Epistemology

Question 1

What are some differences between a qualitative and quantitative interviewing

Answer 1

Unstructured collaborative qualitative interview
- no strict questions, maybe one exploratory question
- interview-ie is seen as a co-collaborator/co-researcher
-they might give you new information you haven’t thought of before
richer deeper data, more exploratory and emergent
-lengthy, less tailored to what you are actually looking for
-harder to analyse, lengthier, more irrelevant stuff
-less power
-values; information from the participant that the researcher doesn’t yet have, exploration

Quantitative

• strict set of well defined questions, asked in a specific order, sat down in the same way with each participant
• guided by your assumptions, the questions are set, the participants answers can’t diverge from them, it only highlights your assumptions that went into the question writing
• easy to analyse
• specific research questions can be assessed
• cant allow the participant to express there true world view
• shorter and easier to transcribe and analyse
• values; researchers power, tailored to specific research questions, positivist values, analyse

Question 2

Methodology of Qualitative research - new definition

Answer 2

methodology means ‘the theoretical principles of what makes good research’
where a principle is an individual aspect that you think makes good research
‘methodological techniques’ is the term for the actually methodologies

that participants could be subjective lived experience experts is a methodological principle

methodologies are the theoretical principles of what makes good research, which choices in methods are then based upon. These might be something a researcher aims towards, a ‘best practice’ which might not be wholly achievable. They involve the values and principles a researcher takes seriously that ultimately they feel will make for the best kinds of research. It is important to note that the same methodological principles could be employed in quantitative or qualitative research, and that lots of qualitative research employs principles developed from experimental methods. A methodological principle which tends to be used in most psychological research across the board for example, is the theory that knowledge should be constructed from experience, known as empiricism. Where philosophers might believe that they can make claims using thought which is removed from experience, psychology tends to believe that we should be observing or working with actual people in order to make claims (making knowledge claims = developing theories about our social world; presenting our findings; making conclusions from research). Where experimental and qualitative research often differs however is its approach to subjectivity: experimental theory revolves around the principle that ‘bias’ should be removed as far as possible from research, and that therefore the researcher should be detached from the research. Alternatively, qualitative research often (but not always) tends to believe that objectivity is not possible (for example that objectivity is itself a subjective position), and that therefore theories of subjectivity must be employed in research.

Question 3

Positivist v Constructionist

Answer 3

positivist; similar term to empiricist (more strict) objective, generalisable, reliable, valid, standardized, researcher is distanced, has control and power, is expert
the researcher themselves may be a confounding variable
Positivism can be defined as:

a set of theories about knowledge which emerged from the age of Enlightenment in the 19th Century.
it informs much of our assumptions about what makes good science.
a positivist approach to knowledge assumes that there is a one-to-one relationship between things in the social world and our knowledge of them. This is an assumption embedded into lots of experimental or positivist research, which tends to assume that what is observed is ‘reality’ in some way; that universal knowledge is possible to attain and that well designed experiments can capture truths which are the same for all who experience them.
Researchers who draw on this theory might argue that it is actually very difficult to find universal truths or perfect descriptions of reality, but in the choices they make in research methodology (like the ones in the table above) they are nevertheless aiming towards those things.

social constructionist; subjective, in depth, interpretive, real world, relevant to context, exploratory, emergent, relationship b/w researcher and participant, power and expertise of researcher is questioned

Social Constructionism:

involves the idea that knowledge is socially constructed and does not accurately reflect reality.
assumes that knowledge expresses socially constructed assumptions about life, and that this knowledge is different for different contexts and different people – this means that there are a number of ‘knowledges’ about one phenomena rather than one, universal, valid way of knowing it.
Poststructuralism then takes this even further and argues that knowledge serves purpose in our society: that inevitably dominant knowledge tends to serve more powerful groups and that therefore knowledge is inextricably linked to power.
These are difficult concepts to reflect upon, and certainly not all qualitative research extends this far into poststructural epistemology.

Question 4

Epistemology definition

Answer 4

Theory of knowledge, what we can say about what we know/about our knowledge
we have beliefs/principles about what we think we can/do know

positivism v social constuctionism

Question 5

Modernist epistemology

Answer 5

after french revolution away from church power
science forward
thinks that we have a one to one relationship between things in our social world and our knowledge of them. Our knowledge can map perfectly onto the truth of the social world

Question 6

Empirical epistemology

Answer 6

to make a knowledge statement about something it MUST be observable directly

Question 7

Qualitative epistemology

Answer 7

principles of postmodernism, attention to power and knowledge, social constructionism, the idea that contexts form our experiences (historical ideological cultural social relational contexts all inform our experiences)

Question 8

Social constructionism

Answer 8

very different to modernism
knowledge is not a static observable fact
knowledge is instead socially constructed
knowledge is not a one to one direct expression of a phenomena, knowledge is different for different contexts and people, historical linguistic and cultural differences change ‘knowledge’ about the world

Question 9

Post-modernism

Answer 9

post-modernism, in Western philosophy, a late 20th-century movement characterized by broad skepticism, subjectivism, or relativism; a general suspicion of reason; and an acute sensitivity to the role of ideology in asserting and maintaining political and economic power.

Question 10

Ontology;

realism v relativism

Answer 10

your beliefs about the way reality is

realism vs relativism in ontology
Realism; there is one real reality separate from our conception of it

Relativism; the reality is perceived by people making it relative, reality is not distinguishable from our experience of it. What it is to us is guided by our experience of it.

Question 11

The 4 steps to coming up with a qualitative design

Answer 11

ontology - epistemology - methodology - methods

Question 12

What values, assumptions, and limitations are there to standard quantitative research

Answer 12

values; find the one right answer, simplify, construct absolute knowledge, fast effective short term and cheap research, get published (publication biases)
research small incremental but guaranteed findings rather than risky but potentially transformative work
follow the national research priorities;
•An Environmentally Sustainable Australia
•Promoting and Maintaining Good Health
•Frontier Technologies for Building and Transforming Australian Industries
•Safeguarding Australia.
academics are criticising the production of research as funding bodies: ‘favour worthy but incremental research over risky but potentially transformative work’ (Scientific American, 2011).

assumptions;
scientific knowledge is superior to other kinds of knowledge

limitations;
knowledge that serves and reinforces cultural powers often easier to generate
publication biases
short term biases
simplifying to the point of abstraction

Question 13

Ethnography

Answer 13

Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. In contrast with ethnology, ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study

Question 14

Some qual methods

Answer 14

Observation.
    Interviews and focus groups.
    Ethnography.
    Researcher led or collaborative and participatory methods.
    Action research.
    Qualitative methods of analysis.

Question 15

From Dennis 2016 the 4 features of qualitative research

Answer 15

1. Rich data
2. Individuals perspective
3. rejecting extreme positivism, language can only be a door into reality, not a direct mapping onto
   post-positivist; regardless of whether there is a real world or not, the researchers knowledge of it can only be approximate and there are multiple approximations of it
4. post modern sensibility; using methods to get them close to the real life experiences of people, avoid the lab abstractions, politically expedient research (e.g. feminist research)
5. Examination of the constraints of everyday life - more details about the participants lives