W2 L1: Collecting Qualitative data

what is it?

  • spoken and written words, texts, images

  • Offer a (different) lens to explore, understand, interpret or explain phenomena in real-world contexts and settings (Jones & Smith, 2017)


what are they good at?

  • examining perspectives, thoughts, feelings, sense-making and individual experiences

  • understanding attitudes, emotions, opinions, arguments

  • focusing on language - what and how people say things

  • developing theories that are localised, context-specific and emergent from the field


diversity

  • different methods and techniques

  • conflicting approaches for conducting research


knowledge production in qualitative research

realistic approach

  • reality is seen as something that exists

  • experiences can be captured in research


phenomenological approach

  • interested in nuances and quality of experiences

  • how people experience different events


social constructionist approach

  • what people talk about in the world and their experiences

  • there are multiple “knowledges” - products of a particular cultural and historical context


research questions

  • about what and how

  • don’t use hypothesis

  • approach knowledge from the perspective of those who have experienced it

  • open ended questions

  • process orientated

  • avoid questions that seek to establishing general trends

  • context really matters

  • research question might change overtime during the research process - question evolves


data in qualitative methods

  • tends to be texts or images

  • data is collected, generated and analysed in their raw form

contrived data

  • generated by researcher (interviews and focus groups, surveys, field notes, etc.)

naturally occurring data

  • data produced independently of the actions of the researcher (press, media, observations, visual data like graffiti and photos, etc.)


interviews

  • a conversation with a purpose

  • aim to provide rich, detailed, and in-depth info about a topic

  • exploring particular cases and subjective personal experiences

  • interest in and respect for participants’ own language, concepts and categories


choosing type of interview

  • formal or informal

  • face-2-face or remote

  • customised or thematic

  • 1 or multiple interviewers


sample recruitment

  • ppts who represent variety of positions

  • fixed key aspects that define the groups you are looking at

  • sharing a background similar to the group you are studying may be an advantage


recruiting ppts

  • purposive sampling - on purpose, not randomly

  • snowballing sampling


developing the interview guide

  • funnel structure - from broad to narrow

  • The interview guide outlines the main topics to be covered, but it should be flexible (e.g., phrasing, order)


structure

  • structured - same questions, control, not really qualitative

  • semi-structured - set of pre-formed questions but interviewer can improvise some questions too, mostly open-ended Qs, order of Qs is less important

  • unstructured - initial Qs, other emerge from context and experiences shared by ppts

  • often a mix

  • avoid leading questions, over-complex questions, double-barrelled questions, assumptions, complex words, judgemental responses.


piloting interviews

  • helps identification of problem with wording

  • also helps memories the interview guide and develop skills


conducting interviews

  • good interviewing skills

  • retaining control of the agenda

  • recording

  • transcription