CHYS 2P51 Final (multiple choice questions)

Week 1 - INTRODUCTION TO QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

What is Qualitative Research?

And how is it different than quantitative research?

 

 

Qualitative Research Methods

  • Allows us to draw out the layers and complexities of social problems

  • Can be used to support transformative social, political, and economic change

  • Involve the carful description of situations, interactions, and behaviours

  • Require an ethical research practice

 

"At its heart, research is storytelling"

  • What is a story?

    • Narrative

      • How its being told

    • Discourse, e.g., ideologies, social norms, values

      • Language practices

    • Standpoint & experience of the person who has lived the experience

    • One's agenda or goal (e.g., political)

      • Having a goal in sharing their story about…

    • Exclusion and invisibility

      • i.e. who's silences or rendered invisible in a story?

 

What is the critique or asserted limitation of qualitative research?

 

Critiques and Perceived Limitations

  • Stories are "anecdotal" - not conclusive, too personal, not "hard" data

  • Unscientific - lacking rigour, process, and structure

    • When it's very processed based

  • Unreliable - not reproduceable or consistent

  • Lack usefulness - not applicable to policy arenas

 

 

The Value of Qualitative Research

  • Data-based decision making in hospitals, schools, prisons, childcare centres, etc. has historically been centered on quantitative data

  • When working, data is gathered through systematic and unsystematic ways

    • Conversations, observations, interactions, feelings, relationships, etc.

    • Supports daily decisions on teaching, child welfare, healthcare, social services, etc.

 

Ethical Relationships and Honouring Stories

  • [E]thical research involves trust and reciprocal relationships

    • Dialogue, collaboration and humanity - its social science

  • Amplifying marginalized and silences voices

    • Historical dismissal of Indigenous voices and approaches to storytelling

    • Dismissing hardships and injustices, contributing to ongoing oppression of Indigenous children, families, and communities


Week 6 - THEORETICAL UNDERPINNINGS AND FORMS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE

What is the nature of things?

  • Everything, including our being in the world, has a singular point of origin

  • Ontology: the study of being (what we know)

  • Ontological position: where we locate the starting point of truth and reality

    • Can be difficult to grasp

    • Consider your "stand" on something by considering alternative position

  • What is the nature of the phenomena or social world that you with to investigate?

    • Consider the very nature, character or essence of the phenomenon of interest

 

Ontological Positions

  • Ontological positions reference what out "truth" is

  • There are aspects of ontology what may be competing and not complementary

    • Tensions exist in what we know -> confusion, disagreement, difficulties to reconcile and resolve

    • Formulation of different ideologies and paradigms

 

How do we know what we know?

  • Epistemology: the study of knowledge (how we know what we know, and how what we know has evolved over time)

  • Epistemological position: what we regard as knowledge or evidence of the phenomena or social world we want to examine

    • The theory that grounds your work

    • Your lens, ideolog, or paradigm

 

Positivist Social Science

  • Scientific method: how most quantitative research is conducted

  • Dominant epistemological position across many disciplines (psychology, statistics)

  • Experiments, surveys, statistics -> test hypotheses with exact measurement

  • Discover and confirm probabilistic casual laws that predict and prove patterns of human activity

  • Ontological position: social reality is patterned; research can estimate the odds of a predicted behaviour

  • Science is value free - objective, not based on values, opinions, attitudes, or beliefs; researchers personal, political, or religious views is at arms length of the research

  • Types of intellectual puzzles: developmental, casual/predictive

  • Methodology = grounded theory

 

Interpretive social science

  • Understanding a person's internal feelings, thoughts, reactions, and sense of reality -> how this guides their decisions to act in particular ways

  • Hermeneutics: meaning embedded in text (parts of a whole and text overall)

  • Detailed, nuanced observation - understanding of how a small group of people create meaning and navigate their social worlds in everyday life

  • Ontological position: subjectivity of experience and multiple truths; social life is fluid, fragile, and what people perceive it to be

  • Disciplines: anthropology, sociology, linguistics, humanities, cultural studies (symbolic interactionism and social constructionism)

  • Types of puzzles: experiential, ecological

 

Critical social science

  • Uncover the real structures in the material world to help people change conditions and build a better world

  • Our social reality is shaped by social, political and cultural factors (that need to be critiqued and transformed)

  • Action oriented: social research is moral-political activity

  • Epistemological traditions: feminist, intersectionality, critical disability, critical race, anti-colonial, post-structuralism

  • Types of puzzles: mechanical, processual, comparative, some experiential (if action-oriented and intention is to drive practice/policy change)


Week 9 - DATA GATHERING: METHODOLOGY AND METHOD

Theoretical Framework

  • Knowledge system that grounds you:

    • From what standpoint/social 'reality' does you research begin (Ontology)

    • Positivism, interpretive, Critical, Indigenous Ways of Knowing (Epistemological Positions)

 

Methodology

  • Rationale for your research approach:

    • What is your strategy that directs how the research will be undertaken?

