SOCI Final Exam - Qualitative Research

Kinds of qual. research (6)

• ethnography/participant observation

• qualitative interviewing (unstructured, semi-structured, in depth)

• focus groups

• discourse and conversation analysis

• content analysis

• participatory action research (PAR)

Iterative process steps (1-6)

1. establish general research question

2. select relevant site and subjects

3. collect data (choose how to collect first)

4. interpret data

5. conceptual and theoretical work

   a. tighten specification of research q

   b. collection of further data

6. writing up findings and conclusions

Blumer (1954)

definitive vs sensitising

• definitive: linked to quantitative research; provide descriptions

• sensitising: linked to qualitative; provide general sense of guidance

Qualitative Research features: (4)

• inductive

• constructionist

• interpretivist

• naturalist

Evaluating Trustworthiness (4) TDCC

1) credibility

2) transferability

3) dependability

4) confirmability

Credibility requirements/considerations

• do studied people agree w/ interpretations of their thoughts/actions

• they may not have expertise to make meaningful comments

• conducted through respondent (member) validation

Transferability requirements/considerations

• can findings be applied outside?

• thick description; helps to determine if transferability is possible

Dependability considerations

• were proper procedures followed?

• time consuming and $$$

Confirmability considerations

• was researcher objective and unbiased?

authenticity definition

degree to which research is transformative to people and society

Main goals of qualitative research (+emphasises)

• see through eyes of those studied

  • emphasis on context

  • emphasis on probing beneath the surface by looking at body language and other observable cues)

• emphasis on process (showing how events unfold, long time spent in the field)

Ultimate goals of qual. research

• seeing through eyes of others

• achieving deep understanding of groups studied

• pursuing social justice and change

• having flexible method of inquiry

• bringing out sense of process

Critiques of qual. research (6)

• too subjective/impressionistic

• researcher may develop biases from relationships w/ respondents

• unclear how topic became the focus

• difficult to replicate

• issues w/ generalization (though might not even be the goal of the research)

• lack of transferability

Contrasts between quantitative and qualitative (9 comparisons)

• numbers VS words

• pov of researcher VS pov of respondent

• researcher distant VS close

• theory tested VS theory developed

• structured VS unstructured

• generalizable knowledge VS contextual understanding

• hard reliable data VS rich data

• macro VS micro

• artificial setting VS natural

Research Ethics (8)

• ethics addressed in initial stages and always kept in mind

• knowledge is 2nd interest to safety

• risk assessment is a key feature

• Tri-council policy statement (from SSHRC, CIHR, NSERC agencies)

• policy is due to harm to participants that researcher may not think of

• all Canadian research recquires REB approval before approaching participants

• found in many institutions

• some REBs favour quantitative b/c its seen as more scientific

Ethics Approval (for qualitative)

• flexibility means indeterminate methods

• may capture data on people that wouldn’t want their activities observed

• TCPS2 (tri-council policy statement) provides variation for research methods

TCPS2 considerations for partcipants (1, 2, 3)

1. respect for persons: subjects are not objects or resources to be used

2. concern for welfare: wellbeing

3. Justice

1. respect for persons: subjects are not objects or resources to be used (4)

• informed consent: free and ongoing, necessary to act as collaborators (researcher and participant)

• info sheet: risks, benefits, and methods of the research in great detail,

• participant must have ability to understand

• practical challenges: difficult to include all info for them to make informed decision, impractical in ethnography, prevents contamination of subjects

2. concern for welfare/ wellbeing (6)

• indentity and privacy issues

• confidentiality

  • pseudonyms may not be enough for privacy

  • covert research is intrusive; benefits must outweigh harm

• duty to report- certain activities observed or disclosed (abuse, crime, etc)

• online analysis - ethics and REB still apply, must encrypt data

3. Justice

• burden and benefits should be spread, no one should be systemically excluded from benefits

• inclusivity (especially in social research)

• *** life shouldn’t get worse b/c of participation ****

personal documents

• used w/ a life history or biographical method

• includes diaries, letters, and autobiographies

• can be the primary source or an add on to other sources (like life stories)

four criteria for assessing quality of documents CRAM

• authenticity: who is the author?

• credibility: are documents factually accurate and a true depiction of feelings?

• representativeness: does data represent a group or issue?

