Qualitative Research Flashcards

1
Q

Describe Alvesson’s understanding of Neopositivists

A

2003 - An Empiricist with quantitative research ideals and a focus on measurable, unbiased outcomes.

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2
Q

Describe Alvesson’s understanding of Romantics

A

2003 - Hoping for a “deeper, fuller conceptualizations of those aspects of our subject’s lives we are most interested in understanding” Miller & Glassner, 1997.
-Uses connection & rapport to reach a deeper, more accurate view.

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3
Q

Describe Alvesson’s understanding of Localists

A

2003 - Interview accounts are empirical phenomena calling for explanations, they are not simply reflections of another phenomena.

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4
Q

Describe the dominant Neopositivist metaphor by Alvesson?

A

2003 - An instrument to be used as effectively as possible in the hands of a more/less capable researcher.

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5
Q

Describe the dominant Romantic metaphor by Alvesson?

A

2003 - A human encounter, encouraging the interviewee to reveal his or her authentic experience.

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6
Q

Other suggested metaphors for understanding research by Alvesson?

A

2003

1) The social problem of coping with a complex interaction in a non-routine situation.
2) Adapting to normative pressure and uncertainty through mimicking a standard form of expression.
3) The problem of maintaining and increasing self-esteem.
4) The motivational problem of developing a rationale for active participation.

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7
Q

Summarise Alvesson’s paper, mentioning:
Concluding from the data:

Social Context:

Identity of the interviewee:

Sample Size:

A

Concluding from the data: belief that ‘data can prove or disprove various hypotheses and theories’. Belief that interviewee is a competent, moral truth teller.

Social Context: Interviews are a complex social event where actions of interviewee and interviewer affect the outcomes.

Identity of the interviewee: The account may be said to construct an identity, not necessarily reveal one’. People have multiple identities - a woman, leader, middle-manager.

Sample Size: Number of interviewees, agreement between them and empirical method are argued to indicate high validity, but ‘may indicate that these people engage in similar impressions of management tactics’.
‘the shoulders of interviewees are meager’ - high number of interviewees not necessarily an indication of validity’.

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8
Q

Explain the conclusions come to by Crouch (__)

A

2006 - Participants should be considered ‘cases’ not ‘of a kind’, variants of a particular social setting.

The interactions of the doing with the enduring is the process under scrutiny in small-sample research. It’s approach is therefore clinical… involving careful history taking, cross-case comparison, intuitive judgements - not something that can reasonably be done with a large number of cases.

We argue here that studies which seek to provide such theoretical couplings of individual experience and social context are by their very nature intensive.

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9
Q

Some challenges to interview validity by Crouch (__)

A

2006 -

  • Interviewer bias, variability of rapport, interpretation of interview material.
  • social context can not be pieced together entirely from the interview ‘unless one falls into the teleological trap of asserting that only what is expressed is relevant.’
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10
Q

‘It is the nature of exploratory studies to________’ (____)

A

‘It is the nature of exploratory studies to indicate rather than conclude.’ Crouch, 2006.

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11
Q

Quantitative psychology tried to study ‘___’ as ‘___’, ________. (____)

A

Todd et al, 2005

‘Quantitative psychology tried to study subjects as objects, overlooking the intrinsic reflexivity involved’.

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12
Q

Describe the study and findings by Henwood (___)

A

Henwood, 1998 - Study interviewed team leaders and methods specialists in clinical psychology training courses.
Outcome: ‘Qualitative research as lacking, bringing difficulties and measuring up less well against assumed research standards’
‘these comments presumed a hierarchical difference.’

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13
Q

Explain Braun and Clarke’s criticism of thematic analysis. (___)

A

2006 - continuity - unlike narrative or other biographical approaches, you are unable to retain a sense of continuity, so more difficult to find contradictions or inconsistencies in accounts.

Thematic analysis carried out by people ‘without the knowledge or skills to perform a supposedly more sophisticated / certainly more kudos-bearing, ‘branded’ form of analysis, eg. IPA and Grounded-Theory.

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14
Q

Breakwell, et al ___:

Fully structured interviews - ‘it leaves little room for ________’

A

2006 - Fully structured interviews - ‘it leaves little room for anticipated discoveries’.

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15
Q

Explain some challenges to telephone interviews? (Breakwell, at al ___)

A

2006 -Calling without prior warning may mean the interviewee is pulled away from some other activity, when this happens it is difficult to ascertain whether the previous activity is important in determining the response.
-Answers to open-ended questions - seem to be truncated on the telephone.

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16
Q

What does Breakwell suggest doing to check internal consistency?

A

2006 - Having a pattern of questions (including repetition and returning to topics) - to assess data validity.

17
Q

‘Respondents may be motivated to ___’ (____)

A

‘Lie’ Breakwell, 2006.

18
Q

Explain some of the challenges of interviewing children?

A

Breakwell, 2006 - Young children are often unwilling to assert themselves or contradict an adult - so may answer questions in the way they think you want them to. Teenagers show the opposite bias, and may ‘relish’ contradicting an adult.

  • Aquiesence response bias - children tend to say ‘yes’ irrespective of the question or what they really think about it.
  • Young children tend to interpret questions literally - Do not use metaphors, similes, analogies.
  • Children ‘may not understand the implicit rule of an interview is that one person asks the questions and the other person answers’.
19
Q

Explain Hammersly’s views on quality in qualitative research (___)

A

2007 - Research community complain there is no clearly defined set of quality criteria for judging qualitative research, so that it is uncertain in quality.
-Research cannot be sensibly reduced to application of explicit, concrete and exhaustive indicators.
‘while I am rejecting the idea of a finite set of explicit and exhaustive criteria that can substitute for judgement, or render its role minimal - criteria in the form of guidelines, can plan an important role in the work of researchers.
-We should not simply accept methadological pluralism at face value - dialogue on this issue across different approaches and indeed across the qualitative/quantitative divide, is essential for the future of social and educational research.

20
Q

What is a Positivist & a Naturalist (Rubin & _______)

A

Rubin & Rubin, 2005
Positivist - Presuppose that knowledge is politically and socially neutral, and is achieved by following a rigid plan for getting information. Commitment to quantitative precision and an accumulation to a reality that exists independently of human perception.
Naturalists - Believe that the researcher inevitably affects what is learned.