Midterm Flashcards
What is a paradigm
- Overreaching philosophical and ideological framework
- A priori assumptions concepts, values that together inform our world view and how we do research
Define Ontology
concerned with form and the nature of reality
Define Epistemological
concerned with how we come to know things about the world
Define Methodology
concerned with principles, philosophies and approaches governing research
Define Methods
tools used for data collection and analysis
what paradigm is qualitative research considered
positivist paradigm
what are the ontological assumptions of quanitative research
Single and universal reality that is independent of us that can be discoverable and objectively measured
what are the epistemological assumptions of quanitative research
Legitimate knowledge is knowledge that must be scientifically verified and can be proven using the scientific method
What does determinism mean to qualitative research
events occur according to natural laws and causes
What does empiricism mean to qualitative research
enquiry must be conducted through observation, knowledge but be evidence based
What does skepticism mean to qualitative research
a statement that is open to analysis and critique. researcher must be skeptical and open to critique
What does objectivity mean to qualitative research
researcher is detached from subjects
define generalizability
if data is reliable, the purpose is to generalize to other populations
defne reliability
is you randomize you can test if your hypothesis is correct
quantification
information derived from what can be measured
advantages if positivist research
- Reduces bias by randomization and blinding
- Very important for health research when peoples live are at stake
- Use of concrete outcome measures allow for replicability and rigor is evidence
disadvantages if positivist research
- Describes a phenomenon in a vacuum not a real-life setting
- Does not address people lived experience (complex, subjective, and social)
- Can you real remove all of life’s influence in blinding and randomization?
- Objectivity is possibly an unattainable goal
define true experimental studies
experimental and control groups
define quasi experimental
not randomly assigned
define single subject
no control group
define non-experimental
o Descriptive
o Simple information about frequency and comparative
o Examines differences between groups on a certain variable
o Correlations relationships among two or more variables
o ALWAYS CONTAINS CONFOUNDING VARIABLES
what paradigm is qualitative research
interpretivist paradigm
the ontological assumptions of qualitative research
reality is negotiated, socially, and historically constructed and not objectively measured. There is many truths and everyone has a different reality
what is soft constructivist in qualitative research
acknowledges the disease and treatment process have both subjective and objective matters… hence mixed methods
what are the features of the interpretivist paradigm
- Interpretivist- someone who seek to understand while focusing on subjective, meaning and interpretations
- Naturalistic- data collected in everyday life
- Subjectivity- research practice is not objective
- Complexity- aims to have depth in analysis and not inference (thick description, richness)
- Validity
- Trustworthiness and creditability
- Aims to understand the participants not to generalize
- Saturation is key
what does saturation mean
When you are doing interviews about an phenomena and you are hearing the same type of results from most of the interviews you are really understanding the phenomenon and your data is saturated because it is similar among all interviews
methods and research designs for qualitative research
- Semi/uni structured interviews
- Participant observation
- Focus groups
- Discourse and content analysis (non systematic)
advantages of qualitative research
- Flexible and descriptive= reflexive
- Thinking outside of the box
- Acknowledges conflict subjectivity and the idea that there are many sides to a story is how they fit together
- Triangulation and saturation are guides
define triangulation
is that you always must rely on more than one data piece for your research
disadvantages of qualitative research
- May make unintended or justified generalization from the accounts of small numbers
- Purpose sampling may be viewed as biased by researcher assumptions and self- selections
- Who’s story is it? Some say it’s the researcher’s?
