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Overview of qualitative research: Theory to practice

Qualitative Research Seminars5 July – Seton HallJ.F. StrydomUniversity of the Witwatersrand

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Overview

INTRODUCTIONCHAPTER 1 - The Nature of Qualitative Inquiry

(p. 1-36)Class activity – What to you think about EdD?

CHAPTER 2 - Strategic Themes in Qualitative Inquiry (p. 37-74)

CHAPTER 3 - Variety in Qualitative Inquiry: Theoretical Orientations (p. 75-142)

CHAPTER 4 - Particularly Appropriate Qualitative Applications (p.143-205)

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Introduction

Teaching and learning approach – experiential learningThat means I want you to get your hands dirty

Activities in class and in the reader

Discuss the following question with the person next to you?

What does the concept qualitative research mean to you?

Resources:Executive Ed.D reader

Chapter from Miles & Huberman (will be handed out)Internet references in reader

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CHAPTER 1 - The Nature of Qualitative Inquiry (p. 1-36)

What does qualitative data look like?Interviews, Observations & Documents

Qualitative Findings: Themes, Patterns, Concepts, Insights, Understandings (p.5 in Patton)

Identification of patterns in small & large samplesSometimes this involves critical reflection on the relationship with participants

Being –in; being-for and being-withFindings are often simple yet insightful in character

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Different Purposes of and Audiences for Qualitative Studies

Research, Evaluation, Dissertations, and Personal Inquiry

Activity 1: What is the difference between.. (self-evaluation)

You cannot judge the appropriateness of the methods in any study or the quality of the resulting findings without knowing the purpose, agreed-on uses, and intended audiencesAll inquiry designs are affected by intended purpose and targeted audience, but purpose and audience deserve special emphasis in the case of qualitative studies.

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Methods Choices: Contrasting Qualitative and Quantitative Emphases (p.12 in Patton)

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. - Einstein

Making Methods Decisions Some Guiding Questions and Options for Methods Decisions

What are the purposes of the inquiry?Who are the primary audiences for the findings?What questions will guide the inquiry?What data will answer or illuminate the inquiry questions?What resources are available to support the inquiry?What criteria will be used to judge the quality of the findings?

Activity 2: Define face validity and credibility? (self-evaluation)

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TASK OF THE QUALITATIVE RESEARCHER NBTo provide a framework within which people can respond in a way that represents accurately and thoroughly their points of view of the world or a specific programme.

The Purpose of Open-Ended Responses To enable the researcher to understand and capture the points of view of other people without predetermining those points of view through prior selection of questionnaire categories

The Raw Data of Qualitative Inquiry Pure description & quotations are the raw data of qualitative enquiry

Description is meant to take the reader into the setting

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People-Oriented Inquiry Lofland’s mandates for collecting qualitative data

Get close enough to the people and situation being studied to personally understand in depth the details of what goes on.Aim to capture what actually takes place and what people actually say: the perceived facts.Include a great deal of pure description of people, activities, interactions and settings.Must include direct quotations from people, both what they speak and what they write.

NB Read the Between-Chapters Interlude: Top Ten Pieces of Advice to a Graduate Student Considering a Qualitative Dissertation

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Class activity

What do you think about Ed.D?Answer the following questions1. Rate your experience of the Ed.D program on the

following scale:

1 2 3 4 5

2. Describe your experience of the Ed.D program?

Very dissatisfied Very satisfied

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The Purpose of a Strategic FrameworkProvides a framework for decision making and action and integrates separate efforts (tasks & activities) into a common purpose.

Design Strategies for Qualitative Inquiry (p.39 in Patton)NB - Ex 2.1 Themes of Qualitative Inquiry (p.40-41)Design strategies

Naturalistic inquiryStudying real-world situation as they unfold naturally

Emergent Design FlexibilityOpenness to adapting inquiry as understanding deepens and/or situations change

Purposeful SamplingCases for study are selected because they are “information rich” and illustrative

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Data Collection and Fieldwork: Strategies for Qualitative Inquiry (p.47 in Patton)

Qualitative Data Observations that yield detailed, thick description; inquiry in depth; interviews that capture direct quotations Direct Personal Experience and Engagement where the researcher has direct contact with and gets close to the people, situation, andphenomenon.

Empathic NeutralityAn empathic stance in interviewing seeks vicarious understandingwithout judgment (neutrality) by showing openness, sensitivity, respect awareness, and responsiveness; in observation it means being fully present (mindfulness).Trustworthiness, authenticity and balance characterise high quality qualitative data.

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Data Collection and Fieldwork: Strategies for Qualitative Inquiry (p.47 in Patton)

Empathy and Insight Ability to take and understand the stance, position, feelings, experiences, and worldview of others.

