Module 2

Approaches in Qualitative Research and the Importance of Qualitative Research Across Research Fields

1. Descriptive

2. Correlational

3. Explanatory

4. Exploratory

5. Action

Types of Research purposes

Descriptive

Aims at defining or giving a verbal portrayal of an event (case studies and content analysis):

Types of Research purposes

Correlational

Shows the relationship and connectedness of two variables:

Types of Research purposes

positive, negative, no correlation

Types of Correlational in research purposes

Explanatory

Explains or elaborates the relationship between two factors:

Types of Research purposes

Exploratory

The research purpose is to find out how reasonable or possible it is to conduct a research study on a topic:

Types of Research purposes

Action

Research studies on ongoing practice for obtaining results that will bring

improvement to the system:

Types of Research purposes

• Empirical

• Logical

• Cyclical

• Analytical

• Critical

• Methodical

• Repeatable

Characteristics of Research

Empirical

based on direct experience or observation by the researcher

Logical

based on valid procedures and principles

Cyclical

it starts with a problem and ends with a problem

Analytical

utilizes analytical procedures in gathering the data, whether historical, descriptive, experimental, and case study

Critical

exhibits careful and precise judgment

Methodical

conducted in a manner without bias using systematic method and procedures

Repeatable

may be repeated to enable the researcher to arrive at valid and conclusive results

• Basic research

• Applied research

• Developmental research

Types of Research

Basic research

in search for the basic truths and principles

Applied research

seeks new applications of scientific knowledge to answer problems

Developmental research

decision-oriented research to address an immediate need to improve existing practices'

• Library research

• Field research

• Laboratory research

Classifications of Research

Library research

desk research

Field research

conducted in natural settings

Laboratory research

conducted in a controlled setting

1. Narrative research

2. Case study research

3. Grounded theory research

4. Phenomenological research

5. Participatory action research

Approaches in Quali research

Narrative

The term assigned to any text or discourse

Narrative; (Chase, 2005)

The text used within the context of a mode of inquiry in qualitative research

Narrative; (Polkinghorne, 1995)

with a specific focus on the stories individuals tell

Narrative; (Creswell et al., 2007)

FOCUS: stories of individuals

Narrative

The way we create and recreate our realities and ourselves

Narrative; (Smith, 1981; as cited by Giovannoli, 2000)

Verbal acts of telling someone’s story

Narrative

• People have gone through specific events

• Autobiographies/biographies

• Focus on a specific event that is important to the research

a spoken or written text giving an account of an event/action or series of events or actions chronologically connected.

(Czarniawska, 2004)

A specific type of qualitative design in which “narrative is understood as a spoken or written text giving an account of an event/action or series of events/actions, chronologically connected” was described by who?

Narrative Research

Originated from literature, history, anthropology, sociology, linguistics, and education

Narrative Research

Different fields of studies adopted their own approaches on how and where to get data

Clandinin and Connelly (2000)

“Narrative inquiry is stories lived and told.”

When detailed stories help understand the problem

Type of problem best suited for narrative res design

One or more individuals

Unit of analysis for narrative res

Interviews, documents

Data collection forms for narrative res

Chronology, elements of a story, restorying

Data analysis strategies for narrative res

Little set structure

Degree of structure in methods for narrative res

• Letters (chats/emails)

• Assembled stories

• Memos

• Photographs

• Memory boxes

• Personal or social artifacts

• Things that have sentimental values

Where do we get data in narrative research?

1. Select participants

2. Gather data from individuals

3. Reporting of individual stories and experiences

4. Arrange the data that are essential (chronologically)

5. Make a narrative analysis or biography - involves restorying (retelling the story)

Procedures in narrative research

• sensitive/complex/delicate

• needs personal experiences from individuals

When selecting participants in narrative res…

• Establish a relationship between observer and participant

• Establish the reasons why are you interested to study the topic/person

• Record stories from diaries and journals

When you gather data from individuals in narrative res…

Restorying

Analyzing for key elements (time/place/plot) then reconnecting to a chronological sequence.

