Qualitative Research
- Darlene Edgar
Center for Research Quality. (2015, August 13). Overview of qualitative research methods [Video]. YouTube. Overview of Qualitative Research Methods
Focus and Quality of Experience:
Qualitative research focuses on the quality or meaning of experiences.
Emphasizes subjective experiences.
Aligned with constructivism or interpretivism.
Objectives of Qualitative Research:
Aims to understand, describe, and discover.
Flexible, evolving, or emergent in nature.
Research itself is considered the instrument.
Qualitative Research Approaches:
Involves exploration, description, and interpretation.
Includes case studies, grounded theory, ethnography, phenomenology, and narrative approaches.
Case studies are noted as the most flexible and widely used.
Data Collection Methods:
Utilizes interviews, documents, focus groups, and observations.
Researchers prepare and organize data for analysis.
Data Analysis and Presentation:
Involves reducing data into themes.
Data can be presented in narrative or graphic form.
Ensuring Validity:
Validity in qualitative research is ensured through:
Prolonged engagement.
Rich, thick description.
Triangulation.
Member checking.
Discrepant information.
Clarifying research biases.
Peer debriefing.
External audit.
Choosing Qualitative Research:
Considerations include:
Nature of the phenomenon.
Research objectives.
Intent to quantify or describe.
Preparation for Qualitative Research:
Review existing research studies.
Consider strengths and weaknesses.
Review literature on qualitative research methods.
Engage in self-study modules.
Bansal, P., Smith, W. K., & Vaara, E. (2018). New ways of seeing through qualitative research. Academy of Management Journal, 61(4), 1189–1195. New Ways of Seeing through Qualitative Research.
Diverse Forms of Qualitative Research:
Qualitative research extends beyond case-based positivist approaches with systematically coded data.
Encompasses process studies, engaged scholarship, historical studies, discourse studies, paradox as a method, dialectical inquiry, and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis.
Interpretation and New Insights:
Qualitative data necessitates interpretation for discerning patterns and insights.
Qualitative research offers new insights and introduces theories in novel directions, enabling a broader framework through inductive theorizing grounded in data.
Variance-Based Case Studies:
Focus on understanding relationships between well-defined constructs that transcend specific contexts.
Follows a positivist paradigm and closely relates to quantitative research.
Process Studies:
Explore change, emergence, adaptation, and transformation.
Observes flows, changes, and relationality, exploring the morphing and changing of competing logics, goals, and identities over time.
Engaged Scholarship:
Researchers are inseparable from their context, emphasizing connections between researchers and subjects.
Real-time engagement that may not always make it to journals due to difficulty in describing experiences.
Historical Studies:
Utilizes historical data to understand social, cultural, and institutional construction of organizational and managerial phenomena.
Different approaches include realist, interpretive, and poststructuralist, each offering unique perspectives.
Discourse Studies:
Includes content analysis, conversational analysis, critical discourse analysis, Foucauldian discourse analysis, and narrative studies.
Focuses on socially constructed or poststructuralist understanding of social reality through detailed linguistic analysis.
Core Principles for Qualitative Scholars:
Acknowledge epistemological stance and assumptions.
Ensure internal consistency among research questions, data, and analysis.
Prioritize authenticity, detail, and clarity in argumentation and writing style.
Avoid force-fitting work into existing templates; maintain flexibility and uniqueness.
Denzin, N. K. (2017). Critical qualitative inquiry. Qualitative Inquiry, 23(1), 8–16. https://journals-sagepub-com.libraryservices.yorkvilleu.ca/doi/full/10.1177/1077800416681864
Challenges to Quantifiable Evidence:
Governments selectively choose evidence, limiting critical examination of assumptions.
Need to unsettle traditional concepts of research and evidence.
Role of Qualitative Research in Social Justice:
Qualitative research provides moral authority for resisting oppression and giving voice to marginalized groups.
Ethically responsible agenda involves centering oppressed voices, revealing sites for change, affecting social policy, and promoting change in the inquirer's life.
Critique of Traditional Beliefs in Qualitative Research:
Historical focus on objectivism and theoretical interpretation is critiqued as complicit with colonialism.
The international qualitative inquiry community adopts a critical interpretive approach, incorporating various disciplines and methods.
Criticisms of Qualitative Inquiry:
Varied criticisms include claims of nonscientific, fictional, or yielding low-quality research.
Qualitative research faces challenges in ensuring methodological certainty in the social sciences.
Themes in New Paradigm Dialogues:
Emphasize openness to critique, collaboration across diverse methods, and avoiding oversimplification.
Acknowledge complexity, interconnectedness, and the need to respect paradigm shifts.
Agendas: Intellectual, Advocacy, Operational:
Call for a global community of qualitative inquiry with annual events at regional levels.
Advocacy agenda involves systematic contacts with political figures, media, and practitioners.
Operational agenda includes self-learning, building relationships with organizations, policymakers, and funders.
Safe Space for Reflection:
Importance of a safe space to address issues of racism, sexual and class boundaries, and share painful experiences.
Social Theater in Qualitative Research:
Translates private troubles into public issues, mobilizing social action and critical analysis.
Identifies different definitions of problems, exposes the limits of audit procedures, and nurtures critical consciousness.
After-Event Evaluation:
Inquires whether an event exposes and neutralizes internal biases, bears witness to injustice, and contributes to community-building and empowerment.
Underfunding and Struggles in Qualitative Research:
Qualitative scholars face challenges in obtaining funding, obtaining tenure, and lower journal impact scores.