qualitative

1. -JAISMEEN KAUR
DEPARMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY
PUNJABI UNIVERSITY
PATIALA
10-02-2017 © Jaismeen Kaur, Punjabi University, Patiala 1

2. Contents:
 Introduction to qualitative research
 History
 Characteristics
 Methods
 Issues in qualitative research
 Basic steps of qualitative research
 Strategies for analysing
 Writing the research reports
 Ethics revisited
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3. Introduction to Qualitative Research:
 What is qualitative research?
Qualitative research is a type of scientific research. In
general terms, scientific research consists of an
investigation that:
 seeks answers to a question
 systematically uses a predefined set of procedures to
answer the question
 collects evidence •
 produces findings that were not determined in advance
 produces findings that are applicable beyond the
immediate boundaries of the study
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4.  Qualitative research shares these characteristics.
Additionally, it seeks to understand a given research
problem or topic from the perspectives of the local
population it involves.
 Qualitative research is especially effective in obtaining
culturally specific information about the values,
opinions, behaviours, and social contexts of particular
populations.
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5. History :
 Robert Bogdan in his advanced courses on qualitative research traces
the history of the development of the fields, and their particular
relevance to disability and including the work of his colleague Robert
Edgerton and a founder of participant observation, Howard S.
Becker.[8] As Robert Bogdan and Sari Biklen describe in their education
text, "historians of qualitative research have never, for instance,
included Freud or Piaget as developers of the qualitative approach, yet
both relied on case studies, observations and indepth interviewing".[9]
 In the early 1900s, some researchers rejected positivism, the theoretical
idea that there is an objective world which we can gather data from and
"verify" this data through empiricism. These researchers embraced a
qualitative research paradigm, attempting to make qualitative research
as "rigorous" as quantitative research and creating myriad methods for
qualitative research. Of course, such developments were necessary as
qualitative researchers won national center awards, in collaboration
with their research colleagues at other universities and departments;
and university administration funded Ph.D.s in both arenas through
the ensuing decades. Most theoretical constructs involve a process of
qualitative analysis and understanding, and construction of these
concepts (e.g., Wolfensberger's social role valorization theories).[10]
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6.  In the 1970s and 1980s, the increasing ubiquity of computers aided in
qualitative analyses, several journals with a qualitative focus emerged,
and postpositivism gained recognition in the academy. In the late
1980s, questions of identity emerged, including issues of race, class,
gender, and discourse communities, leading to research and writing
becoming more reflexive. Throughout the 1990s, the concept of a
passive observer/researcher was rejected, and qualitative research
became more participatory and activist-oriented with support from the
federal branches, such as the National Institute on Disability Research
and Rehabilitation (NIDRR) of the US Department of Education (e.g.,
Rehabilitation Research and Training Centers for Family and
Community Living, 1990). Also, during this time, researchers began to
use mixed-method approaches, indicating a shift in thinking of
qualitative and quantitative methods as intrinsically incompatible.
However, this history is not apolitical, as this has ushered in a politics
of "evidence" (e.g., evidence-based practices in health and human
services) and what can count as "scientific" research in scholarship, a
current, ongoing debate in the academy.
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7.  What can we learn from qualitative research?
The strength of qualitative research is its ability to
provide complex textual descriptions of how people
experience a given research issue. It provides
information about the “human” side of an issue – that
is, the often contradictory behaviours, beliefs,
opinions, emotions, and relationships of individuals.
• Qualitative methods are also effective in identifying
intangible factors, such as social norms,
socioeconomic status, gender roles, ethnicity, and
religion, whose role in the research
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8. issue may not be readily apparent. When used along
with quantitative methods, qualitative research can
help us to interpret and better understand the complex
reality of a given situation and the implications of
quantitative data. Although findings from qualitative
data can often be extended to people with
characteristics similar to those in the study
population, gaining a rich and complex understanding
of a specific social context or phenomenon typically
takes precedence over eliciting data that can be
generalized to other geographical areas or populations.
In this sense, qualitative research differs slightly from
scientific research in general.