define working hypothesis
where the researcher reviews the literature prior to entering the field and has general question that is informing the research
define ethnographies
- Researcher studies an intact cultural or social group in their natural setting over a prolonged period of time
- Observational data and field notes
- Research process is flexible, unstructured and evolves contextually in response to the lives of participants
define grounded theory
- Inductive process of generating a theory based on information that emerges from data
- Constant comparison of data through emerging themes and theoretical sampling of different groups
define case studies
- Researcher explores a program, event, activity or process
- Consists of one or more individuals in an isolated occurrence
- Collects detailed information over a certain time
define phenomenological research
- Identifies the essence of human experience concerning a specific phenomenon, as described by the participants in the study
- Involves small sample size
- Extensive and prolonged engagement in the researcher
define narrative inquiry/ research
- Listening to the stories of participants
- Information and themes from the stories are extracted from the participants individual story and combined with others of a similar context
- guided by research question
What did Gustav Fechner do
- Laws relating the physical nature of an external physical stimulus to the internal experience of the sensation it produced
- Reported his findings as the relationship between stimulus and sensation
- Limitations was that the meaning was in the individual report of some aspect of sensation
for William James, what were the 2 parts involved in the self as a duplex
- The self which we can conceptualize, the self known, the me, can you experience this
- The self as that which “has” that knowledge, the I, can you talk about the experience
for William James, what is a psychologists fallacy
o Assumption that the research participant’s experience is to be understood in terms of the readily available categories of the researcher
o The ‘subjective world’ of the research participant must be understood in its own terms
What are the limitations of behaviourism
The first person perspective: propositions about psychological events can be stated only in the third-person from the viewpoint of the observer rather than that of the actor themselves
The perceptual approach: behaviourism could not consider the perceptions of the research participant. Thinking, judging, paying or switching attention, etc. could not be properly differentiated and researched
Idiography: Behavioural research could not regard the study of people in their uniqueness as a justifiable scientific enterprise. Objectivity would be threatened
Meaning: in search for the objective and observable causes of behaviour, meaning disappeared as a topic of research
Specificity in the use of language: the communicative function of language in expressing personal experience was weakened in behaviourism
Social relatedness: people were not seen as different from psychical objects in a person’s environment
define determinism
human behaviour and experience are to be regarded as the inevitable outcome of the set variables in action for a person at any given time
define existentialism
the individual is a conscious agent, whose experience must be studied from the ‘first person’ perspective. experiences is of a meaningful lifeworld
define constructive alternativism
a person’s processes are psychologically channelized by the way the events are interpreted
define role construct repertory grid
technique where researcher specifies an individual’s construct system in an organized way
what are the two consequences of the idea that social interaction comes before thinkings and self-concept
- Inner thought and external communication are basically similar
- The self is part of the process of acquiring capacity to reflect on one’s own actions, which can build up self- concept and identity
define the hermeneutics of meaning-recollection
aims at faithful disclosure
o A certain population informing other of the nature of their experience
define the hermeneutics of suspicion
aims to discover the subject of analysis
o Allows a deeper interpretation (ie. Psychoanalysis and feminism)
define consciousness
this is the stream of experience phenomena which is purely experience and needs to be separated from other forms of thought
define phenomenon
any observable occurrence
define intentionality
consciousness’s constant feature of attending to something
define The lived world/lifeworld
is the world that is lived and experienced
define Bracketing
individual or researcher suspends the influence of preconceptions and presuppositions in order to experience the phenomenon in its immediate, direct form without theories, beliefs, attitudes, etc.
