Teaching qualitative research methods to undergraduates

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Teaching qualitative research methods to
undergraduates

• HEA Psychology Network Workshop
• 23rd-24th April, 2008
• York

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Qualitative Data Collection Interviews
Participant Observation

• Professor Nigel King
• Department of Behavioural Sciences
• University of Huddersfield

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Aims

• Identify what undergraduates MUST know about
  qualitative interviewing and participant
  observation
• Suggest some strategies for teaching this
  material to them

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Interviewing Essentials

• Main types of interview
• How to develop an interview guide
• Forming and asking questions
• Including probes, encouragers and prompts
• Building rapport
• Recording
• Ethics of interviewing

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Types of Interview

• Distinction in terms of level of structure
• Structured
• Semi-structured
• Unstructured
• Point out that there are further distinctions,
  but these will not be covered at this stage of
  degree

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Developing the Interview Guide

• Sources literature, informal exploratory work,
  anecdotal and personal experience
• Framing questions full questions or topic
  headings?
•   Anticipatory probes  
• Flexibility in use
• Modifying through use

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Forming and asking questions

• Open rather than closed questions
• Avoid complex/ambiguous questions
• Avoid leading questions
• Use of probes, encouragers and prompts

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Building rapport

• Introducing yourself
• Addressing (as far as possible) participant
  anxieties - and your own
• Think about your appearance
• Think about the physical environment
• Friendly, non-judgemental manner

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Recording

• Consent to record (and quote)
• Use good quality equipment
• Familiarise yourself with equipment
• Where you have a choice, consider acoustics of
  setting, including background noise
• Bring spare batteries and tapes (where used)
• Think about what to do in case of recording
  failure

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Ethics and interviewing

• Can be good opportunity to make ethical issues
  real to students
• Consent (including to record and quote)
• Briefing - what do participants need to be told?
• Dealing with distress
• Researcher safety

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Interviewing exercise

• Design simple interview guide
• Carry out interviews in threes (interviewer,
  interviewee, observer), rotating roles
• Structured reflection and discussion on how
  interviews went
• Full exercise needs 2-3 hours Can be divided
  over 2 or 3 shorter sessions

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Participant Observation Essentials

• Definition
• Why use it?
• Levels of participation and their pros and cons
• Practicalities of observing and recording
• Ethics

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Defining Participant Observation

• Researcher seeks to understand an aspect of the
  social world not just by observing it, but also
  by participating in it
• Widely used in Sociology and Social Anthropology
• Less common in Psychology, but is sometimes used

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Why use Participant Observation?

• Allows social world to be examined in great depth
• Allows researcher to get behind public face of
  social world
• Longitudinal nature
• - enables researcher to see things changing over
  time
• - enables relationships with participants to
  build up over time

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Levels of participation

• Overt or covert?
• Full participation (covert)
• Participant as observer
• Observer as participant
• Minimal participation

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Using high levels of participation

• Advantages
• Very rich experience of social world you are
  observing
• Less likelihood of observer effects - especially
  if covert
• Disadvantages
• May become too involved and influential
• For covert researcher, danger of discovery
• Ethical issues may be expected to share in
  unacceptable actions if covert, by definition
  deceiving people

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Using lower levels of participation

• Advantages
• Able to maintain enough distance to minimise
  undue influence
• Ethical dilemmas less likely
• Observation almost always overt, removing danger
  of discovery
• Disadvantages
• May not be involved enough to obtain insights
  from participation
• May not be able to build trust and encourage
  openness
• Socially undesirable actions may be concealed
  from your view

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Practicalities of recording

• Note-taking as soon as possible after observation
  - may be concurrent if sure it will be acceptable
  and not distracting
• Write up notes at end of each day - often using
  structured format to aid organisation and
  facilitate analysis
• May tape-record informant interviews and formal
  meetings (with permission)

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Example of headings for daily record sheet

• Date time of session
• People present
• Main events of session
• Notes on specific topics
• (several headings)
• Personal feelings/impressions

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Observational biases

• Selective attention
• Only attending to most dramatic /
  interesting aspects
• Selective encoding
• Rush to judgement - fit coding to your
  presuppositions
• Selective memory
• e.g. may recall incidents that confirmation of
  own expectations
• Interpersonal factors
• e.g Interpretation influenced by whether you
  like or dislike particular people

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Ethics and Participant Observation

• Again, provides good opportunity for discussion
• Observing illegal / morally unacceptable
  activities - whether and when to intervene
• Confidentiality - especially amongst participants
• May be seen as betraying trust if come to
  conclusions participants dislike
• Deception - especially in covert observation
• Personal safety of researchers

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Participant Observation exercise

• Ask students to design simple participant
  observation task in small groups (e.g. observing
  everyday public behaviour, social group of which
  they are member)
• Tutors ensure task is practical, ethical and safe
• Students carry out participant observation during
  week between practical sessions
• Next week carry out structured reflection on how
  it went