Qualitative Research Methods

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Qualitative Research Methods

• Ryan Cannon
• Adriana Cantu

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Focus Groups

• A focus group is a form of qualitative research
  in which a group of people are asked about their
  attitude towards a product, service, concept,
  advertisement, idea, or packaging.
• Usually consists of 6 to 12 participants who are
  gathered to discuss a topic.
• This group is lead by a facilitator (or
  moderator), as opposed to an interviewer.
• The facilitator describes the topic to be
  discussed and tries to create a nonthreatening
  environment in which all group members feel free
  to express their opinions, attitudes, and
  experiences even if they differ from those of
  other participants.
• The facilitator should have a predetermined set
  of questions (also known as a questioning
  route) to ensure that all relevant aspects of
  the topic are discussed and everyone in the group
  gets involved.

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Questioning Route for Stress Focus Group

• Opening comments
• Welcome statements regarding the purpose of the
  study, focus group procedures, and ethical
  issues.
• Opening comment
• Please tell us a little bit about yourself.
• Introductory question
• Stress is prevalent in our everyday lives many
  people fell stressed. In thinking about your
  daily life, what does stress mean to you?
• Transition questions
• Is stress a positive/negative factor in your
  life? In what ways is it positive/negative?
• Subprobe What is it about stress thats good or
  bad?
• Key Questions
• What are the things that contribute to stress in
  your life?
• Subprobe (a) How does this work? Does one
  thing contribute more stress than others, or does
  the combination of many things contribute to
  stress? (b) Do you have any particular health
  concerns that contribute to your feelings of
  stress? Can you tell us more about this? (c)
  Besides possible health concerns, is there
  anything else that adds to your feelings of
  stress? (d) does being a manager contribute to
  your feelings of stress? If so, describe how.
• Ending Questions
• All things considered, what would you say is
  the major cause of stress in your life?
• Is there anything about stress that we havent
  talked about that you would like to raise before
  we leave tonight?

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Focus Groups

• Typical focus group lasts about an hour
• Typical to use two or more focus groups in a
  given research project

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Advantage of using focus groups in research

• Reveals the evolution of perceptions in a social
  context.
• Focus group method began as a business marketing
  research tool when researchers realized that the
  perceptions of an individual in isolation may be
  different from his or her perceptions as they
  develop in a social context.
• Example
• A new product that initially seems
  satisfactory to an individual may been seen as
  less desirable after he or she has discussed it
  with other individuals who may have different
  perspectives on it.

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Weaknesses of Focus Groups

• Researcher has less control over a group than
  one-on-one interview
• Data are tough to analyze because the talking is
  in reaction to the comments of other group
  members
• The number of members of a focus group is not
  large enough to be a representative sample of a
  population thus, the data obtained from the
  groups is not necessarily representative of the
  whole population, unlike in opinion polls
• The design of the focus group study (e.g.
  respondent selection, the questions asked, how
  they are phrased, how they are posed, in what
  setting, by whom, and so on) affects the answers
  obtained from respondents.
• New Coke

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Case Study

• Qualitative descriptive research that is used to
  look at individuals or small groups of
  participants.
• Looks for How and Why
• Researchers collect data about participants
  through direct observations, interviews, tests,
  examinations of records, and collections of
  writing samples.
• Draws conclusions only about the participant or
  group and only in that specific context.
• Researchers do not focus on the discovery of a
  universal, generalizable truth, nor do they
  typically look for cause-effect relationships
  instead emphasis is placed on exploration and
  description.

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Types of Data Collected in Case Studies

• Documents
• Archival Records
• Interviews
• Direct Observation
• Participant Observation

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Case Study

• Strengths
• Flexibility
• The case study approach is a comparatively
  flexible method of scientific research. Because
  its project designs emphasize exploration rather
  than prescription or prediction, researchers are
  comparatively freer to discover and address
  issues as they arise in their experiments.
• The looser format of case studies allows
  researchers to begin with broad questions and
  narrow their focus as their experiment progresses
  rather than attempt to predict every possible
  outcome before the experiment is conducted.
• Emphasis on Context
• By seeking to understand as much as possible
  about a single subject or small group of
  subjects, case studies specialize in "deep data,"
  or "thick description"--information based on
  particular contexts that can give research
  results a more human face. This emphasis can help
  bridge the gap between abstract research and
  concrete practice by allowing researchers to
  compare their firsthand observations with the
  quantitative results obtained through other
  methods of research.

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Case Study

• Weaknesses
• Difficult to generalize because of inherent
  subjectivity and because they are based on
  qualitative subjective data, generalizable only
  to a particular context.
• High investment for non-generalizable results A
  budget request of 10,000 to quantitatively
  examine 200 subjects sounds more efficient than a
  similar request to examine four subjects in a
  case study.

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Interviews

• Semi-structured Interviews
• Most widely used type of instrument for
  collecting data
• Typically face-to-face interviews and tape
  recorded
• Interviews can be examined at a later date (can
  be examined by other researchers also)

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Interview Protocol

• Consists of written directions for conducting the
  interview
• Contains standard set of predetermined questions
  to be asked of all participants
• Questions should be pilot tested
• Pilot tested on a few individuals that are not
  involved in the study
• Questions should be revised
• Questions should be reviewed by experts in the
  area being investigated

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Semi-structured Interviewers

• The interviewer does not need to ask only the
  predetermined questions
• Questions can be re-worded
• Answers can be asked to be elaborated
• Qualitative interviewers need to be skilled
  because they are not following predetermined
  questions
• Novice interviewers need to gain practice and
  should receive feedback from more experienced
  qualitative researchers

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Interviews

• Issue of reality
• Interviews are primarily perception based
• Objective factual reality is not as interesting
  or informative to qualitative researchers as
  participants perceptions
• Examining perceptions is known as
  phenomenological approach

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The Interviewer

• Interviewer should be unbiased
• Can achieve an unbiased attitude through
  self-disclosure
• Self disclosure considering the research problem
  in relation to the interviewers background and
  attitude before conducting the interviews

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Classroom Observation

• Method of measuring classroom behaviors from
  direct observations
• Direct observations specifies both the events or
  behaviors to be observed and how they are to be
  recorded
• Measures the frequency of specific behaviors that
  occur in the classroom their duration

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Classroom Observation

• Research on effective teaching typically includes
  subjective data based on personal and anecdotal
  accounts of effective teaching.
• In order to develop a scientific basis for
  teaching, researchers have used objective and
  more reliable methods of systematic classroom
  observation.

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Classroom Observation

• Purpose
• Description of instructional practice
• Investigation of instructional inequities for
  different groups of students
• Improvement of teachers' classroom instruction
  based on feedback from individual classroom or
  school profiles

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Classroom Observation

• Distinction between nonparticipant observation
  and participant observation
• Nonparticipant observation the qualitative
  researcher sits at the back of the classroom to
  observe student/teacher interactions
• Observes individuals as an outsider
• Concern participants behavior may change because
  they know they are being observed

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Classroom Observation

• Participant observation researcher becomes
  member of the group being researched
• Makes observations as an insider
• Ex. Teacher who is also a researcher who wants to
  study a high school that is widely known for
  academic achievement might arrange to teach at a
  school providing an opportunity to observe while
  participating
• Making participant observations without awareness
  by those being observed brings up serious ethical
  problems