Chapter 8

Question 1

Qualitative Research is:

Answer 1

concerned with words and images

usually inductive (starts with field research to develop concepts)

interpretivist (finding what an action or event means to people involved)

constructionist (social life is seen as an outcome of interactions and negotiations)

naturalist perspective (social world should be left undisturbed during research)

Question 2

Ethnography / Participant Observation

Answer 2

researcher is immersed in the social setting, observing and listening to gain an appreciation of culture

Question 3

Qualitative Interviewing

Answer 3

refers to in depth, semi structured, and unstructured interviewing

Question 4

Focus Groups

Answer 4

several people who are interviewed together

Question 5

Discourse and Conversation Analysis

Answer 5

analyze the language the subjects use

Question 6

Qualitative Analysis of Texts and Documents

Answer 6

often uses a multi-method approach

Question 7

Six Steps of Qualitative Research

Answer 7

1. General research question
2. Selecting relevant sites and subjects
3. Collection of relevant data
4. Interpretation of data
5. Conceptual and theoretical work
   Write up of findings

Question 8

Grounded Theory

Answer 8

an approach to the analysis of qualitative data in which the goal is to use the data to generate a theory

Question 9

Grounded theory may involve an:

Answer 9

Iterative process

going back and forth from data to theory revising the theory in the process

Question 10

Definitive Concept

Answer 10

defined with nominal and operational definitions

Question 11

Sensitizing Concepts

Answer 11

Provide only a general sense of reference and guidance as to the content of a concept

Question 12

Reliability

Answer 12

the degree to which a measure of a concept is stable or consistent

Question 13

External Reliability

Answer 13

the degree to which a study can be replicated

Question 14

Internal Reliability

Answer 14

the degree to which the items that make up a scale or index are correlated

Question 15

Validity

Answer 15

a research criterion concerned with the integrity of conclusions generated by a study

Question 16

Internal Validity

Answer 16

a type of validity achieved if there is evidence of a causal relationship between variables

Question 17

Exteral Validity

Answer 17

A type of validity achieved if the results of the study can be generalized to a greater population

Question 18

Main Goals of Qualitative Research:

Answer 18

• empathy
• emphasis on process
• in depth descriptions and context
• flexibility and limited structure

Question 19

Critiques of Qualitative Research

Answer 19

• too impressionistic and subjective
• bias can result from personal relationships
• may be unclear how topic/theme became the research focus
• difficult to replicate
• problems of generalization
• lack of transparency