define Epoche of the natural sciences
Husserl’s more radical view- where a “gods eye view” is attempted
what are the goals of phenomenology (EXAM)
- Explores human consciousness and experience
- Contributes to our richer understanding of humanity
- Phenomenological research can inform public policy
o Social intervention are unlikely to be successful unless built on real understanding and insight of people and communities
aspects of phenomenological research
- Ensure that you have a broad understanding of the nature of phenomenological research
- The phenomenological researcher does not usually formulate their research question in detail
- The nature of the phenomenon being considered in the research determines what participants should be sought for the study
- Some form of unstructured interview Phenomenological is likely to be preferred mode of data collection
- Participants are encouraged to braket- out all perspectives about the immediate ones in their experience
- The task of the researcher is to know the individual’s experience of the phenomenon and to reveal what meaning is in those human experience
- Repeated listening to and reader of the transcript
what is delineating units of meaning
list of statements or descriptions provided by participants which best characterizes the experience
what is the process of data analysis in phenomenology
- Bracketing and phenomenological reduction: researchers is open to the phenomenon itself “ here and now”
- Delineating units of meaning: list of statements or descriptions provided by participants which best characterizes the experience
- Clustering units of meaning into themes: awareness of the essential features
- Summarize each interview, validate and modify: summarize the immerging themes
- General and unique themes for all the interviews and composite summary: identify the universal themes
whats is the goal of interpretative phenomenological analysis
- The goal is to explore in detail how participants are making sense of their personal and social world
what is the preferred data methodology for IPA analysis
semi-structured
Aspects of IPA (EXAM)
- Primarily about experiences as personality experienced rather than the language through which expressed
- Participants are experts about their experiences
- Both the individuals (idiographic) and shared (nomothetic) aspects of experiences may be identified
- The researcher makes the sense of the complexity of experiences
- Plausible interpretations provided by researcher which are grounded in data examples
- The researchers role in interpretation and collaboration with the participant is highlights
- The interpretation may involve psychological explanations eschewed by some qualitative methods
- Participants fully regarded as individual social and cultural beings in the analysis
what are the two stages of the interpretation process
o Participants are trying to make sense of their world
o Researcher is trying to make sense of the participant’s interpretation of their world
what is symbolic interactionism
- The mind and self emerge out of social interactions involving significant communications
- People are ‘out there’ in a social world making their own understandings of that world in relation to their understandings of that world in relation to their understanding of that world in relation to their understanding of other people and themselves, and the interaction of the two
how could you form a research question for an IPA study
- Broadly framed and open in nature
- Goal is to explore and gather meaningful detail about a particular phenomenon
- Aim of the study is to say something in detail about the experiences of a particular group
- Often transformative issues concerned with personal and social identity
what si purposive sampling
closely defined group
the groups are defined by certain characteristics needed for the study. the participants have to have certain characteristics
what is Snowball sampling
samples created by reached through agencies, contact, gate keepers
what is a semi-structured interview
o Allows the researcher and participant to engage in dialogue whereby intitial questions are modified in the light of the participants response and the investigator is able to probe interesting and important areas which arise
characteristics of a structured interview
o Use short, specific questions
o Read the question exactly as on the schedule
o Ask the question in the identical order specified by the schedule
o Ideally have pre-coded response categories enabling the questioner to match what the respondent says against one of those categories
define funneling
- Allows the researcher to elicit both the respondents’ general views and their response to more specific concerns
- Ex. asking a more general question about politics and then using more specific probes about each political party
what were the factors that glasser and Strauss challenged
- Challenging The arbitrary division between theory and research as a precursor to move ‘rigorous’ quantitative methods
- Challenging beliefs that qualitative methods were impressionistic and unsystematic
- Challenging The separation of data collection and analysis phases of research
- Challenging the Assumptions that qualitative research could be generate theory
- Challenging the Views that limited theorizing to an intellectual elite
what paradigms does grounded theory use
positivism and interpretation
define classic grounded theory
o Theory naturally emerges and is discovered from the content of the data
define Straussian grounded theory
o Through highly systematic rigorous coding structures theory is created (rather than discovered) a rigorous theory which closely corresponds to the data
define constructivist grounded theory
o Neither data nor theories are discovered…we construct our grounded theories through our past and present involvements and interactions with people, perspective and research practices