A Dynamic, Developmental PerspectiveAttention to process; assumes change as ongoing

Analysis Strategies for Qualitative Inquiry (p.55 in Patton)

Unique Case Orientation Assumes each case is special and unique

Inductive Analysis and Creative SynthesisImmersion in the details and specifics of the data to discover important patterns, themes, and interrelationships.

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Analysis Strategies for Qualitative Inquiry (p.55 in Patton)Holistic Perspective

The whole phenomenon under study is understood as a complex system that is more than the sum of its parts.

Context SensitivityPlaces findings in a social, historical and temporal context

Voice and Perspective: ReflexivityThe qualitative analyst owns and is reflective about her or his own voice and perspective; a credible voice conveys authenticity andtrustworthiness; complete objectivity, the researcher’s focus becomes balance-understanding and depicting the world authentically in all its complexity while being self-analytical, politically aware, and reflexive in consciousness.

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From Strategic Ideals to Practical Choices NB Actually conducting holistic-inductive analysis and implementing naturalistic inquiry are always a matter of degree

Beyond Competing Inquiry Paradigms Pragmatism

Allows one to eschew methodological orthodoxy in favour of methodological appropriateness as the primary criterion for judging methodological quality, recognizing that different methods are appropriate for different situations.

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NB Each theoretical perspective emerged from a particular context to address specific concerns at that timeConsider the following 6 questions that will help you to differentiate between different frameworks:

What do we believe about the nature of reality?How do we know what we know?How should we study the world?What is worth knowing?What questions should we ask?How do we personally engage in inquiry?

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Theoretical traditions and orientations (p.81 in Patton)Ethonography

Disciplinary root: AnthropologyCentral question: What is the culture of this group of people?

AutoethonographyDisciplinary root: Literary artsCentral question: How does my own experience of this culture connect with and offer insights about this culture, situation, event, and/or way of life?

You use your own experiences to garner insights into the larger culture or subculture of which you are a part.

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Reality testing: Positivist and realist approachesDisciplinary root: Philosophy, social sciences & evaluationCentral question: What’s really going on in the real world? What can we establish with some degree of certainty? Etc.

Premise- There is a real world with verifiable patterns that can be observed and predicted – that reality exists and truth is worth striving for.

Constructionism/constructivismDisciplinary root: SociologyCentral question: How have people in this setting constructed reality? What are their reported perceptions, truths, explanations, beliefs and worldviews?

Study of the multiple realities constructed by people and the implication of those constructions for their lives and interactions with others.

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PhenomenologyDisciplinary root: PhilosophyCentral question: What is the meaning, structure, and essence of the lived experience of this phenomenon for this person or group of people?

Phenomenology asks for the very nature of a phenomenon, for thatwhich makes a some-‘thing’ what it is – without which it could not be what it is.

Heuristic inquiryDisciplinary root: Humanistic psychologyCentral question: What is my experience of this phenomenon and the essential experience of others who also experience this phenomenon intensely?

Focuses on the intense human experiences, intense from the point of view of the investigator.German alternative tradition provides more structure

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EthonomethodologyDisciplinary root: SociologyCentral question: How do people make sense of their everyday activities so as to behave in socially acceptable ways?

Study of norms, understandings and assumptions that are taken for granted by people in a setting because they are so deeply understood that people don’t even think about why they do what they do.

Symbolic interactionDisciplinary root: Social psychologyCentral question: What common set of symbols and understandings has emerged to give meaning to people’s interactions?

People create shared meanings through their interactions, and those meanings become their reality.

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HermeneuticsDisciplinary root: Linguistics, philosophy, literary criticism, theologyCentral question: What are the conditions under which a human act took place or a product was produced that makes it possible to interpret its meanings?

Theoretical framework for interpretive understanding, or meaning, with special attention to context and original purpose.

Narratology/ narrative analysisDisciplinary root: Social sciences (interpretive): literary criticism and nonfictionCentral question: What does this narrative or story reveal about the person and world from which it came?

Stories and narratives offer especially translucent windows into cultural and social meanings.

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Ecological psychologyDisciplinary root: Ecology, psychologyCentral question: How do individuals attempts to accomplish their goals through specific behaviours in specific environments?

Understand the person’s concerns within the context of his or her life world-the person’s personal, family, community and ecological stories.

Systems theoryDisciplinary root: InterdisciplinaryCentral question: How and why does this system as a whole function as it does?

Holistic thinking is central to this approach

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Chaos theory: Nonlinear dynamicsDisciplinary root: Theoretical physics, natural sciencesCentral question: What is the underlying order, if any, of disorderly phenomenon?

Provide the comfort and courage to describe nonlinear dynamics (chaos) when we find it, without imposing false order to fulfil the presumed traditional purpose of analysis.

Grounded theoryDisciplinary root: Social sciences, methodologyCentral question: What theory emerges from systematic comparative analysis and is grounded in fieldwork so as to explain what has been and is observed?

