Qualitative Inquiry
As pointed out earlier in this chapter, quantitative and qualitative methods have
complimentary strengths that together allow scientists to get a fuller picture of the
complexity of human development as it occurs in context. As Yoshikawa and colleagues
state: “the combination of words and numbers can bring us closer to the complexity of
developmental change by providing divergent as well as convergent data” (Yoshikawa,
Weisner, Kalil & Way, 2008, pg 345). The terms quantitative and qualitative themselves
speak to the strengths of each methodology. According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary,
quantitative is defined as “of, relating to, or involving the measurement of quantity or
amount.” Qualitative, on the other hand, is defined as “of, relating to, or involving quality or
kind (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary).” Within developmental science,
quantitative data and analysis represent the world numerically whereas qualitative data
and analysis use non-numeric forms, including words and pictures (Yoshikawa, et al).
Certainly no one would argue that the only knowledge needed about the world is of either
quantity (numeric) or quality (non-numeric). In fact, in chemistry, typically thought of as a
quantitative science, chemists use qualitative analysis to “identify the components of a
substance or mixture (Merriam-Webster).” In much this way, qualitative social scientists
often draw on qualitative methods to ascertain the components of a social phenomenon or
setting.
Although mixed methods were first used in psychology in the early twentieth
century (Teddlie and Tashakkori, YR), in the field of child development it has historically
been all too common for developmental scientists to approach topics from a primarily, and
often solely, quantitative standpoint. This may stem from developmental science’s origins
in psychology as a lab-based science and following John Stewart Mill’s System of Logic
(CITE). Mill positioned the social sciences in relation to the natural sciences, with similar
aims of identifying general laws for explanation and prediction of the social world. This
view of the social sciences, including developmental science, has its roots in positivism and
post-positivism, epistemologies that believe in a singular, objective Truth that can be
isolated, measured (either in part or in whole), and either verified (positivism) or falsified
(post-positivism; Lincoln & Guba, 2003). As a result, Mill positioned the natural and social
sciences as methodologically identical. Yet the social world, including human development,
offers a number of complicating factors which call into question the privileging of
positivism and post-positivism as the only, or at least dominant, paradigms. For example,
whereas in natural science it possible to control the context of a given experiment, even
within experimental designs in social science people still exist within their natural
environments, which can never be fully controlled. Furthermore, people behave based on
their own understandings of a situation, which may or may not match the “objective”
reality of a given situation. Much like the movie Rashomon, each individual person has his
or her own perspective on the world, complicating the idea of generalization and
prediction with the social sciences.
Qualitative methods, although they have their beginnings in post-positivism (CITE
Lincoln & Guba), have moved increasingly towards interpretive paradigms, with a growing
presence of post-modern, post-structural, and critical epistemologies (CITE). These
paradigms challenge the traditional role of objectivity and researcher-subject
independence (CITE). Qualitative methods recognize the social nature and contextual
boundedness of knowledge, positions that can be difficult to integrate with traditional
developmental science. Whereas quantitative methodologies believe that subjectivity is a
threat to the measurement of the “real world,” qualitative methodologies believe that the
objective view of the world is incomplete and that naturalistic inquiry is needed to
adequately capture the social world (Shweder, 1996).
Despite their historical marginalization in developmental science, qualitative
methods are particularly well suited for capturing two important aspects of developmental
phenomena that are integral to a developmental systems approach to human development:
process and context (CITE). Although qualitative methods have traditionally been
eschewed as a means of understanding causal relationships, scholars are now recognizing
the strengths of qualitative approaches in identifying the mechanisms behind causal
relationships (Yoshikawa, Weisner, Kalil & Way, 2008; Yin CITE). This primarily comes
from qualitative methods’ abilities to address questions about “how” and “why” (as
opposed to “how many” or “how much”), to identify, as in chemical qualitative analysis, the
“components” of human development as it occurs within particular contexts. Charles Ragin
identifies seven major goals of social research, some of which he notes as being better
suited to quantitative methods and others to qualitative methods: 1) identifying general
patterns and relationships; 2) testing and refining theories; 3) making predictions; 4)
interpreting culturally or historically significant phenomena; 5) exploring diversity; 6)
giving voice, and; 7) advancing new theories.
Within qualitative methodology, different methods have different strengths. For
example, observations are best suited for understanding actions and behaviors – or what
people do. Interview techniques are better suited for understanding the meanings people
make of their environments and interactions– or what people believe. The educational
researcher Frederick Erikson (CITE) separates out actions from behavior, defining
behavior as action plus intention, [CHECK TERMINOLOGY] and identifying behavior (not
actions) as the focus of qualitative inquiry. Similarly, Barbara Rogoff (YR) points out in The
Cultural Nature of Human Development, that to understand human development we must
capture both what happens and what people believe about what happens:
To understand development, it is helpful to separate value judgments from
observations of events. It is important to examine the meaning and function of
events for the local cultural frameworks and goals, conscientiously avoiding the
arbitrary imposition of one’s own values on another group. Interpreting the activity
of people without regard of their meaning system and goals renders observations
meaningless. (Rogoff, pg 17)
This dual focus on activity and meaning leads many qualitative researchers to combine
methods within studies, drawing on interviews, observations, photographic techniques,
and newer approaches such as mapping, to triangulate data in an attempt to get more fully
at the phenomenon under study.
