Week 1
Literature
Chapter 1
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. Paradigm here refers to the beliefs,
assumptions, values and practices shared by a research community (see Kuhn, 1962), and it provides an
overarching framework for research.
Differences between qualitative and quantitative research
Quantitative Qualitative
-Data: numbers - Data: words (written en spoken)
-Aim: identify links between variables, - Aim: understand and interpret, recognises data
predictions, generalising wider population as gathered in context
-Product: generates ‘shallow’ but broad date: - Generates ‘narrow’ but rich data (thick
not detailed individually, but big sample descriptions): detailed individually
-Seeks consensus, norms, or general pattern - Tends to seek patterns, but accommodates and
reduce diversity to an average response explores difference and divergence within data
-Tends to be theory-testing and deductive - Theory-generating, inductive
-Values objectivity - Values personal involvement (subjectivity, etc)
-Fixed method - Method is less fixed
-Can be completed quickly - Takes longer: its interpretative with no formula
The use of qualitative techniques outside a qualitative paradigm:
- May be conducted in a realist, positivist way, where the values and assumptions of Big Q
qualitative research are rejected.
- Can be used as a precursor for quantitative research.
- Can be used alongside quantitative methods as part of a mixed methods design
- Might be converted to a numerical representation, and analysed quantitatively
Qualitative research paradigm tends to not to assume there is only one correct reality or knowledge.
There are multiple versions of reality and these are linked to context. We should consider knowledge
outside of the context in which it was generated (experiments are no bueno).
Descriptions are thick/rich when contexts are described; ‘thin’ when context is excluded.
Other elements of a qualitative paradigm include:
- The use of qualitative data, words are not reduced to numbers;
- The use of more ‘naturally’ occurring data collection methods that more closely resemble real
life this develops from the idea that we cannot make sense of data in isolation from context
- An interest in meanings rather than reports and measures of behaviour
- the use of inductive, theory-generating research
- a rejection of the natural sciences as a model of research, including the rejection of the idea of
the objective (unbiased) scientist
- the recognition that researchers bring their subjectivity into the research process
,Qualitative sensibility
Qualitative sensibility: an orientation towards research – in terms of RQ’s, and analysing data – that fits
within the qualitative paradigm. Certain skills or orientations of 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
- 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: critical reflection on the research process and on one’s own role as researcher
o Insider status: when we share some group identity with our participants
o Outsider status: when we don’t share some group identity with participants.
- Good interactional skills
- a basic grasp of some methods of data collection and analysis, which you build to in-depth
understanding
- a conceptual understanding of qualitative approaches.
We understand qualitative data analysis as having one of three basic forms or frameworks: searching for
patterns, looking at interaction, or looking at stories.
Three types of questions in qualitative research
1. your research question(s): what you’re trying to find out
2. the (survey) questions you ask participants to generate data
3. the questions you ask of your data, in order to answer your research question(s).
Chapter 2
What is qualitative research
1. Meaning
Qualitative research is about meaning, not numbers: Qualitative research is not about testing
hypotheses, doesn’t seek comparisons between groups. It does not aim for replication. Data depends on
the contexts it was generated from, qualitative research does not assume the ‘same’ accounts will always
be generated.
2. Not one single answer
There is more than one way of making meaning from the data that we analyse: there isn’t a single ‘right’
answer. An analysis of qualitative data tells one story among many that could be told about the data
3. Context
Context is important: qualitative research recognises that bias exists, and incorporates them into the
analysis. It recognises the subjectivity of the data we analyse, and the analyses we produce. Subjectivity
is basically the idea that what we see and understand reflects our identities and experiences – the
contexts we’ve existed in (perspectival subjectivity) (Kvale, 1996).
4. Qualitative research can be experiential or critical
Qualitative research is exploratory, open-ended and organic, and produces in-depth, rich and detailed
data
,Experiential qualitative research
Experiential qualitative research validates the meanings, views, perspectives, experiences and/or
practices expressed in the data. Participants’ interpretations are prioritised, accepted and focused on,
rather than being used as a basis for analysing something else. It is driven by a desire to know people’s
own perspectives and meanings, to ‘get inside’ people’s heads and then putting an organising,
interpretative framework around what is expressed in the data.
