Qualitative Methods Flashcards
Design often requires studying human behavior. Why is that? Mark all correct options.
a) A designer might be interested in what particular functions an artefact should satisfy by studying potential users’ demands.
b) A designer might be interested in the artefact’s material, and whether the artefact could be constructed from some other material which has a certain virtue.
c) A designer might want to perform a design validation to check whether the artefact fulfils some functional requirements.
d) A designer might want to find out some previously hidden causal relationship in the artefact itself in order to achieve a better understanding of the artefact.
Answer: a), c)
In which ways do social science methods differ from natural science methods? Mark all correct options.
a) Interpretation of data typically involves attributions of mental states.
b) They produce qualitative data.
c) The focus is on human behaviour.
d) There are no laboratory experiments.
e) Validity of results is of no concern.
Answer: a), b), c)
What does a belief-desire explanation consist in? Mark all correct options.
a) The explanans includes beliefs and desires of an individual which together inductively infer the action to be explained - the explanandum.
b) The explanandum is deductively inferred from an individual’s beliefs and desires.
c) A belief-desire explanation of an individual’s action explains why this individual acted the way she did only by reference to her desires.
d) The explanandum is explained through an explanans which refers to an individual’s beliefs and desires.
Answer: a), d)
What do you do when you adopt the intentional stance? Mark all correct options.
a) You attribute mental states to the object that you adopt the intentional stance towards.
b) You eventually come to a conclusion about what the object ought to do relative the beliefs and desires you have ascribed to the object.
c) You ascribe a sort of rationality to the object – that is, rationality in the sense that the object has beliefs about how to reach its goals.
d) You try to understand what the object’s goal(s) is in order to understand how the object believes that it will reach this goal.
Answer: a), b), c), d)
Which of the following are correct ways to understand what the methodological problem of interpretation is about? In other words, what is at stake according to this problem? Mark all correct options.
a) The methodological problem of interpretation points out that even if we have an idea of how to model behavior, we still need a further refinement of what distinguishes good modelling from bad modelling, in a given context.
b) The methodological problem of interpretation points out that a given interpretation of behavior could, more or less, be arbitrarily chosen.
c) The methodological problem of interpretation points out that the explanation model for behavior, i.e. the belief-desire model, is a faulty model.
d) The methodological problem of interpretation points out that behavior can only be grounded in one desire and one belief.
Answer: a), b)
One cannot do social science without interpretation.
a) True
b) False
Answer: b)
Which of the following are ways to avoid the the methodological problem of interpretation? Mark all correct options.
a) If it is possible then we could reduce the range of the interpretation.
b) We can avoid investigating at the level of social properties and instead focus on individual properties.
c) If it is possible and reasonable, then one could investigate stimulus-response relations instead.
d) If it is possible then we could search for observable effects - via different operationalizations - that provide further evidence for the attribution of a particular mental state.
Answer: a), c), d)
How can one ensure repeatability of a qualitative observation? Mark the correct option.
a) By stating that if another researcher would use the same interpreting methods, then the same outcome would be observed.
b) By making sure that the interpretation methods used are intersubjective, i.e. that the interpreting methods are transparent.
c) By making sure that if one were to use a different operationalization of the feature of interest, then one would get sufficiently similar outcomes.
Answer: b)
Qualitative and quantitative data types have fundamentally different content.
a) True
b) False
Answer: b)
The following are examples of operationalizations using a survey, making a qualitative observation of the emotional attitudes of the subjects. Mark all options that would be problematic for such a qualitative observation.
a) The constructor of the questionnaire unjustifiably assumes that the expressions used in the questions are understood in the same way by everyone answering the questionnaire.
b) The subjects’ emotional attitudes are represented on a measurement scale which fails to meaningfully convey the magnitude of the subject’s real attitude (such as an absolute scale).
c) The questionnaire does not yield a measurement of the subjects’ attitudes that can be represented on either an interval or ratio scale.
d) The researcher uses a lexical definition of the particular emotional attitude which is intended to be measured by the questionnaire.
Answer: a), b)
Which of the following are examples of how one can increase the robustness of a qualitative observation? Mark all correct options.
a) By making sure that the outcome of the qualitative observation can be reorganized into a quantified measurement.
b) By creating several operationalizations of different properties, clearly aiming for divergent validity.
c) By triangulation - using multiple methods of observation about the same property.
d) By creating several operationalizations of the property, clearly aiming for convergent validity.
Answer: c), d)
Why would one want to perform a case study? Mark all correct options.
a) Because experimental artefacts cannot occur in case studies.
b) Because case studies can by themselves easily generalise their outcomes to wider populations.
c) Because case studies can give us data that can act as foundations for future studies of highly complex phenomena.
d) Because the results of a case study can be used to falsify a statement which previously was considered to be true.
e) Because multivariate studies are often unable to tell us about cause-effect relationships in an individual case, while case studies are able to generate such results.
f) Because case studies can give us crucial information concerning the boundaries of a particular population.
Answer: c), d), e), f)
What is an analytical narrative? Using the analytical-narrative method is, in one sense, similar to using the H-D method. You select cases and then create a narrative matching your research question, in order to derive one or several implications (observable consequences) in these cases, under the assumption that your narrative is true. You then test whether these implications are correct to either strengthen or decrease confidence in your narrative. True or false?
a) True
b) False
Answer: a)
A case study is never a better method than multivariate studies; it is just that we often do not have the data to perform the latter. True or false?
a) True
b) False
Answer: b)
There are some common misunderstandings about case studies. Which of the following claims are true? Mark all correct options.
a) Case studies, as opposed to multivariate studies, are able to identify cause-effect relationships for individual situations.
b) Case studies do not allow us to infer methodologically valid inferences.
c) Case studies can help to achieve greater explanatory knowledge.
d) Case studies cannot utilize quantitative methods.
e) The results from case studies, even if they are valid, cannot be generalized to a context outside of a given case.
Answer: a), c)
