COORDINATION OF QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE RESEARCH:

POSSIBLE? USEFUL?

Devorah Kalekin-Fishman

University of Haifa Faculty Seminar Series

on Research Methods: Tuesday, 21 March 2006

PUBLICATION POSSIBILITIES

• ANTHROPOLOGICAL QUARTERLY – AND ALL ANTHROPOLOGICAL JOURNALS

• INTERCULTURAL EDUCATION• JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTIVIST PSYCHOLOGY• QUALITATIVE INQUIRY• QUALITATIVE SOCIOLOGY• QUALITATIVE STUDIES IN EDUCATION• QUALITATIVE STUDIES IN HEALTH • STUDIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION

(see handout)

PRINCIPLES GOVERNING Qualitative Research - 1

• Reality has no intrinsic meaning except through dialogue and discourse by means of which:

* people make sense of their world * researchers make sense of the

actions, situations, they study

* findings are constructed and conveyed

PRINCIPLES GOVERNING Qualitative Research - 2

• OBJECTIVITY IS ACTUALLY INTER-SUBJECTIVITY

To ensure it:

• Explicitness – research design, analytic strategy• Credibility – description believable• Verifiability – checking that (verbal) description

corresponds adequately to that of participants / other observers

• Plausibility – findings concur with / evoke human experience

PRINCIPLES GOVERNING Qualitative Research - 3

• Revised meanings of:

VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY

Validity: Design appropriate to question?

Reliability and Replicability

to ensure that similar things will appear upon replication, one collects as wide a variety of data as possible

TRIANGULATION

• Look at whole• Look at process

• Talk to people on site• Talk to people elsewhere

about the site

• Examine documents created there

• Examine documents about the site

Talk to people In it

Examinedocuments

Talk to People

Elsewhere

Look

Phenomenon Popularlydefined

CONTRAST:QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH:

VISION OF REALITY

• ‘Out there’ but can be manipulated ‘at will’

• Connection with language arbitrary

QUANTITATIVE RESEARCHPresuppositions

• LIFE CAN BE DIVIDED INTO COMPONENT ELEMENTS

• ELEMENTS CAN BE REPRESENTED IN MATHEMATICAL TERMS

• ELEMENTS ARE CONNECTED IN SOME ORDER, SYSTEM

VISION OF SCIENCE

• NEUTRAL

• THEORIES == LAWS OF NATURE

• DEDUCTION CAN LEAD TO UNDENIABLE TRUTH

FORM OF KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION

COMPLEX OF ABSTRACT IDEAS,

HIERARCHICAL ORGANIZATION,

NORMS THAT IMPOSE THE NEWTONIAN MODEL ON THE SOCIAL / HUMAN SCIENCES

THAT IS THE MODEL OF “ESTABLISHED SCIENTIFIC (FORMAL) PRACTICE”

THUS, SCIENTISTS ARE

• OBJECTIVE• OPEN-MINDED• KNOWLEDGEABLE• COMMITTED TO APPLICATION OF THEORY• ABLE TO HYPOTHESIZE (ACCURATELY)

RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN ELEMENTS• HONEST IN DRAWING ONLY THE LOGICALLY

IMPLIED CONCLUSIONS

BUT SCIENTISTS

• ARE OFTEN MOVED BY SELF-INTEREST

• SOMETIMES CLOSED-MINDED

• DON’T ALWAYS KNOW WHAT THEY PURPORT TO KNOW

• ARE NOT ALWAYS HONEST

GOALS of QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

CAPTURE FLAVOR OF EVENTS

PRODUCE DESCRIPTION AS THICK AS POSSIBLE

PLUMB SIGNIFICANCE OF WHAT IS HAPPENING

RESEARCH REFLECTS LIFE

• To get a wide variety of data, look for diverse counterintuitive examples, extreme cases

• Embrace threats to internal validity as part of the study and as opportunities:

selection, history, maturation, repeated testing, instrumentation, regression to the mean, experimental mortality, experimenter bias and interactions among these.