premise of symbolic interactionism
- Human beings act towards things on the basis of the meanings that things have for them
- Ex. What is a mother? If a mother to you is just a person who gives birth to them vs someone who loves and takes care of you, your perception on how you perceive mothers influcences how you act - Meaning of such things is derived from, or arises out of, the social interaction that one has with one’s fellows
- Ex. the relationship you have with your mother and the interactions you have with them, influences your meaning of a mother (if you have a bad mom, you may think that mothers are just individuals who give birth to you vs. if you have a good mom, you may think that mothers are individuals who care for you) - These meanings are handled in, and modified through, the interpretive process used by the person in dealing with the things encountered
what is grounded theory
- Process of theory building involves constant checking backwards and forwards between different aspects of the analysis process
- Proceeds from the initial data collection and analyzed to collection of new data guided by initial analysis
what are the characteristics of grounded theory
- Systematic:
o The process by which theory is developed is through the careful application of the general principles and methods of grounded theory - Guidelines:
o System of guidelines which guide data collection, analysis and theory building. Emerging research and theory are closely tied to social reality - Inductive processes are more important than deductive reasoning:
o Different from conventional theory building in psychology which hypotheses are deducted from theory and these hypotheses are subjected to empirical testing - Theory building is a continuous process:
o Theory develops through a continuous process rather than by critical tests of hypotheses
o It is impossible to separate grounded theory research into a small number of discrete stages since theory development begins early- even in data collection and continues
what is the process of the inductive research method
observation, pattern, tentative hypothesis, theory
what is the process of the deductive research method
theory, hypothesis, observation, confirmation
define theoretical sampling
- Sampling is usually determined on the basis of the theories one builds up to interpret the data over the period of the analysis
- The researcher decides on what further data should be collected on the basis of their evaluation of what additional data would help them in their interpretation
o Ex. You have already interviews X amount of people and now you have to think, what other types of people should I interview that will confirm or refute my theory
how is data collection done in grounded theory
there is Simultaneous data collection and analysis
how to obtain rich description in grounded theory
o Describe participant’s views and action in detail
This includes recording any non-verbal communication cues. Ex. facial expressions or body language
o Record observations that reveal participants unstated intentions
o Construct interview questions that allow participants to reflect anew on the research topic
o Look for and explore taken-for-granted meanings and actions
o “tell me about…, how, what and when questions”
Grounded theory emphasizes on what people are doing which leads to understanding multiple layers that include one’s:
- Stated explanation of his/her action
- Unstated assumptions about it
o And trying to get the person to take about them, so that you are not just assuming it - Intentions for engaging in it
- Effect on others
- Consequences for further individual action and interpersonal relations
main rule of grounded theory
- Study your emerging data
- Study data by transcribing interviews yourself combined with field notes
- This prompts the researcher to learn nuances of the participants’ language and meanings
the phases of coding
- data collection
- open coding
- axial coding
- selective coding
define open coding
adding meaning /codes to each line of the data
- Initial coding/ open coding entails examining each line of data and defining the actions or events that you see as occurring in it or as represented by it
define axial coding
- Purpose is to sort, synthesize, and organize large amounts of data and reassemble them in new ways after open coding
- The researcher links categories with sub-categories and asks how they are related
define selective/focused coding
- Using the most significant and/or frequent earlier codes to shift through large amount of data
- Focused coding is more directed, selective, and conceptual than line-by-line coding
- Requires decisions about both which initial codes make the most analytic sense
- Which of these codes fit the data the best
what does focused/selective coding do with your data
- It establishes the content and form of your analysis
o Assess which codes best capture what’s happening in data
o Which codes capture what - It prompts you to evaluate and clarify your categories and the relationships between them
o Raise the codes to conceptual categories for your developing analytic framework
process of categorizing in grounded theory
codes, sub- categories, categories, & theory
steps of grounded theory
- Developing a research question
- Theoretical sampling
- Data collection
- Coding/ naming
- Category development through comparison/ constant comparison
- Theoretical sampling to test categories and relationships
- Test hypotheses in order to develop substantive theory based on the study
- Collect data and preform analysis in other setting as a means of generating formal theory
strengths of grounded theory
- Provided an alternative to the hypothesis- testing approach
- Influenced strength of qualitative research in psychology given its systematic approach
