Week 7 - Introduction to Qualitative Research

Question 1

Quantitative / Qualitative = Tools for specific jobs

Answer 1

Quantitative research
- Standardised & objective
- Experimentation & survey
- Aiming to discover ‘facts’ and ‘causes’
- Hypothesis testing
- Statistics

Qualitative research
- Subjective approach
- Talk & Text, Interviews; Focus groups …
- Aiming to explore; actors constructions
- Research Questions
- Interpretation of language use

Question 2

Quantitative approaches and Qualitative approaches

Answer 2

Quantitative approaches:
- Tests theories through hypotheses
- Experiments and surveys

Qualitative approaches:
- Develop a contextualised understanding of people
- Answers RQs to develop concepts to understand how people experience / understand a pheonomena within communities/everyday settings

Question 3

Characteristics of Qualitative Research

Answer 3

1. In psychology it is associated with social, humanistic,
   critical and applied psychology
2. It has specific assumptions about people and the
   world.
3. It recognises that research is related to social, cultural
   and historical contexts.
4. It looks at language in context.
5. It recognises that researchers are people too – (we are
   people studying people so need to be reflexive).

Question 4

In psychology QR is associated with social, humanistic, and applied psychology

Answer 4

• Sociological Social Psychology
• Critical Psychology
• Humanistic Psychology
• Applied Psychology

Issues of…
- Identity & the self
- Interaction & relationships
- Interventions and practice

Question 5

QR is associated with assumptions about the world

Answer 5

• Social constructionism; we live in world of shared (but changing) ideas frame our individual lives and relationships.

Question 6

QR is research in context (it studies everyday realities)

Answer 6

• all research is socially, historically, and culturally located.

Question 7

QR considers language in context

Answer 7

People create the world through language use; language use is data

Question 8

QR recognises researchers are people

Answer 8

• Reflexivity
• We need to consider how we are part of the research process
• Crictical awarness of our values and assumptions

1. Reporting findikngs
2. Choosing what to research
3. Gathering data
4. Interpreting data

Question 9

Characteristics of Qualitative Research

Answer 9

1. In psychology it is associated with social, humanistic,
   critical and applied psychology
2. It has specific assumptions about people and the
   world.
3. It recognises that research is related to social, cultural and historical contexts.
4. It looks at language in context.
5. It recognises that researchers are people too – (we are people studying people so need to be reflexive).

Question 10

From these characteristics = the jobs of a qualitative researcher is to….

Answer 10

• Work from the idea that we live in a world of
  shared (but changing) ideas which frame our
  lives and relationships.
• Analyse textual data to identify and interpret
  these social ‘framings’ so we can make sense of
  the meanings in psychological phenomena.
• Everyday life is full of psychology – by exploring
  this, we increase our understanding of people.