What Is This About?

• Looking at configurations of situations, structures, relationships as wholes

• Focusing on finding pertinent - and impertinent questions

ELEMENTS OF RESEARCH PROCESS

• Wonder

• Focusing

• Design

• Uncovering meanings

• Organizing findings

WONDER

• LOOKING AT THE FAMILIAR

• FINDING IT STRANGE / TROUBLING

• ASKING ‘WHAT IS THIS?’

FOCUSING

• WHAT MAKES THIS FAMILIAR?

• AS A PARTICIPANT IN THE FAMILIAR WHAT IS / WOULD BE IMPORTANT TO ME?

• AND IF I WERE FROM ANOTHER PLACE? OUTER SPACE?

• WHAT WOULD MAKE THIS STRANGE?

Position of the Researcher

• Troubled citizen

• Ignoramus

• Constantly uncertain

Collecting MaterialTalking

Looking

Tasting

Smelling

Touching

METHODS

• Talking to people: Interviews

• Looking at people: – Examining what people look like – Noting how people behave

• Collecting documents and artifacts - what people have written, drawn, photographed

TALKING: THE INTERVIEW

• FORM: structured, semi-structured, unstructured

• CONTENT: life-story, significant events, selected problem(s)

• LENGTH: highly variable, depending on the topic and form – half an hour to a series of encounters (interview in installments)

ZOOMING IN ON BIOGRAPHICAL INTERVIEWING

Initially:“TELL ME THE STORY OF YOUR LIFE …” Listen with no interruptions

Narrative pointed questions about topics raised only Using only words the interviewee used

in the order used.

[Wengraf, (2001) Qualitative Research Interviewing. London: Sage]

LOOKING: DOING OBSERVATIONS

• FORM • - prepared categories• - evolving categories• - verbal stream - ethnography

• CONTENT – EVOLVING

• LENGTH - measured in hours over months

COLLECTING DOCUMENTATION DOING ARCHEOLOGY OF THE

CONTEMPORARY

• EVERYTHING PRODUCED ON SITE– WRITING– ARTIFACTS– GRAPHIC ARTS– PHOTOGRAPHY

• POSTPONE: READING EVERYTHING WRITTEN ABOUT / PHOTOGRAPHED BY STRANGERS ON / THE SITE

COMPILING A REPORT

Basis:

• NOTES working diary; impressions

• RECORDS of deliberate research acts

• FILLING IN BLANKS – intermixing, adding, going back for more

DESCRIPTION OF WHAT HAS BEEN DONE

• THE BASIS FOR THE ANALYSIS IS THE RESEARCHER’S STORY

• Choices of what to put in and what to leave out:

– Language: How to Describe the Site, the People– Objects / subjects focused on– Chronology– Grasp of place, space– Quotations – WORDS OF THE PEOPLE STUDIED

ANALYZING

)RE(CHECKING

)RE(COMBINING )RE(SUMMARIZING

READING-REREADING-ASKING

• HOW DOES A PARTICIPANT SEE ‘THIS’?• HOW WOULD A STRANGER SEE ‘THIS’?• WHAT OTHER POINTS OF VIEW ARE

POSSIBLE?• WHAT EXISTENTIAL (POLITICAL /

ECONOMIC / SOCIAL) POINT OF VIEW DO I BRING TO ‘THIS’?

• WHAT THEORETICAL POINT OF VIEW DO I BRING TO ‘THIS’?

TEAMWORK IN THE SPIRIT OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

NON-HIERARCHICAL GROUPSHETEROGENEOUS AND TRANSITORY ORGANIZATIONAL FORMS.

MEANING: • No preference to university institutionalization.• Close interaction of many actors.• Utilizes an ample range of criteria to apply quality controls.

CONSEQUENCES• Production of knowledge socially accountable.• What counts as “good science” becomes more flexible.