- Theory is closely tied to data and speaks in language used by participants- helps inform policy and practitioners
- Theory is anchored in the data
Criticisms of grounded theory
- Potential for data collection is endless- theory development occurs after data has started to be collected- theory cannot guide the subject matter
o Because it is continuous how do you know when you have actually developed your theory and you no longer need to collect more data - Vagueness
- Line-by-line coding can result in fragmented data
- Fails to consider existing theories in the development of research question and analysis process
Grounded theory is…
- Inductive
- Systematic
- Continuous
- Processed using comparison
what does conversational analysis focus on
- Focuses on how participants understand and respond to one another in their turns at talk-exploring the social and interaction underpinnings of intersubjectivity- common, shared, and ‘collective’ understanding between social actors
steps of conversational analysis methodology
- how participants arrived at understanding one another’s actions during the back- research is based on the study of naturally occurring data (audio/video recordings)
- recordings are usually transcribed in considerable detail through the precise level and type of detail (phonetic and prosodic features of production are included)
- will depend on the researcher’s focus
- probably not interview - phenomena in the data are generally not coded
- what the people are talking about in the conversation is not what is being coded. Instead it is the pauses, and other similar aspects of the conversation
- token that have the appearance of being the same’ or equivalent phenomena may turn out to have a different important or not be the same
- coding tokens on the basis of certain manifest similarities risk collecting the same category but different interaction significance
- conversations are recorded - quantifying the occurrence of a certain object is likely to result in the truly interactional properties of that object overlooked
- those interaction properties can be uncovered only by through qualitative analysis, particularly of the sequential properties of that object
- how variations in speech production are related to their different sequential implicature
- ex. quantifying how many pauses were taken in a conversation - attempt to document and explicate and- forth interaction between them
- how in turn they construct their turns to be suitably responsive to prior turns
- concentrate on the conversation as behaviour
steps to formulating a research question in conversational analysis
- by identifying a phenomenon emerging from data
- by focusing on particular kind of action (requesting) or aspect of interaction (emotion)
- by designing a study to investigate a particular kind of interaction, or interactions, in a particular kind of setting (dynamic of family mealtimes)
- by conducting research in a particular or applied topic area, often addressing issues that practitioners want to explore
what are the key areas of theory in conversational analysis
- turns and turn- taking/ turn construction units
- repairs
- gaps
- adjacency pairs ex. do I like to go the park, yes I do
- opening conversation
- overlaps
- preferences and dispreference organization
- closing conversation
- membership categorization device
what are Turns, turn- taking and construction units
- a turn is a person’s conversation before a different person takes over the conversation
- turn is the major unit of analysis
- focus on conversation analysis is on the adjacent turns in order to understand how the second turn is designed
- researcher also examines the nature of the turns in conversation
what are agency pairs
- many turns are pairs
- two turns belong to the same type
- examples:
o question/answer
Ex. Person 1: go you like dogs Person2: yes I do
o greeting/greeting
o summon/ answer
o telling/ accept
what is preference and dispreference organization
- turn taking suggests there is a preference for someone first turns to be followed by a particular kind of second turn
- conversational preferences; not psychological
- part of a mechanisms of conversation
- example: “ are you feeling better now” likely to be followed by yes, rather than no
o rather than “how are you feeling” the person can choose either yes or no
what are repairs in conversational analysis
- objective is to find repeated patterns that arise out of joint efforts to produce conversation
- process where participants in a conversation go about correcting errors
what are opening/ closing conversation
- in telephone conversation, whoever answer the call speaks first
- sequences in conversation which do not end in closure but points at which closure may be chosen (ie. Bye)
- pre-closing sequences verifying the appropriateness of bringing the conversation to an end (ie. Okay? Okay)
what are gaps and overlaps
- transition relevant spaces between one speaker to another
- overlaps are places where there is no gap between the turns and no overlap of speakers works (latching)
- overlaps can be problematic when two speakers self- select to take the next turn
define contiguous utterances
no discernible interval between turns, are linked by an equals sign. This is also used to indicate a very rapid move from one unit in a turn to the next
Limitations to symbolic transcription
- Does not record the way in which things were said, the pacing, intonation, and emphasis in their talk
- Does not capture anything about relationship between one person’s turn to talk and the next- such as overlapping speech or pauses/silence
Advantages of symbolic transcription
- Captures considerable amounts of detail that may be relevant to the interaction between the participants
- Symbols are pre-analytic and made before the research has any idea about patterns, themes or features in the data regarding the phenomena
- Purpose of the transcript, using in conjunction with the recording
