Basics of qualitative
research
1. History of qualitative research in
psychology
1.1 Sigmund Freud: Uncovering meaning in symptoms, dreams, errors, and culture
 Integrated naturalistic observations, descriptions of his own first-person experience, written
anecdotes and interviews
 Use of archival data
 Practice of life historical descriptions from medical patients under hypnosis
 Case of “Anna O”
 Commonality: “Strangulated affect”
 “Listen to them”
 “Free associations”
 Trusting relationship with the investigator
 Full emotional disclosure of life experience more effective than hypnotic suggestion
 Hermeneutic and narrative inquiry
 A non judgmental attitude and nondirective
 data based interpretation of meaning and focusing on the purposes and
contexts of experiences within a person’s larger life history
 sharing interpretations and confirming or reshaping his understandings
1.2 William James: Analyzing the forms of spiritual experiences
 What is the nature, the constitution of religious experience?
 respecting meanings that subjective experience has for individuals
 “the feelings, acts, experiences of individual men (humans) in their
solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relations to
whatever they may consider the divine”
 engagement with ordinary and extreme humans who lived
religious life
 personal and existential point of view
 continual comparisons of differences indicating general
characteristics and typical variations
2. Conventional science and its critiques
2.1 Historical emphasis on quantification in science
2.1.1 “received view” of science on efforts to verify (positivism) or falsify
(postpositivism) a priori hypothesis, stated as mathematical propositions
that can be easily converted into precise mathematical formulas
expressing functional relationships.
2.1.2 The aim is to predict and control
2.2 Critiques of the received view
2.2.1 Internal (intraparadigm critiques)
2.2.2 External (extraparadigm critiques)
2.2.1 Internal critiques:
2.2.1.1 Context stripping
 using controls or randomization, other variables that exist in the
context are stripped from consideration
2.2.1.2 Exclusion of meaning and purpose
 meanings and purposes attached by human actors to their activities
2.2.1.3 Disjunction of grand theories with local contexts
 etic (outsider) theory brought to bear on an inquiry by an investigator
(or the hypothesis proposed to be tested) may have little or no meaning
within the emic (insider) view of studied individuals, groups, societies,
or cultures
2.2.1.4 Inapplicability of general data to individual cases
2.2.1.5 Exclusion of the discovery dimension in inquiry
2.2.2 External (extraparadigm) critiques
2.2.2.1 the theory-ladenness of facts
 hypothesis and observation are not independent
2.2.2.2 the undetermination of theory
 different theoretical frameworks may be supported by the same set of “facts”
 Rejecting the notion of theory verification in favor of the theory falsification
 example: black swan
2.2.2.3 Value-ladenness of facts
2.2.2.4 Interactive nature of inquirer-inquired into dyad
 relation between observer and observed
 viewing natural phenomena as they happen and recording them
objectively
3. Paradigms in qualitative research
3.1 What is paradigm?
 Basic beliefs/worldviews (or metaphysics) that define for its holder, the nature
of the “world”, individual’s place in it, and the range of possible relationships
to the world and its parts
 accepted simply on faith, with no way ton establish ultimate truthfulness
 Five important questions:
The ontological question: What is the nature of reality?
The epistemological question: What is the relationship between the researcher
and that being researched?
The axiological question: What is the role of values?
The rhetorical question: What is the language of research?
The methodological question: What is the process of research?
