication studies, education, political science , public health, aging, criminology, medical sociology, political sociology, social movements, and the sociology of work


-One can use Focus groups to get at things like program evaluation and efficiency
-Focus groups “give a voice” to marginalized groups

-advantages to focus group include
* empowering “clients”
* as a tool in action and participatory research
*Similarly, feminist researchers have noted the appeal of focus groups because they allow participants to exercise a fair degree of control
over their own interactions

-one can combine focus groups with other methods, like surveys or personal interviews
-combining survey and focus group is complex since you are combining qualitative and quantitative methodologies


-when choosing your method of data collection, one can assume that different tools collect the same data in better or worse ways, depending on the situation, or that they collect different information
There is a trade-off between the depth that focus groups provided and the breadth that surveys offered.
Comparing between focus groups and individual interview: the existence of differences between what is said in individual
and group interviews is as much a statement about our culture as our methods,and this is clearly a research topic of interest in its own right.

-strength of focus groups is not simply in exploring what people have to say, but in providing insights into the sources of complex behaviors and motivations, and seeing how the interacting influences those behaviors

Strengths of Focus group include:
* seeing interactions
* seeing agreements and disagreements
* seeing diversity
* people help each other explain themselves

Weaknesses of Focus group include:
* group's influence of data
* researcher's influencing the data -->also true for other tools of data collection
* impact of the group on its participants concerns the range of topics that can be researched effectively in groups -->i.e. some things are generally not appropriate or easy to discuss in public.

Research Design: some claim the need to make more methodological the focus group tool.

--> many of the group-level decisions are related to issues of group dynamics that help to ensure a productive discussion.

PROJECT-LEVEL DESIGN ISSUES
* standardization -->debates as to whether one needs it in qualitative research
* sampling issues
* Number of groups - i.e. how many people in each group

GROUP-LEVEL DESIGN ISSUES
* Level of Moderator Involvement
* Group Size

Quality concert
Need high standards for reporting (i.e. group composition, questions asked), as well as highly trained interviewer

Future of Focus groups
-need more specification on specifically how to do data analysis with this


Dr. David Este – guest lecturer – focus group

Focus group

-generated by group – members have data – thoughts/emotions, etc…

Kruger: carefully planned discussion



focus group myths


Characteristics of focus groups



Advantages of focus group interviews


limitations


planning


-gotta make sure that the place is set up comfortably – not in public. Some interview in two – best sitting across from each other – to see everyone around.

Hosting the group


co-moderator:

  1. roles

recording


recruiting participants

-gotta explain why you are doing this research – i.e. its purpose

Selection strategies

incentives


quality of good focus group questions


àties in to “safe environment”

Examples of probes


Beginning of the focus group discussion


ethics

-ethics boards are part of such studies

-we need to make sure no hard is done to anyone

àconsent for is important. The downside is that it

Role of moderator


moderator roles



-need to be respectful to all participants ài.e. set the tone for entire session

-anticipating the flow of discussion

-moderator's reactions to respondents

Closing the session

-Wind up discussions

-thank the participants

-Describing follow-up/debrief

Capturing data


-be ready for the unexpected! i/e/ no one shows up/showing up with kids/etc…

October 23, 2008

Data analysis



àin practice, it is best to mix between the two


analysis in the field:


developing coding categories

-important stage in data analysis


mechanics of working with the data




Basic questions

  1. what is it about here? What phenomena are mentioned here?
  2. Who – which actors/persons are involved?
  3. By which means/tactics/strategies are we going to reach our goals
  4. How much? What is the intensity/strength?
  5. Why? – what are the reasons which are given or could be reconstructed
  6. What purpose? What are the intentions


Moving from codes to themes

-look for relationships between the codes

àwhich themes jump out?

àidentify strong and important quotes

Data processing and transformation from grounded theory


Grbich, C. (2007). Theorising from data. In Carol Grbich, Qualitative data analysis (pp.185-194). London: Sage.
Theorizing from data -you can have three levels of theory:

  1. Micro-theory
  2. Mid-theory
  3. Grand theory

Theorizing

-you can look at the data

  1. a pre-determined theory:
  2. methodological underpinning: looking at the data, looking for specific elements: i.e. grounded theory looks for interactions
  3. researcher choice: look across various theories to get a more abstract explanation
  4. theory minimalization

theory testing vs. theory generation

  1. theory testing/direction: theory is stated and data is meant to test this theory - Set theory/concept to an observation
  2. theory generation: draw ideas from various theories

theory

  • micro –deal with a concept
  • mid – concept interaction
  • grand - overview

classical ethnographic approaches: Theory directing

newer ethnographic approaches: you do not have to start with a theory!

