Chapter 2 --  Designing a Qualitative Study

General frameworks hold qualitative research together.

One undertakes qualitative research in a natural setting where the researcher is an instrument of data collection who gathers words or pictures, analyzes them inductively, focuses on the meaning of participants, and describes a process that is expressive and persuasive in language.

Dezin and Lincoln (1994) define research:

Qualitative research is multimethod in focus, involving an interpretive, naturalistic approach to its subject matter.  This means that qualitative researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of our interpret phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them.  Qualitative research involves the studied use and collection of a variety of empirical materials -- case study, personal experience, introspective, life story, interview, observational, historical, interactional, and visual texts -- that describe routine and problematic moments and meaning in individuals' lives.

Creswell's definition of Qualitative Research:

Qualitative research is an inquiry process of understanding based on distinct methodological traditions of inquiry that explore a social or human problem.  The researcher builds a complex, holistic picture, analyzes words, reports detailed views of informants, and conducts the study in a natural setting.

The difference between the two types of research is that quantitative researchers work with a few variables and many cases whereas qualitative researchers rely on a few cases and many variables.

To undertake qualitative research requires a strong commitment to study a problem and demands time and resources.

Qualitative inquiry is for the researcher who is willing to do the following:

Commit to extensive time in the field.
Engage in the complex, time-consuming process of data analysis--the ambitious task of sorting through large amounts of data and reducing them to a few themes or categories.
Write long passages, because the evidence must substantiate claims and the writer needs to show multiple perspectives.
Participate in a form of social and human science research that does not have firm guidelines or specific procedures and is evolving and changing constantly.
  1. Select a qualitative study because of the nature of the research question (question often starts with how or what so that initial forays into the topic describe what is going on).
  2. Choose a qualitative study because the topic needs to be explored (variables cannot be easily identified).
  3. Use a qualitative study because of the need to present a detailed view of the topic.
  4. Choose a qualitative approach in order to study individuals in their natural setting.
  5. Select qualitative approach because of interest in writhing in a literary style.
  6. Employ a qualitative study because of sufficient time and resources to spend on extensive data collection in the field and detailed data analysis of "text" information.
  7. Select a qualitative approach because audiences are receptive to qualitative research.
  8. Employ a qualitative approach to emphasize the researcher's role as an active learner who can tell the story from the participants' view rather than an "expert" who passes judgment on participants.

The qualitative approach to design contains several unique features:

The researcher plans a general approach to a study
Some issues are problematic for the qualitative research
The actual format for a qualitative study varies considerably from the traditional format of research.

Given these phases in the design, one uses a set of assumptions that guide the study.

These assumptions speak to our understanding of knowledge.  Knowledge is within the meanings people make of it.

We begin by posing a problem, a research issue, to which we would like an answer.

The topics about which we write are emotion laden, close to the people, and practical.

We ask open-ended question, wanting to listen to the participants we are studying and shaping the questions after we "explore" and we refrain from assuming the role of the expert researcher with the "best" questions.

Four basic types of information:

  1. Interviews
  2. Observations
  3. Documents
  4. Audio-visual materials

The backbone of qualitative research is extensive collection of data, typically from multiple sources of information.  At this stage we consciously consider ethical issues.

Perhaps qualitative studies do not have endings, only questions.

Characteristics of a "good" qualitative study:

We employ rigorous data collection procedures
We frame the study within the assumptions and characteristics of the qualitative approach to research.
We use a tradition of inquiry.
We begin with a single focus.
The study includes detailed methods, a rigorous approach to data collection, data analysis, and report writing.
We write persuasively so that the reader experiences "being there."
We analyze data using multiple levels of abstraction.
The writing is clear, engaging, and full of unexpected ideas.

No set format exists for planning a study.  Several writers suggest general topics to be included in a written plan.

The complete study contains data findings and a discussion as well as the problem or issue, research questions, methodology, and verification or validity.

Summary

"Given the multiple perspectives on qualitative research, it is helpful to establish some common ground before preceding to examine the varieties of qualitative traditions.  Qualitative research is complex, involving fieldwork for prolonged periods of time, collecting words and pictures, analyzing this information inductively while focusing on participant views, and writing about the process using expressive and persuasive language.  Moreover, researchers frame this approach within traditions of inquiry, and they engage in research to examine how or what types of questions, to explore a topic, to develop a detailed view, to take advantage of access to information, to write in expressive and persuasive language, to spend time in the field and to reach audiences receptive to qualitative approaches.  In designing a study, one works with broad philosophical assumptions; possible frameworks, problems, and questions; and data collection through techniques such as interviews, observations, documents, and audio-visual materials.  Reducing the data into small categories or themes comes next, as does storing them and representing them for the reader in the narrative.  The narrative assumes many forms--a theory, a description, a detailed view, an abstract model--and we know whether the narrative rings true using criteria about rigor, the philosophical assumptions of the design, detailed methods and approaches, and persuasive and engaging writhing.  The narrative will, in the end, reflect the creativity of the writer, although the plan for the study, the proposal, might follow several of the procedures being discussed in the literature.  In the next chapter, we see how five authors shape these central elements of good qualitative research using a lens of a tradition of inquiry--the traditions of a biography, a phenomenology, a ground theory study, an ethnography, and a case study."

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Personal notes on reading from :

Cresswell, J. W. (1997). Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among the Five Traditions. Thousand Oaks:  Sage Publications.