Research Methods: Qualitative Research

qualitative researchers

• concerned with accurately capturing research partcipants’ subjectie meanings, actons, & perceptons of their social contexts

• Consequently, qualitatie researchers use methods to actiely engage their study subjects in dialogue, & partcipate with them in the actiites under study, to achieie an insider understanding

• Focus is on authentcity & groundedness

• whether partcipants’ perspecties haie been genuinely represented in the research (authentcity)

• whether the indings are “coherent in the sense that they ‘it’ the data and social context from which they were deriied” (groundless) 

qualitative research

Originally grew out of the challenges of studying groups of people who were dramatcally diferent from the iniestgator

‒ Because qualitatie researchers encountered foreign languages, perspecties, & practces, they recognized that behaiior refected rules speciic to the social & cultural context

‒ Because qualitatie researchers seek to understand the actons of people, they must know the eieryday meaning & contexts that inform & shape those actons

qualitiative research greatest threat to rigor

researchers may erroneously substtute their own meaning for the meanings of the subjects whose experiences they are studying

‒ Creatng ficticious &, thus, inialid indings

qualitative research characteristics 

• Begin inquiry, like quanttatie researchers, with guiding theoretcal concepts & questons

• Formulate broader questons, rather than narrowly deined questons or speciic hypotheses

• As data are gathered & inform these broad questons, they are reined, leading to more focused sampling & informaton gathering

• is flexible, emergent, & responsive to the study setng, data, & data analysis

• The partcipants & their social context shape the kinds of informaton gathered & the themes & explanatons that emerge in the study

phenomena

Gaining understanding of the _ under study as they are experienced by the partcipants

‒ The ways in which partcipants characterize their experiences & actons

‒ Digitally recorded interiiews that allow for extensiie quotaton of subjects’ own words

‒ Detailed notes that describe eients & actons

‒ Writen & iisual documents

‒ Recordings are typical

qualititative findings

generally presented with substantal quotes, verbatm ield notes, & other data that help point to the phenomena that the researcher is atemptng to characteriz

ethnography

emphasizes the societal & cultural context that shapes meaning & behaiior

‒ Describes the paterns of thoughts, behaiiors & shared meaning (including language) of a cultural group

‒ Researchers immersing themselies in the group being studied

phenomenology 

focuses on how people experience & make sense of their immediate worlds, using the people themselies as co-researchers

‒ The study of complex human experience as it is actually liied

‒ Focus on describing what & how a phenomenon is experienced

grounded theory

a comprehensiie idea that tries to explain phenomenon at the societal

level

− Centers on deieloping a conceptual framework or theory grounded in data

narrative inquiry

seeks to understand how people construct storied accounts of their & others’ liies & of shared eients

− Focuses on understanding people’s liies, experiences, & shared eients within the social world through the use of stories

case study

design used to study complex phenomenon within their social context, iniestgatng indiiiduals or organizatons

− Examines a contextual & bounded phenomena (known as a case [e.g., indiiidual, group, organizaton, program, decisions, or eient]) in a real-world context

− Aims to draw conclusions, make assertons, or proiide explanatons that capture the key lessons from the case

convergent parallel design 

Involves collectng & analyzing quanttatie & qualitatie data separately, & then comparing the results for the purpose of identfying areas of similarity or coniergence

• Quanttatie & qualitatie data are obtained from partcipants in the same sample & setng

explanatory sequential design

Involves the inital collecton & analysis of quanttatie data

•The quanttatie results are then used to plan the subsequent use of qualitatie methods, with the intent to beter explain quanttatie results such as an identied mechanism or relatonship between variables

exploratory sequential design

Qualitatie data is obtained irst

• Then the indings used to design the quanttatie element of the study, such as questonnaire data, are sought & deieloped based on the qualitatie data

transformative research design

Designs that leierage scientic endeaiors to create large-scale, enduring social change

− Partcipatory acton research

− Community-based

− Aims to increase the power of those iniolied (e.g., therapists, clients, community members, community groups, organizatons) as co-creators & co-iniestgators in all stages of the research process

research methods 

chosen with partcular atenton to ialuing the expertse of those with liied experience & how to enable their partcipaton & sharing of their perspecties, ideas, ialues, insights, & experiences

participatory research

Is always grounded in a practcal context

• Emphasizes drawing on the strengths & capabilites of those iniolied

• Is acton-oriented, whether that be directed toward generatng solutons to identied issues or concerns within practce setngs or communites, bringing about seriice or policy reform, raising awareness to achieie systemic change, or examining the impacts of a change from the perspecties of those most infuenced by it

• Although qualitatie research methods are commonly selected, quanttatie methods are also used in this type of research

common designs used in OT

• Cross-sectonal

• Phenomenological

• Cohort

• Ethnography

• Single-subject

• Psychometric

• Randomized controlled trial

(RCT)

• Case-control

• Survey

• Grounded theory