  • grounded theory: organize your data through constant comparing with other segments of data, theory and literature
    • substantive theory: particular theory
    • formal theory: deal with the broader picture

  • phenomenology – depth of experience, but looks for the broader perspective too
  • feminist research
  • content analysis:
    • predefined categories
    • word co-occurrence, [factor analysis], using psych scales, thematic analysis

  • conversation analysis
  • semiotic analysis of visual images
    • analysis of universal visual material –i.e. how the front page of the newspaper is displayed
  • hermeneutic approach – i.e. see what is excluded
  • theory building through metaphor – i.e. make analogies to see a new organizing logic

summary

-you can use micro/mid/grand theories or a mix of them.




October 30, 2008

Moving your analysis forward and writing up your results

Components of the research design

1. Using philosophical & theoretical frameworks

2. Writing the introduction to the study

3. Collecting data

4. Analyzing data

5. Employing standards of quality & verifying results

6. Writing the narrative report

Finding a balance

-Making sense of data entails movement from description to analysis to interpretation.

Description

What is going on here? Data consist of observations made by researcher and/or reported to researcher by others

Analysis

Addresses identification of essential features and systematic description of inter-relationships among them - in short, how things work.

In terms of stated objectives, analysis may also be employed to address questions of why system is not working or how it might be made to work better.

Interpretation

-Addresses questions of meanings and contexts - What does it all mean? What is to be made of it all?



Basic definitions


Using theory in your analysis


Analytic strategy: visual depictions (Strauss & Corbin, 1998)


CONSTRUCTING A THEORETICAL NARRATIVE FROM TEXT
(Auerbach & Silverstein, 2003, 42-76)

PHASE I: Making text manageable


Step 1: Explicitly state research purpose and theoretical framework.

Step 2: Select relevant text for further analysis. You need to cut down mass of raw data to manageable proportions


Step 3: Discover repeating ideas by grouping together related passages of relevant text



PHASE II: Hearing what was said

Step 4: Organize themes by grouping repeating ideas into coherent categories.

PHASE III: Developing theory

Step 5: Develop theoretical constructs by organizing themes into more abstract concepts.


Step 6: Create theoretical narrative by retelling participant’s story in terms of theoretical constructs.


Determine your daily writing goal


thinking on paper




Myth of the perfect first try (Fine, p. 49)


Develop your own work process


Once you start

Internal Interruptions:


Tips for writing


deadlines


Moving from Zero to a first draft


Techniques for exploring ideas (Hacker, 1996) – organizational tools


Audience


Getting support


Revising

Types of revision

  1. Reduce
  2. Rethink and rearrange
  3. Reword

Revision strategies


Author representation: questions of concern – i.e. how will you deal with a different social location


quotes


Telling a story

Desirable features of a qualitative report (Lofland & Lofland)


Ways of telling a story


Qualitative data analysis software



Nov 6, 2008

We will speak about research design and valid [credible]

Components of the research design

1. Using philosophical & theoretical frameworks – describes the planning [proposal] before the actual research àcould be for a sponsor/donor

2. Writing the introduction to the study

3. Collecting data

4. Analyzing data

5. Employing standards of quality & verifying results àmaking sure that our study is credible

6. Writing the narrative report

Different methodological approaches (Auerbach & Silverstein, 2003)

Quantitative:



Qualitative:


Standards of qualitative research (Howe & Eisenhardt, 1998)


Standards of qualitative research -(Lincoln, 1995)


Credability


“Validity”/Credibility (or, how might I be wrong?) (Maxwell, 1996, 86-98)



Types of validity/credibility in qualitative research


Main threat in description


Main threat in interpretation


Main threat in theory


àso you can't say it's statistically valid or objective. But it does reflect what is going on.

