Kval Flashcards
What characterizes positivism?
Social facts are treated as independent of the activities of the participant and research
The researcher is neutral
E.g. capture people’s feeling through interviews
What characterizes naturalism?
Social facts are not in structures, but in shared meaning and understanding
Seeks to identify experiences (how people understand something)
The researcher is subjective
e.g. Open-ended interviews on people understanding of something
What characterizes constructionism?
How are things going on (produced, maintained, and assembled)
Focus on actions: how interaction and discourse shape social reality
Example: How does a service encounter take place
What characterizes a good qualitative research question?
1) Qualitative methods can be applied
2) Allowes for detailed description
3) Enables detailed analysis
4) Narrow topic
5) Increased focus
6) Relation between RQ and appropriate theory
When formulating a research question, what does “increased focus” mean?
It means to narrow the focus of the RQ down so that you only focus on a very small part of the larger topic.
What are the different kind of sampling methods?
Convenience sampling
Purposive sampling
- Snowball
- Theoretical
Which sampling method is linked to grounded theory?
Theoretical
- part of purposive
What is convenience sampling?
Accessibility and convenience:
You choose the sample because it is easy to access
Ex: You wish to do a study about bank and interviews your aunt who is working in a bank
This is used when it can be hard to gain access, thus you must make use of the easy access points
What is purposive sampling?
Relevane to RQ and theory:
You choose the sample due to specific purpose regarding theory
Ex: You choose a specific age group relevant for the theory or people representative for your RQ
Under purposive sampling is snowball sampling. What is this?
Start with a small group relevant to RQ. They then select other participants in their network
Pros: Easier
Cons: You move away from relevance to RQ
Under purposive sampling is theoretical sampling. What is this?
Start with an initial theory, collect and analyse data, get a new theoretical understanding
Based on the new theory, the process repeats
Related to grounded
theory
Describe the positivistic approach to interviews
Interviews provide access to facts about the world
You can use structure interviews. No deviations or suggestions added.
Aim: Generate data that holds true independent of setting
Describe the naturalistic approach to interviews
Interviews provide insights into people’s authentic experiences
You can use semi-structured or open-ended interviews
Aim: formulate questions to facilitate open communication and to tap into perception of interviewee
Describe the constructionistic approach to interviews
Interviews are a joint accomplishment between interviewer and interviewee
Open-ended or narrative interviews can be conducted
No insights into the interviewee but into practices and meaning creation.
What are the different interview forms?
1) individual
- Structured, semi-structured or open-ended
2) focus groups
- Individualistic or social-constructionistic
What characterizes a structured interview?
Questions are standardized and in same order
No deviations from schedule
Questions are not probed
No new questions added
What analyses can be used with structured interviews?
- Content
- thematic analysis
- Grounded theory
What characterizes a semi-structured interview?
Based on interview guide, which is flexible
Overall topics are set in advance, but new ideas can be pursued during the interview
Can be both yes/no and how, what questions
Finding are more complex and therefore often recorded
It is important to avoid leading questions
What analyses can be used with semi-structured interviews?
Content/thematic
Grounded theory
Narrative analysis
What characterizes a open-ended interview?
Aim is to achieve rich data
The interviewers task is to do active listening
The interview enables detailed and comprehensive talk
The interview is a collaborative accomplishment
What is important issues of open-ended interviews?
Introduce yourself
Build rapport and connect with the interviewee
Build up trust
What must be considered when planning focus group interviews?
1) Number of groups
2) Size of groups
3) Level of moderator involvement
4) Sampling of participants
5) Recording and transcribing focus group (audio vs. video)
What are the characteristics of individualistic focus group?
Opinions are stable personal dispositions
Information gathered comes directly from a person’s thinking an beliefs
Participant interaction to elicit the prevailing range of options, beleifs and preferences of the individual
People do no form meaning in the group, but expresses their OWN beliefs
What are the characteristics of social constructionistic focus group?
Opinions are socially shared knowledge
Knowledge is due to change through social participation
Focus groups are a dynamic process og making collective sense
People construct shared knowledge from shared ideas, opinions, beliefs, experiences and actions
Which analyses can be used on individualistic focus groups?