• meaning: concern w/ codes and abbreviations used and assumptions taken for granted during period of data collection

Visual objects; 3 prominent roles

1. as illustrations: illustrate points

2. as data: visual objects become part of the researcher’s notes and can become the main source

3. as prompts: can entice people to talk about what they see, or visual objects may be volunteered by participants (ex. photos of deceased loved ones)

Scott (1990) said family photos are one of three types:

1. idealization

2. natural portrayal

3. demystification

documents (2)

can be read, and weren’t produced to be researched

Government documents

produce quantitative statistical data (ie. census info, voting records, official reports), and can be seen as authentic & with meaning

Official documents from private sources

likely to be authentic and meaningful, but because they are produced by private companies there are issues with credibility and representativeness

Mass media, virtual outputs, and the Internet as objects

• have increasingly become objects of analysis

• brings up problems with authenticity, credibility, and representativeness

• analyze words, value positions, and manifest and latent content (intended vs non)

Coding (2 parts)

• two components: coding schedule, coding manual

  • coding schedule is a form that organizes the coding process by case (into columns and rows)

  • coding manual is a set of instructions for coders about all possible categories to be coded

Pitfalls in devising coding schemes

• categories must be mutually exclusive

• categories must be exhaustive

• must have clear instructions and units of analysis

Content w/o existing scheme

look for underlying theme, decide which themes to extract, constantly revise themes as data is examined

Semiotics

“science of signs”

• sign: something that stands for something else (made up of signifier, and signified)

• signifier: visual or sound image which refers to meaning

• signified: meaning that corresponds w/ signifier

• denotative meaning: manifest or obvious meaning of a signifier

• connotative meaning: ideas and feelings invoked by signifier

• polysemy: signs may be interpreted differently

Hermeneutics

theory and methodology of text interpretation, which seeks meaning from the author’s perspective (their circumstances and historical context they produced the text in)

The study of language (2)

• conversation analysis

• discourse analysis

Conversation analysis

analysis of the structure of talk (indexicality/context, and reflexivity/changes with context)

• turn-taking

• adjacency pairs

• response preferences

Discourse analysis (3)

explores outside of talk, and how reality is produced in discourse

• spoken and written text, visual signifiers

• broader & flexible (all forms)

• anti-realist, constructionist oriented

Gill (2000) 4 themes in discourse analysis

1. language is a topic in itself

2. language is constructive

3. discourse is a form of action

4. discourse is rhetorically organized

critical discourse analysis

explores relations between power and discourse, exposes political nature

advantages and disadvantages of content analysis

advantages:

• transparent and replicable

• allows for longitudinal analysis

• non-reactive, doesn’t obtrude

• can be used for many kinds of unstructured info

• can study traces of inaccessible groups

disadvantages:

• variable interpretations/ latent meanings mean its hard to interpret and define codes

• poor quality documents

Ethnography/participant observation

describe life of a group from the POV of participants

**participant observation includes individual interviews, documents, and artificats

Access to the community (4)

• key point of research

• open (public) or closed (private, restricted)

• overt ethnography: people being studied know they’re being studied

• covert ethnography: people unaware they’re being studied

Access to closed settings/ how to gain access

• using a friend/colleague, or gatekeeper (someone who controls access inside)

• get someone to vouch or sponsor

• offer something, like the final report

• provide a clear explanation

• be willing to negotiate terms of access

• be open to time commitment/length of time it takes

access to open settings

• hang around

• sponsors or gatekeepers

problems w/ ongoing access, and how to avoid them

• people may get suspicious of researcher’s motives

• members fear that what they do will get back to their bosses or colleagues

• people being studied may decide to sabotage research

** play up your credentials, don’t give them reasons to dislike you, put up a front, be adaptable, you may be tested

key informants

those who are knowledgeable

issue that if you only pay attention to what they say, others might be ignored (what they say may not reflect group)

Roles for ethnographers (least to most detached, 4) and some problems

• immerse yourself - adopt a secret role in covert operations **complete participation may cause you to overidentify with them or dislike them (skews data)

• participant-as-observer (overt): researcher adopts role in the group

• observer-as-participant: researcher observes from the edge of the group (may miss full picture)

• complete observer: researcher doesn’t engage at all (limited info)

Field notes, and types (3)

detailed notes of events/behaviour/conversations upon *initial reflection* (end of day at the latest)

• mental notes

• jotted notes: rough notes to add detail later

• full field notes: what was seen, heard, and initial reaction to situation

analytic memos

notes on data, links concepts and observations

Visual ethnography (4)

• visuals (photos, videos, etc) as memory aids, data sources, or discussion prompts

• problem bc interpretation depends on context of who/when/where material was taken

• includes photovoice: having participants take photos of their daily experiences

• two positions: realist (taken as fact), and reflexive (awareness researcher influenced material)

Institutional ethnography + founder

• study of participants in an institution to reveal power dynamics and inequalities

• explores and assesses larger systems of social control and power in society

• Dorothy Smith founded it

Sampling in ethnographic research

• purposive sampling: go out and look for those w/ rich understanding

  • (theoretical sampling is the alternative strategy)

• snowball sampling

• theoretical sampling: simultaneously collect and analyze, decides what to collect next and where, occurs until theoretical saturation

Ending research

may result from saturation, determined by personal or practical factors, depends on the initial agreement

Analytic induction steps and issue

1. research question devised

2. some data gathered

3. then hypothesis proposed

issue that hypothesis generated may be too broad b/c all cases must be explained

Grounded theory, and 3 basic features

theory derived from data, systematically gathered and analyzed, iterative process

• coding

• constant comparison

• theoretical saturation

coding in grounded theory (3)

