Lecture 28: Critical thinking about Quantative vs Qualitative research Flashcards
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actively open minded thinking =
Search & Inference
* Possibilities (e.g. Hypotheses,explanations)
* Evidence (e.g. Research findings)
* Goals/criteria (e.g. fit, parsimony)
Sufficiency, fairness & confidence
* Were all worthwhile possibilities considered?
* Was the evidence considered in light of all hypotheses?
* Were the relevant criteria applied (see Ct:theory lecture)
* Is the degree of confidence expressed in line with the above?
wat doe je met AOT bij kritiek kijken naar papers
kijken of de auteurs al die stappen duidelijk maken.
Qualitative research does not teach us how people experience something., but….
but only what they say about it: “What some people say about what they think they think”
It is problematic to call upon personal testimonies: we do not look at phenomenological data, but at unreliable descriptions of them by participants
dus wat hebben we al geleerd
- Emphasis on experimental control
- Emphasis on comparing groups
- Emphasis on optimizing test characteristics
- Emphasis on testing hypotheses
- Emphasis on inferential statistics
“Social reality has a meaning and
relevance for the people living in
it” (Schutz, 1962).
- Does our emphasis on generating (sometimes purely statistical) explanations contribute to a better understanding of people?
- Does the generalizability of results and the
standardisation of research material improve our impair our ability to understand people?
we kijken alleen maar naar group membership, en top-down explanations.
wat zou je in plaats hiervan kunnen doen
kijken naar bv een specifieke groep van personen, en kijken naar ‘hun experience’ -> niet kijken naar een random sample, en je maakt de RQ meer subjective
How does a socially vulnerable person experience the use of online social media?
qualitative research =
Qualitative research involves collecting and analyzing non-numerical data (e.g., text, video, or audio) to understand concepts, opinions, or experiences.
dus wat is het overkoepelende verschil tussen quantitative en qualitative
bij quantitative: kijken of er een significant verschil zit tussen de groepen
qualitative: kijken wat de themas etc zijn binnen een groep
wat is nog een speciaal ding aan qualitative research
no statistics
4 kenmerken qualitative
- Interest in people’s experiences, which cannot be seen in isolation from a particular
context - Conversation topics derived from the
literature, less tightly defined plan - No statistics: coding and interpreting
statements - Conclusions on the shared themes in this
group and differences within this group
4 kenmerken quantitative research
- Interest in general relations
- Hypotheses derived from theory (equity
theory) that are tested - Emphasis on validated questionnaires with
scalable answers -> inferential statistical analysis - Conclusions on differences between
groups
dus wat is qualitative research? nog meer karaktereigenschappen
- Research based on words instead of numbers
- Individual experience vs. differences between
groups - Rich description of some cases vs superficial
description of large groups of people - Unstructured & flexible
Answer driven vs method driven:
- The value of the answer is more important than the steps followed to produce the answer
- Set of principles: focus on: understanding and meaning making, the context of understanding, conceptual themes underlying understanding clear description and communication
Same concepts, different meaning:
- Data: Textual or visual information
- Sample: Targeted selection of participants (‘purposive’ or ‘theoretical’ sampling)
- Theory: General description of what the participants experience in this situation
wanneer moet je qualitative doen
- Conducting research into situations or persons that are special and that can
contribute to the development of theories - Conducting research into situations in which little research has been carried out: E.g. New or one-off events
- Not only doing research, but also immediately changing things in the context of the research: Combating radicalisation with intervention
- Conducting research into situations in which ethical and practical considerations play a major role: E.g. Experience of parents with a child that has cancer
welke 3 dingen doe je bij qualitative research
- To conduct a semi-structured interview: Broad guideline, no fixed questions & order
- To do a focus group: Group interview, with a focus on interaction between the group members
- To perform a (qualitative) content analysis: Making the content of communication transparent
welke 3 methodes zijn er?
EXAM
- Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA): How does a person experience this in this context?
