H12 Research Methods Flashcards
Open coding (qualitative research)
One performs open coding as a first pass through the collected data. As you review the data, you are identifying concepts and themes and assigning initial codes to label them. This is your first attempt to condense the mass of raw data into analytic categories. You will find that some raw data is not important to code.
Axial coding (qualitative research)
A “second pass” through the data. During open coding, you focused on the raw qualitative data (e.g., field notes, historical documents, photos, open interview transcripts). In open coding, your primary focus was on the data. In axial coding, your primary focus is on the collection of codes and the initial, preliminary concepts or themes from the open-coding process. You are constantly considering causes and consequences, conditions and interactions, strategies and processes.
Selective coding (qualitative research)
A last pass through the data. By this phase you probably have identified the major themes for your study. Selective coding involves scanning the data using central themes and concepts. You add an empirical grounding to themes and concepts and elaborate on them. You may adjust the generalisations and central themes as you find multiple supporting instances of them in the data.
Analytic memo
Link details in the concrete data or raw evidence to more abstract, theoretical thinking about the evidence. They contain your reflections and thinking about the data and coding as well.
The narrative (field research)
The researcher-author largely “disappears” from the analysis and presents the concrete details in chronological order, as if they were a “naturally unfolding” sequence of events. The researcher’s role is to “tell a story” of what had occurred.
Ideal type
Developed by Max Weber. A pure standard or mental abstraction that you create and compare to the data or “reality”. It is primarily a device for comparison, because no reality ever perfectly fits an ideal type.
Contrasting contexts
By using contrasting contexts, you learn to recognise particular manifestations of the general, abstract model in cultural or historical context. You are trying less to discover a universal or “social law” than to accentuate how the ideal type helps organise numerous details in what appear to be different specific and unique contexts.
Analogy
A statement that two objects, processes, or events are similar to. You use them to communicate ideas and facilitate local comparisons.
Successive approximation
A method of qualitative data analysis in which the researcher repeatedly moves back and forth between the empirical data and the abstract concepts, theories, or models.
Illustrative method
Method where you illustrate or anchor a theory with empirical evidence from your own research. It is a way to apply a preexisting theory to a concrete historical situation or social setting. There are two ways to use the illustrative method: In the first, you show that the theoretical model clarifies a specific case or situation. You “fill in” a conceptual box with complex, detailed evidence. In the second, you demonstrate a model by juxtaposing multiple cases to show that the theory helps clarify information on multiple cases.
Time allocation analysis
Analysing how people or organisations spend or invest time. It shows both the official’s power and who
Domain analysis
A method of qualitative data analysis in which a researcher describes and reveals the structure of a cultural domain. A domain is a specific area or sphere of cultural knowledge, beliefs, practices or values that are shared by members of a particular society or cultural group. It represents a set of related concepts or items that are considered relevant and meaningful within a cultural context.
Cover term, included terms & semantic relationship
A cover term is the name of a domain. The included terms are the subtypes or parts of the cultural domain that are within a cover term and have a semantic relationship to one another. The semantic relationship is the logical connection among included terms within the domain
Which three types of domains can you distinguish?
- Folk domains: based on actual words and phrases used by members in a social setting (i.e., folk terms and folk concepts). By examining relations among folk terms or the language of historical actors, you can identify patterns in cultural meaning.
- Mixed domains: contain folk terms and concepts, but include your own ideas as well. For example, you might look at kinds of runners as named by the terminology of runners (e.g., long-distance, track, etc.), but also other groups of people for whom no terms exist in the usage of runners (e.g., infrequent visitors, newcomers, amateurs, etc) Note to self: these people are just lazy)
- Analytic domains: are organised around concepts that you, the researcher, or social theory provide. They are most helpful when the meanings in a setting are tacit, implicit or unrecognised by participants.
Multiple sorting procedure
A technique similar to domain analysis. It is especially useful in field research or oral history. We all have mental maps that we use to organise the objects, people, and activities of our lives. Multiple sorting helps you discover mental maps, or how people categorise their experiences or classify items into systems of “similar” and “different”. First, you give the people that you are studying a list of items, photos, places, names of people, and so on, and ask them to organise them into a limited number of categories or piles. Once sorted, you ask them about the criteria they used. This has the purpose of revealing a person’s mental maps.
