PSY3007S: Qualitative Research Section (Lecture and Textbook Content Summaries)
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Course
PSY3007S Research in Psychology II (PSY3007S)
Institution
University Of Cape Town (UCT)
Book
Research in Practice
This study document covers all the content needed for the PSY3007S Qualitative Research section. It has content from lecture slides, explanations from lecturers, summaries of readings, as well as helpful comparison tables and summaries of content to aid studying. The document is well organised to h...
PSY3007S: Quantitative Section (Lecture and Textbook Content Summaries)
RCE2601 Assignment 1 2022
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PSY3005F Qualitative Research
Intro and Theoretical Background
W1L1 Introduction to Qualitative Research
- Can’t always measure validity in the same way > what questions do we ask to acknowledge validity?
- Defining qualitative research
o Collection of methods and techniques used in the study of social phenomena or action
o In depth, detailed approach to understanding social action
o Focuses on insider perspective
o Studies phenomena in natural setting
o Seeks to describe and understand human behaviour
Characteristics of qualitative research
- Natural setting
- Researcher as key instrument how you ask questions/present identity influences data you will collect as
researcher
o what power dynamics are you bringing into research space?
- Multiple data sources can observe differences between data
o differences between data sources become data itself
- Inductive data analysis not forcing data into specific theory, bottom-up approach
o allow data to tell story even if deviates from own assumptions/theory
- Participants meaning stories of people being studied more important than that of researcher
- Emergent design process is flexible and evolving
o same transcript can produce different results
- Theoretical lens shapes worldview/perspective
- Interpretive inquiry make interpretation of what they see/hear/understand
- Holistic account try develop complex/depth in problem under study
Uses for qualitative research
- When we want to know the ‘why’
- Exploratory
- Deeper understanding of motives
- Acknowledges social issues
- Quantitative does not give the same depth
o Quantitative does not provide/indicate the reasoning behind why people do what they do
,Reasons for using qualitative research
- Important in studying new area that has not yet been explored
o Areas where variables unknown or little understood about phenomenon
o When quantitative methods not a good fit > we do not know what to measure
o For detailed, in-depth responses (answers the why questions)
Chapter 12, Research in Practice
Why qualitative research?
- Qualitative research methods > try to describe and interpret people’s feelings and experiences in human terms
rather than through quantification and measurement
- Open-ended, inductive exploration
o Useful when we do not know what variables are, which are important, or how to measure them
Uses
- Identify potentially important variables
- Generate hypotheses about possible relationships among variables
- Add ‘human drama’ to the impersonal world of scientific research
Common sense perspective > essentially positivist perspective
- Qualitative research should be judged by same standards of reliability and validity as quantitative research
- Should strive to eliminate/control sources of subjective bias
- Classified as less ‘scientific’ > less susceptible to control than quantitative research
W1L2 Philosophical foundations in QR
Research paradigms
- Paradigms are all-encompassing systems of interrelated practice and thinking that define for researchers the
nature of their inquiry along three dimensions
o Ontology the nature of reality that is to be studied and what can be known about it
o Epistemology the nature of the relationship between the researcher and what can be known
Role of researcher in the process
o Methodology how researchers may go about practically studying whatever they believe can be known
We explore two paradigms
- Interpretive from first person perspective, what it means to them
- Social constructionist we construct different ideas about the world, this determines how we think about the world
and understand
- Used if the researcher believes that what is to be studied consists of people’s subjective experiences of the
external world
- Characteristics of interpretive perspective
o involves a focus on people’s subjective experiences
o relies on first-hand accounts of people’s experiences
o tries to describe what it sees in detail
, o presents its findings in engaging language
2 key principles of interpretive research
- Understanding in context
o Verstehen – understanding within a particular context
o Understanding from the perspective of the ‘native’
- Self as instrument
o There are no questionnaires, measuring tools and statistical techniques
o The research as actual instrument
o The researcher describes and interpret their own presence on the research project
o Skillful work > how do you manage discomfort, silence, etc.
