Summary Qualitative Research Within The Book 'Research Methods - UU Edition'
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Course
Basis Van Onderzoeksmethoden En Statistiek
Institution
Universiteit Utrecht (UU)
This document summarized the chapters of the book 'Research Methods' and compulsory articles covered in the section 'Basic of Research Methods and Statistics'. This course is taught in several premasters.
Basis van onderzoek en statistiek
Semester 1: Samenvattingen van verplichte literatuur
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Research Methods: Deel 1, p. 110.
Ethical decision making requires a balance of priorities. When faced with a study that could possibly
harm human participants, researchers consider the potential benefits of the research. (For example,
‘will it contribute something to society?’). Many believe that research with some degree of risk is
justified, if the benefit from the knowledge gained from the results is great. If the risk to participants
becomes too high, the new knowledge may not be valuable enough to justify the harm. Researchers
try to balance respect for subjects and participants, protections from harm, benefits for society and
awareness of justice. Influenced by IRB’s (institutional review board), IACUC’s (institutional animal
care and use committee), peers, and sociocultural norms, they strive to conduct research that is
valuable to society and to do it in an ethical manner.
Ethical research practice is not performed according to a set of permanent rules. Researchers refine
their ethical decision making in response to good and bad experiences, changing social norms, and
scientific discoveries.
Research Methods: Deel 1, p. 191-192.
Samples obtained (verkregen) through random selection achieve excellent external validity, but such
samples can be difficult to obtain. In cases where external validity is not vital (essentieel) to a study’s
goals, researchers might be content with a nonprobability sampling technique. Depending on the type
of study, they can choose among a number of techniques for gathering such a sample:
- Convenience sampling: this is the most common sampling technique in behavioral
research. This technique uses samples that are chosen merely on the basis of who is
easy to reach or if they are nearby.
- Purposive sampling: If researchers want to study only certain kinds of people, they recruit
only those particular participants. When this is done in a nonrandom way, it is called
purposive sampling. Such a sample would not be, and might not need to be,
representative of the population of all people in some area.
- Snowball sampling: In this technique, participants are asked to recommend a few
acquaintances for the study, until the sample is large enough. This technique is
unrepresentative, because people are recruited via social networks, which are not
random.
- Quota sampling: The researcher identifies subsets of the population of interest and then
sets a target number for each category in the sample. Next, the researcher samples form
the population of interest nonrandomly until the quotas are filled. (This technique is similar
to stratified random sampling. However, in stratified random sampling, the participants are
selected using a random selection technique).
Research Methods: Deel 1, p. 89 t/m 105.
No matter what type of claim researchers are investigating, they are obligated to treat the participants
in their research with kindness, respect, and fairness. They are expected to follow basic ethical
principles in the treatment of humans and other animals. Researchers are also expected to produce
research that is meaningful and helpful for society.
During history, researchers made a number of choices that are unethical from today’s perspective.
These unethical choices are falling into three distinct categories:
1. Not being treated respectfully: the researchers lied to them about the nature of their
participation and withheld information. By doing so, they did not give the participants a chance
to make a fully informed decision about participating.
2. Harmed: participants were subjects to painful and dangerous test. They were also not treated
for something they could be treated for.
3. Targeted a disadvantaged social group: a specific group is ‘used’ in a specific kind of
research.
After research is finished, all participants should be debriefed: carefully informed about the study’s
hypotheses. In research, it is also very important to find a balance between risks to participants and
the value of the knowledge gained.
,In 1976 a commission of physicians, ethicists, etc. got together at the Belmont Conference Center for
an intensive discussion of basic ethical principles researchers should follow when conducting research
with human participants. They produced a short document called the Belmont Report, which outlines
three main principles for guiding ethical decision making:
The principle of respect for persons: individuals potentially involved in research should be
treated as autonomous agents (= they should be free to make up their minds about whether
they wish to participate in a research study). Therefor, the informed consent should be
applied. Researchers are not allowed to mislead people about the study’s risks and benefits,
nor may they coerce (= an implicit or explicit suggestion that those who do not participate will
suffer a negative consequence) or unduly influence a person into participating. All the
vulnerable populations (such as children, prisoners, etc.) should be treated with special
consideration while doing the informed consent.
The principle of beneficence: researchers must take precautions to protect participants from
harm and to ensure their well-being.
o Anonymous study: researchers do not collect any potentially identifying information,
including names and birthdays.
o Confidential study: researchers collect some identifying information, but prevent it
from being disclosed.
The principle of justice: a fair balance between the kinds of people who participate in research
and the kinds of people who benefit from it.
The APA outlines five general principles for guiding individual aspects of ethical behavior. These
principles are intended to protect not only research participants, but also students in classes and client
of professionals. The three main principles of APA are:
1. Beneficence
2. Justice
3. Respect for persons
Also fidelity and responsibility and integrity are important principles. In addition to these five general
principles, the APA lists ten specific ethical standards, which are similar to enforceable rules or laws.
