Data Collection Handout
The fundamental methods relied on by qualitative researchers for gathering information are:
| participation in the setting |
| direct observation |
| in-depth interviewing |
| document review |
Participant observation is both an overall approach to inquiry and a data gathering method.
Participant observation demands first-hand involvement in the social world chosen for study.
Observation- the systematic noting and recording of events, behaviors, and artifacts in the social setting chosen for study.
Observation can range from highly structured, detailed notation of behavior guided by checklists to more holistic description of events and behavior.
Observation is a fundamental and critical method in all qualitative inquiry.
In-depth interviewing (a conversation with a purpose)
Three different categories of interviews:
| the informal conversational interview |
| the general interview guide approach |
| the standardized open-ended interview |
The phenomenon of interest should unfold as the participant views it, not as the researcher views it.
An interview is a useful way to get large amounts of data quickly.
Ethnographic Interviewing -- Interviewing elicits the cognitive structures guiding participants' worldviews.
Ethnographic questions are used by the ethnographer to gather cultural data. Tree main types of questions:
| descriptive- allow the researcher to collect a sample of the participant's language |
| structural- discover the basic units in the cultural knowledge |
| contrast- provides the ethnographer with the meaning of various terms in the participant's language. |
Phenomenology is the study of experiences and the ways in which we put them together to develop a worldview. There is a "structured and essence" to shared experiences that can be determined.
Three basic steps to phenomenological inquiry:
| Epoche- the period in which the researcher must examine himself in order to identify personal biases and remove all traces of personal involvement in the phenomena being studied. |
| Phenomenological reduction- next phase in which the researcher brackets the rest of the world and any presuppositions with which he approaches the subject of study. |
| Structural synthesis- involves the articulation of the "bones" of the experience of the phenomenon and the description of its deep structure. |
Elite Interviewing- specialized case of interviewing that focuses on a particular type of interviewee.
Focus Group Interviewing- technique of interviewing participants in focus groups comes largely from marketing research. Groups are generally composed of 7 to 10 people who are unfamiliar to one another and have been selected because they share certain characteristics that are relevant to the question of study.
The Review of Documents
Researchers supplement participant observation, interviewing, and observation with the gathering and analyzing of documents produced in the course of everyday events.
Probably the greatest strengths of the contest analysis method are that it is unobtrusive and nonreactive.
Supplemental Data Collection Techniques:
| Narratives- People's individual life stories are the focus (people
live "storied lives") Narrative analysis can be applied to any spoken or written account. Because it is a collaboration, both the researchers voice and the actor's voice are heard. | ||||||||
| Life Histories- Particularly useful for giving the reader an
insider's view of a culture. Life history is a deliberate attempt to
define the growth of a person in a cultural milieu and to make theoretical
sense of it. Three alternatives to chronological order as a way to organize and present data:
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| Historical Analysis- History is an account of some past event or
combination of events. Historical analysis is a method of discovering,
from records and accounts what happened in the past. Historical data are classified as either primary or secondary Primary sources include the oral testimony of eyewitnesses, documents, records, and relics. Secondary sources include the reports of persons who relate the accounts of actual eyewitnesses and summaries. | ||||||||
| Films, Videos, and Photographs- films and photographs have a long
history in anthropology. This tradition relies on films and photographs to capture the daily life of the group under study. Three kinds of sampling in films:
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| Kinesics- the study of body motion and its accompanying messages
(the study of body motion communication). Four channels in the communicative process:
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| Proxemics- the study of people's use of space and its relationship to culture. | ||||||||
| Unobtrusive Measures- methods for collection of data that do not
require the cooperation of the subjects and may be "invisible" to
them Data collected in this manner are categorized as documents, archival records, and physical evidence. | ||||||||
| Questionnaires and Surveys- Researchers administer questionnaires to
some sample of a population to learn about the distribution of
characteristics, attitudes, or beliefs. Researchers make one critical assumption--that the characteristic or belief can be described or measured accurately through self-report. The survey is the preferred method if the researcher wishes to obtain a small amount of information from a large number of subjects. The basic aim of survey research is to describe and explain statistically the variability of certain features of a population. Three types of surveys are mail, telephone, and personal interview. | ||||||||
| Projective Techniques and Psychological Testing- The techniques assume that one can get a valid picture of a person by assessing the way the individual projects his or her personality onto some standard, ambiguous stimuli. |
Combining Data Collection Methods
Many qualitative studies combine several data collection methods over the course of the study.
Participant observation allows the researcher to (1) check definitions of terms the participants use in the interview in a more natural setting, (2) observe events the participants cannot report because "they do not want to , feeling that to speak of some particular subject would be impolitic, impolite, or insensitive" and (3) observe situations described in interviews and thus become aware of distortions presented by the participants.
Five relevant types of data employed to get at meaning structures:
| the form and content of verbal interaction between participants |
| the form and content of verbal interaction with researcher |
| nonverbal behavior |
| patterns of actions and nonaction |
| traces, archival records, artifacts, and documents |
General Principles for Designing Data Collection Strategies
The methods planned for data collection should be related to the type of information sought. Three large categories of methods are enumerating, participant observation, and in-depth interviewing.
Because the research question may change as the research progresses, the methods may change and the research must ensure this flexibility.
Observation
Social science observation is fundamentally about understanding the routine rather than what appears to be exciting.
Principal characteristics of much observational research:
The Ethnographic Tradition: From Observation to Gender
Qualitative research is an empirical, socially located phenomenon, defined by its own history, not simply a residual grab-bag comprising all things that are "not quantitative." The initial thrust in favor of observational work was anthropological.
Two important issues relevant to the significance of gender in fieldwork:
| the influence of gender may be negotiable with respondents and not simply ascribed |
| we should resist "the tendency to employ gender as an explanatory catch-al." |
Stages in organizing an observational study:
| beginning research |
| writing field notes |
| looking as well as listening |
| testing hypotheses |
| making broader links |
Beginning Research- Early operational definitions offer precision at the cost of deflecting attention away from the social processes through which the participants themselves assemble stable features of heir social world.
Without some perspective there is nothing to report (the facts NEVER speak for themselves).
Begin with a set of very general questions.
Set of assumptions common to many field researchers:
Writing Field notes
Greatest danger is in reporting "everything"-- This gives you an impossible burden when you try to develop a more systematic analysis at a later stage.
As Atkinson points out, one of the disadvantages of coding schemes is that, because they are based upon a given set of categories, they furnish a powerful conceptual grid from which it is difficult to escape.
Testing Hypotheses
One of the strengths of observational research is its ability to shift focus as interesting new data become available.
Funnel:
Ethnographic research has a characteristic "funnel" structure, being progressively focused over its course. Progressive focusing has two analytically distinct components. First, over time the research problem is developed or transformed, and eventually its scope is clarified and delimited and its internal structure explored. In this sense, it is frequently only over the course of the research that one discovers what the research is really about, and it is not uncommon for it to turn out to be about something quite remote from the initially foreshadowed problems.
At best, "grounded theory" offers an approximation of the creative activity of theory-building found in good observational work, compared to the dire abstracted empiricism present in most wooden statistical studies.
Interactionist principles: Interactionism is concerned with the creation and change of symbolic orders via social interaction.
Interaction's Methodological Principles:
Rules used to organize social interaction:
Notes from:
Data Collection. (Handout Packet)
