Qualitative Research

CHAPTER 9 &10

• Qualitative Research is especially good for research on previously unstudied processes and unanticipated phenomena (new issues and hard to study groups)

QUALITATIVE METHODS

• Best insights may come from ordinary activities: observing, participating, listening and talking

• But, Researchers use these techniques in a more scientific way than found in everyday social interactions

• Researcher must observe keenly, take notes systematically, question strategically and invest more time in reaching conclusions

Characteristics

• Field focused – (research on Katrina)

• Information is verbal (not numbers)

• Analysis is a synthesis of info perceived and interpreted (subjective)

• Often inductive (process generated from specific observations not theory)

• Goal is to search for meaning in situations

Most Popular Qualitative Research Designs

1.Observation – researcher develops a sustained relationship with subjects while they go about their normal activities.

(roles on continuum: covert observer, participant observer, complete observer)

Elaboration on these to follow later !

2.Intensive Interview – open-ended unstructured questioning to gather in-depth information about subjects feeling, experiences and perceptions

3. Focus Groups – unstructured group interviews. A facilitator encourages discussion among participants on topics of interest (more to come)

4. Case Studies – well-orchestrated short story that presents essential info and data on a specific unit: individuals, programs, cities, counties, worksite, business or social organization, cultures etc.

Steps in Qualitative Research Process (Chapter 9)

• Reflect on setting• Develop Goals• Sample and collect data• Describe the data• Organize the data• Gather and Analyze• Connect different data segments• Corroborate the credibility of connections• Interpret

Focus of Qualitative Research

• Natural behaviors and artifacts• Natural social processes (as they happen

and relatively undisturbed)• Seeing social setting as subject sees it• Avoiding artificiality• Considering the context in which social

interaction occurs, the interconnected nature of social relations and sequencing of events

• Observing and interacting with subjects in their natural setting

Warning: Be prepared to be affected on personal and emotional level

• INDEPTH LOOK AT THE MAIN RESEARCH DESIGNS USED IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

Design # 1 - Observation

• Researcher can take on a continuum of roles: Complete Observer, Participant Observer (partial observer/partial participant), Covert observer

1.Complete Observer – observe as things happen but don’t participate. Observer tries to identify who, what why, where and how of activities in settings. i.e. Ellen observes our class

Gradually develops a theory that accounts for what is observed

limitations

• Complete Observers presence alters the social situation (reactive effects)

• Smaller setting – larger observer impact

• Larger setting - less effect on social processes

2. Participant Observer:

• Some active participation in the setting

• Participate enough to develop rapport and get a sense of what subjects experience

Example – Diamond going into nursing home to observe. Has to take a course to get certified to work there. While working he observes. Does not keep secret he is doing research as well.

limitations

• Ethical dilemmas arise.

• Have to try to pinpoint effect of your presence

• Need to find some physical space to concentrate on research

• Have to modify role as circumstances require it

3. Covert Observer• Keeps the research secret • Tries to act like the subjects in a social setting• Why Covert?

1. Minimize reactive effect

2. Gain entry into inaccessible settings (Laud Humphreys as ‘watch queen’ in Tea Room Trade, Alfred in Satanists Cult, Goffman working in mental hospital

limitations

• Can’t openly take notes or record Must write up notes based on memory and at

times when natural to be away from subjects• Can’t ask suspicious questions• Role playing is difficult – have to keep up role at

all times• Serious ethical issues• Researches reactions may not be same as

actual members of the group (good actor)

• Going Native – More involved researcher gets in the social situation the more personal issues become and the greater the risk of getting too personally involved

• Entering the Field – may make social faux pas or may need to use an informant

• Ethical issues in Covert Research

In spite of limitations: if covert research was banned much important information would be lost

Some degree of deception may be justified for the knowledge gained.

