Week 2: Qualitative vs. Quantitative vs. Mixed Methods, Epistemology/ Worldviews, Establishing a Research Problem, Literature Reviews & Identifying Gaps, Intro to Research Ethics Flashcards
What is a Literature Review?
- Understanding what other researchers have studied, how they studied it, etc.
- Identifying central issues in the field or topic
- Identifying gaps in the field
Characteristics of a Literature Review in Health
- Written for academic/practitioner audience
- Evidence is gathered from peer reviewed, scholarly sources
- May broaden evidence to non-traditional sources of information (grey literature)
- Must be unbiased
Literature Review Process
- Preliminary search of the research field (general area/topic)
- Develop a research question
- Common elements of health research questions include:
- population
- intervention/therapy (used for a health condition)
- exposure (to adverse/negative conditions)
- outcomes (related to health or mental health)
- settings (ex. health facilities, geographical locations) - Search for evidence
- Google Scholar – quickly identifies different elements of research topic
- Health research databases – academic peer reviewed only; PubMed = primary database for health information
- Isolate main concepts
- Find synonyms and subject headings
- Find keywords - Summarize findings
- Ways to synthesize information:
- Narrative description
- Thematic analyses
- Methodical organization
- Critically evaluate strengths and weaknesses of studies
- Draw connections and/or comparisons - Conclusion
- Summarize key findings you’ve taken from the literature, emphasize their significance
- Connect it back to your primary research question
Characteristics of Quantitative Research
Mainly deductive: specific theories, testing theories
Analyzes numerical data using statistical procedures
Patterns & relationships among variables (describe, predict, etc.)
Closed-ended questions = answered w/ “yes” or “no” and have limited set of possible answer
Objective – factual, unbiased, based on analysis of an object, observation only
Generalize and replicate findings
Larger samples
Longitudinal designs, nonexperimental designs (surveys), experimental designs
Ex. what is the demographic makeup of Ontario in 2020?
Ex. How has the avg. temp changed globally over the last century?
Ex. Does environmental pollution affect the prevalence of honeybees?
Ex. Does working from home increase productivity
PROS
- Tests a hypothesis
- Replication
- Generalizable
- Can be quicker
- Contributes to answering the “what” and the “how”
CONS
- Lack of context
- Unnatural environments
Characteristics of Qualitative Research
Mainly inductive: general theories
Analyze words or visuals
Exploring patterns of meaning
Open-ended questions = allow someone to give a free-form answer
Subjective – personal perspectives or preference of a person (biased)
Context specific
Smaller samples
Narrative research, case study, grounded theory, phenomenology, ethnographies
Ex. how does social media shape body image in teenagers? How do children and adults interpret health eating in the UK? What factors influence employee retention in a large organization? How is anxiety experienced around the world? How can teacher integrate social issues into science curriculums
PROS
- flexibility and innovation
- Naturalistic settings
- Meaningful, deep insights
- Contributes how and why
CONS
- Subjectivity
- Limited generalizability
- Resource intensive
Mixed Methods
Employs quantitative and qualitative data
Explanatory, exploratory
Belief that integration provides more complete understanding of the topic/issue that you can’t get alone w/ one approach
Ex. to what extent does the frequency of traffic accidents (quantitative) reflect cyclist perceptions of road safety (qualitative) in Amsterdam?
Ex. How do student perception of their school environment (qualitative) relate to differences in test scores (quantitative)?
Ex. How do average hospital salary measurements over time (quantitative) help to explain nurse testimonials about job satisfaction (qualitative)?
Research Approaches: Epistemology/Worldview
- Worldview meaning “a basic set of beliefs that guide action”
- Philosophical orientation a researcher brings to their study
- Beliefs about the world and nature of research
- How you believe knowledge is produced
- What is acceptable forms of knowledge
- How you think the social world should be studied
- First step towards your choice of design and methods
- Distinction between 2 main epistemological position – positivism (quantitative) and interpretivism (qualitative)
Post-Positivism
- based around development of general laws/truths
- testing theories (theory verification)
- based on ideas of objectivity, deterministic, empiricism
- positivists believe society shapes the individual (use quantitative methods)
- postpositivist argue that ideas and identities of a researcher influence what they observe (prior experience and current social contexts influence our perceptions and shape our consciousness)
Interpretivism/Constructivism
- rejects the view that scientific empiricism can be applied to the social world
- doesn’t predefine variables, but explores human sense-making in naturalistic settings
- reality is subjective, socially constructed, and a composite of multiple perspectives
- interpretivists believe individuals shape society (use qualitative methods)
- constructivism = understanding, theory generation
- social constructivists believe that individuals seek understanding of the world in which they live and work
Pragmatic
- Choose methods that best meet the needs and purpose of the research
- Decisions based on “what will work best” in finding answers to your questions
- research occurs in social, historical, and political contexts
- seen in mixed-methods (draw from quantitative and qualitative)
- Consequences of action, real-world practice oriented, problem-centered
Transformative Worldview
- Advocate to help marginalized (untreated, unimportant, powerless) populations
- Purpose of research is for political and social change
- Provides a voice for participants who aren’t given that opportunity
- Often study oppression, power, privilege, alienation
- collaborative, change-oriented
- Ex. critical race theory, queer theory, feminist theory
Methods
- Method = a specific technique (or set of techniques) for data collection and analysis
- Questions
- Interviews
- Focus groups
- Visual tools
- Analysis & interpretation procedures
Design/Methodology
- Quan: survey experiment
- Qual: narrative ethnography
- Mixed method – quantitative and qualitative have strengths and weaknesses so they complement each other
Quantitative Methodology
Emphasis on quantification in collection and analysis of data
- Deductive approach – testing theories and hypotheses
- Based on positivism/post-positivism
- Views social reality as external and objective
Qualitative Methodology
- Emphasizing words rather than numbers
- Largely (but not always) inductive approach – generating theories
- Based on interpretivism – understanding ways in which individuals and groups interpret their world
