Qualitative Research for Education – An Introduction to Theories and

Methods

Chapter 1 – Foundations of Qualitative Research for Education

• Graduate Professionalism

• Chapter 1 B&B / Merriam

• Qualitative Journal Article

• Quantitative Journal Article

May 11, 2010 - Agenda

• Qualitative research emerges out of anthropology and sociology

• Soft data – data that is rich in description (“thick rich description”) of people, places, and conversations

• Data collected by three main methods:• Archival research (document analysis)• Participant observation• In-depth interviewing

• Qualitative Field Work– ethnography

Chapter 1 – B & B

• Characteristics of Qualitative Research• Naturalistic – researchers collect data in the same

locations where data is naturally generated» Context

• Descriptive Data – data take the form of pictures and words rather than numbers

» Attempting to uncover social constructions and cultural assumptions

• Concern with Process» How do people negotiate meaning?» How do labels come to be applied?» How is common sense developed?

Chapter 1

• Inductive rather than deductive• Data is not gathered to necessarily prove or disprove

a hypothesis but rather is gathered to develop a theory or way to understand the social scene

• “casting a wide net”

Chapter 1

• Meaning from the perspective of the participant not the researcher

• Focus on capturing what the participant is doing to make sense or meaning of the situation (Remember the Titans)

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTNvbbTaCwY

Yoast: no thanks required, Coach. (thinking Boone wants to thank him, because Petey played well in his new position)

Boone: Thanks? You challenged my authority in front of the entire football team, Coach. Now, you think you're doing these boys a favor taking them aside every time I come down on them, protecting them from big bad Boone. You're cutting my legs from under me.

Yoast: Some of the boys just don't respond well to public criticism. I tell them what they need to know, but I don't humiliate them in front of the team.

Boone: Which boys are you talking about? Which ones you talking about? I come down on Bertier. I don't see you coddle him. Come down on Sunshine. Don't see you grab his hand, take him off to the side. Which boys are you talking about? Now I may be a mean cuss. But I'm the same mean cuss with everybody out there on that football field. The world don't give a damn about how sensitive these kids are, especially the young black kids. You ain't doin' these kids a favor by patronizing them. You crippling them; You crippling them for life.

Chapter 1

• Disciplinary Traditions– Chicago Sociology

» Emphasized an urban social experience» Studies marginalized groups

– The Sociology of Education» Waller’s methods

• “children and teachers are not disembodied intelligences, not instructing machines and learning machines, but whole human beings tied together in a complex maze of social interconnections”

• Strength of the description

Chapter 1

• European Connections• W.E.B. DuBois• Pittsburgh Survey

• Politics and Theory• Cooperative vs. Conflictual Approaches to Research

– Theoretical (methodology) drives your methods

• Critical Race Theory– Ladson-Billings & Tate– Narrative Story Telling– Adah Ward Randolph– http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/conte

nt_storage_01/0000019b/80/14/f4/77.pdf

• Postmodernists– Discourse analysis

Chapter 1

• What is Qualitative Research?– The most difficult part of the process is

analyzing qualitative data (analysis vs. interpretation)

– Improving the field of education through systematic inquiry is the goal of qualitative research.

– We use previous studies (literature in qualitative research / a.k.a. scholarship) to “help illuminate your framework, as well as shape the actual problem statement and purpose of the study”

Chapter 1 - Merriam

• What is qualitative research?– For our purposes qualitative research is applied

research in the field of education– The goal of the research is to influence

“administrators and policy makers to improve the ways things are done”

– Ohio example of EBM – evidence based model– At a basic level, research is a systematic process

by which we know more about something than we did before engaging in the process (of research)

– Action research, evaluation, applied, basic

Chapter 1 - Merriam

• The Nature of Qualitative Research– Experimental approaches vs. uncovering the

meaning– What are the problems or shortcomings of each

type?

• Where does Qualitative Research Come From?– Rooted in anthropology & sociology– Chicago School– Grounded Theory - inductive

Chapter 1 - Merriam

• Philosophical Perspectives– Positivist, interpretive, & critical– Positivist assumes an existence of reality

• Truth with a capital “T”• Knowledge gained is scientifically acquired

– Interpretive assumes that reality is socially constructed• Multiple realities of a single event

– Critical research• Thomas (1993) theorizes that the emphasis is on what

could be not just what is

– Postmodernism• Playful and creative – repudiates what is

Chapter 1 – Merriam

• Characteristics of Qualitative Research– Understanding meaning that people have

constructed– Goal is understanding meaning from the

participants’ perspectives not the researcher(s)• Endeavors to explain, not predict (not to generalize)

– Researcher is the primary instrument• Subjectivities not ignored but rather considered as to

their impact on shaping data collection, analysis, and interpretation

– Inductive process• Opposite of hypothesis testing

Chapter 1 - Merriam

• (continued)– Rich Description

• Describing context, participants, and activities of interest

– Emergent and flexible– Nonrandom (purposeful)– Ambiguous

Chapter 1 - Merriam