CHAPTER 1: some very important starting information
What is qualitative research?
● The most basic definition of qualitative research is that it uses words as data collected and
analyzed in all sorts of ways. (quantitative research: numbers)
● Big Q qualitative research vs. Small Q qualitative research
Qualitative research as a paradigm
● The term qualitative research is used to refer both to techniques (of data collection or data
analysis) and to a wider framework for conducting research, or paradigm.
○ Analysis of words which are not reducible to numbers
○ the use of more ‘naturally’ occurring data collection methods that more closely
resemble real life. (ecological validation)
○ an interest in meanings rather than reports and measures of behaviour or internal
cognitions;
○ the use of inductive, theory-generating research;
○ Rejection of natural science model. Reject objective scientists. Recognition of
subjectivity brought by researchers.
What do I need to become a good qualitative researcher?
● A qualitative sensibility
○ an interest in process and meaning, over and above cause and effect
○ a critical and questioning approach to life and knowledge – you don’t take things at
face value and simply accept the way they are, but ask questions about why they
may be that way, whose interests are served by them and how they could be
different;
○ the ability to reflect on, and step outside, your cultural membership, to become a
cultural commentator
○ the development of a double-consciousness or an analytic ‘eye’ or ‘ear’, where you
can listen intently, and critically reflect on what is said, simultaneously
○ Reflexivity: insider vs. outsider
○ good interactional skills
, CHAPTER 2: Ten fundamentals of qualitative research
Qualitative research is about meaning, not numbers
● Meaning. Not testing hypothesis. Not about replication.
Qualitative research doesn’t provide a single answer
Qualitative research treats context as important
● Involve contextualized analysis which takes perspectival subjectivity into account
Qualitative research can be experiential or critical
● Experiential qualitative research
○ experiential qualitative research seeks to make sense of how the world is seen,
understood and experienced from the person’s perspective. Language is treated as if
it provides a window to the person’s interior; it is understood as the way people
report their experiences, practices and meanings in a straightforward fashion; it is
the vehicle researchers use to access and make sense of that inner world.
● Critical qualitative research - language as constructing the reality
○ Interested in representation and construction
■ Qualitative research is used to understand the ways language (or imagery)
tells particular stories about research objects.
■ Some research in this tradition involves the practice of deconstruction,
whereby texts are ‘taken apart’ and interrogated for the dominant and
hidden assumptions (or oppositions) they rely on.
○ Interested in language practice – In terms of language practice, qualitative research
seeks to examine the ways language is used to create particular versions of reality.
Qualitative research is underpinned by ontological assumptions
● Realism:
○ Realism assumes a knowable world, which is comprehensible through research –
that the truth (and there is only one) is ‘out there’ and can be accessed by the
appropriate application of research techniques.
● Critical realist theory:
○ invoke a real and knowable world which sits ‘behind’ the subjective and
socially-located knowledge a researcher can access
○ The critical realist position holds that we need to claim that some ‘authentic’ reality
exists to produce knowledge that might ‘make a difference’
○ A critical realist position underpins a number of different qualitative approaches,
including some versions of thematic analysis, grounded theory, discourse analysis
and interpretative phenomenological analysis(IPA).
● Relativism
○ Relativism argues that there are multiple constructed realities, rather than a single,
pre-social reality or mind-independent truth, and that we can never get beyond
these constructions.
○ Rather than being universal, what is ‘real’ and ‘true’ differs across time and context,
so that what we can know reflects where and how knowledge is generated.
Qualitative research is underpinned by episemological assumptions
● Positivism
○ Positivism assumes a straightforward relationship between the world and our
perception of it.
