Qualitative Research Methods

Question 1

What is a common structure for research reports?

Answer 1

Abstract
Introduction (background and aims)
Method (design, settings, participants, sample size, intervention, outcomes, analysis and ehtics)
Findings - descriptive and inferential
Discussion - main findings , strengths and limitation, comparison with other literature, implications for practise and conclusions

Question 2

What are the two broad categories of quantitative research?

Answer 2

Experimental
Observational

Question 3

What are the different types of experimental quantitative research?

Answer 3

Randomised controll trial
Explanatory RCT - under ideal conditions, must likely to get positive results
Pragmatic RCT - work in real world scenario, realistic context of how to use drug.

Question 4

What are the different types of observational quantitative research?

Answer 4

Interpretive - sense-making
Analytic - summarising

Question 5

What are the different types of interpretive research methods?

Answer 5

Case reports
Case series
Cross sectional prevalance
Longitudinal
Ecoligical - study large groups of people, compare groups for rates of …..

Question 6

What are the different types of analytical research methods?

Answer 6

Case-control
Cohort
Cross-sectional (analytical)

Question 6

What is qualitative research?

Answer 6

A variety of approaches which aim to understand the social reality of individual, groups and cultures.
Concerned with meaning, not frequency of phenomenon.
Investigates peoples belief, values, experiences and circumstances - interpretive
Aims to provide in depth, holistic and context specific understanding of human behaviour.

Question 7

What are the main characteristics of qualitative research?

Answer 7

Aims to understand meanings and experiences.
Researchers immerse themselves in natural setting of the people whose thoughts and feelings they want to explore
Unstanding is the aim
Researcher is the primary instrument for data collection and analysis.
Gather data to build concepts rather than test them
Highly descriptive and interpretive
Researcher must engage with subjects - mutual form of discovery.
Concerned with creditability not neutrality or validity.

Question 8

What is meant by ontology?

Answer 8

Concerned with what is real, the nature of being - different philosophical positon on reality.
What is out there to know
How are things that exist classifiedq

Question 9

What is epistemology?

Answer 9

Concerned with the theory of knowledge.
What is knowledge, how can we gain knowledge about things.
What is a valid way to come about knowledge? - religious books, experiments, observation etc.

Question 10

What is meant by methodology, method and sources?

Answer 10

MEthodology - plan on how to aquire knowledge, how will we do this?
Method - precise procedures used to acquire it, what will we do?
Sources - which data can we collect and from whom.

Question 11

What is the main otological view in quantitative research?

Answer 11

Positivism
Believe there is a single reality - measured and known
Reality is tangible, can be objectively measured and recorded - requires obsceration and experimentation to discover the truth

Question 12

What is the main otological view in qualitative research?

Answer 12

Question assumption of positive paradigm.
Believes multiple realities, result on interpretation
Reality is in the eye of the beholder
Constructivism - create truth via interaction with environment, through experience - suggest a critical reflection on out truths.
KNowledge is socially constructed by individuals, is changeable.
Truth can not be fixed, measured or changed.
Therefore can be multiple different truths of the same event.

Question 13

What is meant by bracketing in research psychology?

Answer 13

Way from researcher to seperate themselves from what is being studied.
Aim to refrain from everyday viewpoint, judgement or perspective.
Researchers should recognise that bias and beliefs early in the process, be honest about how they might affect their research and try to suspend their presuppositions.
Arguing on if researchers are able to do this - if quantitative research - truth is an experience than create of research will always have a perspective and be involved.

Question 14

What is meant by situated knowledge?

Answer 14

The view that all research and knowledge reflects the conditions in how it was produced, reflect the social identity and location of those who produced int.

Question 15

Can you have an neutral observer in research?

Answer 15

No - should encourage to embrance beliefs and experiences
Researcher must engage in personal and subjective discovery with informants - in order to best understand their perspective
Must just be creditable
Reflexitivty - take into account researches own position and setting in the situation.

Question 16

Why is context important in research?

Answer 16

People can not be viewed in siolation
Must be explored wit their experiences and life social context.
Language of research has social context - lay vs medical
Impossible to detailed replicate a piece of research as the research relationship, history nad location of participants with change - difference knowledge

Question 17

What is meant by the social construct of reality?

Answer 17

Social order/knowledge is a result of ongoing human production and negotiation.
No single truth
Knowledge is constructed through language, representation and other social processes.
Constructivist view - knowledge is embedded in history, context, culture and experience.
Researcher can not be separated from the data.

Question 18

What is meant by the social construct of health an illness?

Answer 18

What counts as health and illness varies between individuals, societies, cultures and historical periods.
Therefore are embedded in cultural meanings
Socially constructed as the experiential level.