Content/thematic
Which analyses can be used on social constructionistic focus groups?
Constructionistic methods:
- Discourse analysis
- Conversation analysis
- Narrative analysis
What are the forms of observations?
Participant:
- Ethnographic
- Netnographic
Non-participant:
- Audio
- Video
What must be considered when doing participant observations?
Open or closed setting?
- Open: public setting
- Closed: private setting
Will you have overt or covert access?
- Overt: be transparent about your role
- Covert: No not disclose your role
Whom do you want to observe?
What kind of observation?
- Participatory (will you take part in the setting)
- Non-participatory
How will you take field notes? (what to include, exclude)
– Make a field note guide
What are the different approaches (pos, nat, con) on participant observation (ethnographic)?
Pos: Not possible
Nat:
- Represents the people’s world
- Describe realities
- Understand meanings
- What is going on?
- Analysis: grounded theory
Con:
- Insights into people own accounts, relational
- Understand how realities are constructed
- How can they accomplish they?
- Analysis: ethnomethodology (membership categorization analysis) and conversation analysis
What are the characteristics of an ethnographic research?
No generalization of findings
The context of the situation is acknowledged
Used to discover/uncover relationships
Exploring social phenomenon rather than testing a hypothesis
What is netnography?
Same as ethnography just using online fora.
Advantages are:
Efficiency
Number of participants
What must be considered when doing non-participant observations?
Open or closed setting?
- Open: public setting
- Closed: private setting
Will you have open or closed access?
Whom do you want to observe?
What kind of observation?
- Participatory (will you take part in the setting)
- Non-participatory
How will you make the recording/place the microphone/place the camera/how many cameras?
Which analytical methods apply for observations?
Content:
What is said?
All data
Grounded theory:
What is said? Less how
Field notes and recordings
Narrative analysis:
What is said?
Field and recordings
Discourse Analysis:
What and little how
Recordings
Conversation analysis:
What and how
Video only
What are the advantages of using documents?
- Richness
- Relevance
- Naturally occurring
- Availability
What forms of documents exists?
- Paper documents
- Mediated text
- Text and picture
What are the different approaches to documents?
Positivistic:
Speak for themselves, and represent the social world. How do the world described in the document differ from the real world?
Naturalistic:
does not exist
Constructionistic:
Do not speak for themselves, but the analyst have to make them speak. How do they construct reality?
What constructionistic analysis for documents are there?
- Conversation analysis
- Membership categorization analysis
- Constructionistic analysis of documents
- Discource analysis
What positivistic analysis for documents are there?
- Grounded theory
- Content
- Thematic
- Key word
What does content analysis analyse?
(positivistic)
What categories of words that are used the most
What does thematic analysis analyse?
(positivstic)
Focuses on the themes and not the exact worlds
What does comparative keyword analysis analyse?
(positivistic)
Count all the words said or written
What is grounded theory?
Data is the starting point, and through coding and more data collection a theory/meaning/hypothesis is constructed
What is narrative analysis?
(naturalistic and constr.)
See how people see their role when telling stories, e.g. is he the hero in the company
What is discourse analysis?
(naturalism and constr.)
“Language is performative”. Looking at how people select words.
- Interpretative repertoires
(different opinions form one dominant opinion) - Stake
(People always have a specific interest motive, when using “isn’t” “aren’t you?”, framing - Scripts
Manuscripts for how things usually are done
What is conversation analysis?
(constructionistic)
Understasing of the interaction between context and interaction.
What is constructionist analysis of documents?
(constructionistic)
How are documents written, how are they read, who writes them, who reads them etc.
What is membership categorization analysis?
(constructionistic)
See what categories we use to describe the people doing something with and how these categories tell us something about expectations, norms, culture. E.g. mom, baby
What is credibility?
How believable are the results?
Is it objective?
What is reliability?
The degree of consistency with the data.
Replicability: others must be able to repeat the study and find same results
Reliability: recordings of participants are more reliable than researcher reconstructions of the conversation
What is validity?
To extent to which an account accurately represents the social phenomena to which it refers.
Triangulation:
Using multiple methods to get a more comprehensive representation. So, if three methods agree on the findings, then it is more likely to be accurate.
