Week 11 Flashcards
Positivism, usually associated with…
objective scientific inquiry and quantitative research
Interpretative paradigm, associated with…
inquiry into subjective realities, and qualitative research.
Critical paradigm, associated with…
social inquiry, and also employing qualitative methodologies and methods.
Alleged problems with quantitative methodology
Reliance on objective reality
- no subjective components
- Humans separated by own reality (case and subject)
Knowledge is socially constructed (according to ____ theory) biased through social and power structures
critical
_____ research: Explore aspects of life individually and experiences, reveals personal meaning, increases understanding and acceptance of human condition
qualitative
____ research: Purpose to explain in terms of underlying mechanisms, natural laws governing behaviour and phenomena
Quantitative
Is qualitative or quantitative research time and context dependent?
Qualitative
Does qualitative research have hypothesis?
No, is exploratory
Characteristics of qualitative methods
- Lots of information from small group (quantitative: specific, little information from large group)
- Non-probability sampling, e.g. purposeful, theoretical or snowballing
- No attempt to achieve representativeness to a population
- Unstructured interviews
- Context dependent knowledge
- Close interactions between researchers and participants (no blinding)
Interview methods of data collection
- Q&A format, not observational
- two-way conversation
- Requires skilled interviewer
- Can generate large amount of data - time-consuming to analyse
Structured interviews are best for _____ research
quantitative
- Sticks to main point
- Asks everyone same questions
- inflexible
Unstructured or semi-structured are best for _____ research:
qualitative
- Questions may change during interview
- Researcher invents new questions in response to their answers
- Allows unexpected issues to be investigated in more detail
- At worst can be rambling off topic
Qualitative research interviews favour ____-ended questioning. While quantitive research favours __-ended questions (although can depend on style appropriate)
open, closed
Disadvantages of focus groups…
- Expensive (travel, room, catering)
- Some people may be influenced by others
- Facilitator bias
When to use qualitative research?
When quantitative is not possible or practical
- To look at issues that cannot be measured or counted - Completely exploratory research - Identify possible cause and effects that researcher may later want to test using quantitative methodology
Mixed methods research
Combines quantitative and qualitative methods to obtain strengths of both
Triangulation —>
Comparing results from quantitative and qualitative
- If results for both methodologies are consistent, that suggest that findings are independent across methodologies, not biased by choice of methodology
Convergent:
Used for triangulation
- Seperate qualitative and quantitative studies done at same time - Result compared
Sequential:
Qualitative done first to find important issues then investigate larger sample more scientifically with quantitative
Multi-phase:
Large study with separate quantitative and qualitative components
Embedded:
Quantitative and qualitative in the one data collection (E.g. student feedback surveys with ratings and open ended questions)
Meta-analysis not relevant for qualitative research, so what do they use?
meta-synthesis (summarises and interprets)
Quantitative looks at ____
Qualitative looks at _____
validity, rigour