Question 19

How does NICE recommend that patients and the public should be involved in research?

Answer 19

Lay people should have the opportunity to contribute to developing NICe guidelines, advice and quality standards -> ensures most relevant to people will have the greatest effect
Research is most beneficial when done with or by members of the public rather than to, about or for them -> needs to represent their version of truth.

Question 20

What is meant by trustworthiness of data?
What are the four different aspects?

Answer 20

Ensures desisgn has good rigour -> honest, explicit and takes on critique
THis includes - confidence in data, interpretation and methods of quality control.
The four different aspects are:
Creditability
Dependability
Transferability
Confirmability.

Question 21

What is meant by the creditability of qualitative research?

Answer 21

Confidence in the truth of the study and its findings.
Are the findings believable - consider study design, method and data analysis.

Question 22

What is meant by dependability of qualitative research?

Answer 22

Stability of data over time and conditions of the study.
Will be consistent and repeatable.
The stability expected depends on the nature of the study.

Question 23

What is meant by transferability of qualitative research?

Answer 23

The extent to which findings are useful to person in other settings

Question 24

What is meant by confirmability of qualitative research?

Answer 24

The degree findings could be corroborated/ confirmed by other people.
To what extent is the researchers truth shared.

Question 25

What is the sampling technique like in qualitative research?

Answer 25

Norm based on smaller focused inquiry instead or large random samples.
Not representative in a stats sense
But must be purposive sampling - must be related to research questions
Should be transferable and credible.

Question 26

What are the common methods of data collection in qualitative data?

Answer 26

Interviews
Focus groups
Life grids
Diaries
Photographs
Objects
Scarp books

Question 27

What are the common methods of data analysis in qualitative research?

Answer 27

Thematic analysis - find patterns
Phenomenological analysis - aims to give insight into personal lived experience
Narrative analysis - stories
Grounded theory approach - create theory based on data
Affective textual analysis - inferences about feeling in a hypothetical analysis.

Question 28

How are interviews used in qualitative analysis?

Answer 28

Conversation with a purpose
Range from highly structured (questions and order determined), to semi-structured (some guiding questions only) to unstructured (only themes/topics only).
Are open questions and ima to find out about the insiders perspective.
Need to be consideration of hierarchical barriers and normative responsive due to dynamic between researcher and subject.

Question 29

What is the purpose of a focus group in qualitative research?

Answer 29

Form of group interview with relavant people are gathered to discuss a particular topic.
Guided by a moderator, participants are encouraged to talk to each other about the topic rather than directly to the moderator.
Interaction fo group - generates data and can be analysed

Question 30

What is the importance of observation in qualitative research?

Answer 30

What people do, say and say they do are very different things
First hand encounter of a phenomenon (an observation of it) is always more reliable and of interest.

Question 31

What is ethnography in qualitative research?

Answer 31

A long term in depth fieldwork with a group of people or setting - in order to understand the nattives point of view.
Constructs a shared social world.
Acknowledges alternative rationalities and allows perspectives to be articulated in local terms.
Observation people in their environment to understand their everyday practises.

Question 32

What is meant by content and thematic analysis?

Answer 32

To summarise data and cateogires themes

Question 33

What is a narrative analysis?

Answer 33

Explore the lived experience of participants’ lives or social cultural stories.
Aim to understand why that is their experience.

Question 34

What is interpretative phenomenological analysis?

Answer 34

Aims to place the experience of the participant at the core of the interview dialogue by exploring how that give meaning to their experience when interacting with their environment.

Question 35

What is discursive and discourse analysis?

Answer 35

Concerned with how we socially construct the world around us through language.
Allows researchers to assess participants subjective realities through the language they use to describe it.

Question 36

Give a summary of the key ideas of qualitative research

Answer 36

Explores participant’s experiences and life-world understanding.
Is broad and context bound
Particpants are flexible tends to develop with research
Data collection tends to be observation focused
Analysis focuses on themes, ethnographic or lived experiences
Aims to construct a theory
Research is recongised as directly involved.
Focus on trustworthy.

Question 37

Give a summary of the key ideas of quantitative research

Answer 37

Looks for causal explanations
Testing hypothesies
Normally narrow focused and context free in a lab.
Randomised sampling, sample frame is fixed before the research process starts.
Tends to use questionnaires, RCTs and statistical analysis to generate conclusions
Outcomes are measurable, researcher is encouraged to be distant from results.
Results should be valid, reproducible and generalisable.

Question 38

What are the main ethical considerations in qualitative research?

Answer 38

Recruitment
Consent - capacity, understanding, agency
Anonymity of informants
Power relations (gender, class, race and profession)
Possible repercussions of participation
Doing harm by doing good.