Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Research Designs
• Data Collection Strategies
• Data Analysis
• References

Introduction

Baptiste (2001) argues that all researchers (quantitative and qualitative) struggle with three sets of considerations: philosophical, contextual, and design.

• Philosophical - Philosophical refer to the researcher's system of beliefs and values concerning research and even knowledge itself. These considerations also involve the researcher's ideology, theoretical positions, and interests in relationship to that which he/she is studying. At a basic level, this would impact the researcher's understanding of the nature of truth. Is truth an objective reality or an idiosancratic construct that resides in our perceptions of the world. In other words, is it found in the essential qualities of a phenomenon, as Husserl (1931) argues, or is reality purely subjective, as Heidegger (1962) suggests.

• Design - Design considerations are often driven by the researcher's purpose. Depending on the purpose -- i.e., to describe, explain, explore, predict, gain participation, etc. -- and given the researcher's philosophical orientation, a particular research method (or set of methods) is more appropriate than others.

• Constextual - Contextual considerations refer the resources that the researcher has available to conduct the study and the limitations within which he/she must operate. For example, time, money, participants, expertise, power, and influence are among some contextual variables that one should consider.

Research Designs

Qualitative research is a term that is used to contrast inquiry that relies on quantifying data (quantitative research) with inquiry that does not. According to Baptise (class lectures), this distinction is not useful and only serves as a divisive force in research. According to him, there are only three research designs: experimental, field, and survey research.

• Experimental - Attempts to predict or confirm a cause-effect relationship for a given phenonmenon

• Field - Generally attempts to describe, explain, explore a phenomenon or gain participation

• Survey - Describes the frequency with which a phenomenon occurs

Limitations - This taxonomy does not seem to include correlational research, unless perhaps it is subsumed under one of the three categories. Also, it does not explicitly recognize quasi-experimental research or mixed method research (Tashakkori & Teddlie,1998). Nevertheless, it provides a practical framework.

Quant vs. Qual - In a broad sense, one might argue that experimental and survey research are quantitative while field research is qualitative. Baptiste points out that there can be experimental case studies as well as field experiments and surveys, so this logic is again not useful. Therefore, rather than talking about qual vs. quant, we should focus on the differences among experimental, field, and survey designs.

With each design, there are several methods from which a researcher can choose. Baptiste suggests that there are basically three families of field research methods: phenomenology, ethnography, and grounded theory:

• Ethnography - Study of cultural processes in action (Carspecken, 1996). The culture in this case can be an ethnic, racial, national, or gender group but it can also represent a group of people who interact on a regular basis. For example, in Kainan's ethnography about school staffrooms (1994), the culture being studied was a group of teachers who used the staffroom at a particular elementary school in Israel.

  • Conventional Ethnography
  • Critical Ethnography - Carspecken (1996)
  • Postmodern Ethnography
  • Participatory Ethnography
  • Marxian Ethnography
  • Action Research - Whyte & Hamilton (1964)

   

• Phenomenology - Study of lived experiences as they present themselves to consciousness - "the world as we immediately experience it pre-reflectively rather than as we conceptualize, categorize, or reflect on it "(Van Manen, 1990). It answers the question, "What it is that like?" For example, Bargdill (2000) studies the phenomenon of life boredom and describes the lived experiences of several sufferers who have been afflicted by chronic boredom.

  • Existential Phenomenoloy - Heidegger (1962)
  • Transcendental Phenomenology - Husserl (1931)

   

• Grounded theory - Theories emerge from data that is grounded in reality (Strauss & Corbin, 1998; Glaser, 1992). Its purpose is to build theory that is faithful to the area under study. It answers questions like, "How does this work? What happens during this process? What differences exist among these? What issues are there?

There is overlap among these three methods as well. Charmaz (2000), for example, favors grounded theory that employs a phenomenological approach. Also, some argue that case study is a method (e.g., Christensen, 2000), while Baptiste appears to suggest that it is a strategy or at best a type of method that can be used within the various method families (e.g., ethnographic, phenomenological, and quantitative case studies).

Data Collection Strategies

There are several types of data collection techniques to choose from when conducting qualitative research: interviews, observations, artifact analysis, document analysis, discourse analysis, focus groups, and others.

• Strategies and Tactics - For each strategy, there are several ways that you can go about collecting the data. For example, interviews can be conducted face-to-face, by phone (audio conferencing), over Pic-Tel (or video conferencing), through chat rooms (web conferencing).

• Strategies and Methods - Also, some strategies lend themselves best to certain methods. For example, capturing a cultural process in action (ethnography) requires observation. On the other hand, truly understanding someone's lived experiences (phenomenology) will likely require some in-depth interviewing.

Quality, credibility, and trustworthiness

• Triangulation - Strauss and Corbin (1998) as well as Denzin & Lincoln (2000) stress the importance of triangulating data from multiple sources and techniques. For example, observations might be driving technique in your ethnographic study, but your findings will be more robust and credible if your observations are backed up by comments that participants made in interviews and evidence you found in their artifacts. What reliability is to quantitative research, triangulation is to qualitative research. It is an important ingredient in building credibility for your findings. Triangulation can be used not only with data collection techniques and data sources but also with the investigators (e.g., having more than one researcher code a transcript) and theories (exploring the data through the lens of multiple theories and perspectives).