Specific threats to credibility:

Researcher bias


Reactivity


Procedures for a credible study


Prolonged engagement and persistent observation


Triangulation


Peer review or debriefing


Member checks


Searching for discrepant evidence and negative cases


Clarifying researcher bias


Audit trail and external audits


‘Rich’ data


Generalizability/Transferability


Transferability


Criteria for the justifiable use of subjectivity to interpret data

Transparency



Communicability


Coherence



Questions for discussion on standards, verification, credibility

How would you judge a qualitative study?


How do you know an account is accurate?


What makes for a credible study?


And still more questions to consider…



Community Action Research -Some definitions of CAR



PAR is not “a” research method


PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH

GOALS Answering questions of daily survival and providing insights & concrete changes into the daily struggles of life and living of ordinary people in struggle
METHODOLOGY Challenges myth of neutrality and objectivity; Emphasizes subjectivity, involvement, consensual validation in data collection& analysis

RESOURCE
Generated by people traditionally excluded from participating in knowledge production & decision making; institutional assistance through grants, loans and subsidies, initiated by the people themselves

Comparing Participatory & Conventional Research

PAR “Conventional”

Research

What is the

research for?

Action Understanding
Who is the research for? Local people=

Participants

Institutional, personal & professional interests

àeven though you might have community participants, it is hierarchical

Whose knowledge counts? All participants Scientists’

Researchers’

àeven though you might have community participants, it is hierarchical

Topic choice influenced by Local priorities $, institutions, professions

PAR “Conventional” Research
Methodology chosen for? Empowerment, mutual learning Disciplinary conventions, “objectivity”, “truth”
WHO TAKES PART IN THESE STAGES OF THE RESEARCH PROCESS?
Problem identification Local people/participants Researcher
Data collection Local people/participants Researcher, analyst
Interpretation Local concepts & frameworks Disciplinary concepts and frameworks
Analysis Local people/participants Researcher
Presentation of findings Locally accessible & useful; Multiple contexts including policy makers By researcher to other academics, funding bodies, policy makers
Action on findings Integral to process Separate and may not happen
Who takes action? Local people/participants, with or without external support External agencies
Who “owns” the results? Shared Typically the researcher
What is emphasized? Process Outcomes

àthis approach allows for people to take ownership over the project at hand

SWOT analysis: analysis: strength/weakness/opportunities/threats

Final paper:
  • Problem formulation and research questions explored using qualitative research
  • literature review – introduce to topic – and explain why you need qualitative research for this
  • basic research design
  • Data collection
  • data analysis
  • ways to address ethical issues
  • strategies to address credibility
  • discuss of future research using quantitative research
  • writing style – 10 points

-identify areas of interest

-acquaint reader with what has already been read

-introduce key concepts –with definitions/concepts/what has already been studied

àlack of info/inadequacy/knowledge gap

--

Purpose – connection b/w purpose and info

àthen discuss research question

àquestion discuss in more detail once purpose/context of design have been discussed

àshould remain adaptable to implications of other parts of the design

Research question

-Should be open ended

ànon-directional and evolving ài.e. perhaps they do not see X as a problem – “how does culture affect family therapy”

-restate the question – what and how ànot why

end

  • why you want to do the study àreflective


Co-Participant/ Co-Researcher


November 20, 2008

Sampling:

  1. purposeful/theoretical sampling – think about who you want
  2. convenience sampling – based on what is available – but you also have to note the downsides of it
  3. snowball sampling – find a suitable respondent for further contacts

data collecting

  1. individual interviewing
  2. key informants
  3. focus groups
  4. visual data
  5. participant observation
  6. reviewing documents
  7. writing a personal field log

àby using more kinds of data collection, one increases triangulation

Data analysis


Resolving field issues: research ethics

1) Ethics of concealment: deception & disclosure


2) Confidentiality & privacy



3) Distress & emotional harm



  1. Informed consent: research with vulnerable populations

Elements of informed consent:


5. Coercion & deformed consent


6. Incentives & payback


7. Risks to the researcher

8. Power



Specific threats to credibility:
Researcher bias



Procedures for a credible study

  1. Prolonged engagement and persistent observation
  2. Triangulation
  3. Peer review or debriefing
  4. Member checks
  5. Searching for discrepant evidence and negative cases
  6. Clarifying researcher bias
  7. Audit trail and external audits
  8. ‘Rich’ data

APA:

Number pages

No contraction

Left justification ànot full

No spaces between the paragraphs – not even before subtitle

Indent first line

References – double spaced

Second lines and onwards - indented

END of COURSE!
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