successful qualitative research: don't get too comfortable!

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Qualitative Experience

Polling Question

#1


Successful Qualitative Research:

Don’t Get Too Comfortable!

May 27th, 2015


Kristi Jackson, MEd PhDPresident, Queri, Inc.

Nicole ElliottExecutive Marketing Manager,

SAGE Publications


While we do our best to answer as many questions as we can, time constraints may not allow us to answer every question. Thank you for

understanding.

Send us your questions!

Send in your questions via the Question Box on your screen. →

Using Twitter? Use the hashtag

#SAGETalks.


Presentation Overview

• Seven tendencies in qualitative research• Focus in this presentation: Flexibility

• Metaphors and flexibility• Participant language• Presenting findings• Part of qualitative research practice

• Flexibility Metaphor: Qualitative research as a journey


With Gratitude:

• Lyn Richards (1998). Closeness to the data: The changing goals of qualitative data handling (Qualitative Health Research).

• Linda Gilbert (2002) Going the distance: ‘Closeness’ in qualitative data analysis software (International Journal of Social Research Methodology).

• George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1980). Metaphors We Live By.

• George Lakoff and Rafael E. Núñez (2002). Where Mathematics Comes From.

• Fred Davis (1973). The Martian and the convert: Ontological polarities in social research. (Urban Life and Culture).

• Johnny Saldaña (2015). Thinking Qualitatively: Methods of Mind.


7 Tendencies in Qualitative Research (not absolutes!)

1. Social science research

2. Holistic understandings

3. “Naturalistic” versus “Controlled” settings

4. Pursuit of “how” and “why” over “what”

5. Unstructured data (audio, video, interviews, observations . . . )

6. Complex craft of linking research questions, theories and methods

7. Flexible (Research Questions, Methods, Handling, Analysis, Reporting)


• Pen, Paper

• Qualitative Data Analysis Software (QDAS)

• Video recorder

• Eyes

• Ears

• Transcription machine

• Interviews

• Focus groups

• Field notes

• Archival research

• Surveys

• Conflict

• Critical

• Functional

• Poststructural

• Feminist

• Symbolic interaction

• Exchange

• Participant observation

• Emancipatory research

• Community based

• Case study

• Hypothesis testing

• Action research

• Constructivism

• Pragmatism

• Empiricism

• Rationalism

Tools Methods Methodologies Theories Epistemologies

6. Complex craft of linking research questions, theories and methods


Broad focus

Narrow focus

7. Flexibility


Seconds

Centuries


System

Element


Incident

Tradition


Insiders

Outsiders


Which is most important?

Polling Question

#2


• Saldaña (in Leavy) using the metaphor of acting to describe qualitative skills: • “. . . your work must be improvisational–acting, reacting, and

interacting with data on a moment-by-moment basis to determine what obstacles stand in your way and what strategies you should take to reach your goals.” (p. 581)

Flexibility and Improvisation


• Lakoff and Johnson: Orientational metaphor

Metaphors in everyday life

“I am in a good mood”

“I am feeling a little out of it”


Up and Down

Happy is up; sad is down

Conscious is up; unconscious is down

Health and life are up; sickness and death are down

Having control is up; being subject to control is down

More is up; less is down

Status is up; low status is down

Virtue is up; depravity is down

Examples


Closeness and Distance

Walk in my shoes

Monday morning quarterback

Externally driven (Inter)personally driven


“Qualitative research is an adventure”

NEAR

“Navigating the politics at this site is exhausting.”

“I am launching a study.”

“I love working in the field.”

“I am just going to dive in and see how it goes.”

FAR

“I can barely see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

“I need to get some distance to think about it.”

“Running matrix queries in NVivo gives me a topographical view.”

“That meeting was enough to make me jump ship.”

One Dimension of Research Flexibility: Researcher Closeness and Distance


• When you move closer to one thing, you move farther from another

Near and Far are always relative, not absolute


ConceptuallyVantage: Center PeripheryCulture: Incident TraditionStructure: Element SystemStakeholders: Insiders OutsidersSelf: Engaged ObservingTiming: Past Present

PracticallySensory: Audio, video, written, motion, experientialSpeed/tempo: Slow, fast, reverseTiming: Put down, pick upData: Distill, expandLiterature: Connect, diverge

Tips for moving near and far


Inspirational video on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwwqlsSH4Hw

What kind of journey are you on?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwwqlsSH4Hw


While we do our best to answer as many questions as we can, time constraints may not allow us to answer every question. Thank you for

understanding.

Send us your questions!

Send in your questions via the Question Box on your screen. →

Using Twitter? Use the hashtag

#SAGETalks.


Webinar recording, slides, and follow-up Q&A will be emailed to you and available on sagepub.com/sagetalks.

Thank you!

Kristi Jackson • Website: queri.com• Email: [email protected]

Be sure to check our website for updates on our webinar series!

http://www.sagepub.com/sagetalks


http://www.queri.com/

http://www.queri.com/

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]


successful qualitative research: don't get too comfortable!

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