Paradigm 1: Positivism
Ontology: naïve realism- “real” reality but apprehendible; reductionist and deterministic
Epistemology: Dualist and objectivist
Methodology: Experimental and manipulative
Paradigm 2: Postpositivism
Ontology: Critical realism
Epistemology: Modified dualist/objectivist
Methodology: Modified experimental/manipulative
Paradigm 3: Critical theory
Ontology: Historical realism
Epistemology: Transactional and subjectivist
Methodology: Dialogic and dialectical
Paradigm 4: Constructivism (often combined with interpretivism)
Ontology: Relativist
Epistemology: Transactional and subjectivist
Methodology: Hermeneutical and dialectical
Paradigm 5: Advocacy/Participatory
Ontology: subjective-objective
Epistemology: experiential, presentational, propositional, and
practical ways of knowing
Methodology: Co-researcher and co-subjects
4. Bracketing in qualitative research
4.1 Inevitable transmission of assumptions, values, interests,
emotions and theories (hereafter referred to collectively as
preconceptions), within and across the research project
4.2 Bracketing: a method to mitigate the potential deleterious
effects of unacknowledged preconceptions
4.2.1 Internal supposition: history, knowledge, culture, experience,
value or academic reflections such as orientation and theories
4.2.2 External supposition: aspects of the phenomena under
investigation
4.3 Maintaining self-awareness as ongoing process
4.4 Method:
4.4.1 Writing memos
4.4.2 Interviews with an outside source to uncover and bring into
awareness preconceptions and biases
4.4.3 Reflexive journal: reasons for undertaking the research; assumptions
regarding gender, sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, socio-economic
status; researcher’s place in the power hierarchy of the research; the
researcher’s personal value system; potential role conflicts with research
participants; feelings such as blame or disengagement that may include
presuppostions; and whether the researcher chooses to write in first or
third person
5. Grounded theory
5.1 Inductive strategies for analyzing data
5.2 Characteristics:
5.2.1 Simultaneous involvement in data collection and analysis
5.2.2 Creation of analytic codes and categories developed from
data, not from preconceived hypothesis
5.2.3 Development of middle-range theories to explain behavior and
processes
5.2.4 Memo-making: writing analytic notes to fill out
LINE-BY-LINE CODING
 Examine each line of data and defining the actions or events that
you see occurring in it or as represented by it.
 Naming each line of data
 Helps you gain sufficient distance from your and your
participants’ taken for granted assumptions
 Seeing the material in new light
Example
FOCUSED CODING
 Codes that reappear in your initial coding and using those codes
to sift through large amounts of data
 Less open-ended and more directed
 Selective and conceptual
 Take limited number of interesting line-by-line coding and apply
them to large amounts of data
 You create categories as having overriding significance in
explicating events and processes in your data
FUNDAMENTAL PROCESSES/SELECTIVE CODING/CATEGORIES
 Fundamental processes for psychological existence (psychology) and social life (sociology)
 Refine processes by collecting more data from diverse arenas in which the process is more
evident
MEMO WRITING
 Intermediate step between coding and first draft
 Elaborate processes, assumptions and actions subsumed under your code
 Make comparisons
 Define category
 Keep collecting data, keep coding and keep refining your ideas through writing more and
further develop memos
 Free writing
 Make conjectures and check on the field
6. Ethnography
6.1 Immerse themselves in the culture of the society under investigation
in order to describe life in that culture in depth
6.2 Understanding the meanings and cultural practices of people from
within everyday contexts
6.3 Shared cultural meanings of a social group
6.4 Natural setting
6.5 Multi-method form of research
6.6 Prolonged periods of data collection
6.7 Considerable attention to reflexivity
6.8 Translation process to build bridges of underatnding between
communities that speak a different language
6.9 Conducting ethnography:
6.9.1 Support for the study
6.9.2 Suitability of ethnography. Question of generation of insights. Think about your
theoretical and epistemological perspective and analytic approach.
6.9.3 Ethical issues and power relations
6.9.4 Plan about your field-work. Adopt ‘big-net’ approach.
6.9.5 Entering ‘the field’. Use of intermediary or just hang around and gain trust of a
key member.
6.9.6 Ethnographic research techniques (common):
 Participant observation
 Conversation with a purpose (interview) and recording of your and others
views/thoughts
 Questionnaires and diaries
 Unobtrusive measures
6.9.7 Exiting ‘the field’
6.9.8 Analysis
 Transcribe as verbatim as possible
 Commences at the start of the project
6.9.9 Writing and dissemination of research