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UNDERSTANDING QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS Dr. Stephen Afranie
www.a-strategic.com [email protected] | 030 295 7658 / 055 982 5292
Philosophical Foundations of Qualitative Research
DR. STEPHEN AFRANIE UNDERSTANDING QUALITATIVE
RESEARCH
www.a-strategic.com [email protected] | 030 295 7658 / 055 982 5292
General Knowledge on Research/ Warming up
• What is research?
• What is there to find in the social world?
- The „what‟, „who‟, „where‟, „when‟, „why‟ and „how‟
(regularities, relationship, explanations, descriptions, etc.)
• How do we find what is there to find?
• What differentiates scientific from unscientific research?
DR. STEPHEN AFRANIE
UNDERSTANDING QUALITATIVE
RESEARCH
www.a-strategic.com [email protected] | 030 295 7658 / 055 982 5292
Research Traditions and Basis for Distinction
DR. STEPHEN AFRANIE
UNDERSTANDING QUALITATIVE
RESEARCH
• Basis for distinction:
- epistemological orientation
- ontological considerations
- Pragmatism
Influence on:
• Research design, data collection,
analysis/interpretation (quantification, text/ words
• Connection between theory and research (deductive
and inductive)
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Basis For Different Traditions: Epistemological Issues
• Appropriateness of source of knowledge about the social
world
• What is the best approach of generating credible and
trustworthy knowledge about the social world?
• E.g. is the natural science model of research process
suitable for the study of the social world?
• - Positivism
• - Interpretivism
DR. STEPHEN AFRANIE
UNDERSTANDING QUALITATIVE
RESEARCH
www.a-strategic.com [email protected] | 030 295 7658 / 055 982 5292
Positivism: (Quantitative Tradition)
• Emphasises the importance of following the natural science –
same principles, procedures and ethos
• It is predominantly both deductive theoretical approaches
DR. STEPHEN AFRANIE
UNDERSTANDING QUALITATIVE
RESEARCH
www.a-strategic.com [email protected] | 030 295 7658 / 055 982 5292
Positivism: (Quantitative Tradition)
• Emphasizes quantification in the design, collection and
analysis of data
• Committed to natural scientific model and positivism in
particular
• Deductive relationship between theory and research –
emphasizes the testing of theories
DR. STEPHEN AFRANIE
UNDERSTANDING QUALITATIVE
RESEARCH
www.a-strategic.com [email protected] | 030 295 7658 / 055 982 5292
Interpretivism: (Qualitative Tradition)
• Basis:
• The subject matter of the social science/world is -
people and their institutions - are fundamentally
different from that of the natural sciences
i.e. - the study of social world requires different
logic of research procedures
DR. STEPHEN AFRANIE
UNDERSTANDING QUALITATIVE
RESEARCH
www.a-strategic.com [email protected] | 030 295 7658 / 055 982 5292
Interpretivism (Qualitative Tradition)
• Social reality has a specific meaning, relevance and structure for
social actors (agency)
• Social actors continually interpret the symbolic meaning of their
environment (including physical, social and actions of others) and
act on the basis of the imputed meaning
• social science approach should aim at gaining access to actors‟
common sense thinking and interpret their actions and their social
world from the actors‟ own point of view
DR. STEPHEN AFRANIE
UNDERSTANDING QUALITATIVE
RESEARCH
www.a-strategic.com [email protected] | 030 295 7658 / 055 982 5292
Basis for Different Traditions: Ontological issues
The nature of social entities:
• Objectivism: as objective entities external to social actor (E.g.
organization and culture analogy)
• Constructionism: social entities and their meanings are
continually negotiated and renegotiated by social actor
• Structuration: mixture of objectivism and constructionism
DR. STEPHEN AFRANIE
UNDERSTANDING QUALITATIVE
RESEARCH
www.a-strategic.com [email protected] | 030 295 7658 / 055 982 5292
Basis for Different Traditions: Pragmatism
• The approach to generating credible social
knowledge should not depend on either positivists
nor interpretivists traditions but what knowledge is
needed for at what time.
• Combination (mixed-traditions) approaches may be
relevant in most times (mixed-methods).
DR. STEPHEN AFRANIE
UNDERSTANDING QUALITATIVE
RESEARCH
www.a-strategic.com [email protected] | 030 295 7658 / 055 982 5292
Implications of the Traditions for Social Research
• The various ways of looking at the social world has created three
paradigms of approaching social research:
- positivism/objectivism - quantitative
- interpretivism/constructionism – qualitative
- Pragmatism - mixed-methods - third emerging tradition
• The philosophical traditions influence design and execution of
research.
DR. STEPHEN AFRANIE
UNDERSTANDING QUALITATIVE
RESEARCH
www.a-strategic.com [email protected] | 030 295 7658 / 055 982 5292
What is Qualitative Research?
• Qualitative methods is “a broad class of empirical
procedures designed to describe and interpret the
experiences of research participants in context-
specific settings” (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000).
DR. STEPHEN AFRANIE
UNDERSTANDING QUALITATIVE
RESEARCH
www.a-strategic.com [email protected] | 030 295 7658 / 055 982 5292
Some Principles Guiding the Conduct of Qualitative Research
• Broad concepts - i.e. concepts that provide general
sense of reference and guidelines (not fixed minded/
expectations).
