An Introduction to Qualitative
Research
Day 2
RADHIKA VIRURU, PH.D.
DEPT. OF PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCES
QATAR UNIVERSITY
Qualitative axioms (Lincoln and
Guba, 1985)
 The nature of reality: multiple, constructed
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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 qualitative inquiry (ibid)
 Natural setting: phenomena take their meaning as much
from their contexts as they do from themselves.
 Demands attention to multiplicities in situations.
 The human instrument: no other instrument can adjust
to/appreciate multiple realities. Can cope with
indeterminacy. Can respond immediately to data. Can be
trained to be trustworthy
 Uses tacit knowledge.
 Qualitative methods (though not exclusively) : not anti
quantitative but focuses more on the particular
Characteristics of naturalistic inquiry
 Purposive sampling: try to choose a sample that
gives you the widest range, to include as much
information as possible (maximum variation
sampling). Sampling is emergent; serial; continually
focused and selected to the point of redundancy
 Inductive data analysis.
 Grounded theory: theory that emerges from the data
and that “explains” the data. Negative case analysis
 Emergent design: “Tell me what questions I need to
ask, and then answer them for me”. Emerges
through continuous data analysis, interactions, peer
debriefing, journals.
Characteristics of naturalistic inquiry:
 Negotiated outcomes: obligation to consult
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participants.
“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
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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.
Designing and carrying out
qualitative studies
Designing naturalistic inquiries
 Naturalistic designs must emerge and unfold as the study
progresses.
 Not all of the elements can be specified ahead of time,
but some can.
 Determining where and from whom data will be
collected.
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Identifying initial sample and making provisions for orderly
evolution
 Phases of inquiry: (can overlap)
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Orientation and overview.
Focused exploration
Member checking
 Determining instrumentation: teams and training
Designing naturalistic inquiries
 Planning data collection and recording:
 Interview/participant observation..
 Recording: advantages of field notes over recording
 Planning data analysis procedures: must begin early
and be ongoing.
 Planning logistics
 Planning for trustworthiness
Participant observation (Spradley 1980)
 Dual purposes of participant observation:
 To engage in activities
 To observe activities
 Explicit awareness: becoming aware of things that
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you normally block out.
Wide angle lens: wider circle of awareness
Insider/outsider experiences.
Introspection
Record keeping
Awareness of what is not there
Kinds of participation
 Non participation (study of TV programs)
 Passive participation (courtroom spectator)
 Moderate participation (“watching” video games)
 Active participation (learning to do what others are
doing)
 Complete participation
Descriptive observations
 Based on descriptive questions that ethnographer has in
mind
 Grand tour observations and mini tour observations
 Key things to observe:
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Space
Actor
Activities
Objects
Acts
Events
Time
Goal
Feelings
Field notes
 Issues with taking notes openly:
 Assures that research is being carried out openly
 Cannot always take breaks (take time out)
 Do not always fit the situation
 Being careful about when to take them.
 Jottings:
 Include initial impressions
 Include descriptive and reflective notes.
 Small notepads
 Symbols
 Key events (both personal and collective)
Increasing the value of jottings
 Include key components of scenes or interactions observed.
 Avoid making generalizations: don’t describe someone as
inefficient, include details.
 Include sensory details: instead of describing someone as
“angry”, describe them. Include speculation about motives
as questions rather than facts.
 Experiment with what kinds of details jog the memory.
 Limit the time in the setting
Form of field notes (Bogden and Biklen)
 Title and other identifying data.
 If taking notes on site, experiment with different
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ways of organizing notes. There is no one right way!!
Use many paragraphs
Leave large margins on the left side
Language identification principle (Spradley)
The verbatim principle
Qualitative interviews
 Kinds of interviews:
Informal. Not a major source of data but not without purpose. Can
have some questions ready. Informants must know that these too are
“data”
 Formal/semistructured: Planned ahead. Researcher in charge.
Combination of structure and flexibility. Expect the unexpected.
 Standardized interviews: limited use in qualitative studies. Answers
transcribed by researchers.