(Gibbons et al. : 3-8).•I

FATHOMING INTERVIEWS(from Tom Wengraf)

• GROUP READING

• FOLLOWING TURNING POINT TO TURNING POINT (as brought up by interviewee) AND DISCUSSING WHAT COULD THEN HAPPEN

• COMPARING LIFE AS LIVED TO LIFE AS TOLD

EXAMPLE of STRUCTURED ANALYSIS: GROUNDED THEORY

– RECORD– CODE– COLLATE CODES– COMBINE CODES– FIGURE OUT STRUCTURES

CODING

• Examine text produced (protocol of interview, protocols of observations)

• Summarize line / sentence / paragraph in expressions that sum up what you think is the underlying intention

COLLATING and COMBINING

• LIKE TO LIKE: HIERARCHICALLY, IN CONCATENATION

• LOCATING PATTERNS• DEFINING STRUCTURE, SUGGESTING

AN ANALOGY

• FORMULATING THE THEORY HELD BY PEOPLE YOU HAVE LOOKED AT

OUTCOMES

• QUESTIONS HAVE TO BE CHECKED AGAIN

• TYPOLOGY (OR) IDEAL TYPE• Can be applied to ‘similar’ phenomena as a point of departure

• GIVEN THE TYPOLOGY – WHAT NEW QUESTIONS ARISE (or) WHERE CAN IT BE APPLIED?

• POSSIBILITY: HYPOTHESES SUITABLE FOR QUANTITATIVE STUDY SUGGESTED, I.E., HYPOTHESES ABOUT SOME SINGLE ASPECT OF THE PHENOMENA THAT HAVE BEEN EXPLORED

EXAMPLES (1)

• CITIZENSHIP

– LAWS CANNOT BE SUMMED UP IN NUMBERS

– MEANING TO PEOPLE WHO HAVE AND DO NOT HAVE CITIZENSHIP

Examples (2)

• SOUND EVENTS IN A KINDERGARTENREAL-LIFE SOUNDS ARE ‘DIRTY’

BUT THEY CAN BE MARKED AND PROFILED: loud / soft 2/1high/ low 2/1fast / slow 2/1thin / thick 2/1

NOTE: NUMBERS CANNOT SHOW IF THE COMBO

IS

NOISE // FUN // PLAY // WORK // (UN)FRIENDLY

EXAMPLES (3)

QUANTITATIVE STUDY FIRST --- QUALITATIVE STUDY NEEDED

WHY SOME PUPILS SUCCEED IN MATRICULATION AND SOME DON’T:– Income in community– Education “– Division of Labor “

•)Shlomo Swirski, “Advah(”

but not all pupils in a given community and not always SO THE QUANTITATIVE STUDY IS JUST THE BEGINNING. THE IMPORTANT

QUESTION IS:

• WHAT meanings do these factors have to different people? What MAKES THE DIFFERENCE?

Examples (4)Comparative Political Science

Similar electoral systems may have different consequences in different political settings. [Election of president in Portugal and in Africa]

Multiparty elections do not mean the same thing in every state.

Ethnicity does not mean the same thing in every state

THEREFORE EACH CASE HAS TO BE EXAMINED IN THE CONTEXT OF THE MEANINGS THAT PREVAIL IN THE SPECIFIC SOCIETY

POSSIBLE GAINS

• Qualitative Research

– Solution to a focused question, problem

– Grasp of meanings – understanding of the world around us

– Characterization of a phenomenon as lived

POSSIBLE GAINS

• Quantitative Research

– General ‘laws’

– Clear pictures of specified relationships

– (Dis)Confirmation of a hypothesis about some elements that were cut out of the stream of life

Can They Go Together?

• Yes, if we mean under the umbrella of good science:

but not at the same timeNOT WITH THE SAME

ORIENTATION TO REALITYNOT IN THE SAME WAYand not for the same type of

outcome