• Commitment to viewing events and the social world
through the eyes of the people being studied/ actor.
• Description and emphasis on context – greater deal
of descriptive details.
DR. STEPHEN AFRANIE
UNDERSTANDING QUALITATIVE
RESEARCH
www.a-strategic.com [email protected] | 030 295 7658 / 055 982 5292
Some Principles Guiding the Conduct of Qualitative Research
• Emphasis on process - view social life in terms of process –
how events and patterns unfold over time
• Flexibility and lack of structure: No imposition of
predetermined framework on the social world
• Look for concepts and theory grounded in data
• Emphasizes words/text in the collection and analysis of data
• Inductive approach to theory and research
DR. STEPHEN AFRANIE
UNDERSTANDING QUALITATIVE
RESEARCH
www.a-strategic.com [email protected] | 030 295 7658 / 055 982 5292
Some Qualitative Methods
• In-depth Interviews (IDI) lived experience
• Key Informant Interviews – worth of knowledge
• Group Interview
• Focus Group Discussions
• observations (Participant, Non-participant, structured, unstructured, overt, covert)
DR. STEPHEN AFRANIE
UNDERSTANDING QUALITATIVE
RESEARCH
www.a-strategic.com [email protected] | 030 295 7658 / 055 982 5292
Some Qualitative Methods
• Historical Methods (life history, oral history, documentary e.g. diary, biography/autobiography etc.)
• Discourse/conversation analysis (language-based)
• NB: Multi-method approach (triangulation) is frequently
employed
DR. STEPHEN AFRANIE
UNDERSTANDING QUALITATIVE
RESEARCH
www.a-strategic.com [email protected] | 030 295 7658 / 055 982 5292
Criticisms: Subjectivity
• Reliance on researchers‟ unsystematic views about
what is significant and important from the problem
formulation stage to conclusions
• Researchers‟ close relationship with subjects/
participants
DR. STEPHEN AFRANIE
UNDERSTANDING QUALITATIVE
RESEARCH
www.a-strategic.com [email protected] | 030 295 7658 / 055 982 5292
CRITICISMS: Replication Difficulties
• Reliance on researchers‟ ingenuity - too much flexibility in
standard procedures to follow
• The choice of what is significant to observe
• Influence of researchers‟ characteristics (gender, age,
appearance etc.) on participants‟ responses
• Influence of data interpretation by subjective leanings of the
researcher
DR. STEPHEN AFRANIE
UNDERSTANDING QUALITATIVE
RESEARCH
www.a-strategic.com [email protected] | 030 295 7658 / 055 982 5292
Criticisms: Generalization
• Scope of findings is restricted –providing contextual
understanding
– small number, culturally, socially and at times
geographically bounded – even same categories/
target in different settings –
DR. STEPHEN AFRANIE
UNDERSTANDING QUALITATIVE
RESEARCH
www.a-strategic.com [email protected] | 030 295 7658 / 055 982 5292
Approaches to data Validity and Reliability
• Appropriate design and selection of participants
• Competence of researcher - right questions would be asked in
the right way.
• Triangulation - information collected by different tools from
different categories of participants.
• Thematic saturation
• Use of an independent transcriber and analyst of
transcriptions.
• Validation of findings
DR. STEPHEN AFRANIE
UNDERSTANDING QUALITATIVE
RESEARCH
www.a-strategic.com [email protected] | 030 295 7658 / 055 982 5292
CONCLUSION and CAUTION
• Quantitative and qualitative represent different research
strategies.
• Each has striking difference in terms of the role of theory,
epistemological and ontological concerns.
• However, the difference is not hard-and-fast one.
• Studies that have the broad characteristics of one strategy
may have characteristics of the other.
• The two can be combined in one research project.
DR. STEPHEN AFRANIE
UNDERSTANDING QUALITATIVE
RESEARCH
www.a-strategic.com [email protected] | 030 295 7658 / 055 982 5292
CONCLUSION and CAUTION
• Qualitative research has been employed to test rather than
generate theories.
e.g. Adler and Adler (1983) relationship between
participation in athletics and academic achievement
• Not all quantitative designs are meant to test theories.
DR. STEPHEN AFRANIE
UNDERSTANDING QUALITATIVE
RESEARCH
Qualitative & Quantitative Research
• The aim is a detailed description.
• Researcher may only know roughly in advance what he/she is looking for.
• The design emerges as the study unfolds.
• Researcher is the data gathering instrument.
• Aim is to classify features, count them, and construct statistical models in an attempt to explain what is observed.
• Researcher knows clearly in advance what he/she is looking for.
• All aspects of the study carefully designed before data collection.
• Researcher uses questionnaires or equipment to collect data.
Qualitative & Quantitative Research
• Data is in the form of words, pictures or objects.
• Subjective - individuals’ interpretation of events is important
• Qualitative data is more 'rich', time consuming, and not generalizable.
• Researcher tends to become subjectively immersed in the subject matter.
• Data is numerical in nature.
• Seeks measurement & analysis of target concepts.
• Data is generalizable.
• Researcher remains separated from the subject matter.