3 Research methods Flashcards
Quality Criteria for Qualitative Research
If we want to judge the quality of the methodological approach we use in our research, it is very common to use the criteria of validity and reliability.
Other criteria are:
- credibility: completeness and accuracy of the data
- analisability: completeness and accuracy of analysis and interpretation
- transparency: completeness and full disclosure of all aspects of research
- usefulness: ability to do something of value with the outcomes
Choosing your research method
The research question is the start of a research project, and it determines every step that follows from that first starting point.
A research question needs to describe what we want to research, who we want to research, and where we are researching. In this way, we know where to start and where to finish, and what limitations and boundaries we are putting around that question.
Which research method matches this particular question? When you choose which method matches a question, you need to consider what type of data you need to answer that question.
Some methods help us to understand how individuals understand the world. Other methods are more suitable when we’re interested in how people are interacting. The third type of method shows us how people represent themselves.
Semi-structured interviews
Are interviews using prepared questions, and you ask the same questions to all the people that you interview. You identify some topics and themes that you think are important to answer your research question. Then you determine questions that will help you to explore these themes, which already exist in the literature.
Well, semi-structured interview guides allow you to ask open questions and to go between the different questions a little bit more flexibly. It also allows you to ask more, and ask them to be more clear.
Why would you use semi-structured interviews?
It is a great method because it gives you balance between some structure, on the one hand, where you have the same questions for everybody. And some flexibility, that you can ask them to explain more, or perhaps just follow the flow of the interview better.
It is also good because it allows you to compare. You have a whole group of interviewees that you’re asking the same question, and because you asked the same questions, you can also compare clearly.
Also because of the structure of asking the same questions, it’s a useful tool mainly to add to existing theory. You ask about the things that you expect, the different themes you would expect to come across. But because of your open questions, you might also learn something new from what we already know.
And lastly, it’s very useful with semi-structured interviews because you have a guide, you can be a whole group using the same guide. Then you can work in a team much easier than with some other type of methods.
Example of a good research question for a semi-structured interview approach
Which factors influence how tiny house owners in California experience their living situation?
There’s an existing theory that has not yet been applied to this group, so we can develop the theory further, which we can do with semi-structured interviews. There’s also the case that tiny house owners are a group with possible subgroups. It could be interesting to compare. And lastly, of course, when we want to know something about how factors influence the living situation, we need to be flexible to new data, we want open questions.
Narrative interviews
It is about the narration, about the story. So it’s a method that focuses on somebody’s life story. Because it focuses on the very individual person, it is rather unstructured. So it’s not a set of predetermined questions, but it’s more to support somebody to tell about their life. This means the participant takes the lead.
Then you look for a narrator-listener dynamic. As the person starts to tell the story, you support them by asking questions, by helping them to follow their own narration, and asking for more detail, which gives you really rich information.
Example of a research question where narrative interviews would be a good method to use
Why do young people in the Netherlands move to a tiny house?
This is quite a new phenomenon, so we know little. It would be good to build more theory, and we would know in detail why they make this choice because we know nothing about it. We need it to be open. We need to let them tell us exactly what they think.
On the other side of the coin, I’m interested in why young people in the Netherlands move to a tiny house. Why is this happening now? What does it mean? What is the context that makes so many people make this choice? So on the other side, you have the personal reasoning stories, and I’m also interested in the social context which makes people make these choices, to understand this phenomenon better, the Dutch tiny house trend.
Focus groups
A focus group is an organized group discussion. You invite people to come together
and you let them talk about the issue that you are interested in researching.
First you need to select your participants and this can take two roots: Either you want to know how a group experiences a phenomenon. Or, you ask people that are very different, so they will give you many different perspectives of the issue that you’re studying.
To let the focus group run well, you are the moderator. You need to prompt the questions and make sure everybody gets to talk.
And lastly, during the focus group, it can be quite hard to keep track of what everybody said. With interviews, we might just use a recorder, but with a focus group, it can be smart to also film what is happening.
Why would you use the focus group method?
The biggest advantage of focus groups is when we’re interested in group dynamics, we want to know not just what people think when you speak to them one-on-one, but how they interact in a group and talk together about things. Focus groups are great because they capture many perspectives and they might also trigger new questions, new perspectives, as participants talk with each other.
People that have an interest in the issue you’re studying will know more than you do about it and might ask things of each other that you didn’t even think of asking. Also, they might find solutions to the problem that you’re studying. As people that are struggling with the same thing get together, there might be some brainstorming and you might find a solution to the problem (action research), rather than just that you are able to describe your research problem.
Example of a research question for focus groups:
Tiny houses might be quite a hot issue, with many people having different opinions about whether it’s good or not.
You formulate the research question and you look at the place where you see that there is a lot of debate, so you can know where this is happening.
So, what issues do tiny houses raise for stakeholders in a municipality with, for example,
a lot of homelessness, like Seattle?
First of all, in the question, we’re interested in what issues the tiny houses raise
for different stakeholders, we want to understand the problem, we want to map them.
Now, bringing people together is a great way of doing that in a focus group.
We’re also interested in all the different perspectives that tiny houses can have in a municipality with a certain situation, such as that of homelessness. Now, focus groups allow us to get those different perspectives and it can also help us to create solutions, as people are mapping the problem, talking about it and coming up with ways to solve it.
When we sit with different stakeholders all in one room, we will learn about the dynamics between them, which might not come across in a newspaper article.
Participant observation
Is to participate in activities and to observe them. What kind of activities you participate in depends on what you’re interested in. There can be different types of involvement, but all participant observation requires that you are both observing and participating in what you’re looking to study.
Example of a question where we would use participant observation
“How do tiny house owners experience everyday life in a mobile house?”
Living with tiny house owners, perhaps having a tiny house yourself for a period of time, is what gets you to know the gap between YouTube and reality. It would also help you to get to the everyday experiences. People can forget how annoying it is to hoover when they talk about something they’re very passionate about. Or they might forget how it feels to get out of bed in the morning in a house that’s on tiny wheels. By participating, you can capture this everyday experience, and what is too obvious.
Discourse Analysis
Discourse analysis is simply to study a body of text or images. The text or images can come from different types of sources.
First, you would collect the type of text or images on the theme or topic that you are studying. Then, you would use a coding software and take very careful note what is said, or what is pictured in all the images or text that you have. Then you will try to identify stories that are retold in the text or the images, what type of messages there are, or if there is perhaps specific vocabulary that is used over and over again.
Now, the reason why you would use this method is that you’re interested in the meaning of language, or that you want to understand the ideas driving a phenomenon.
Example of a research question for discourse analysis
What ideas underlies the motto ‘Tiny house - big life’?
We’re interested in the meaning of the language that’s used, what does ‘big life’ mean? What does it mean to the tiny house people?
Discourse analysis is a method we use to understand how people understand the world, and what is important to them.
