Qualitative Methods Flashcards
Why were qualitative approaches ruled out initially?
Personal accounts cannot be trusted
Different people say different things
So there is limited generalisability
And therefore limited value
What are the approaches to qualitative analysis?
Grounded theory
Thematic analysis
Narrative analysis
Discourse analysis
Content analysis
Ethonography
Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA)
Template analysis
What is the orientation of GT?
It’s interpretive - data is interpreted rather than just reported and described
What are the aims of the GT approach?
To collect and analyse rich, deep data and it is largely used to generate applied theory
How is the theory generated?
It is discovered, developed and provisionally verified through systematic data collection and analysis
rather than EMERGED
Theoretical saturation
When researchers reach the point in data collection in which no new concepts are yielded
Henwood and Pidgeon (1995)
suggest that grounded theory is useful even for relatively modest projects, and that it can be used when there will be no attempt to complete the process of establishing a finished theory
GT can be used to:
> develop a basic taxonomy - looking for patterns and types
> develop concepts - to identify a limited set of useful concepts and categories
Why was qualitative methods rejected for so long?
Unreliable - relying on the participant to reveal, understand and know things about themselves
Unscientific - not measured precisely or doesn’t follow the experimental method
Why is it difficult to study anything an experimental way?
IV and DV - difficult to manipulate situations in an ethically and morally acceptable way, most DV’s are subjective
How were psychologists limited by the scientific method?
Nomothetic studies were favoured - universal or general
Idiographic and situated studies were ignored - studying individuals in their own right and phenomena that changes with cultural and historical context
The hard perspective
Radical alternative to TRM - views it as conflicting and incompatible
Rejects positivism and experimentalism
Alternative epistemology: >knowledge is constructed >objectivity is impossible >truth is relative >focus on meaning rather than fact
The soft perspective
An extension of TRM and used to overcome their limits
Recognise the added value of person accounts
Often idiographic in nature
Can be used to generate hypotheses to be tested using TRM
May provide triangulation
Views quant and qual as complimentary
How is qualitative research different?
Focus on how people interpret and make sense of their experiences and of the world
Acknowledges importance of researchers interpretations
Focus on subjective meaning-making
Primacy of data — not hypothetico-deductive
— inductive
Context aware
Focus on experience rather than facts or explanations (what not why)
What are the criteria for evaluating qualitative research?
Coherence - interpreting dat in a coherent and integrated way without over-simplifying it
Respondent validation - checking the interpretation back with original informant
Resonating with the reader - providing a credible account which makes sense of the phenomenon and increases understanding
Analytic auditing - checking out inter- pretations with another judge / researcher
Triangulation - using other data (from other sources / perspectives)
Grounding in examples - Providing sufficient raw data to illustrate the analysis and the analytic procedures adopted; staying close to the data
What are the data sources for qualitative research?
Published texts and media
Observations
Interviews
Group discussion
What is Grounded Theory?
The most well-established and first structured approach
A way of deriving a theory about a topic of interest from raw data through a process of induction
Bottom up approach
What is the process of GT?
Data collection, analysis and theory is all bidirectional
Data is analysed throughout collection and findings can influence subsequent data collection
It’s continuous and flexible
What are the three basic elements of GT?
Concepts - basic units of analysis, theory is developed through conceptualisation of raw dat and continues until theoretical saturation is reached
Categories - more abstract, identified by grouping concepts based on comparisons, can also combine to form a core category
Propositions - statements about the relationship between categories and their concepts or between different categories - takes analysis beyond level of description and are more like hypotheses with a truth value
What is necessary for process of GT?
Models/diagrams
Creativity
Flexibility of procedures
Use of computer packages e.g nVivo
Immersion in data and experience with topic
Constant comparison
What is Constructivist GT?
Assumed theories are not discovered in the data but are constructed jointly by the researcher and participants during research process
Data are co-constructed are are coloured by researchers and participants beliefs and values
Position is mid-way between realist and postmodernist positions
What are the stages of thematic analysis?
Familiarise Generate codes Initial themes Review themes Define/name themes Produce report
