Qualitative Research Methods

What is qualitative research? Research that focuses on how individuals and groups view and understand the world and construct meaning out of their experiences. focuses on the understanding of research phenomena in situ, within their naturally-occurring context(s). teases out the meaning(s) the phenomena have for the actors or participants. Aims to understand the processes (e.g. why and how and which decisions are made) rather than just the outcomes (e.g. dropping-out of school or not).

Three basic data gathering techniques Participant observation, or ethnographic fieldwork Interviews—individual or group Content analysis of social artefacts (usually documents, but also photographs) Each of these can be carried out in more or less structured and more or less participatory ways

What methods are available for use in qualitative research? Case studies Focus groups In-depth interviews Semi-unstructured or unstructured interviews Life histories, oral history Community mapping, time-lines Observation, fieldwork Diaries, other personal documents Time-use studies Life-line analysis

Why do qualitative research? If we don’t know the contours of the topic, it can be exploratory research If we are interested in processes, sequences of events and reasons people give to explain what happened If we want to explore the relationships between people and their effects on actions If we want to explore in depth the meanings people themselves use to make sense of their own lives

What is not Qualitative Social Research? Quantitative research (e.g. large-scale questionnaire-based surveys): but are there some ‘qualitative’ elements even here? Pure Observation (e.g. behind one-way mirrors): qualitative researchers want to understand the meanings of what they see Literary research (e.g. purely text-based analyses)

Relationship to other methods Studies or particular sections of projects may rely more heavily on one data-gathering method: some may reject any kind of quantification, while others ‘count’ some events or views for particular purposes, or are designed to complement other social research (e.g. surveys). So, there is no necessary opposition between quantitative and qualitative methods: one difference is between depth (learning a lot about a few people), and breadth (learning less about a lot of people).

Possible forms of research Purely quantitative (e.g. national census) Qualitative within quantitative (e.g. some questions that are not pre-coded) Quantitative within qualitative (e.g. some background questions that allow counting) Pure qualitative (e.g. some conversation analysis) Synergies between linked research …

Possible synergies between qualitative and quantitative research Qualitative before quantitative  to test question design,  to learn local terms,  to check acceptability of topics (like piloting)  to generate hypotheses for quantitative testing Qualitative after quantitative to test hypotheses based on correlations to understand puzzling findings

In practice? Very hard to keep quantitative and qualitative studies linked: –different time constraints –different theoretical paradigms –status differences and conflicts

Key requirements of qualitative approaches We should not invent the viewpoint of the people we are studying We should only attribute to them ideas about the world they actually hold, in order that we can truly understand their motives, reasons and actions. We want to discover the subjective qualities of the worlds these people live in.

Uses of qualitative research to try to "give voice" to marginalized groups; to formulate new interpretations of the historical and cultural significance of various events; to advance theory. Although in-depth, empirical qualitative studies may capture important facts missed by more general, quantitative studies, policy-makers need to be persuaded of the generalisability of their findings. Strategic (or purposive) sampling may help with this.

Issues of reliability and validity The qualitative researcher (in some important ways) is the research tool –Need for reflexivity by the researcher –Need to report on how ‘positionality’ matters Strengths: validity is maximisable Weaknesses: reliability is an issue that will continue to concern some audiences for our findings. How can we engage with this?