10 - Qualitative approaches in psychology

Question 1

Action Research

Answer 1

practical intervention in everyday situations, often organisations, using applied psychology to produce change and monitor results.

Example: Improving workplace productivity by changing office layout

Question 2

Collaborative Research

Answer 2

Research in which participants are fully involved to the extent of organising their own processes of research and change. Researchers are consultant.

Question 3

Constant comparative analysis

Answer 3

Regular checking of the emergent category system (in GT) with raw data and sub-categories in order to rearrange and produce the tightest fit.

Example: Regularly comparing categories and data for the best fit

Question 4

Constructivism

Answer 4

Theory holding knowledge to be relative and “facts” to be social constructions, not permanent realities.

Question 5

Co-operative enquiry

Answer 5

Investigation involving researcher and participant working together.

Question 6

Discourse analysis (DA)

Answer 6

Qualitative analysis of interactive speech, which assumes people use language to construct the world; talk is organised according to the context and personal stake; it is not evidence of internal psychological processes.

Question 7

Emergent theory

Answer 7

Theory that emerges from data as they are analysed: not based on prior research literature.

Question 8

Grounded theory (GT)

Answer 8

Theory driving the analysis of qualitative data in which patterns emerge from the data and are not imposed on them before they are gathered.

Question 9

Inductive content analysis

Answer 9

alternative term for thematic analysis “General analysis of qualitative data into subordinate themes which extracted from the data. Not allied to any epistemological position.”

Question 10

Interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA)

Answer 10

Approach that attempts to describe an individual’s experience from their own perspective as closely as possible, but recognizes the interpretive influence of the researcher on the research product.

Question 11

Mixed methods

Answer 11

Research where qualitative and quantitative methods are used together to answer different aspects of the research question.

Question 12

Narrative psychology

Answer 12

Research approach that sees human activity as “storied”; that is, humans tend to recall and talk about their lives in constructed stories rather than in a logical and factual manner.

Question 13

Negative case analysis

Answer 13

Process of seeking contradictions of emergent categories or theory in order to adjust the category system to incorporate and explain more of the data.

Question 14

Paradigm

Answer 14

A prevailing agreed system of scientific thinking and behaviour within which research is conducted.

Question 15

Participant research

Answer 15

Research in which participants are substantially involved in the investigative process as active enquirers.

Question 16

Phenomenology

Answer 16

A philosophical approach that concentrated on the study of consciousnesses and the object of direct experience. Mental awareness is primary.

Question 17

Realism:

Answer 17

Theory of knowledge holding that there is a unitary reality in the world that can be discovered using the appropriate investigative methods.

Question 18

Reflexivity

Answer 18

Researchers recognition that their personal perspective influences and/or constructs the research interpretation.

Question 19

Relativism

Answer 19

Theory of knowledge holding that objective facts are an illusion and that knowledge is constructed by each individual through a unique personal framework.

Question 20

Saturation

Answer 20

Point in GT work where additional data make only trivial contributions and cannot alter the emerged framework of categories and themes.

Question 21

Thematic analysis (TA)

Answer 21

General analysis of qualitative data into subordinate themes which extracted from the data. Not allied to any epistemological position.

Question 22

Theoretical sampling

Answer 22

Use of purposive sampling to find data that might support or contradict an emergent explanatory framework.