Qualitative research

Question 1

qualitative research

Answer 1

explores experience and opinions of participants (assesses behaviour) compared to how quick or accurate they might be

• counting people
• measuring peoples experience
• asking people about their experience
• guessing how people feel

Question 2

criticisms

Answer 2

subjective and influenced by bias (inter-rater reliability)

does not represent the population (does not aim to generalise)

cannot be replicated (if following same method it can)

is not systematic (not valid - it is if the methods are followed the same by each researcher)

Question 3

observations

Answer 3

naturalistic environment (Mead, 1932) - investigating in a natural environment

participant observation (Festinger, 1956) - joining participants and observing from within)

controlled observation (Ainsworth, 1970) - done in the lab setting up a situation and observing behaviour

Question 4

interviews

Answer 4

structured - strict structure of questions (closed)

un-structured - flexible structure of questions (open - allows participants to develop on answers)

use simple language
prompt participants when necessary
create a rapport with participants
engage in ‘active listening’

Question 5

active listening

Answer 5

having to think of the right questions to ask
whilst listening to the responses and reacting to them
keeping participants on track of questions
then thinking about next question to ask

Question 6

focus groups

Answer 6

use open ended questions
can deviate from schedule of questions

• participants may not answer questions
• participants can often confirm and not answer truthfully
• researcher may deviate from the schedule of questions
• are the experiences of a selective few the same for everyone

+ may benefit from group dynamic (children/young people used to working in groups so may feel more comfortable)

Question 7

questionaires

Answer 7

open ended/closed questions

Question 8

differences between quantitative and qualitative

Answer 8

objective vs reflexive (no bias compared to acknowledging position as researcher)

statistical analysis vs rich data collection

generalising vs case studies

hypothesis vs developing themes and creating theory

controlled vs open ended

deductive vs inductive

Question 9

deductive

Answer 9

‘top down’ - theories to specific hypothesis to testing

Question 10

inductive

Answer 10

‘bottom up’ - specific observations to broader generalisations

Question 11

content analysis

Answer 11

combines qualitative and quantitative, extracting common themes (pre-defined = deductive, emerging from data = inductive) counting how many are found.

Phase 1 - familiarise yourself with the data
Phase 2 - generate initial codes (topics that fit data)
Phase 3 - search for themes in the topics
Phase 4 - review the themes
Phase 5 - count frequency that each theme is mentioned
Phase 6 - inter-rater reliability
Phase 7 - produce the report

Question 12

thematic analysis

Answer 12

underlying method for all qualitative analysis
aims to identify themes in data

Phase 1 - familiarise yourself with data (from texts/documents) - transcribe data
Phase 2 - generating initial codes (short comments on segments) - inductive (not pre-specified theory) vs deductive (pre-specified theory)
Phase 3 - searching for themes in texts
Phase 4 - review themes (go over them again making sure that evidence for each is consistent)
Phase 5 - defining and naming themes
Phase 6 - produce the report

Question 13

limitations of qualitative

Answer 13

is the experience of 1 person enough?

huge amounts of data to process

researcher bias

Question 14

limitations of quantitative

Answer 14

sample may not represent population

can psychological phenomena be reduced to numbers?

researcher bias