1. Describe the individual’s experiences and then advance themes. Restory may have a plot that can be resolved in the end.

2. Actively collaborate with the clients providing the stories. Provide ways to be useful to the participants. Negotiate the meaning of the stories with the participants, adding a validity check to the analysis.

3. In the end, narrative analysis would tell the story of a client, unfolding in a chronology of experiences [about the research problem].

Methods of restorying

(Carter, 1993)

Stated that there can be a plot for narrative research restorying

(Clandinin and Connelly, 2000)

Stated to actively collaborate with the clients providing the stories

(Creswell & Miller, 2000;

Hoyt, Warbasse, & Chu, 2006)

Stated to negotiate the meaning of the stories with the participants, adding a validity check to the analysis

1. Life stories

• 3 interpretations:

  • As re-enactment

  • As dialogue with text

  • As a process of placing a text in a different context

Types of narratives

(Widdershoven, 1993)

Stated that there are 3 ways of interpretation of a life story

Collingwood’s theory of re-enactment

As re-enactment is aka as?

• Can understand the past by re-thinking the thoughts of the historical actor to see things from a distance

• In application to a person’s life, a story is a re-construction of life by which past experiences can survive more purely because the non-essential is removed

• Thoughts of an author or actor can be understood by re-enactment and that the essence of a story does not change

Life-stories as re-enactment

• There is no original meaning and that the meaning of a text is never fixed but is always changing in and through its interpretations

• The dialogue that takes place between two participants in a conversation and the dialogue which an interpreter conducts with a text are similar

• A text is interpreted in a horizon, which is being applied in the present situation which leads to a fusion of horizons, and a new perspective is produced to make clear what the experiences mean.

As a dialogue with the text

• Deconstruction or taking the text out of the context and placing it in a different one

• Making interpretations which are related to the text

• The transfer of the text means that new relations are created and new meaning produced

• It attempts to unite experiences into a pattern also create a divergence

As a process of placing a text in a different context

1. Descriptive Narrative Research

2. Explanatory Narrative Research

TYPES OF NARRATIVES (SANDELOWSKI, 1990)

Descriptive Narrative Research

Individual and group narratives of life stories or particular life episodes

• The conditions under which one storyline, or emplotment and signification of events prevails over, coheres with, or conflicts with other storyline

• The relationship between individual stories and the available cultural stories

• The functions that certain life episodes serve in individual emplotment of their lives.

Explanatory Narrative Research

Accounting with the use of the narrative of why something happened

• Lives can be understood, revealed, and transformed in stories and by the very act of storytelling

• Demonstrates that no single method of description is adequate transcription is adequate to every analytic task and that every transcription is necessarily incomplete

1. Personal experience and meaning-making

2. Effective argument of construction of events

3. Background information

4. Deeper penetrative description and explanation of human existence

Strengths of Narrative res

Issue of dependability

Weaknesses of Narrative res

Case Study

“an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between the phenomenon and the context are not clearly evident... It allows the investigation to retain the holistic and meaningful characteristics of real-life events— such as individual life cycles, organizational and managerial processes, neighborhood change, international relations, and the maturation of industries.”

(Yin, 1994)

Who stated, A case study is “an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between the phenomenon and the context are not clearly evident... It allows the investigation to retain the holistic and meaningful characteristics of real-life events— such as individual life cycles, organizational and managerial processes, neighborhood change, international relations, and the maturation of industries.”?

Case description

context of what you are trying to study

Case-based themes

patterns/series of events, bounded systems

Case study

It should build an in-depth contextual understanding of the case, relying on multiple data sources rather than on individual stories