- Grounded theory: How do (social) processes impact participants?
- Discursive analysis: How are experiences constructed?
wat is belangrijk om te onthouden bij die 3 methoden
The approaches are not mutually exclusive, but provide answers to different types of questions
IPA =
focus is on what it is like to be this person, first person experience, their perspective
How does a person experience this in this context?
and: how are you as a researcher interpreting this relationship,
wat voor groep heb je bij iPA
je wil een comparable groep, mensen die wel een beetje op elkaar lijken.
wat is cruciaal bij IPA
the role of the researcher: how does the researcher make sense of the participant making sense of the world
4 stappen bij IPA
- Targeted collection of a homogeneous and small sample
- Interview based on global guideline
- Transcription, annotation & clustering of themes
- Reporting on overarching themes
In IPA, the goal is to get a detailed picture of ..
how an individual gives meaning to events
wat moet een researcher doen bij IPA
Researcher must show reflexivity in qualitative research in order to increase the transparency of the research process
dus wat is crucial bij IPA
Crucial here is the role of the researcher: how does the researcher make sense of the participant making sense of the world
- How does a woman’s sense of identity change during the transition
to motherhood? (Smith, 1999) - How do young psychotic people experience and interpret romantic
relationships? (Redmont et al., 2010) - What is it like to be addicted to alcohol and how does it influence
this self-image? (Shinebourne & Smith, 2009)
waar hoort dit bij?
IPA
on the basis of the notes during iPA, we would move to….
common themes of grote patronen die de mensen laten zien.
waar staat de researcher tijdens IPA
- The researcher is trying to make sense of the participant trying to make sense of an experience
- Researcher must show reflexivity in qualitative research in order to increase the transparency of the research process (see p20).
when should you use grounded theory
- If you know little about the subject
- If existing theories are not sufficient
- When developing new theory
- When interested in perception of the world of participants
dus echt vooral als er nog geen theorie is, geen grote processen waar je het aan kan attributeren
- How do the next of kin decide whether they want to donate organs of the deceased? (Sque & Payne, 1996)
- How do out-of-home students deal with the fact that a family member is being treated for cancer? (Basinger et al 2015)
- How do practitioners of children with chronic fatigue disorder view the disorder (Marks et al., 2015)?
waar hoort dit bij?
grounded theory
4 stappen grounded theory
- Collecting & transcribing data (semi-structured interviews, focus groups, existing visual material)
- Coding & Categories: Identify and label meaningful units of text until saturation occurs
- Testing categories, further development &
interrelations - Developing theory (and overarching categories), testing against the data
wat doe je steeds bij grounded theory
het is niet top-down, niet theory -> data. maar je gaat steeds heen en terug van data naar theory om te kijken of het overeenkomt.
is dus cyclical, en bottom up!
discourse/discursive analysis =
Research into how people talk about their thoughts, feelings and experiences (regardless of whether this is how
they ‘really‘ feel).
dit verschilt namelijk per tijd! slavery, mental illnesses, immigration etc
wat was het voorbeeld van physical aggression bij siblings
IPA
wat is de methode van discourse analysis
No single method
* What are the discursive constructions?
* What is the role of the speaker in these constructions?
* What are the benefits?
dus waar gaat discourse analysis over
niet perse over hoe mensen zich voelen, maar meer hoe ze praten over bepaalde dingen
wat was het voorbeeld van food therapy
grounded theory
How do people talk about immigration and immigrants and cultural diversity, and
what are the implications for power relations?
waar is dit een voorbeeld van?
hoe ga je van realism naar relativism
realism
critical realism
relativism
realism =
a reality exists independent of the observer and we can access this through research
critical realism =
a reality exists independent of the observer but we cannot know that reality with certainty
relativism=
reality is dependent on the ways we come to know it
wat is bottom up en wat is top down
bottom up = qualitative
top down = quantitative
wat is lastig aan qualitative research
it is suggestable: je kan nooit weten wat iemand anders voelt. het gaat om wat jij denkt dat zij zeggen dat ze denken. dus is dit genoeg bewijs?