    • Phenomenology, (critical) ethnography, grounded theory, narrative inquiry, institutional ethnography, community-based participatory action research, visual/arts-based methodologies, community-based participatory action research, etc.

 

Methods

  • Tools to conduct research:

    • What data sources are you involving to answer your research questions? (sapling and recruitment

    • How will you go about generating your data? (interview, focus group, document analysis, drama-based methods, arts-based methods, etc.

 

Indigenous Research Methods

  • Methods that:

    • Align with indigenous beliefs, values and worldviews

    • Facilitate research that is respectful, collaborative, and reciprocal

    • Consider issues of ownership, control, access and possession of data and the research process

    • Demand that the researcher consider their 'place' in the research - connects to positionality and reflexivity

      • Relationships, identities, insider/outsider standpoints

  • Much diversity across nations, communities, and research collaboratives


Week 11 - SAMPLING AND RECRUITMENT

Sampling and Selecting

  • “Principles and procedures used to identify and gain access to relevant data sources that are potentially generative in relation to a wider universe…for the purposes of gaining meaningful insights into your intellectual puzzle”

  • You can’t speak to everyone, you can’t read all the texts, and you can’t analyze a mountain of photographs – you need to narrow to some “sample"

 

What is "sampling"?

  • Rationale for who/what will be included in your study

    • People

      • Demographics (age, gender identity), sociocultural factors (education, employment characteristics), etc.

    • Texts

      • Where located? Context? Used/viewed by whom? Type (legislative, community-based, form of media, etc.)

  • Procedures you will utilize to select and represent your data sources

    • Purpose sampling

    • Theoretical sampling

    • Convenience sampling

 

What is the nature of sampling?

  • Purposive

    • Some informants are better situated to provide key insights and understanding than others -> intentionally invite specific perspectives

  • Emergent

    • Could evolve over time based o insights and categories that emerge through data collection and analysis (theoretical sampling)

  • Thoughtful

    • Interested in confirming an disconfirming perspectives; maximum variation and unique/extreme insights

  • Naturalistic

    • In ordinary settings where people "do" their lives (e.g., waiting rooms, soccer fields, universities, accessing programs/services)

    • Not predetermined

      • Don’t know what the final size will be; based on reaching "saturation" in new insights (difference from quantitative)

 

A Sampling Strategy

  • Is relevant

    • To your theoretical framework and research question

  • Generates rich information

    • About your social issue and phenomenon of interest

  • Is generalizable

    • Enable you to enhance applicability of study findings to a wider/broader audience and real world problems

  • Produced believable study results

    • Explanations are trustworthy, credible; study sample has been sought with rigour

  • Is ethical

    • How you find and engage your participants

  • Is feasible

    • Possible to carry out, and based on time allocated for the study

 

Identifying parameters for study "eligibility"

  • Your methodology informs decisions about eligibility and sample size

  • E.g., text for discourse analysis

  • People for phenomenology

  • Theoretical sampling for grounded theory (to develop and test a theory with people)

 

Sample Size Considerations

  • No "right" answer for sample size - aim is "saturation"

  • How many is enough to address you research question?

    • Is your sample appropriately generative (even if not fully representative)?

    • Can you make meaningful comparisons or relevant insights with the range you've included? (related to experiences)

    • Are you starting to hear similar / repeated stories

  • Have you challenged your assumptions?

    • Have you searched for "negative instances" or experiences that are different from what you’ve assumed or expected?

 

Study Recruitment

  • Where are your data sources located?

    • E.g., geographical spaces, social spaces, community programs

    • Relates to convenience sampling - reliance on participants who are readily available and accessible to the researcher

  • Accessing people:

    • Do you need permission / organizational approvals to gain access?

    • Are your recruitment plans:

      • Ethical: consider issues of coercion, conflicts of interest

      • Realistic: will you attract the "type" of participants you are seeking?

  • How will you locate participants?

    • Individuals-based strategies?