what are the first steps in data analysis in conversational analysis
- Identify what activity or actions the participants are engaged in
- Consider the sequence leading up to the initiation of an action, to see how the activity in question may have arisen out of that sequence (if speaker has laid the ground for the upcoming action)
- Examine in detail the design (specific words or phrases used) of each of the participants’ turns
- Consider how the recipient responds to the ‘first’ speaker’s turn/action
what is narrative psychology
- The idea that people think, perceive, imagine and act morally according to narrative structures
- Content, structure and function of the stories which we can create to account for what is happening to us
types of narrative structures
o Progressive (moving toward the goal) o Regressive (moving away from the goal) o Stable (little change)
define the pragmatic form of thinking
method of science based on classification and categorization
define the narrative form of thinking
organizes everyday interpretation of the world in storied form
properties of narratives
- Composed of a unique sequence of events, mental states and happenings involving human beings as characters or actors
- It specializes in the forging of links between the exceptional and the ordinary
- It can be ‘real’ or ‘imaginary’
- Helps us understand narrative as constructing reality or bringing sense to something unusual
define story theme
recurrent pattern of human intention
what are the types of narrative tones
optimistic or pessimistic
define imagery
a treasure trove of personalized symbols and fantasized objects that develop as we mature
define ideology of narratives
revealed in the values and beliefs underlying the story
what is narrative inquiry
An organized interpretation of a sequence of events
Narrative inquiry has a Beginning, middle, and end
principles of narrative psychology
- Narratives change over time
- Narratives integrate lives and provide coherent account of the individual ‘scenes’ in the narrative
- Narratives are cultural texts and reflect the culture and the culture’s way of talking narratively
- Narratives are told in social relationship
- Some narratives are better than others: narrative are intertwined with morality and that some personal interviews reflect psychological more healthy selves
characteristics of a narrative
- A narrative involves some sort of transformation which occurs over time
- There is some sort of action
- There are various characters
epistemology of narrative inquiry
- Explores how people remember, structure and story their experience
- Process that can lead to understanding the complexities of human selves, lives and relations
- Allow multiple and sometimes contradictory layers of meaning, to reconstruct meanings through linking the layers and to explore the understanding of individual and social processes
what is a life-story interview
- Life- story interview encourages the participants to provide an extended account of their lives
what is a episodic interview
- Episodic interview: aims to learn about everyday experiences and disruptions to daily life
what is the semi-strucuted narrative interview protocol
- Section 1: Life chapters participant should think if their life as a book with many chapters- identify 2-3 main chapters
- Section 2: Key events
- Section 3: Significant people participant is asked to give the name, relationship with themselves and impact on their lives of four people (ie. Parents, lovers, teachers)
- Section 4: Future script until this point- participant will have spoken of past and present experiences
- Section 5: stresses and problems participant is asked to describe two areas of life where conflicts, stresses, or problems affected them
- Section 6: personal ideology participant considers the basic beliefs and values by questioning them about their religious and political beliefs. The following areas are covered:
define narrative analysis
- A form of qualitative analysis which is dependent on the ideas developed in narrative psychology
- Stresses how narrative is a metaphor for personality
define emplotment
- Emplotment: describes how the narrative is put together- including plots, subplots, diversion and digressions
what is the Naturalist epistemology approach to narrative analysis
: use rich descriptions of people in their natural habitats (research that aims to explore interpersonal relations in specific cases) very observational
focuses on what questions
what is the constructivist epistemology approach to narrative analysis
focuses on the sense of social order and how its created through talk and interaction. Such as in how identities are constructed in various psychosocial contexts (families and education)
focuses on how questions
what is the realist epistemology approach to narrative analysis
whatever the person says reflects that person’s real world
define appropriation
: the process of narrative interpretation
o Your making sense of what has been unknown in the past
steps of narrative analysis
- Reading and familiarization: read carefully through the transcript (think about themes)
- Identify important concepts to look for: trying to grasp the main elements of the narrative that need to be identified
- Narrative tone
- Imagery - Identify narrative tone: assessed in terms of
- Content of narrative
- The manner and style of reporting the experience - Identifying narrative themes and images:
- Identify themes and images at the same times because these can overlap - Weave together into a coherent theory: need to be put into a new story form
define Points of departure
After you use your guiding interest and collected some data you begin to form concepts. You then use these concepts as points of departure to form interview questions, to look at data, listen to interviewees, and think analytically about the data