welke research practices horen bij realism
if a researcher has applied their research approach rigorously, they can be confident that their findings map on to the reality they were exploring
welke research practices horen bij critical realism
a researcher should take care in moving beyond the realities of the participants and making claims about a reality that exists independently
dus wat voor approach heb je bij qualitative
experience, qualia, phenomena -> observed stuff -> constructs
maar dit kunnen we nooit echt observeren, dus het is een aanname.
welke research practices horen bij relativism
a researcher should ask how we come to build up versions of reality and should treat findings as versions of reality rather than as revealing realities independent of how we know them
maar wat is een nadeel aan quantitative research
een groot deel hiervan is ook qualitative. we interpreteren dit op bepaalde dingen, categoriseren het en nemen aan dat dit voor iedereen hetzelfde betekent. maar dat is niet zo!
Does the focus on a more ideographic
approach provide information that we can’t
do much with beyond the sample used?
“There are very few ways to evaluate
usefulness in research other than in terms
of whether the knowledge generated is
found to be applicable outside the study
from which it arose”(Hughes, 2016, p176)
wat zeggen ze hiermee
nou, als je zegt van ‘deze resultaten zijn alleen maar goed voor deze sample op dit punt in tijd’: is het onderzoek niet meer generaliseerbaar, en dus niet falsificeerbaar!!!
relativism in qualitative research
- Does a relativistic point of view imply that it’s impossible to be wrong?
- That is why we carry out quantitative research: we can check whether we are wrong and to what extend we are wrong.
- “The term quantitative refers to something that has a magnitude or an extent, which in effect
means that it refers to a construct that is
externally verifiable: it is possible to observe its
status and, if necessary, for this observation to be
independently corroborated.” (Hughes, 2016,
p175)
qualitative research
- generalisability
- falsifiability
etc
WEIRD=
white
educated
industrialised
rich
democratic
Doesn’t the central role of subjectivity imply that the influence of the researcher’s bias is even greater?
3 soorten bias die hierdoor kunnen ontstaan
- Confirmation bias
- Perserverence bias
- Representativeness heuristic
- Does a relativistic point of view imply that it’s
impossible to be wrong? - That is why we carry out quantitative research:
we can check whether we are wrong and to what
extend we are wrong. - “The term quantitative refers to something that
has a magnitude or an extent, which in effect
means that it refers to a construct that is
externally verifiable: it is possible to observe its
status and, if necessary, for this observation to be
independently corroborated.” (Hughes, 2016,
p175)
okkeee
reflexivity in quantitative research:
It is impossible to be completely objective, but it is possible to be as clear as possible about this subjectivity:
* What are you trying to achieve with this research?
* What interests do you have in the outcome?
* E.g. interests in replication research
- The distinction between qualitative an quantitative is less clear in practice
- Many practical problems require a mixed methods approach
- Certain parts of what we are already teaching you are in fact qualitative, but maybe we don’t recognize this enough.
- What are general criteria that we can take from
qualitative approaches? - Importance of context
- Importance of reflexivity
- Importance of exploratory research
- Importance of answer-driven research over method-driven
research
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- There is no universal method of scientific inference but, rather, a toolbox of useful methods. In the absence of a universal method, its followers worship surrogate idols, such as significant p values.
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- If the proclaimed “Bayesian revolution” were to take place, the danger is that the idol of a universal method might survive in a new guise, proclaiming that all uncertainty can be reduced to subjective probabilities.
- Can priors be reliably estimated (Bayes)?
- Do we need to make sequential decisions for quality control? (Neyman Pearson)
- Are we unabe to specify a precise alternative hypothesis? (Fisher)
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SSR take home
- Transparency
- Consistency
- Coherence
- Supporting decisions with reasons
degree of corroboration =
the extend to which your test is exposed to falsification
