Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Qualitative Research (Qualitative Research Approaches (Case study (What…
Qualitative Research
Qualitative Research Approaches
Case study
What are the characteristics of this particular entity, phenomenon or person?
Ethnography
What are the cultural patterns and perspectives of this group in its natural setting?
Ethology
How do the origins, characteristics and culture of different societies compare to one another?
Ethnomethodology
How do people make sense of their everyday activities in order to behave in socially accepted ways?
Grounded Theory
How is an inductively derived theory about a phenomenon grounded in the data in a particular setting?
Phenomenology
What is the experience of an activity or concept from these particular participants perspective?
Symbolic Interaction
How do people construct meanings and shared perspectives by interacting with others?
Action Research
How can practitioners solve or understand an identified problem and improve practice based on data they have collected and analysed?
Historical Research
How does one systematically collect and evaluate data to understand and interpret past events?
Six General Steps in Qualitative Research
Identify research topics
Review of research
Selecting participants
Collecting data
Analysing data
Reporting, evaluating, and interpreting research
Data Analysis
Lengthy and time consuming
Multistage process of organising, categorising, synthesising, interpreting, and writing about the data
Each of the process is iterative
Steps in analysing qualitative research data
Data managing
Reading/Memoing
Describing the context and participants
Classifying
Interpreting
Data managing
Data organising activities
Once data are organised, data analysis begins
Analysis requires four iterative steps
Reading/Memoing
Describing what is going on in the setting
Classifying research data
Interpreting
The process focuses on
becoming familiar with the data and identifying potential themes in it (
reading/memoing)
examining the data in depth to provide detailed descriptions of the setting, participants, and activity (
describing)
categorising and coding pieces of data and grouping them into themes (
classifying
)
interpreting and synthesising the organised data into general written conclusions or understandings based on the data (
interpreting)
Writing a Report
Data analysis and interpretation also go on during the writing of the report
Writing report tests the quality and meaningfulness of ideas and logic
Writer must return to the data to clarify a thought or to verify logical connection in the report
Focus on the key themes and interpretations
Language should be straightforward
More like a story than a formal report
Characteristics of Quantitative and Qualitative Research
Natural setting, not in a laboratory
Involves intimate, face-to-face interaction with participants
Presents an accurate reflection of participants perspectives and behaviours
Uses inductive, interactive and recursive data collection and analytic strategies to build local cultural theories
Uses multiple data sources
Step 1: Selecting a Research Topic
Topics tend to be generally asked
Strategies to narrow the scale of a qualitative study
Narrow the time or resource of topic
Narrow the audience to be addressed
Narrow the number of participants to save time and analysis
Examine the literature of determine the scale of the topic
Look for potential problems during the early steps of the research
Share the research work with a colleague
Obtain the advice of more experienced qualitative researchers
Step 2: Reviewing the Literature
Some researchers will only delve deeply into their literature when their topic has emerged
Others, on the contrary
Provide a frame of mind, justify the viability and credibility of topic
Step 3: Selecting Research Participants
How many participants are enough?
1 participants to 60 or 70 participants (multiple context)
Rarely more than 20
Factors
Researcher's time, money
Participant availability, interest
The extent to which the selected participants represent the range of potential participants in the setting
Redundancy of the information gathered from the participants (data saturation)
Step 4: Data Collection
Observation, Interviews
, Phone calls, Personal and Official Documents, Photographs, Recordings, Drawings, E-mail messages and Responses, Informal conversations
Each data type shares one common aspect
The researcher is the primary source of data
Depends on the researcher's ability to integrate and analyse data
Data collection
Also knows as fieldwork
Interviews
Obtains important data - cannot acquire from observation
Experiences and Feelings
Types of Interviews
Structured
A specific set of questions to be asked
Unstructured
Questions being prompted by the flow of the interview
Semistructured
Combine both approaches
Single participant or a group of participants (focus group)
Focus group
Few participants may be overly outspoken, overshadow quieter participants
Collecting data from interviews
Taking notes during the interview
Writing notes after the interview
Audio or videotaping the interview
Guidelines for interviewing
Listen more, talk less
Follow up on what participants say and ask questions when you don't understand
Avoid leading questions
Don't interrupt
Keep participants focused and ask for concrete details
Tolerate silence
Don't be judgemental about participants views or beliefs
Don't debate with participants over their responses
Observation
Types of Observers
Participant observer
Engages fully in the activities being studied
May become emotionally involved
Gain insights and develop relationships with participants that cannot be obtained in any other way
External or Nonparticipant observer
One who watches but does not participate
Less intrusive, less likely to become emotionally involved
Field Notes
The record of
What the observer has specifically seen or heard (descriptive) - emic data
Personal reactions (what the observer has experienced and thought about during an observation session) (reflective) - etic data
Data that will analysed
Provide description and understanding of the research setting and participants
Notes made in the field ( fresh to the researcher)
Protocol
List of issues to guide the observation
Provides a common framework for field notes, making it easier to organise and categorise data across field notes
Memo writing
Simultaneous data collection and analysis
Memo
A form of thinking on paper
Identify areas that might be important to focus o in data analysis
Helps to improve data collection
Recording Observations
Record simultaneous observations of as many behaviours as the qualitative researchers can attend to
Assessing Observer Reliability
Quantitative
At least two observers independently make observations so that their recorded judgements can be compared to determine agreement
Qualitative
Emphasis the observer's ability to accurately record the details of the observed behaviour
The best way to increase observer reliability is by training or monitoring them
Training
Observers - Most important effect on reliability and validity of observations
To determine agreement among observers, at least two observers are required
Monitoring
Guarantee the level of inter-observer reliability is maintaned
Observers can get tired, bored, overconfident and forgetful over time
The Nature of Qualitative Research
Study
Perspectives of research
participants
toward events, beliefs or practices
Exploration
Researcher - main instrument
Data collection, interpretation, written narrative
Also rely on disciplined inquiry