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Summary Qualitative Research Methods for pre-master students
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Qualitative research methodsLecture 1 – What and why qualitative research?
Merriam (2014) – What is qualitative research?
Research > investigate something in a systematic manner
- Basic/pure research > to extend knowledge of a phenomenon> motivated by intellectual interest
- Applied research > to improve the quality of a certain practice
- Evaluation research > examines and judges > main purpose is to establish a basis for decision making
- Action research > address a specific problem within a specific setting > interested in practical solutions
to problems
o We can engage in this process to contribute to the knowledge base in a field (pure research),
improve the practice of a particular discipline (applied research), assess the value of
something (evaluation research), or address a particular problem (action research)
- Quantitative
o Focus on how much/many > results in a numerical form
o Data is used to describe relationship
Experimental approach > to determine cause (events)
Descriptive designs > to describe characteristics (surveys)
- Qualitative
o The meaning of a phenomenon for those involved > understanding how people interpret
their experiences
o Experiences, personal constructs, and meaning
Observing and questioning the world > finding evidence of meaning
Uncovering the meaning of a phenomenon for those involved, rather than
determining cause and effect
o Quantitative
Orientations
- Positivist > reality exists and is observable, stable, and measurable > quantitative
o Establishment of scientific law (data is collected from the real world and expressed in
numbers)
o Generalizable
o Believe that a distinguish can be made between true and false
o Knowledge gained through this study has been labelled scientific > experimental research
o Purpose is to predict, control, and generalize > seeking evidence of frequency
- Interpretive > reality is socially constructed > qualitative
o There cannot be one single, observable reality
o Knowledge is constructed > not found (data is constructed with participants and expressed in
language)
o Qualitative > an already interpreted world, is re-interpreted
o Purpose is to describe, understand, and interpret > seeking evidence of meaning
- Critical
o The goal is to critique and challenge, to transform and empower
- Postmodernism
o Explanations for the way things are in the world are nothing but myths or grand narratives
o There is no single truth > celebrate diversity
Qualitative > umbrella term covering an array of interpretive techniques
- Seek to describe, decode, translate, and come to terms with the meaning, not frequency, of certain
naturally occurring phenomena in the social world
- Researcher is the primary instrument for data collection and analysis
- Interested in understanding the meaning people have constructed
o Focus is on process, understanding, and meaning
o The researcher is the primary instrument of data collection and analysis
, o The process is inductive
o The product is richly descriptive
Point of comparison Qualitative Quantitative
Mode of analysis Inductive approach Deductive approach
- Observation > patterns > - Theory > hypothesis >
tentative hypothesis > observation > confirmation >
theory > observation, … theory, …
Constant comparative Statistical
Focus of research Quality Quantity
Goal Building understanding from Justifying propositions from empirical
interpretations of evidence data
Explain and give meaning Describe and generalize
Theory Theory is created and linked to Theory is tested and generalizable
context
Evidence Evidence of meaning is sought after Evidence of frequency is sought after
by means of subjective data my means of objective data
Sample Small samples but deep Large samples but little
understanding > non-random, understanding > representative
purposeful
Looking for Look for meaning Look for truth
- Case study - Surveys
- Ethnography - Laboratory experiments
- Grounded theory - Statistical analysis
Perspective Emic perspective > insider-view Etic perspective > outsider view
Researcher’s contribution Researcher’s intuition could be an Researcher’s influence must be
asset minimized
Pro’s qualitative research
- Context-dependency
o The understanding of social phenomenon highly depends on context
o We misinterpret these phenomena if we ignore the context in which they occurred
o We need to understand boundary conditions, meaning when, where, and why of the event
o It is this context that helps explain why someone acted the way they did, and this is best
understood by talking to someone
- Interpretation
o Social phenomena have heave subjective aspects that cannot be captured through
quantifiable measured and cannot be understood within tapping into each case deeply
o More from a large sample with little understanding to a smaller sample with a deep
understanding
- Deep understanding
o To approach the causal dynamics, we need to get close to social realities and know them
from the inside-perspective
o To understand how A resulted in B we need to get close to A and B rather than observing
from a distance
o From description to explanation
Question > describe three ways that qualitative research differs from quantitative research and explain why
these differences are important
1. Interpretivist versus positivist approach
o Qualitative research believes that the world is already interpreted by constructing that with
participants > reality will depend on experience > whereas quantitative research believes
there is only one true reality which we can measure
2. Qualitative versus quantitative data
, o Numerical data from large samples to measure one, true reality > search for evidence of
frequency allows for generalization
o Subjective data from a small sample > purposeful sampling > more in-depth and linked to
context > to find evidence of meaning
3. Inductive versus deductive
o Qualitative > build understanding from interpretations of evidence > theory is created
o Quantitative > theory is tested
Myers (2013) – Overview of qualitative research
Myers (2013) – Research design
Research design > the plan for an entire qualitative research project
- Serves as a proposal in which you are convincing the reader that your research is viable, relevant,
interesting, significant > says what you are going to do and involves deciding upon various
components of the research project > philosophical assumptions, research method, data collection
techniques, and approach to qualitative data analysis and write-up
Reasoning
- Deductive reasoning > top-down
o Begins with general theory > can be operationalized into hypotheses > tested with empirical
data > hypotheses are confirmed or not
- Inductive reasoning > bottom-up
o Begins with collecting data > patterns will begin to emerge > leading to one or more tentative
hypotheses > can be used to develop into a more general theory
Both can be used for qualitative > inductive is more open-ended and exploratory
, Qualitative Quantitative
+ Best if you want in-depth understanding + Best if you want to generalize to a large population
+ Exploratory research > when the topic is new and + To study a topic across many people/organizations
there is not much previously published research on > find out trends or patterns that apply in many
that topic different situations
+ For studying the social, cultural, and political + Various statistical techniques can be used to
aspects analyze the data
- Difficult to generalize to a larger population > you - Many of the social and cultural aspects of
can but not by using sampling logic > a sample size organizations are lost > the context is treated as
of three organizations does not count for much in noise > context is traded for the ability to generalize
statistical terms
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