Qualitative Research

what is qualitative research?

the use of non-numerical data to answer a research question

four common methodologies of qualitative research

phenomenology, ethnography, field research, grounded theory

what is major difference between qualitative and quantitative research

the researchers underlying strategies

what type of reasoning is used in quantitative research?

deductive (confirmatory)

what type of reasoning is used in qualitative research?

inductive (exploratory)

what are the purposes of qualitative reasoning

describe and understand, generate hypotheses, enhance understanding, study areas not amenable to quantitative methods, explore new areas/questions

what data collection methods are used in qualitative research?

interviews, focus groups, observation, video, text

what data is collected in qualtitative studies? how is it reported?

words/images, primarily narrative

is a survey with closed ended questions (checking boxes) qualitative or quantitative

quantitative

what type of sampling is used in qualitative studies?

purposive (targets specific group)

how is the strength of a qualitative study determined

validity

big picture purposes of qualitative research

explore, supplement quantitative data, understand meaning, discover, condense

inductive process of generating theory from data, researchers detect patterns in the observations and then create working hypotheses to study and develop theory

grounded theory

focus on people’s subjective experiences and interpretations of the world, attempts to understand participant perspective

phenomenology

emphasizes observation of details of everyday life as they naturally unfold in the world- describes a culture or society

ethnography

where field researchers go directly into the social phenomenon under study and observe it as completely as possible, observations in the natural environment over time

field research

what qualitative methods are more common in PT research?

grounded theory and phenomemology

what approach was used in the Johnston study?

phenomenology

what was the purpose of the Johnston study?

to gain info about perceived stress factors in female runners

pros of collecting data through observation

overcomes discrepancy between what people say and do, uncover behaviors unknown to participants

cons of collecting data through observation

getting in, selective recall/reviewing, inefficient

pros of collecting data through interviews

people like it, interviewer can follow leads, flexible, can work with interviewee schedule

cons of collecting data through interviews

depends on interviewer skill, interviewer needs training, need monitoring for bias

pros of collecting data through focus groups

always learn something, encourages reluctant participants, can bring up new ideas

cons of collecting data through focus groups

Silence, shy/dominating personalities, confidentiality, staying on task

pros of collecting data through document textual analysis

efficient

cons of collecting data through document textual analysis

external cues can identify source, reading not the same as heading, sources may be biased

what can be sampled for qualitative research

people, document, media, events, groups

what is saturation

occurs when there are no new ideas of themes emerging and all unanswered questions have been adressed

what is typically the minimum sample size for saturation?

10-20 single interviews

what sampling methods can be used in qualitative research?

maximum variation, snowballing/networking, typical case, extreme case, negative case

how is qualitative data analyzed

transcribing and reading, divide into meaningful units called open codes, refine categories into axial codes

what is the conclusion of quantitative data analysis?

stops with the emergence of regularities, results in themes or patterns

degree you can generalize results to other situations

transferability

does the way the researcher portrays the viewpoints reflect the way the respondents perceive the constructs

credibility