• labels given to issues grouped with activities being observed

• starts in early stages

• treat data as potential concepts

types of coding (3)

• axial: review data for links, re-organize based on connections

• open: identify initial concepts to categorize later

• selective: identify gaps, selecting core categories

Outcomes of grounded theory (5) THCCP

• concepts

• categories (2+ concepts)

• properties (attributes of categories)

• hypotheses

• theory (substantive or formal)

  • substantive: develop theory in 1 setting

  • formal: data collection in multiple settings

Steps in analysis (1-12)

1. broad research question

2. relevant people/incidents sampled

3. relevant data collected

4. data coded

5. constant comparison (generates categories)

6. categories become saturated w/ coding

7. hypotheses on connections emerge

8. /9. further data w/ sampling

10. saturate categories

11. test hypotheses

12. collection and analysis of data in other settings (formal)

memos in grounded theory (3)

• provide reminders of term meaning

• important in conceptual and theoretical comparison

• help create concepts and categories

criticisms of grounded theory

• vague difference between concepts and categories

• substantive theory may not lead to formal

• fragmentation of data, loses narrative

• not theory neutral

coding questions

ask questions like “what does the data suggest/represent?” and “what kind of event?”

Steps and considerations with coding (6)

• code as soon as possible

• read data before considering interpretations

• read through data 2x

• review codes to consider redundancies and associations

• consider broad significance

• consider general theoretical ideas about codes/data

issues with coding (losses)

fragmentation and loss of narrative, lose context when picking and choosing

turning data into fragments

• basic coding, creating simplest labels

• deeper awareness of content in the text (rework to relate to research and see whats missing)

• exploring broad themes

Software + positives and negatives

• eliminates clerical tasks, but doesn’t interpret data

• NVivo, etc

• positives: faster, makes analysis transparent, holistic perception

• criticisms: fragmentation loses flow, not flexible

Narrative analysis (3) and criticisms

• research life stories to understand their life and world

• focus on context and events and how those people understand it

• life is an experience

criticisms: over-relies on participant preference to explain social phenomena, accepted at face value

4 models in narrative analysis

• thematic: what’s said and how

• structural: how story is told and what is emphasized to increase persuasion

• interaction: dialogue between teller and listener

• performance: narrative as a performance, how they act

Kinds of interviews (2), and shared aspects (4)

• unstructured: life history interviews, oral history, focus groups

• semi-structured: researcher may have some questions

*tangents encouraged, flexible, open, interviewed more than once

Unstructured interviews

• brief set of points to introduce topics

• conversational

• short interview guide

• free form answers

Semi-structured interviews

• questions or topics listed

• longer interview guide

• questions asked in whatever order

• can make up questions on the spot

• best for 2+ interviewers

• interview questions and probe questions used to get them to elaborate

Prepping interview guide (7)

• loose question order

• don’t ask leading questions

• broad questions

• be open to what arises

• prompts to gain personal info

• familiar language used

• what you want to know

Before the interview (7)

• be familiar w/ setting for context of data

• good tape recorder

• quiet and private setting

• good techniques like active listening

• be knowledgeable about topic

• be sensitive and open

• be flexible

After interview

how it went, what happened, what was going on around, how respondent responded to questions

Kinds of questions (9)

• introducing

• follow-up

• probing

• specifying

• direct

• indirect

• structuring

• silence (not an actual question, but pause allows for meaninful answer)

• interpreting

Recording and Transcription

• electronic recorder

• interviewee should give consent to record

• transcription takes 5-6 hours for every 1 hour of recording (only transcribe parts you need)

errors: fatigue, misheard, lazy/distracted

Flexibility in interviews, reflexivity in transcribing/analysis

flexibility:

• good when recording breaks or they revoke consent

• vary the questions and clarify

• take notes immediately after when you can’t record

reflexivity:

• reflect on how your interpretations affected participants and interview

Focus groups

interview with 4+ people to access wide variety on issue, naturalistic (how people make choices as a collective),

• moderator guides discussion and prompts everyone to respond (refocuses, clarifies, asks opening questions)

• moderator intervenes based on topic and group knowledge

• 10-15 groups, 6-10 people in a group (but depends on topic; smaller group if more intimate)

Selecting participants for focus groups, and problems

natural groups: people who know each other or have past interactions

issue: status hierarchies and established group dynamic

limitations of focus groups (5)

• data lost, hard to analyze

• difficult to arrange

• less control of discussion

• dominant or quiet people

• hard to do for sensitive topics

advantages and disadvantages of online focus groups

advantages:

• smaller

• overcome geographical issues

• less visual bias

disadvantages:

• takes longer

• non-response

• difficult to probe

• moderator can’t see body language

• losing connection

• hard to build rapport (harmony)

qualitative interviews vs ethnography

ethnography: see through their eyes, immersive

qualitative interviews: better for non-observable things, less intrusive, can choose topic, can reconstruct the past and look at future plans