An institutional review board (IRB) is a committee responsible for interpreting ethical principles and
ensuring that research using human participants is conducted ethically. An IRB panel includes five or
more people, some of whom must come from specified backgrounds.
In most studies, informed consent is obtained by providing a written document that outlines the
procedures, risks, and benefits of the research. Everyone who participates signs two copies: one for
the researcher to store, and one for the participant to take home. However, in some cases, the
informed consent is not necessary, for example when the study is not likely to cause harm or if it takes
place in an educational setting. Written consent might not be needed when participants answer a
completely anonymous questionnaire or when the study involves naturalistic observation of
participants in low-risk public settings.
Even in the most straightforward study, participants are not told about all the comparison conditions.
Most studies contain an element of deception, of which we know two kinds:
1. Deception through omission: researchers withhold some details of the study from the
participants.
2. Deception through commission: researchers actively lie to participants.
Deceiving research participants by lying to them or by withholding information is in many cases
necessary in order to obtain meaningful results.
When researchers have used deception, they must spend time after the study talking with each
participant in a structured conversation. In a so called debriefing session, the researchers describe
the nature of the deception and explain why it was necessary. The researcher also describes the
design of the study, thereby giving the participants some insight about the nature of psychological
science.
It is considered ethical to publish one’s results. Researchers must also treat their data and their
sources accurately. Data fabrication and data falsification are two forms of research misconduct
which involve manipulating results:
, Data fabrication: instead of recording what really happened in a study, researchers invent
data that fit their hypotheses.
Data falsification: research influence a study’s results, for example by selectively deleting
observations from a data set or by influencing their research subject to act in the hypothesized
way.
Reasons for a researcher to do this, is the reputation, income and promotions based on their
publications and their influence in the field. Some researchers might also simply be convinced of their
own hypotheses and believe that any data that do not support their predictions must be inaccurate.
Plagiarism is also a form of research misconduct, usually defined as representing the ideas or words
of others as one’s own. It is a form of stealing. To avoid plagiarism, a writer must cite the sources of all
ideas that are not his own, to give appropriate credit to the original authors. Failure to put the original
source in one’s own words, is also considered plagiarism.
Research Methods: Deel 2, p. 341 t/m 375
Interviewing
Qualitative interviewing and focus groups allow researchers to study social processes over time,
helping them understand the decision makers’ subjective feelings and beliefs. In-depth interviewing
is a qualitative method in which the researcher asks open-ended questions to elicit as much detail as
possible about the interviewee’s experiences, understandings, thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. Usually,
the interview is then transcribed and analyzed. In a focus group people are interviewed in a group
setting, in which the interviewer poses questions or topics, and the group of respondents discusses
the topic in detail.
As with all methods, it is important to match the method with the research question. For example, in-
depth interviews cannot answer questions about how prevalent or widespread an attitude, belief, or
behavior is. However, in-depth interviewing is a good method to answer how and why questions. In-
depth interviews are usually flexible. There are two main types:
Semi-structured interview: the interviewer has prepared a list of questions and follow-up
prompts, or probes. This list of questions is called the interview schedule. In this kind of
interview, the interviewer is free to ask questions out of order, to ask follow-up questions that
are not on the schedule, and allow the conversation to develop naturally.
Unstructured interview: the interviewer has a list of general topics, but the questions are
very flexible and may differ from interviewee to interviewee. There are no preset questions.
Surveys are not being looked at as a type of qualitative research. However, if we have to put them in a
box, we would scale them under the ‘structured interview’. Most of the questions asked in a structured
interview have a short, clear answer.
In addition to semi-structured and unstructured interviews, the qualitative interviewing method has
several variations, including:
Oral history: an unstructured or semi-structured interview in which people are asked to recall
their experiences in a specific historical era or during a particular historical event. Oral
histories provide eyewitness testimonies and are generally presented as edited stories with
very little additional analysis. Oral histories have also been used to document popular culture.
Oral histories tend to be more informal and more open-ended than in-depth qualitative
interviews. Oral histories are not collected to develop social science theory or to test or
generate hypotheses about a social phenomenon, but their goal is to preserve the stories of
individual people. One limitation of an oral history is the possibility of recall bias, because they
may be shaped by memory. However, it is still a valuable source of information about the
kinds of behaviors that are valued and praised.
Life history interviews: an in-depth interview used to understand how lives unfold over time,
the timing and sequencing of important life events, and other turning points in individual lives.
They are used to understand the life course: the study of human development over the life
span, taking into account how individual lives are socially patterned and affected by historical
change.
Cognitive interviews: an interview with survey respondents to understand how they interpret
particular questions and terms. Respondents think out loud as they answer the questions, also
called a cognitive pretest. Cognitive interviewing can be very helpful in pretesting a survey, but
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