Generating Qualitative Data

Question 1

What unites these diverse methods, other than that they are not quantitative?

Some general perspectives which are typical of qualitative approaches:

Answer 1

Understanding and interpretation The aim is to ‘understand’ social life. As the sociologist Erving Goffman noted ‘any group of persons develop a life of their own that becomes meaningful, reasonable and normal once you get close to it and a good way to learn about any of these worlds is to submit oneself in the company of the members to the daily round of petty contingencies to which they are subject’.

Naturalism The focus is often on how people behave in ‘natural’ situations, rather than in experimental ones. Qualitative methods address how people behave in context.

Multiple perspectives An acceptance that different social actors will have different perspectives on ‘reality’.

Flexible research strategy Rather than starting off with a hypothesis to test, data collection is guided by an initial research question which can be modified in the light of the ongoing research process. The stages of identify question-collect data-analyse data are rarely as separate as they are in, for instance, survey research.

Reflexivity If positivist approaches attempt to minimise the effects that researchers have on their subjects, qualitative researchers often accept this as inevitable, and instead attempt explicitly to identify how they interact with the field of research

Question 2

IN DEPTH INTERVIEWS

Answer 2

STRUCTURED or STANDARDISED
In qualitative work, they are more commonly SEMI STRUCTURED (a looser set of questions, which can be probed for more information) or UNSTRUCTURED. In the latter, the interviewer has a list of prompts or topics to focus the interview, but the conversation is guided by the priorities of the respondent.

In depth interviews may be the most useful data collection method if this is a relatively new research topic, where the generation of hypotheses is more important than testing them, or when we want in depth information about the perspectives of respondents. The technique requires more skills on the part of interviewer than structured interviewing: need to put respondent at ease, ask questions which lead respondent to expand on their ideas, listen attentively and probe appropriately and sensitively.

Question 3

FOCUS GROUPS

Answer 3

Traditionally used in market research, this technique is becoming more widely used in health research. A facilitator guides the discussion of a group, who often share similar characteristics (e.g. diabetic patients, Vietnamese elders etc). The advantages are that group discussion provides access to how knowledge and opinions are formed in social contexts (vital for, e.g. health promotion) and that people may be more willing to disclose certain information in group setting than in on to one interview (e.g. criticisms of health services). Disadvantages lie in difficulties in organising the groups, recording the discussion and in generalisability of findings.

Question 4

SAMPLING IN QUALITATIVE WORK

Answer 4

PURPOSIVE (i.e. deliberately choose respondents of interest) rather than random, with an aim of not including a statistically representative sample, but rather with aim of including ‘information rich’ cases

Stop when ‘theoretical saturation’ happens

Ongoing process

Other types of sample:
Snowball - use initial contact to suggest others to interview (useful for hard to reach populations)
Convenience - opportunistic, e.g. all attenders at a clinic one day (may be sufficient for a pilot)

Question 5

Types of qualitative data collection

Answer 5

• In depth interviews
• Focus group interviews
• Observation (Participant or non-participant)
• Documentary sources (diaries, letters, video)
• Case studies such as life histories