• Saturation - In quantitative research most procedures have a definite beginning and end. In fact, through power analysis, one can estimate how many subjects one would need in order to achieve significance levels for a given set of parameters. However, when conducting interviews, observations, etc., how do you know when you've collected enough data? Theoretical saturation is the term used to describe the point at which no new information or concepts emerge from the data and when the themes or theories that have emerged from the data have been well-supported. Even with this guideline in mind, it is still very much a matter of your own personal comfort level (as well as contextual considerations regarding your resources and limitations).

• Member Checking - Another way of improving the credibility and quality of research is to have participants check your interpretations of their comments, behaviors, etc. This is commonly done by sending them a transcript, a summary of your interpretations, or even a draft of the manuscript. In this way, the participant can revise and clarify earlier statements. Peer review is a similar technique except that instead of participants reviewing your work, it is fellow researchers (e.g., at conferences) who do so.

• Low Inference Descriptors - This refers to the liberal use of verbatim accounts (e.g., field notes and quotes) in the manuscript. While researchers need to unpack the themes they uncover in the data, they must also ensure high fidelity between their findings and the raw data they collected. If the data is not closely rooted in verbatim accounts, researchers may find themselves reaching beyind what theire data can support.

• Negative Case Sampling - Means purposely finding a cases that do not conform to the researcher's preconceptions. This is another way of improving credibility.

• Self-disclosure (Reflexivity) - While researchers may not be able to bracket (put aside) their own beliefs, biases, and feelings about the area they are studying, they can be critical in their disclosure of those biases and in describing how those biases impact the study. Self-awareness can be difficult to achieve, but it is critical in conveying a sense of trustworthiness in your findings.

Data Analysis

Baptiste (2001) proposes that data analysis for any type of qualitative research is made up of four phases: defining the analysis, classifying the data, making connections between the data, and conveying the message(s). While each school of qualitative research will vary in the strategies it employs and individual researchers who share a preference for a particular strategy will differ in the tactics they use, all qualitative researchers will travel through the stages listed above.

Coding Techniques - Once you have a interview transcripts, observation notes, and documents in your hands, you can begin analyzing the data. However, most qualitative researchers engage in the intermediary step of coding the data to facilitate more robust analysis. There are three ways in which data can be coded: open, axial, and selective coding.

• Open Coding - Examine data, then generate themse by categorizing the discreate elements that jump out at you from the data.

• Axial Coding - Generate themes, then look instances in the data that support those themes.

• Selective Coding - Examine the themes for underlying connections to form one over-arching story line.

Links

Thank you to Christine Remley who provided us with some good links. You can visit her site at the following URL: http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/c/m/cmr226/

http://www.uea.ac.uk/care/elu/Issues/Research/Res1Cont.html
An introduction to qualitative research

http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/itc_data/pract_res.html
University of Colorado at Denver

http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/~skarsten/research/QRsites.html
Qualitative Research Links

http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/qualmethone.html
C. George Boeree, Shippensburg University

http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/qualres.html
The Qualitative Report - Nova Southeastern University

http://www.ualberta.ca/~iiqm/
Institutional Institute for Qualitative Methodology

http://www.ualberta.ca/~jrnorris/qual.html
Qualpage by Judy Norris

http://kerlins.net/bobbi/research/qualresearch/
Bobbi Kerlin

http://www.ringsurf.com/netring?ring=QualitativeResearch;action=list
The Qualitative Research Web Ring

References

Baptiste, I. (2001). Qualitative data analysis: Common phases, strategic differences. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 2(3).

Bargdill, R.W. (2000). The study of life boredom. Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, 31(2), 188-219.

Whyte, W.F., & Hamilton, E. (1964). Action research for management. Homewood, IL: Irwin-Dorsey.

Carspecken, P. (1996). Critical ethnography in educational research: A theoretical and practical guide. New York, NY: Routledge.

Charmaz, K. (2000). Grounded theory: Objectivist and constructivist methods. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of Qualitative Research (2nd ed.) (pp. 509-535). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Christensen, J.B. (2000). Educational research: Quantitative and qualitative approaches. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Creswell, J. (1998). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five traditions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Denzin, N., & Lincoln, Y. (Eds.). (2000). Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Glaser, B. (1992). Basics of grounded theory analysis. Mill Valley, CA: Sociology Press.

Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time (J. MaQuirrie & E. Robinson, Trans.). New York, NY: Harper & Row.

Husserl, E. (1931). Ideas: General introduction to pure phenomenology (D. Carr, Trans.). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

Kainan, A. (1994). The staffroom: Observing the professional culture of teachers. Aldershot, Israel: Avebury.

Lincoln, Y., & Guba, E. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Piantanida, M., & Garman, N. B. (1999). The qualitative dissertation: A guide for students and faculty. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Rossman, G.B., & Rallis, S.F. (1998). Learning in the field: An introduction to qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of qualitative research: Technique and procedures for developing grounded theory (2nd ed.). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Tashakkori, A., & Teddlie, C. (1998). Mixed methodology: Combining qualitative and quantitative approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Van Manen, M. (1990). Researching lived experience: Human science for an action sensitive pedagogy. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.