 Getting prepared:
 Thinking through what interviews can be done and with whom.
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Selecting participants
 Extreme or deviant case samples (Teacher of the Year)
 Maximum variation samples (different perspectives on same
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phenomena)
Homogenous samples (individuals with similar characteristics)
Typical samples (considered typical)
Stratified purposeful samples (representing samples of interest)
Snowball samples (one person identifies another)
Criterion samples (individuals who fit certain criteria)
Theory based samples
Confirming and disconfirming samples
Convenience samples
In all cases, participants should know/negotiate the ground rules
for the interviews.
Developing questions
 Most qualitative interview questions are open ended.
 Hatch’s categorization
Essential
 Extra or follow up questions
 Probing
 Throwaway/Background
 Spradley’s categorization:
 Descriptive
 Structural
 Contrast
 Writing effective questions:
 Language familiar to respondents
 Clear/neutral
 Respectful
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Qualities of good interviews
 Begin with small talk
 Listening:
 Follow up on of course statements
 Listen for key words
 Probing questions
 Use of why questions (Don’t ask for meaning, ask for use)
 Self disclosure
Member checking (Lincoln and Guba, 1985)
 When to finish an interview:
 Information is redundant
 Fatigue on both sides
 Responses get guarded
 “play back” for the informant what has been said
 Invites respondent to validate the constructions made.
 Can induce respondent to add new materials that he or she is
reminded of.
 Puts the respondent on record, so harder to deny it later.
Taking notes (Lincoln and Guba, 1985).
 Disadvantages:
 One cannot record everything.
 Rapid handwriting is sometimes undecipherable.
 Respondent may slow down to accommodate the interviewer
and lose train of thought.
 Advantages:
 Forces careful attention
 Can interpolate questions or comments on to the notes without
knowledge of interviewee.
 Notes can easily be flagged for follow ups
 Member checking is easier.
Unobtrusive measures
 Gathered without direct involvement of the
participants: does not interfere with ongoing
activities.
 Artifacts.
 Traces: wear spots.
 Documents
 Personal communications
 Records
 Photographs
 Historical data
Working with unobtrusive data
 Helpful in triangulation
 Explanations
 Must be careful about making interpretations
 Collections of data may not be organized.
 Specify ahead of time what kinds of unobtrusive data
will be collected.
 Organize it carefully
Building trustworthiness
 Journals
 Triangulation
 Debriefing
 Audit trail
Validity and reliability in qualitative research or
trustworthiness (Lincoln and Guba, 1985).
 Common criticisms of qualitative research:
 Subjective; “loudest bangs or brightest lights”.
 Four common criteria:
 Internal validity (measuring what was intended): that
changes in the dependent variable are caused by
controlled variation of the independent variable.
Common threats such as maturation, testing.
 External validity: relationship can be generalized across
similar populations.
 Reliability: dependability, stability and consistency.
Usually tested by replication.
 Objectivity: usual criteria is intersubjective agreement.
Naturalistic trustworthiness criteria
 Credibility: activities that make it more likely that
credible findings and interpretations will be
produced.
Prolonged engagement: the investment of sufficient time
to where one can take account of distortions that might
creep into data. Also a time to build trust.
 Persistent observation: identify salient characteristics of
the situation.
 Triangulation: use of different sources, methods,
investigators and theories (more problematic in
naturalistic inquiry).
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Credibility
 Peer debriefing: talking to a disinterested peer
about inquiry.
Can test hypotheses
 Opportunity for catharsis.
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 Referential adequacy: making data available for
scrutiny.
 Member checks: not just at the end of an interview
but at end of case study. May take an entire day
with multiple stakeholders.
Transferability and dependability
 Transferability is similar to external validity.
 Provision of thick description.
 Dependability and confirmability (similar to
reliability):
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Overlap methods.
Audit trails for both process (how study was conducted) and
the product (if accurate or not).
Reflexive journals
 Includes information both about self and method.
 Can include:
 Daily schedule and logistics of study.
 Personal diary
 Methodological log