Week 5: Qualitative Research Flashcards
Distinguish btn quantities and qualities in the world
Quantities: Amounts of types of things; data for statistical analyses
Qualities: Types of things
eg. the type (or quality) of grammatical errors children make at different ages
Describe a qualitative researcher whose work is well known today.
Piaget, developmental psych, did all this without
stats and doing this research. forms basis of develop
mental psychology today
What is qualitative research?
“… any kind of research that produces findings not arrived at by means of statistical procedures or other means of quantification“
For qualitative research, do we have research questions or hypotheses?
• More research questions rather than hypotheses
• Examining types of events & interactions
(not necessarily testing hypotheses)
eg
• What types of abusive experiences?
• What types of cognitive processes?
When might you use qualitative research (QR)?
1) Exploratory purposes: when unsure what to measure; NEW area of research.
e. g. A researcher wants to develop a measure of ‘self-esteem’. Qualitative question: What is self-esteem? How is it understood by teenagers, parents, researchers, etc.?
2) To capture phenomenology (the study of phenomena)
To understand people’s experience e.g. the experience of being a refugee, the experience of being both a DOCS worker & a parent, etc.
e.g. Exploring cultural differences, Is ‘happiness’ in Australia experienced similarly in other parts of the world?
What are some sources/examples of qualitative research?
Some examples:
> Case studies (eg. clinical work)
• Understand a case in depth
• Generalisability? Difficult to generalise specific/small number of case studies to wider pop. Good for rare cases like lesions (below).
> Extreme case sampling (ie. rare cases)
• Brain damage, rare disorders, bizarre lesions
> Focus groups
> Naturalistic observation (eg. types of interactions b/w parents & children)
• Real world
• Affect of observer? Are they e.g. playing with kid differently because of an observer
• Inferences?
> Public documents eg. media items
> More recently: online forums, blogs
• etc.
When might you find an open ended question like
‘How do you deal with stress at work?’
- Interviews, semi-structured interviews
* Qualitative component of questionnaires (eg. mix of quant & qual items)
Distingish btn Structured and semi structured interviews. ADV and DIS?
Structured: impose a structure with set questions to be asked, a certain interview protocol.
Semi-structured: can follow up on questions
• Probes: sub-questions used to gain further information
• Allows clarification & elaboration
• When you say …., what do you mean?
Idiographic approach in interviews is used when
when youre interested in a particular individual
e.g. life story, e.g. celebrity, clinical
Mcadams called it a ‘life story interview’.
Basically what we looked at it in personality tutes.
e. g. i) Tell me about the happiest moments in your life
ii) What about the saddest points?
What is involved in thematic analysis of these studies?
What is the ‘data’?
What is axial and open coding?
Systematic categorisation of data
What is the ‘data’: words, phrases, sentences,
paragraphs
CODING: (coding variables that emerge in the data)
> Open coding: the process of selecting & naming categories from the analysis of the data
> Axial coding: Identifying themes
(patterns) within the data
Attempting to plot the interactions b/w
these variables
Describe the 4 levels on the coding pyramid
Level 1) INITIAL CODING/OPEN CODING: involves thematic analysis (see certain themes
that come up and highlight them in different codes). e.g. refugee has a lot of themes of hope and fear and journeys.
Level 2) FOCUSED CODING/ CATEGORY DEVELOPMENT:
Involves reexamining level 1 and focusing them to make them more specific. e.g. fear of war, hope of belonging,
Level 3) AXIAL/ THEMATIC CODING:
Previous coding developed to make highly refined themes. Also links between different things made e.g. Fear of Journey
Level 4) THEORIES: theories can emerge from saturated themes.
What is grounded theory referring to?
• Analysis of the data without preconceived hypothesis
• Examining the relationships b/w concepts
• Making a THEORY out of the data
• Data saturation: Gathering data until
no new information
• Generating Thematic maps
Is all qualitative r grounded theory?
- No, Not all qualitative research is Grounded Theory
- Sometimes we have a theory that we are testing
- Then we can identify relevant passages and code them appropriately
What is NVIVO?
• Qualitative data computer packages available which help to arrange & sort data
e.g. links things through, colour codes things .
Advantages and dis of qualitative r?
How to overcome possible disadvantages?
- Rich description of data (instead of just measuring things you get to talk to them in depth).
- Need fewer Ss
Dis:
• Coding/categorising: more difficult than statistical analysis
• Very time-consuming
• Subjectivity? Biases? Little easier to impose biases. bad.
How to fix this possibly?
• Increasing objectivity- Blind raters (ie. double-blind) (can get someone else to do your coding without knowing what your hypothesis is) inter-rater comparison, mixed methods approach.
What is a mixed methods approach called?
Triangulation:
-Using combination of quantitative & qualitative analyses/methods
-Using more than one method to study
the same research question
What four reasons could justify why someone would use mixed methods?
- Complementarity: Develop deeper understanding of a research problem (comparing or contrasting results from both qual and quant)
- Development: Results from one study help develop or inform the other method
- Initiation: Clarifying contradictions in findings
- Expansion: To extend the breadth and range of a study
( Examples: Mixed-method designs)

Example of mixed design
Remind me what complementarity refers to.
• Comparing/contrasting qualitative & quantitative findings (Complementarity)
Example: • Evaluation of LIFELINE services • Quantitative phone survey (McClennan, 1990) [7 point Likert scale] • Caring, accepting, helpful, supportive • Qualitative semi-structured interview • Findings: multi-dimensional meaning
What is a qual-QUANT mixed design?
Main part of study is quantitative but qual will be conducted first. e.g. to find out what self esteem is first.(Development!)
• eg. exploratory qualitative study used as a basis
for major quantitative study
What is a quant-QUAL mixed design?
Quantitative study done first but qualitative is main primary goal of study. (Development!)
• eg. quantitative screen study used to identify Ss
for large-scale qualitative stud
What is a QUANT-qual mixed design?
Primary quantitative study first with secondary follow-up qualitative study (Initiation!) eg. exploring aspects of a quantitative study with qualitative research
e.g. say something is strange going on in quantitative
study e.g. ppl happy in self report but also considering suicide, might bring them in for interviews further.
What is a QUAL-quant mixed design?
Primary qualitative study first with
secondary follow-up quantitative study
(Expansion!)
eg. testing whether qualitative findings transfer to other populations
Conclusion:
• Since the world consists of both qualities & quantities, as scientist we are naturally interested in both
• Qualitative research: potentially rich but complex • Issues of subjectivity & bias…. in BOTH
qualitative & quantitative research

Mixed methods provides best & worst of both worlds
:)
You get the … BESSSTTTTT OF BOTH WORLDS
Still havent done these readings
- Hesse-Biber & Leavy (2006). The practice of qualitative research. Ch 9: Mixed methods [available on iLearn]
- Textbook section 13.4 (both editions)
Note tb one is only like 4 small pages. Highly important.
Remember need 90%+ in exam.
Still havent done these readings
- Hesse-Biber & Leavy (2006). The practice of qualitative research. Ch 9: Mixed methods [available on iLearn]
- Textbook section 13.4 (both editions)
Note tb one is only like 4 small pages. Highly important.
Remember need 90%+ in exam.