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9. Characteristics of Qualitative Research:
 Qualitative research is an effort to understand
situations in their uniqueness as part of a particular
context and the interactions there (Patton, 1985).
 A second characteristic of all forms of qualitative
research is that the researcher is the primary
instrument for data collection and analysis.
 A third characteristic of qualitative research is that it
usually involves fieldwork. The researcher must go to
the people, setting, site, institution, in order to observe
behavior in its natural setting
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10.  A fourth characteristic of qualitative research is that is
uses an inductive research strategy. This type of
research builds abstractions, concepts, hypothesis, or
theories rather than tests existing theory
• 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
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11. Qualitative Methods:
 Historical research
…studies available data to study, understand, and
interpret past events
• Ethnography
… studies cultural patterns and perspectives of
participants in their natural settings
• Case Study
… examines the characteristics of a particular
entity, phenomenon, or person
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12.  Ethology
… examines the characteristics of a particular
entity, phenomenon, or person
• Ethnomethodology
…studies how people make sense of their everyday
activities in order to behave in socially accepted
ways
• Grounded theory
…investigates how inductively-derived theory
about phenomenon is grounded in the data of a
particular setting
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13.  Phenomenology
…considers how the experience of particular
participants exhibits a unique perspective
• Action research
…teacher-initiated, school-based research used to
improve the practitioner’s practice by doing or
changing something
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14. Issues in qualitative research...
• gaining entry
 contacting potential research participants
 selecting participants
 enhancing validity and reducing bias
 leaving the field
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15.  Gaining entry...  access is very much dependent
upon the researcher’s personal characteristics and
how others perceive the researcher
 may require considerable negotiation and
compromise with a gatekeeper
 trust is earned, not given
 contacting participants... gaining access
 dealing with gatekeeper(s)
 issues of building trust and ensuring
confidentiality and anonymity
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16. selecting participants...
 two general guidelines: the number of participants
is sufficient when…
 …the extent to which the selected participants
represent the range of potential participants in the
setting
 …the point at which the data gathered begins to be
redundant (“data saturation”)
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17. The threats to validity in qualitative studies...
 observer bias…
…invalid information resulting from the
perspective the researcher brings to the study and
imposes upon it
• observer effects…
…the impact of the observer’s participation on the
setting or the participants being studied
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18. strategies to enhance validity and to reduce
bias...
 extend the time for observing the setting
 include more participants to make the study
more representative
 focus upon building participant trust in
order to access more detailed and honest
data
 identify biases and preferences, seek them
out by asking others
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19.  work with another researcher and compare field
notes and impressions from independent
observations
 after observations are completed, offer participants
an opportunity to validate accuracy of the
verbatims
 journalize one’s own reflections, concerns, and
uncertainties during the study and refer to them
when examining the data
 carefully examine unusual or contradictory results
for explanations (“outliers”)
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20.  utilize a variety of data sources to confirm one
another to corroborate participant information
(“triangulation”)
 leaving the field…
 The question is when and how to exit
 the bonds formed with study participants
complicate leaving the setting
 time constraints
 when the amount of accessible data is sufficient
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21. The basic steps of qualitative research...
 Write a tentative research proposal
 Intensive participation in a field setting
 Collect detailed data from field activities
• Synthesize and interpret the meanings of the field
data
• Write the research report
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22. Strategies for analyzing qualitative data...
 constant comparison method
…compares new evidence to prior evidence to
identify similarities and differences between
observations
• negative case and discrepant data methods
…the search for contradictory, variant, or
disconfirming data within the body of data
collected that provides an alternative perspective
on an emerging category or pattern
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23.  Writing the research report...
 provide a setting where the data were collected
• identify characters who provide information
• describe the social action in which the characters
are engaged
• offers an interpretation of what the social action
means to the characters
• follow all APA Publication Manual guidelines
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24. Ethics Revisited
 The subjects’ identities should be protected so that the
information you collect does not embarrass or harm
them.
 Treat subjects with respect and seek their cooperation
in the research
 Make it clear to the participants in the study what the
terms of the agreement (consent form) are and abide
by that.
 Tell the truth when you write up your final report.
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