An Introduction to Qualitative
Research
Day 1
Radhika Viruru, Ph.D.
Dept. of Psychological Sciences
Qatar University
My experiences with
qualitative research
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Viruru, R. (2009) A postcolonial analysis of the discourse of children’s rights: A case
study of a family literacy program in rural Texas. Paper to be presented at the
Seminar on Children’s Living Rights, Sion, Switzerland, January 19-20.
Viruru, R. (2006) Postcolonial Technologies of Power: Standardized Testing and
Representing Diverse Young Children. The International Journal of Educational
Policy, Research, and Practice, 7, pp 49-70.
Viruru, R. & Cannella, G.S. (2006). A Postcolonial Critique of the Ethnographic
Interview: Research analyses Research. In N.K. Denzin & M. Giardina (eds).
Qualitative Inquiry and the Conservative Challenge: Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast
Viruru, R. (2001) Postcolonial Ethnography: an Indian Perspective on Voice and
Young Children. In G.S. Cannella, K. Anijar & J.L. Kincheloe (Eds.). Kidworld: Global
Perspectives, Cultural Studies and Education. New York: Peter Lang
Viruru, R & Cannella, G.S. (1997). An Indian Voice in the Education of Young
Children. International Journal of Education Reform, 6(3), 308-315.
Qualitative research
• The basis of qualitative
research: “the observer
went to a foreign setting to
study the customs and
habits of another society
and culture….”born out of
concern to understand the
other”.
• Research is firmly
grounded in Western
traditions (the investigative
mentality)
Definitions
• “Qualitative research is a situated activity
that locates the observer in the world. It
consists of a set of interpretive, material
practices that make the world visible.
These practices transform the world.
They turn the world into a series of
representations, including field notes,
interviews, conversations, photographs,
memos and recordings to the self”
• (Denzin and Lincoln, 2005, p.3)
Definitions
“Qualitative research begins with assumptions, a
worldview, the possible use of a theoretical lens, and
the study of research problems inquiring into the
meaning individuals or groups ascribe to a social or
human problem. To study this problem, qualitative
researchers use an emerging qualitative approach to
inquiry, the collection of data in a natural setting,
sensitive to the people and places under study, and
data analysis that is inductive and establishes
patterns or themes. The final report or presentation
includes the voices of the participants, the reflexivity
of the researcher and a complex description and
interpretation of the problem, and it extends the
literature or signals a call for action” Creswell, p. 36,
2007.
Qualitative questions
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Qualitative research is concerned with developing explanations of social
phenomena. That is to say, it aims to help us to understand the world in
which we live and why things are the way they are. It is concerned with
the social aspects of our world and seeks to answer questions about:
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Why people behave the way they do
How opinions and attitudes are formed
How people are affected by the events that go on around them
How and why cultures have developed in the way they have
The differences between social groups
Qualitative research is concerned with finding the answers to questions
which begin with: why? how? in what way? Quantitative research, on the
other hand, is more concerned with questions about: how much? how
many? how often? to what extent?
http://www.trentrdsu.org.uk/cms/uploads/Qualitative%20Research.pdf
Fundamental assumptions
about research
• Social and natural sciences have identical aims,
the discovery of natural laws that serve for
explanation and prediction
• Social and natural sciences are methodologically
identical
• Uniformity of nature in time and space
• Large samples suppress idiosyncrasies and
reveal general causes.
• All phenomena have a reason.
• Observers observe, and not disturb.
• The language of science is exact, formalizable
and literal: meanings are univocal.
Limits of traditional
approaches to research
Problematic assumptions:
– Ontology (reality out there)
– Epistemology (knower and known)
– Generalizability
– Linear causality
– Value freedom
– Rhetorical (the language of research)
– Methodological (the process of
research)
Constructed realities
• Kinds of realities:
– Social, Logico-mathematical, Physical.
• If reality is what we construct it to be,
what kinds of truths can we
“discover” about human beings?
• The connection between reality and
discourse and the institutions that
reflect those discourses.
• Multiple intelligences as reality.
What do you see?
Implications for practice
• Researcher is not looking for points
of convergence.
• Unstructured nature of data
collection.
• Researcher uses quotes and themes
from participants and provides
evidence of different perspectives.
Epistemology:
• The relationship of knower to known:
mutual and transactional
• The disturbing and disturbed
observer:
– Reactivity: awareness of being tested,
role selection, measurement as change
agent.
– Indeterminacy: the act of measurement
renders some things indeterminate
Capitalizing on interaction
• If theories and facts are not independent,
“continuing and intensive interaction between the
investigator and the object is essential” to
forming sound judgments (p. 102).