Why qualitative approach may be better than quantitative one when aim is understanding meaning:
- it allows us to retain a focus on people’s own framing around issues
- it allows a far richer (fuller, multi-faceted) or deeper understanding of a phenomenon. complexity
of people’s meanings or experiences is revealed and retained in qualitative data.
- People’s reality, meaning and experience tend to be messy; qualitative research embraces this
- As it can be open-ended, exploratory and flexible, it can evolve to suit the needs of the project
- we can make unexpected findings; things that would be lost using quantitative methods.
Participants’ experiences and meanings (personal and wider societal meanings) drive 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.
Critical qualitative research
Critical qualitative research takes an interrogative stance towards the meanings or experiences expressed
in the data, and uses them to explore some other phenomenon. Typically, it seeks to understand the
factors influencing, and the effects of, the particular meanings or representations expressed. Analysts’
interpretations become more important than participants’.
The focus is not on language as a means to get inside the person’s head, but on language as it is used ‘out
there’ in the world. Its interest is in how language gives shape to certain social realities – and the impact
of these.
Language is understood as the main mode by which the reality of our world is created (instead of
reflected). Research can be divided between that interested in representation and construction and that
interested in language practice.
- Representation/construction: interest in factors which shape or create meaning and the effects
and implications of particular patterns of meaning. Qualitative research is used to understand the
ways language (or imagery) tells particular stories about research objects. . A key assumption is
that there are numerous ways objects could be represented, and that different representations
have different implications for individuals and society.
- In terms of language practice, qualitative research seeks to examine the ways language is used to
create particular versions of reality. The analytic focus ranges widely: some is quite micro, with a
focus on the detail of language use, such as the function of particular features of talk and texts
5. Ontology
Ontological positions specify the relationship between the world and our human interpretations and
practices. Ontology determines whether or not we think reality exists entirely separate from human
practices and understandings or whether we think it cannot be separated from human practices, and so
knowledge is always going to reflect our perspective. May variations ranging on a continuum from realism
(reality is mind-independent) to relativism (reality is mind-dependent).
, Realism assumes a knowable world, which is comprehensible through research – that the truth is ‘out
there’ and can be accessed by the appropriate application of research techniques. Extreme version is
‘correspondence theory of truth’ where what we observe is assumed to mirror truthfully what is there.
Realism is underpinned by quantitative research.
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. what is ‘real’ and ‘true’
differs across time and context.
Critical realist positions (somewhere in the middle) invoke a real and knowable world which sits ‘behind’
the subjective and socially-located knowledge a researcher can access. Because knowledge is viewed as
socially influenced, it is thought to reflect a separate reality that we can only partially access.
- Realism would be akin to looking at a view through a perfect glass window in your house. The
information you access from this perfect glass window corresponds exactly to what really is
outside
- Relativism is better captured by the idea of prisoners looking at a view from their prison cells.
Prisoners housed in different cells will see different views of the world outside the prison, but
there is no way of prioritising one prisoner’s view as more real than another’s. A prisoner has no
way to ascertain the truth of the information they have about what is outside the prison.
- Critical realism would be like looking at a view where the only way to see it is through a prism, so
what is seen is nuanced by the shape of the prism (the prism is culture, history, etc.). If you could
just get rid of that prism, you’d be able to see what lies behind it (the truth), but you never can
get beyond it.
6. Epistemology
The central concern of epistemology is what counts as legitimate ‘knowledge’: in a world where all sorts
of knowledge exist, how do we know which to trust, which are meaningful? So epistemology determines
what counts as valid, trustworthy, ‘true’ knowledge within a community and, conversely, what is seen as
not valid knowledge.
Epistemology can also be realist or relativist
- a realist epistemological position assumes that it is possible to obtain ‘the truth’ through valid
knowledge production
- a relativist epistemological position states that, theoretically, knowledge is always perspectival
and therefore a singular, absolute truth is impossible.
A basic distinction between epistemological positions is whether we think reality (be that external or
personal) is discovered through the process of research, or whether we think reality is created through
the process of research.
Positivism
Positivism assumes a straightforward relationship between the world and our perception of it. Closely
aligned with empiricism, it separates out the practice of observation, the observer and that which is
observed, and requires demonstration of reality through objective (unbiased) collection of data.
Post-positivism, still holds onto the search for the truth and sees this as, by and large, achievable, but
acknowledges that researchers are influenced by their contexts, and influence research – that facts are
not neutral reflections of the truth, but are theoretically influenced