Chapter 12, Research in Practice
Qualitative research from an interpretive perspective
- Does not focus on isolating and controlling variables, but harnessing and extending power of ordinary language
and expression to help us understand social world we live in
- Ontology > take peoples subjective experiences seriously as the essence of what is real for them
- Epistemology > making sense of people’s experiences by interacting with them and listening carefully to what
they tell us
- Methodology > make use of qualitative research techniques to collect and analyse information
Understanding in context
- the meaning of human creations/words/actions/experiences can only be ascertained in relation to the contexts
in which they occur
- The idea of telling it like it is, is telling it in context
Self as instrument
- Researcher as the primary instrument for collecting and analysing the data
- Skills used in interpretive research, while derived from everyday skills, need to be developed in particular ways
in order to become research skills
- Possible to do quantitative research simply by following instructions, but one must become an interpretive
researcher
- Subjectivity is not the enemy of truth, but the very thing that mkes it possible to understand personal and
social realities empathetically
Social Constructionist (SC)
- Used if the researcher believes that reality consists of a fluid and variable set of social constructions
o How do we know that if we walk into a lecture hall we must sit down? This is based on socially
constructed shared understandings
- Social constructionism focuses on the power that signs and images have to create particular representations of
people and objects
o Where do these ideas come from?
- Characteristics of SC
o takes thoughts, feelings, and experiences are products of systems of meanings - discourses
o takes language seriously as a constructor of reality
The actual stories that are told
The language used to tell stories (include/exclude)
Discursive strategies
o focuses on discourses – broader knowledges and ideas
o interprets the social world as a kind of language
Everything we do and say communicates something – constructs a particular reality/idea
Two dangers of social constructionism
, - Idealism the tendency of constructionist work to reduce everything to language, and therefore, to the world of
ideas
o Miss people’s experiences through focus on language
- Relativism the idea that there are many truths, an idea that is promoted by the social constructionist assertion
that all descriptions of reality are merely accounts and constructions
o Political danger > whose views hold power, who constructs what we consider as truth
o Usually people with power to construct have power to impose
Ethics
- Do you speak the language of the people you are studying? How will you engage and understand their truth that
they are expressing?
o Use other methods > videos, photos, other ways of expressing, ask for deeper explanation of meaning
o What is dominant hegemonic discourse around masculinity? -> what does it mean to be a man?
Chapter 12, Research in Practice
Qualitative research within a social constructionist paradigm
- Research approach that seeks to analyse how signs and images have powers to create particular
representations of people and objects – representations that underlie our experience of these people and
objects
- Qualitative, interpretive, concerned with meaning
- Want to show how such understandings and experiences are derived from (and feed into) larger discourses
- Treat people as though their thoughts, feelings, and experiences were the products of systems of meaning that
exist at a social rather than individual level
- Biggest difference between interpretive and social constructionism > ontological
o Different assumptions about the nature of reality that is to be understood
The language machine
- Believes that human life-world is fundamentally constituted in language and that language itself should be the
object of study
o Language helps construct reality
- Concerned with broader patterns of social meaning encoded in language
- We use language to mean particular things, but we are always constrained in what we say by the universe of
possible meanings made available to us by language
o Language > a system of differences without any positive terms
- Manner in which people engage with the world is structured by the way in which the world is constructed
So what is really real?
- Doe social constructionism leave space for objective reality and individual agency?
- Inherent dangers of constructionism > idealism and relativism
- Idealism the tendency of constructionist work to reduce everything to language, and therefore to the world of
ideas
- Relativism idea that there are many truths > all descriptions of reality are merely accounts and constructions,
thus no way of distinguishing good/bad texts and malign/benign effects
o Renders all texts morally equivalent, and all interpretations become
W1L3 Questions and subjects in QR
- How do we study others, are the studies we conduct important to those we are studying?
- What are the implications, what is the impact?
- How will you represent others?
Researching ‘Others’
- Identifying and ‘naming’ research ‘subjects/participants, collaborators’ etc.
o Contestation of terms in research
E.g. ‘Black African’ – who are we referring to? Who is included/excluded? Is that how they refer
to themselves?
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