Qualitative Methods
There are many different types of qualitative methods that have strengths for
answering different types of research questions. Often, researchers will use multiple modes
of data collection to allow for triangulation across data types. Below we provide a brief
overview of different types of qualitative data and what types of information they are best
for gathering.
Observations. Observational techniques in qualitative research stem from those used
in ethnography, an anthropologic approach to studying culture. Ethnography is not merely
observing a culture, but using what Geertz (CITE) has termed “thick description” to capture
the rules and behaviors governing any given culture.
To describe a culture, then, is not to recount the events of a society but to specify
what one must know to make those events maximally probable. The problem is not
to state what someone did but to specify the conditions under which it is culturally
appropriate to anticipate that he, or persons occupying his role, will render an
equivalent performance. This conception of a cultural description implies that
ethnography should be a theory of cultural behavior in a particular behavior, the
adequacy of which is to be evaluated by the ability of a stranger to the culture…to
use the ethnography’s statements as instructions for appropriately anticipating the
scenes of the society…the test of descriptive adequacy must always refer to
informant’s interpretations of events not simply to the occurrence of events. (Frake,
1964)
Ethnography relies on participant-observation, a method in which the researcher learns
about a culture by participating in it while simultaneously observing the culture through
detailed field notes. Field notes capture both the being and observing that is part of
participant-observation (CITE; Spradley?). The field notes themselves (also called the
running record) capture the observing, or what occurs, through thick descriptions of the
physical setting, people, and actions (Marshall & Rossman, YR). The analytic notes capture
the “being,” or observer’s comments on what is occurring, including subjective feelings as
well as questions and analytic insights (Marshall & Rossman, YR).
Observational data is best at capturing what people actually do. Yet participantobservation also typically includes interviews (either formal or informal) allowing for
simultaneous data about people’s beliefs and meanings. ETC.
Interviews
Focus Groups
Documents, photographs, maps, and other methods
Narrative approaches
Surveys
Kinesics & proxemics
Paradigms of Research
Some have argued against mixing qualitative and quantitative methods due to the
differences in the paradigms that underlie most quantitative and qualitative studies. This
approach, called the incompatibility view (Teddlie & Tashakkori, YR), posits that the
underlying paradigmatic differences between qualitative and quantitative approaches, in
particular the differences in ontology and epistemology, lead to different goals, making it
impossible to mix methods within single studies. Yet this view, we would argue, not only
confuses methods with methodologies but also risks throwing out the baby with the bath
water – leading researchers to miss out on the strengths of combining approaches in the
name of paradigmatic rigidity.
As others have pointed out, it is possible to quantitatively analyze qualitative data
and to qualitatively analyze quantitative data (Yoshikawa et al), indicating that the
paradigm split is not between the methods themselves but between typical uses and
analytic goals of the methods. In other words, it is not the methods that have paradigmatic
meaning, but what we do with them. Teddlie and Tashakkori (CITE) discuss the six
different views of how social scientists believe paradigms should inform mixed methods
research. Much research appears to be conducted under the umbrella of pragmatism
(EXPAND). It may not be surprising, then, that evaluators were early adopters of mixing
methods and have used mixed methods for a variety of purposes in their work (see Greene
CITE). Others argue that researchers can switch paradigms depending on the needs of a
study and still others advocate for intentionally mixing paradigms within a study with the
goal of engaging “the tensions that emerge from the juxtaposition of these multiple diverse
perspectives” (Teddlie & Tashakkori, pg 18). [NOTE – IF I WERE WRITING THIS ALONE I
WOULD PROBABLY ADVOCATE FOR THIS LAST POSITION OR SAY THIS LAST POSITION
MOST CLOSELY RESEMBLES HOW WE THINK ABOUT MIXED METHODS – DO YOU BOTH
AGREE OR SHOULD I REVISIT THAT IDEA?]
Recently, a body of mixed methods work has developed within child development
studies. Thomas Weisner’s volume (CITE) on how mixed methods have been used to study
children and families brings together a number of prominent researchers from across
disciplines who have contributed to the literature in developmental science through using
mixed methods to study child development within context. EXAMPLES
References
Richard Shweder’s “Quanta and qualia: What is the ‘Object’ of ethnographic method?” in
Jessor, Colby & Shweder Ethnography and Human Development: Context and Meaning in
Social Inquiry (University of Chicago Press, 1996)