• More representative sampling and design
procedures are achieved through interaction.
• Continually working towards more sophisticated
levels of understanding
• Human research is impossible without
cooperation from respondents
• The natural advantages of the human
instrument.
Who is Hannah?
• Hannah exercise
Implications for practice
• What you “know” as researcher”
– Reflexivity
– Prolonged engagement
– Persistent observation
– Documenting the emic perspective
Generalizations
• “Generalizations are assertions of enduring value
that are context free”.
• Generalizations tied to the idea of prediction and
control.
– Based on idea of determinism
– Do not exist in nature, active creations
of mind, represent inductive logic.
– Free from time and space contexts.
– Reductionist
• Naturalistic generalizations:
– More intuitive, based on personal and
vicarious experiences.
– Working hypothesis: transferability and
fittingness
• Bill: "You know, those feminists all hate men."
Joe: "Really?"
Bill: "Yeah. I was in my philosophy class the other day and
that Rachel chick gave a presentation."
Joe: "Which Rachel?"
Bill: "You know her. She's the one that runs that feminist
group over at the Women's Center. She said that men are
all sexist pigs. I asked her why she believed this and she
said that her last few boyfriends were real sexist pigs. "
Joe: "That doesn't sound like a good reason to believe that
all of us are pigs."
Bill: "That was what I said."
Joe: "What did she say?"
Bill: "She said that she had seen enough of men to know
we are all pigs. She obviously hates all men."
Joe: "So you think all feminists are like her?"
Bill: "Sure. They all hate men."
Implications for practice
• Avoidance of broad conclusions
• Letting the reader create their own
generalizations
• Providing “thick description”
Causality
• Understanding causes is key to
prediction and control
• Knowledge of causes is power.
• Is looking for causes instinctive?
• Multiple definitions of causation:
– Temporal precedence (time itself is
social construction)
Causality
• Human behavior is more complex
than cause effect relationships
• Is it a useful concept to have?
• Why replace it? The need for
explanation and management.
Mutual simultaneous
shaping
• “Everything influences everything
else, in the here and now”. Mutual
shaping is “circumstances relative”
Example research study 1
• The University of Georgia studied the
effects of dormitory hours on the GPA of
787 resident freshmen women. Of that
group 371 women were required to
observe dormitory hours, while the
remaining (n = 416) were given
permission by their parents to ignore
closing hours. At the end of the academic
term there was no significant difference in
GPA between the two groups. Would you
be willing to conclude from this study that
dorm hours have no effect on GPA?
Example research study 2
• In 1953, Dr. J. N. Morris of London Hospital's
Medical Research Council conducted what
turned out to be a classic study of exercise and
heart disease. His participants were drivers and
conductors of London's double-decker busses,
and he found that the drivers had 1.5 times the
incidence of heart disease as the conductors and
2 times the coronary death rate. (Was this an
ethical study?). Since the drivers simply sat in
their seats all day while the conductors ran up
and down the stairs to collect the fares, Dr.
Morris asserted that exercise was the causal
variable that brought about the observed health
differences.
Implications for practice
• Providing complex details in report.
• Provides opportunities to see
connections.
Values
• Traditional perspectives on research have
been that the values of the inquirer do not
influence the outcomes of the study.
• Objectivity is possible.
• In qualitative research, the values of the
researcher are always a part of the study,
and must be acknowledged.
• An acknowledgement of values opens the
door to different definitions of what
research can and ought to be.
Are these studies “value-free”?
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There are growing concerns among social studies professionals that
social studies instruction is disappearing from elementary schools. These
concerns have become more pressing as educational policies emphasize
core curricula of reading, writing, mathematics, and science. Questions
arise as to how social studies can resume its traditional role as one of
these core curricula. One possibility is to have social studies included in
the accountability movement through testing. This article contemplates
the role of testing in impacting social studies instruction in the elementary
curriculum through a comparative analysis of data collected from a study
of practicing elementary teachers in two states: one in which social
studies instruction is tested and the other in which social studies
instruction is not tested.
Heafner et al. (2006) “To Test or Not to Test?: The Role of Testing in
Elementary Social Studies” A Collaborative Study Conducted by
NCPSSE and SCPSSE” Social Studies Research and Practice
www.socstrp.org Volume 1, Number 2, Summer 2006
Value-free inquiry?
