Harding Chapter 3 - Practical Issues in Qualitative Research

interviews

used to understand views and experiences, follow-up questions, resource intensive, less naturalistic

focus groups

informal group discussions on a certain topic, good for hard-to-reach groups, can explore reasoning of opinions and internal disagreements, not good for senstive

documentary analysis

reviewing public records, newspapers, diaries, etc
content analysis (how often words pop up) = quantitative
discourse analysis

content analysis

how often words or phrases appear - quantitative

discourse analysis

the ways in which language is used to create norms or ways of thinking - qualitative

structured observation

rules are set, when and what to look for is predetermined

unstructured observation

general to specific, creates narrative account then chooses specific areas of concentration

participant observation

researcher immerses themselves in the social setting and participates whilst recording

non-participant observation

observes and records from a distance

questionnaires

open questions can be more qualitative, can be difficult to convey proper meaning of questions

theoretical sampling

the samples are not all selected at the beginning of a study but suitable subjects are selected on the basis of ongoing data analysis

purposive sampling

subjective approach by selecting who you think would best fit the research

selecting extreme cases

may give the best understanding of the field as a whole, good for comparison

selecting typical cases

can give information on the experience of the average person