Qualitative Methodologies Workshop

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Qualitative Methodologies Workshop

• Some general principles
• An example
• Introducing some methods and techniques
• Developing a plan

Jo Tacchi j.tacchi_at_qut.edu.au
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Some resources in the library

• Questioning Qualitative Inquiry Critical Essays.
  Martyn Hammersley. London. Sage. 2008.
• Strategies of Qualitative Inquiry. Norman K.
  Denzin Yvonna S. Lincoln. Los Angeles. Sage.
  2008.
• Introducing Qualitative Research A Students
  Guide for the Craft of Doing Qualitative
  Research. Rosaline S. Barbour. Thousand Oaks CA.
  Sage. 2008.
• http//carbon.cudenver.edu/mryder/itc/pract_res.h
  tml

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Quantitative or Qualitative? general principles

• Large numbers
• Thin description
• Counts how many
• Closed, with predetermined parameters
• Mode of analysis predetermined
• Easy to control for good (generating accurate
  information on large numbers of people) and ill
  (may miss important unexpected aspects)
• Representative random sampling
• Requires a set of variables
• Produces statistics

• Small numbers
• Thick description
• Explores meanings
• Open, with clear focus but flexibility
• Allows for reflexive interpretation
• Difficult to control for good (allows
  interesting and unexpected issues to emerge) and
  ill (hard to generate numbers and include large
  numbers of people)
• Generalisable purposeful sampling
• Requires reflexivity
• Produces accounts/ narratives/stories

Training workshop, Lapulu
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Planning qualitative research

• Each piece of research needs a detailed research
  plan
• What are your research questions and what
  approach is best suited to answering them?
• Develop a clear methodology
• Use a range of appropriate methods
• Workshop outputs
• A clearer idea of the potential relevance to your
  research
• An idea of a few qualitative methods
• A draft research plan

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Finding a Voice

• Aim to explore how technological change might be
  socially effective and culturally empowering
• Funded by Australian Research Council Linkage
  grant and UNESCO and UNDP
• Sites India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Indonesia

• Established a network of 15 (pre-existing) ICT
  centres
• telecentres
• community radio / video
• community libraries
• Community multimedia centres

image courtesy Buddhanagar CMC
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Finding a Voice 2 main activities and outcomes

• Participatory local content creation a variety
  of content creation activities and a transferable
  set of principles and processes

• Ethnographic Action Research (EAR) a research
  and development methodology for improving the
  effectiveness of community-based media and ICT
  centres

image courtesy Buddhanagar CMC
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Background the research need

• Much of the research work in development
  communication is about trying to establish impact
• Much of it follows the hypodermic needle
  approach, and is embedded in modernisation
  paradigm
• This is despite rhetoric to the contrary we
  talk about participation
• Nevertheless, target audiences of development
  communication are often considered to be
  information poor in need of an injection of
  information
• Participation in development often fails to live
  up to its promise top-down participation
• How can we make development more participatory?
• Dialogue and debate and multiple knowledges
• Dealing with complexity

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EAR Ethnographic Action Research

• Developed specifically for ICT/community media
  initiatives
• Combines three research approaches
• ETHNOGRAPHY traditionally used to understand
  different cultures in detail. It is long term and
  requires researcher to be embedded in local
  cultures.
• PARTICIPATORY TECHNIQUES help both researchers
  and participants understand complex issues in a
  rapid and inclusive manner.
• ACTION RESEARCH used to bring about new
  activities through new understandings of
  situations.

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EAR Ethnographic Action Researchkey features
Plan

• Embedded
• Ongoing
• Social mobilisation
• Research culture
• Participatory
• Action research cycle

Reflect
Do
Observe
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EAR Ethnographic Action Research

• A few of the key methods
• Participant observation field notes
• An EAR researcher is both a participant and an
  observer.
• Field notes record as much as possible of what
  EAR researchers see and hear and also record
  their own reactions and ideas as they happen.
• This helps the researcher to think through
  difficult issues, reflect upon and share emerging
  research themes .
• Continuous activity.
• Can also be undertaken by others involved in the
  project simply by reflecting on what they observe
  and recording this in the form of field notes
  (like a journal/diary).

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EAR Ethnographic Action Research

• A few of the key methods
• Interviews In-depth and group
• In-depth interviews are detailed conversations
  with a purpose.
• Interviews are guided by an interview schedule
  - a list of a few issues to be covered in each
  interview - while leaving lots of room to respond
  to what is interesting in the conversation.
• Group interviews are discussions in which
  researchers set a topic and guide discussion but
  allow the participants to talk to each other and
  develop a conversation.
• A good group size is between 6 and 10 people.

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EAR Ethnographic Action Research

• A few of the key methods
• Participatory techniques
• Good for getting researchers started in
  collecting data and quickly gaining an
  understanding of the local area, local people and
  local issues.
• Can involve local people participating in
  defining their own issues.
• A useful way of starting EAR work, and can be
  drawn upon at any time to explore issues in
  different ways, and to test findings or ideas
  generated using other methods.
• Generally undertaken with small groups.
• Includes mapping, grouping, ranking, comparing
  and sequencing.

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Communicative ecologies

• Reflects ethnographic goal of holism,
  importance of context
• Tool for mapping participation in communication
  ground it in the everyday
• Assumes ICT joins pre-existing communication
  systems beyond mass / community media
• Transport infrastructure
• roads, buses, trains
• Social communication practices
• public and private gossip
• Local people often do not use or think about an
  individual medium in isolation from other media
• Communication takes place within an existing
  communicative ecology specific to each
  community/group/place culture

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ComEco1
Subject Firali 33yo female householder Location
Jhuwani, Nepal Date 24 March 2007
Communicative Ecologymapping
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ComEco2
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ComEco3
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Important Skills

• Listening
• Interpreting/describing
• Checking/sharing
• Reflecting/questioning
• Some roles of a group facilitator
• To focus a group on its purpose and act as
  guardian of the group culture
• To help a group increase its effectiveness by
  intervening on group process and structure
• To help group members learn and critically
  reflect
• 4 facilitators

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Exercising some methods Speed dating

• Participatory techniques
• Trees
• Community mapping
• Gender roles charts
• Road blocks and barriers
• Ranking lines
• Spider diagrams

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Research planning

• Clear research question
• Methods that will be used
• The Time Frame for implementing each research
  activity
• Documentation managing and organising data
• Coding and analysis
• Production and feedback of results/outputs