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This qualitative case study of two Arab American preservice
teachers living, studying, and learning to teach in post-9/11 New
York City explores how arts-informed inquiry opens up a different
space for conceptualizing the human condition. Poetry and
collage allowed the researcher and participants to co-theorize in
a way that rendered a portrait that reflects the tones, intensities,
and various hues of their experiences during this historical time
period. Poetry provided a space to talk with each other about the
(re)presentation and (co)understandings of the experiences,
whereas collage provided an alternative dimension to discuss the
emotions and feelings involved with shifting selves and power
struggles. This article argues that arts-informed inquiry provides
the possibilities to paint “an authentic portrait” through engaging
in evocative experiences that reveal the multidimensionality of
our lived realities.
“Learning to Teach in the Shadows of 9/11: A Portrait of Two
Arab American Preservice Teachers
Roberta M. Newton, Teachers College Qualitative Inquiry, Volume
11 Number 1, 2005 81-94
Implications for practice
• Researcher openly discusses the
values that shape the narrative and
includes them in written reports.
• Implications for authenticity
Naturalistic axioms
• The nature of reality: multiple,
constructed and holistic
• The relationship of knower to known:
interactive, inseparable.
• Generalization: a “working
hypothesis” that describes a single
case
• Causal linkages: mutual
simultaneous shaping.
• Inquiry is value bound.
Characteristics of
naturalistic inquiry
• Natural setting: realities cannot be understood
outside their contexts.
• The human instrument: no other instrument can
adjust to/appreciate multiple realities.
• Uses tacit knowledge.
• Qualitative methods (though not exclusively)
• Purposive sampling: try to choose a sample that
gives you the widest range.
• Inductive data analysis.
• Grounded theory.
• Emergent design
Characteristics of
naturalistic inquiry
• Negotiated outcomes
• Case study reporting
• Idiographic (particular) rather than
generalizable interpretations.
• Tentative application.
• Special criteria for trustworthiness.
When to use qualitative
research
• “Quality” versus “quantity”.
• For problems that need exploration
• For problems that need a complex
detailed understanding.
• To empower individual and collective
voices.
• To write in styles that push the limits
of formal academic narratives
• To understand contexts
• The question of “fit”
Five Approaches to Qualitative
Research:
Based on “Creswell, J. (2007).
Qualitative Inquiry and Research
Design: Choosing Among Five
Approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage.
Narrative Research
• Narrative research: begins with the
experiences as expressed in lived
and told stories of individuals
• Can take the form of biographical
studies, life histories or oral
histories.
• Collecting stories and “restorying
them
Example abstract
• In my research, which has involved
collecting women’s accounts of becoming
mothers, I am seeking to understand how
women make sense of events throughout
the process of child bearing, constructing
these events into episodes, and thereby
(apparently) maintaining unity within their
lives
Miller, T. (2000). Losing the plot: narrative construction and
longitudinal childbirth research. Qualitative Health
Research, 10, 309-323.
Phenomonological research
• Describes the meaning for several
individuals of their lived experience
of a certain phenomena.
• Can center around basic broad
questions: “what have you
experienced in terms of the
phenomena” and “what contexts
have influenced your experience of
the phenomena”
Example abstract
• Given the intricacies of power and gender
in the academy, what are doctoral
advisement relationships between women
advisors and women advisees really like?
Heinrich, K. T. (1995). Doctoral advisement
relationships between women. Journal of
Higher Education. 66, pp. 447-469.
Grounded theory research
• Employed in situations where it is
perceived as necessary to go
beyond description and generate
theory.
• Use of the constant comparative
method
• Can lead to follow up quantitative
research
Example abstract
• The primary purpose of this article is to
present a grounded theory of academic
change that is based on research based
by two major research questions: What
are the major sources of academic
change? What are the major processes
through which academic change occurs?
Conrad, C.F. (1978). A grounded theory of
academic change. Sociology of
Education, 51, 101-112.
Ethnographic research
• This kind of research focuses on an
entire cultural group: describes their
shared patterns of values, behavior,
language and culture…
• Field work as method of data
collection.
Example abstract
• This article examines how the work and
the talk of stadium employees reinforce
certain meanings of baseball in society,
and it reveals how this work and talk
create and maintain ballpark culture
Trujillo, N. (1992). Interpreting (the work and
talk of) baseball. Western Journal of
Communication, 56, 350-371.
Case study research
• This kind of research involves the
study of an issue explored through
one or two cases within a setting or
context.
Example abstract
• The purpose of this study was to take a look into education
through the eyes of three teachers who are facing their
final year as professional educators. The overarching goal
was to determine how they have seen children, teachers,
administration, policy, and testing change across the thirty
year span of their work as teachers in Texas’ public
schools. Through their comments they give a considerable
amount of insight into the transformation education has
experienced in the last three decades. But unexpectedly,
they reveal as much about our changing society than they
do education itself.
Project submitted in EDCI 690, Summer 2005, Texas A&M University.