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Qualitative Research Methods

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Title: Qualitative Research Methods


1
Qualitative Research Methods
  • Communication Research
  • Week 12

2
Who uses qualitative methods?
  • Philosophers
  • Psychologists
  • Sociologists
  • Anthropologists
  • Students of literature
  • Historians
  • anyone who finds the methods of the physical
    sciences inappropriate for understanding human
    realities

3
Why qualitative methods?
  • Not everything that can be counted counts, and
    not everything that counts can be counted.
  • Albert Einstein

4
Varieties of Qualitative Methods
  • Sources of data can include
  • Ones own immediate experience
  • Others experiences that can be sought to be
    understood via
  • their speaking or writing
  • their other behaviours
  • their other products technology, artwork,
    footprints etc

5
Qualitative Methods
  • provide in-depth descriptions
  • study things in natural settings
  • from the individuals perspective
  • complexity
  • in-depth examination of a number of issues
  • contextual
  • situational and environmental concerns specific
    to people

6
Myths and Realities of Qualitative Research
  • Qualitative research
  • is not as reliable as
  • takes more time than
  • does not involve numbers like
  • is generalisable unlike
  • is subjective unlike
  • is not as systematic as
  • quantitative research

7
Why do some researchers prefer qualitative
methods?
  • Ethical concerns about manipulation
  • Reliance on measurement a concern
  • Issue of control in quantitative methods
  • Concern on quantitative tendency to reductionism
  • Concern that experimental methods are
    deterministic

8
Some types of qualitative research methods
  • Historical
  • Survey
  • Case Study
  • Participant Observation
  • Ethnography
  • Phenomenological
  • Interviews

9
Historical Research
  • Studies available data to study, understand, and
    interpret past events
  • Uses primary, secondary and tertiary data sources
  • Art or science?
  • Interpretation can change over time and
    according to political, social and philosophical
    perspectives ie historical revisionism
  • was Australia discovered or invaded?
  • C19th Colonialism and the White Mans Burden

10
Views of history
  • History is the record of progress
  • History is the study of class conflict Marx
  • History is bunk Henry Ford
  • History is the story of great figures
  • History is the study of everyday life

11
What is history?
  • These so-called facts which are the the same for
    all historians, commonly belong to the category
    of raw materials of the historian rather than of
    history itself The necessity to establish these
    basic facts rests not with any quality in the
    facts themselves, but on an a priori decision
    of the historian

12
What is history? continued
  • It used to be said that facts speak for
    themselves. This is, of course untrue. The facts
    speak only when the historian calls on them it
    is he who decides to which facts to give the
    floor, and in what order or context. E.H. Carr
    (1961,5) What is history?

13
Potential problems of historical research
  • Limited to data already available
  • Excessive reliance on secondary sources
  • Uncertainty about authenticity and/or accuracy of
    sources
  • Lack of objectivity
  • Need to find patterns/weave a narrative

14
Case Studies
  • Pioneered by Sigmund Freud case of Anna O
  • Examine the characteristics of a particular
    entity, phenomenon, or person
  • Focus is on a single subject or unit (could be
    multiple individuals)
  • A rich account of a phenomenon not available by
    other means

15
Problems with case studies
  • Limited generalisability
  • Deep but not broad
  • What you see is not always what you get
  • Researchers notes may only reflect one reality
  • Observer (researcher) bias
  • Cause-effect links difficult to validate
  • Need for extensive data collection

16
Ethnographic Research
  • studies cultural patterns and perspectives of
    participants in their natural settings
  • describes and analyses practices and beliefs of
    cultures and communities
  • guided by theory anthropology, education,
    psychology
  • understand the culture from insider and outsider
    perspective
  • focus on behaviors, ideas, beliefs, knowledge,
    etc

17
Phenomenological Research
  • considers how the experience of particular
    participants exhibits a unique perspective
  • aims to understand and describe an event from the
    point of view of the participant
  • subjective experience is the centre of the
    inquiry
  • researcher does not make assumptions about
    reality that is outside of the individual

18
Unstructured Interviews
  • Interaction between researcher and person(s) of
    interest
  • Guiding questions but no formal structured
    instrument or protocol
  • Interviewer moves conversation in direction of
    responses
  • Need to tape record the interviews
  • Consent forms for tape recording

19
Focus Groups
  • group interviews that rely on the interaction
    within the group
  • designed to elicit more of the participants
    points of view
  • interested in how individuals perceive a problem

20
Focus Groups
  • exchange of ideas of how to interpret key terms
    or differences are resolved and consensus is
    built
  • systematic variation across groups
  • variations in
  • ordering of questions
  • background traits of participants
  • homogenous groups vs heterogeneous groups
  • compare responses of individuals who meet several
    times

21
Grounded Theory Glaser Strauss 1960s
  • method for developing grounded theory is based on
    data that are systematically gathered and
    analysed
  • theoretical propositions are not stated at the
    beginning
  • generalisations (theory) comes from the data and
    not before data collection

22
Grounded Theory
  • emerging theory is grounded in the current
    project
  • constant comparative method
  • researcher interprets the data and uses it to
    generate theory
  • must verify the hypotheses that emerge from the
    study

23
Key Features of Grounded Theory
  • constant interaction with data to identify
    possible theories relate to the study
  • select incidents that seems to reflect the
    emerging theory ask more questions that will
    fill in the gaps
  • coding techniques to help organize the
    information

24
Finally general characteristics of qualitative
research...
  • Data sources are real-world situations
  • Data are descriptive
  • Emphasizes a holistic approach (processes and
    outcomes)
  • Data analysis is inductive
  • Describes the meaning(s) of research finding(s)
    from the perspective of the research participants

25
The general characteristics of qualitative
research...
  • Involves developing generalisations from a
    limited number of observations or experiences
  • Highly dependant upon the representativeness of
    the specific observations used to make the
    generalisation

26
The last word on qualitative methods from a
famous researcher
  • Anyone who wants to know the human psyche will
    learn nothing from experimental psychology. He
    would be better advised to abandon exact science,
    put away his scholars gown, bid farewell to his
    study, and wander with human heart through the
    world. There in the horror of prisons, lunatic
    asylums and hospitals, in drab suburban pubs, in
    brothels and gambling hells in the salons of the
    elegant

27
Last word continued
  • the Stock Exchange, socialist meetings,
    churches, revivalist gatherings and ecstatic
    sects, through love and hate, through the
    experience of passion in every form of his own
    body, he would reap richer stores of knowledge
    than text books a foot thick could give him, and
    he will know how to doctor the sick with the real
    knowledge of the human soul. Carl Jung
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