Covert researcher must maintain confidentiality of others, keep commitments to others and should minimize directly lying to subjects

Necessities of Observation Research

• Gatekeeper – person who grants researcher access to the setting

• Key Informant – a knowledgeable insider who knows the group culture and is willing to share access and insights with the researcher

Tips from Experienced Participant Observers about Covert Observer

• Develop a plausible explanation for yourself and your study

• Maintain support of key individuals in group

• Don’t be too aggressive• Don’t violate implicit norms• Be a reflective listener• Ask sensitive questions only of informants

with whom you have a good relationship

• Let participants know you as a person, but don’t make too much of yourself

• Don’t fake a social similarity with your subjects• Do show a friendly interest in them• Avoid giving or receiving, money or other gifts

without violating norms of reciprocity• Can be active participant, including helping

others, but Don’t go overboard• Avoid taking sides or being used in inter-group

conflicts

Guidelines for Planning Observation Research

• Consider how you want to relate to subjects as people

• Speculate about what personal problems may arise and how you will respond

• Stay Grounded -Keep in touch with other researchers and personal friends outside research area

• Your standard of conduct should make you comfortable as a person while respecting integrity of subjects

• Develop a standard form on which to record info• Observe until saturation point is reached (no new

info is forthcoming)

Design # 2 -Intensive Interviewing

• Can be used alone or as part of Observation technique

• Doesn’t reveal as much as participant observation (what they say, without what they do)

• Goal – develop comprehensive picture of subjects background, attitudes, actions and their understanding of their world

• Researcher probes understandings and engages subject in dialogue (But don’t impose own ideas)

Technique

• Follow a preplanned outline of topics• Let interview flow in a unique direction in

response to subjects experiences and interests• Adapt as necessary• Note nonverbal cues and expressions of feelings

and interests• Be free to follow the data where it leads• Interview until saturation point is reached (No

additional info is forthcoming)

Design # 3 -Focus Groups

• Groups of individuals (usually unrelated) that are formed by a researcher and then led in group discussion of a topic for 1 or more hours

• Researcher (facilitator) asks specific questions and guides discussion

• Resulting info is qualitative and relatively unstructured

• Goal – spontaneous exchange and development of ideas

Characteristics

• Most focus groups involve 7-10 people

• May or may not know one another (could be co-workers)

• Homogeneous groups more convivial and willing to share feelings

• But, Heterogeneous groups may stimulate more ideas

Design # 4 -Case Study

• A case is one unit of analysis• A case study catches the complexity of a single

case: organization, community social group, family, or individual (Sybil)

• A case must be treated as an integrated social unit that must be studied holistically and in its particularity

• Emphasizes nuances, sequentiality of happenings in context, the wholeness

• Creates a thick, rich description that conveys a sense of what it is like from the standpoint of the natural actors in that setting

• Goal - to catch the complexity of a single case• Means months of fieldwork to get single case

study describing an individual, village, community culture, a program

• Can have smaller cases within overall case – classes within a school

• Layered or nested components – In Street Corner Society (William Whyte) uses single-community case study (Cornerville) which includes stories of several lower income youth

• Case includes all info about each case: Interview data, observations, records or files,

newspaper clippings, impressions and statements of others about the case

• Case Records – pull together and organize the voluminous case data into comprehensive, primary resource package

• Case study takes reader into case situation and experience: person’s life, group’s life, program’s life. You are telling the story.

• In individuals look for epiphanies (moments of major importance)

• In programs, organizations and communities look for critical incidents (crises, transitions, organizational lessons)

• Could do a case study of Lance Armstrong• Could do a case study of Tom Peters at

Harley Davidson (rundown, revamped, revitalized)

• Case studies can be both qualitative and quantitative

• Case studies are good for comparative studies (bars that banned smoking and those that didn’t)

• Date collection for Case is like being a journalist

Want to know: who involved, what they did,what was context or setting, when it happened, why participants did what they did, what caused changes to take place