Focuses on the process of generating theory rather than a particular theoretical content – emphasis is on inductive strategies of theory development.

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Orientational: Feminist inquiry, critical theory, queer theory, among others

Disciplinary root: Ideologies: Political, cultural & economicCentral question: How is X perspective manifest in this phenomenon?

Begins with an explicit theoretical or ideological perspective that determines what conceptual framework will direct fieldwork and the interpretation of findings.

NB What is required is that the researcher is very clear about the theoretical framework being used and the implications of that perspective on study focus, data collection, fieldwork and analysis.

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Pragmatism (p.135 in Patton)In real-world practice, methods can be separate from their epistemology out of which they have emergedThe methods of qualitative enquiry stand on their own as reasonable ways to find out what is happening in programs and other human settings.

Activity 3: Which of these theoretical frameworks appeal to you? Why? (homework!)

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Studies focusing on qualityUnderstanding and illuminating quality

Understanding what people value and the meanings they attach to experiences, from their own personal and cultural perspectives.

Quality assuranceQuality has to do with nuance, with detail, and with the subtle and unique things that make a difference between the points on a standardised scale.

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Evaluation Applications (p.151 in Patton)Outcomes evaluation

Judging the effectiveness of programme entails an understanding of the stories behind the numbers to help improve the programme.

Evaluating individualized outcomesFlexibility, adaptability, and individualization can be important to the effectiveness of educational and human service programmes.

Process studiesLooking at how something happens rather than or in addition to examining outputs and outcomes.

Implementation evaluationFocus on learning the extent to which the programme was actually implemented to find out if a programme is operating according to its design.

Logic models and theories of actionDepicts, graphically, the connections between program inputs, activities and processes (implementation), outputs, immediate outcomes, along-term impacts.

Logic models are descriptiveTheory of change and theory of action models are explanatory andpredictive

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Evaluability assessmentsConducted through interviews, document analysis, and observations to determine whether a program is sufficiently well conceptualised and consistently implemented to undertake a formal summative evaluation to determine its overall functioning.

Comparing programmes: Focus on diversityQualitative descriptions permit documentation of deeper and unanticipated program differences, idiosyncrasies and uniquenesses.

Prevention evaluationUnderstanding prevention includes understanding what people think and do as a results of prevention efforts.

Documenting development over time and investigating system changes

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Evaluation models (p.169 in Patton)Models provide frameworks rather than recipes that offer evaluators with supportGoal-free evaluation

Doing fieldwork and gathering data on a broad array of actual effects or outcomes, then comparing the observed outcomes with the actual needs of program participants.

Transaction models: Responsive and illuminative evaluationResponsive – places particular emphasis on the importance of personalizing and humanizing the evaluation processIlluminative – are used to study innovative programmesAssumptions – the importance of understanding people and programs in context, a commitment to study naturally occurring phenomena without introducing external controls or manipulation, and the assumption that understanding emerges from and inductive analysis of transactions between a program and its participants.

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Connoisseurship studiesPlaces the evaluator’s perceptions and expertise at the center of evaluation process – qualitative research is an artistic critic of the phenomena studied.

Utilization-focused evaluationEvaluative process, strategy and framework for making decisions about the content, focus and methods of an evaluation.

Interactive and participatory applications (p.175 in Patton)

Practical and pragmatic forms of inquiry in which the research is especially sensitive for the perspectives of others and interacts closely with them in designing and implementing the study.

Personalizing and humanizing evaluationHarmonizing programme and evaluation values

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Developmental applications: Action research, action learning, reflective practice and learning organisations

Qualitative inquiry as practiced through the lenses of action learning and reflective practice can be one of the foundation ofa learning organisation.

Appreciative inquiryPopular organisational development approach that emphasizes building on an organisation’s assets rather than focusing on problems or even problem solving.

Participatory research and evaluation: Valuing and facilitating collaboration

Bottom-up approach involving working with people as co-investigators.

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Supporting democratic dialogue and deliberationSupports democracy inclusion, dialogue and deliberation – focus is on reinforcing the use of evaluation to help people learn to think and reason evaluatively.

Supporting democracy through process use: Helping the citizenry weigh evidence and think evaluatively.

Special applicationsUnobtrusive measures

Less obtrusive nature can reduce or even eliminate distortionsState-of-the-art considerations: Lack of proven quantitative instrumentation

Example – evaluating creativityConfirmatory and elucidating research: Adding depth, detail, and meaning to quantitative analyses

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Special applicationsRapid reconnaissance

Qualitative research enables quick field work to assess quickly developing situations in a rapid world.

Capturing and communicating storiesLegislative monitoring and auditing

Becomes the eyes and ears of the legislature or boardFuturing applications: Anticipatory research and prospective policy analysis

Qualitative methods can be used to collect data to plan future scenarios.

Breaking the routine: Generating new insights