      • E.g. social media, posters in waiting rooms or in bulletin boards, word of mouth (snowball sampling)

      • Will potential participants see themselves reflected in the recruitment materials?

    • Organization-based strategies?

      • E.g., recruitment by a worker, coach, service provider who is at arms-length to the research (no coercion), provide information at intake/check-in, engage the parent (if involving children)

      • Who will approach (power, conflicts if interest)? Where and how often?

      • Language considerations?

 

Recruitment Challenges and Vulnerability

  • Rationale and importance to involve in research

    • E.g., address needs, amplify voices, historical exclusion in research and policy arenas

  • Is your population hard to reach and/or vulnerable?

    • Stigma and hidden nature of phenomenon of interest (e.g., people living with HIV)

    • Co-occurring vulnerabilities (e.g., homelessness, food and income insecurity, substance use, system navigation, health or social challenges)

  • What strategies might you implement to enhance participation and retention?

    • Time/ prolonged engagement, trauma-informed engagement

    • Involvement of peers/community leaders

    • Snowball sampling, chain-referral mechanisms

    • Building relationship, trust, reciprocity (community-based participatory action research)


Week 12 - DATA ORGANIZATION AND ANALYSIS

Organizing your data

  • What kind of data have you generated?

    • Interviews and focus groups: audio recordings -> transcript files

    • Textual analysis: text excerpts

    • Arts-based research: photos, body maps, collages, pictures of these things, etc.

  • How might you organize it?

    • Filing system? Software?

    • Who needs access to the data?

    • Practical and technical considerations, but essential for analytic process

  • What is expected by your REB approval?

    • Network folder, password protected, clear about who has access

 

Reading your data

  • Literal readings - what is there

    • Descriptive summary of words and language used

    • Sequence of interactions

    • E.g., frequency of words and concepts used

    • Qualitative content analysis

    • Qualitative descriptions

  • Interpretive reading

    • Constructing a version of what you think the data means or represents

    • What can you infer from the data beyond a descriptive, literal read?

      • Participants interpretations of their experiences

      • You interpretations of participant accounts

    • Reading through and beyond the data -> "thematic analysis"

  • Reflexive reading

    • Locate yourself as researcher - researcher's role and perspective in the analytic process

    • How dos your positionality connect to your interpretation of the data?

    • Revisit your theoretical framework, e.g. positivist, interpretive, critical

    • Why might you interpret the data a certain way? What other explanations are possible (Reflexivity)

 

Coding

  • Inductive

    • Developing a theory or conceptual model ('grounded' in the data)

  • Deductive

    • Testing or overlaying an existing theory or conceptual mode

  • What approach?

    • Depends on your purpose, methodology and research question; methodology determines style of analysis

  • Do the codes make sense for the intellectual puzzle you are trying to explain?

    • Too few codes -> vague and unspecified story?

    • Too refined and precise -> only tells part of the story>

    • Have you reached saturation?

 

Reflective Thematic Analysis

  • Adaptable to various research questions and intellectual puzzles

    • Experiences, perceptions, social context

  • Appropriate to use with many data sources

    • Interviews, focus groups (narrative , phenomenology)

    • Creative methods (carts-based research)

    • Not typically used in Critical Discourse Analysis

  • Themes in reflexive thematic analysis are not just topic summaries

    • They reflect patterns of shared meaning with interpretive depth

    • Not literal read of data, combination of interpretive and reflective read

 

The Six Phases of Reflexive Thematic Analysis

  1. Familiarisation

    • Read and re-read data to ‘get to know’ it (literal read as per Mason, 2018)

    • Make early notes, observe surface patterns, emotions, surprises

  2. Coding

    • Systematically tag interesting data segments with code labels

    • Codes evolve—may be split, merged, redefined

    • No pre-defined codes—emergent through interaction with data (inductive)

    • Developing and Completing Analysis

  3. Initial Theme Generation

    • Cluster related codes to form initial themes

    • Focus on shared meaning, not topic summaries

    • All interpretations are provisional at this stag

  4. Reviewing & Developing Themes

    • Revisit codes to ensure themes are coherent and reflect the data well.

    • Refine or discard themes; consider alternate mappings.

  5. Refining, Defining, Naming Themes

    • Write theme definitions (scope, core concept).

    • Ensure names are evocative yet clear.

    • Avoid catchy but misleading theme titles.

6. Producing the Report

  • Final phase write-up, not just reporting.

  • Weave data extracts with analytic commentary.

  • Themes should tell an integrated, meaningful story tied to the research question.

  • Reflexivity continues through the writing process