When to Use Case Study

• When it is the best way to get at the whole story and rich detail

• When you need to understand the process

• When a program or individual is unique

• When outcomes warrant further study

• When something occurs in unpredictable or unusual environment

Data for Individual Cases

• Can include – Interviews with subject and those that know

subject Clinical Records Background and statistical info A life history profile Things person has produced (diaries, photos,

writings, paintings) Personality or other test results

Ethical Issues- Qualitative• The very act of research imposes something

unnatural on the setting• Researcher actions may influence or harm

subjects especially if Covert observation is used

1. Voluntary participation, 2.Subject well-being,

3. Identity disclosure, 4.Confidentiality (don’t ID subjects, in reports or publications 5.Appropriate boundaries 6. Researcher safety 7.Advocacy- Intervention or taking up their cause

Strengths

• Natural setting

• Richer data, verstehen

• Observation of body language

• Can study hard to enter groups

• Can study processes

• Good for exploratory studies

Weaknesses

• Subjective meaning (observer bias)• Ethical issues• Going native• Can’t have representative samples, so can’t

generalize• Can’t replicate• Validity and reliability problems• Limited to certain situations and areas of study• No control• Hard to quantify• Can’t do large populations

Alternatives in Qualitative DesignsAnthropological -(Chapter 10)

• Traditional Ethnography – participant observation by a single investigator who immerses him/herself in the group for a long period of time (often years) (anthropology)

• Study of a culture or cultures that some group of people share

• Technique – Just being there• Example – Chagnon with Yanamamo or• Elijah Andersons ‘Code of the Street’

(Philadelphia’s Inner City) – culture of violence

• Ethnomethodology – focuses on the way that particpants being studied in a particular social setting create and sustain a sense of reality rather than describing the social world itself as is the process for Ethnographic researchers. How do the subjects construct their own subjective reality and maintain it.

• Conversation Analysis – looks at conversation as a process of social interaction. How we manage our relationships via conducting conversations that shape the relationship in one way or another. One talks and the other shapes their reply based on how they want the conversation or relationship to go etc.

• Comparative Analysis – compare same process in similar organizations in different cities, compare same social movement in different countries – i.e. homeless social organization in 8 different cities.

• Narrative Analysis – study narratives, read stories and classify into general patterns:

Morrill looked at conflict stories written by 9th graders and classified into action, expressive, moral or rational tales

• Analyst focuses on how respondents impose order on the flow of experiences in their lives to make sense of events and actions in which they have participated.

• One of Morril’s student tells his conflict story as just an action tale while another might couch the story in terms of his own moral or emotional feelings in telling the tale.

• Content Analysis – a survey of documents or records, messages or other forms of communication – look at newspapers for Nazi propaganda in WWII

• Is a form of textual analysis – can be quantified and statistically analyzed

• Text is coded and categorized – only lumped with qualitative analysis because categorizing may be subjective

• Can also be used for analyses of TV shows, movies, chat rooms etc. to monitor content

• Ethical Issues in alternative qualitative methods

Use and Misuse of results

Research Integrity-

Conflicts of interest over who own data and different stakeholders

• Grounded Theory – Build or ground theories from continuous observation

• Observations summarized into conceptual categories and categories tested through more observations

• Over time as conceptual categories are refined and linked a theory evolves

• Levitt,Swanger,Butler – perspectives of male perpetrators of domestic violence and isolationist strategy to avoid conflict

• Case-oriented analysis – seeks to understand the social processes and collective actions that reflect accurately the standpoint of the participants – look for common themes in the stories of crime victims about how they felt in the experience, how they changed afterwards.

• Look at the process from victims’ perspective to understand result

• Computer assisted qualitative data analysis uses computers to assist in creating and refining categories, tracing linkages between concepts and making comparisons between cases and events.

• There is computer software specifically designed to do this.

Ethics in Qualitative Data Analysis

• Privacy, confidentiality and anonymity

• Intervention and advocacy –can’t supress some parts of the analysis because of what you learn while doing it.

• Integrity and quality of the data analysis process.

• Work through problems of ownership of data and conclusions so it doesn’t

compromise your outcomes

Supervise the use of your results so they are not misused

Conclusions

Qualitative data analysis is complex

Ask yourself

Is what I have done authentic?

Have I mixed and matched the appropriate analysis methods?

Have I represented the participants and settings from their perspective rather than my own?