1. Single instrumental case study

2. Collective or multiple case study

3. Intrinsic case study

3 variations of case study

Single instrumental case study

• Gives focus on the issue/concern

• Gives insight about the issue at hand

Collective or multiple case study

- More than one issue/case is being studied

• Investigates a phenomenon, population, or several certain conditions

Intrinsic case study

• Gives focus on the case itself

• Unusual or unique situations

• Evaluating the unusual or exceptional issues in a case

• Documents

• Archival records

• Interviews

• Direct observations

• Participant observations

• Physical artifacts

Sources of info used in case studies

1. Identify/select participants

2. Data collection - more than one method can be used

3. Detailed write-up.- writing the descriptions of each case

4. Identify distinct issues within the case and look for common themes

5. strategize how to write negative results

6. strategize how to make the statements clear

Procedures in conducting a case study

Search’s Evaluation Guidelines (Yin, 1994)

Within the case study approach to evaluation there are at least five different applications. Keep in mind, however, that case study evaluations must conform to ________

“Meta-evaluation”

study of an evaluation study.

• when there is a unique or interesting story to be told.

• They may also provide context to other data, such as quantitative data, thus offering a more complete picture of what happened and why.

• Case study methodology is particularly useful for:

  • “How” and “why” questions

  • Discovering important contextual conditions

  • When the boundaries between the phenomenon and the context are not clear

WHEN SHOULD YOU USE CASE STUDY AS A METHOD?

• Allows for thorough in-depth analysis.

• May contribute to establishing causal relationships between interventions and their immediate results.

• Incorporates various research techniques within one focused case study, which strengthens the credibility of results.

• Tends to provide strong evidence to support causal relationships between specific interventions and specific outcomes and/or impacts

ADVANTAGES OF DOING CASE STUDIES

• Focuses on only one causal relationship, leaving out potential others.

• Difficult to generalize to other situations.

• Cannot establish with pure certainty of pure causality between specific interventions and positive changes on a large scale (impact).

  • tldr; impossible to prove large-scale changes were done due to too many external factors

DISADVANTAGES OF DOING CASE STUDIES

Grounded theory research

Theory must be grounded or derived from participants’ data

Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss

started this qualitative design in 1967

the inquirer generates a general explanation (a theory) of a process, action, or interaction shaped by the views of a large number of participants

What is Grounded theory?

Grounded theory

the generation of a theory (complete with a diagram and hypotheses) of actions, interactions, or processes through interrelating categories of information based on data collected from individuals

Feature of grounded theory

Simultaneous collection and analysis of data

Feature of grounded theory

Creation of analytic codes and categories developed from data and not by pre-existing conceptualizations (theoretical sensitivity)

Feature of grounded theory

Discovery of basic social processes in the data

Feature of grounded theory

Inductive construction of abstract categories

Feature of grounded theory

Inductive construction of abstract categories

Feature of grounded theory

Writing analytical memos as the stage between coding and writing

Feature of grounded theory

The integration of categories into a theoretical framework.

1. Identifying area of interest, avoiding theoretical preconceptions, and using theoretical sensitivity

2. Use analytical procedures and sampling strategies

3. Collection of Data

4. Data Analysis

Procedures in conducting grounded theory

• Interviews and focus groups can be used

• Relies on open-ended questions

• Questions can be modified to reflect an emerging theory

• Data/theory Saturation

How is data collected in grounded theory?

Data/theory Saturation

means that no additional data are being found whereby the sociologist can develop the properties of the category’

(Glaser and Strauss, 1967)

‘saturation means that no additional data are being found whereby the sociologist can develop the properties of the category’

• Open Coding

• Axial Coding

• Selective Coding

Types of Coding

Open Coding

refers to the process of generating initial concepts from data

Axial Coding

the development and linking of concepts into conceptual families- coding paradigm

Selective Coding

the formalizing of these relationships into a theoretical framework

Constant comparative method;

o What is happening here?

o Under what conditions does this happen?

o What is this data a study of?

o What category does this incident indicate?

Keeping the codes active using the _________ by asking what?

Memo writing

the intermediate step between coding and the first draft of your completed study hypotheses and ideas recorded during analysis

Core category; Glaser

The generation of theory occurs around a _______. Without it, an effort of grounded theory will drift in relevancy and workability (stated by?)

The core category

accounts for most of the variation of data and therefore most other categories relate to it in some way.

The core category

a more highly abstracted category but still must remain grounded in the data.