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Qualitative
Research and Why might
you consider doing such
research?

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 A. The Allure of Qualitative Research: A
Topical Panorama of Study

B. The Distinctiveness of Qualitative Research

C. The Multifaceted World of Qualitative

Research

D. Building Trustworthiness and Credibility into

Qualitative research

Floor A Floor B Floor C Floor D

 Floor A
The Allure of Qualitative Research: A
Topical Panorama of Study

Are you ready?

Start!
But wait! Before we start here is a little preview of whats
ahead.

Preview— What you should learn from this section:

1. The broad variety of topics that can be studied through qualitative research,
unlike other types of social science research.

2. The presence of qualitative research studies in many different academic

disciplines and professions.
 Why Might you consider doing such research?

● Why do qualitative research? You just might want to study a real-world

setting, discover how people cope and thrive in that setting and capture the
contextual richness of people’s everyday lives. Just consider the variety of topics
that you might be able to study.

● You could focus on a specific group of people, such as homeless women,

spend many nights as a volunteer in a homeless shelter, and help others to
understand how the women deal with their everyday challenges, inside and
outside of the shelter (e.g., Elliot Liebow, 1993). Along the way, you might
derive insights into how (and why) the women came to such a circumstance.
Tell Them Who I Am accounts the everyday life of homeless women in
Washington D.C. Liebow's purpose for the book was to "write a
straight forward description of shelter life," "see the world of
homelessness as homeless women see and experience it," and explain
"how these women remained human in the face of inhuman
conditions.“\

Liebow, Elliot (1995). Tell Them Who I Am. Penguin Books.

Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliot_Liebow
• Your overall goal would be to unravel the power,
control, and other motives each conversant might
be pursuing—potentially a helpful way of
understanding physician–patient, teacher–student,
and peer–peer relationships in their real-world
settings.
 There are many other examples of qualitative research. They touch
on all walks of life. Close to all of our lives, the changing role of women
in American society has been the subject of a good number of studies,
such as:
• Ruth Sidel’s (2006) • Pamela Stone’s
inquiry into how (2007) examination of
single mothers why successful career
confront their social women drop out to
and economic stay at home; and
challenges;

• Kathryn Edin and Maria

Kefalas’s (2005) study of
why women with low
incomes “put motherhood
before marriage.”
The allure of qualitative research is that it enables you to conduct in-depth studies
about a broad array of topics, including your favorites, in plain and everyday terms. Moreover,
qualitative research offers greater latitude in selecting topics of interest because other research
methods are likely to be constrained by:

 the inability to establish the necessary research conditions (as in an experiment);

 the unavailability of sufficient data series or lack of coverage of sufficient variables

(as in an economic study);

 the difficulty in drawing an adequate sample of respondents and obtaining a

sufficiently high response rate (as in a survey); or

 other limitations such as being devoted to studying the past but not ongoing events
(as in a history).
Did you learn
something?
Qualitative research is a form of research in many different
academic and professional fields. As a result, the large
Things to remember number of students and scholars who conduct qualitative
studies may be part of different social science disciplines.
(e.g., sociology, anthropology, political science, or
psychology) or different professions (e.g., education,
management, nursing, urban planning, and program
evaluation). In any of these fields, Qualitative research
represents an attractive and fruitful way of doing research.
 Floor B
The Distinctiveness of Qualitative Research

Are you ready for the next

floor?

Start!
 #watchandlearn
What is the difference
? between Qualitative and
Quantitative Research

What is a qualitative
? research

TAP ME
What would be the
? easier task? Qualitative
or Quantitative
 What are the two things that we need to look
out for this topic?

Preview— What you should learn from this section:

1. The five features distinguishing qualitative research from other kinds of social science
research.

2. How the five features point to specific ways of practicing qualitative research.
 Five Features of Qualitative Research

1. Studying the meaning of people’s lives, under real-world conditions;

2. Representing the views and perspectives of the people (labeled throughout this
book, as the participants) in a study;

3. Covering the contextual conditions within which people live;

4. Contributing insights into existing or emerging concepts that may help to explain
human social behavior; and

5. Striving to use multiple sources of evidence rather than relying on a single source
alone.
 4. Contributing insights into
existing or emerging concepts
2. Representing the views that may help to explain
the social, institutional,
human social behavior
People studying people and perspectives of the
and environmental
in their everyday roles people in a study conditions within which
may be a big help to people’s lives take place. The use of multiple sources of
you as you understand In evidence rather than a primary
deeper how people many ways, these one, will strengthen the study’s
lived under real world contextual conditions may validity.
strongly influence all Our eagerness to look
conditions. Capturing their for answers and
perspectives is a major human events.
opinions would help
purpose of a qualitative create person-to-
study. Thus, the events person interactions
and ideas emerging can designed to develop a
represent the meanings deeper perspective on a
1. Studying the meaning given to real-life events topic based on the
opinions of a number 5. Striving to use multiple
of people’s lives, under by the people who live 3. Covering the
of research subjects. sources of evidence rather
real-world conditions them. contextual conditions
than relying on a single
within which people
source alone.
live
 Floor C
The Multifaceted World of Qualitative
Research

What are you waiting for!

Start!
 What you should learn from this section:

Preview—1.
1. How human events may reflect multiple realities.
2. How the study of such events, despite their uniqueness, can still follow common
data collection and analysis techniques.
3. The multiple methodological variations within qualitative research.
4. Two strategies for proceeding to do a qualitative study (“mediating strategies”) in
light of the rich mosaic of qualitative research.
The breadth of what is called qualitative research embraces a mosaic of
orientations as well as methodological choices. Taking advantage of the richness of the
mosaic offers an opportunity to customize a qualitative study.

Three conditions in particular contribute to the mosaic:

• the potential multiplicity of interpretations of the human events being studied;

• the potential uniqueness of these events; and
• the methodological variations available within qualitative research.
 Multiple Interpretations of the Same Events?

The initial condition derives from qualitative research’s desire to capture the
meaning of real-world events from the perspective of a study’s participants.

Two complementary terms—emic and etic—though now somewhat outdated,

clarify the potential duality, if not multiplicity, of meanings.

• An emic perspective attempts to capture participants’ indigenous meanings of

real-world events. In contrast,
• An etic perspective represents the same set of real-world events, but from an
external perspective—typically that of the researcher.
Milton Rosa; Daniel Clark Orey, (Oct./Dec. 2012) Educ. Pesqui. vol.38 no.4 São Paulo 
Retrieved from https://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1517-
97022012000400006&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en
 “thick description”

Thick description is a social sciences qualitative research technique that gives detailed
descriptions and interpretations of situations observed by a researcher. The term was invented by social
anthropologists Gilbert Ryle and Clifford Geertz.

• Thick description involves writing detailed narratives or ‘vignettes’ explaining situations and their
background ‘context’.
• The goal is not just to describe a situation, but also add details so that readers understand the significant
and complex cultural meanings underpinning any observable scenario.
Nevertheless, no matter how successful these confrontations might be,
researchers cannot in the final analysis avoid their own research lenses in rendering
reality. Thus, the goal is to acknowledge that multiple interpretations may exist
and to be sure that as much as possible is done to prevent a researcher from inadvertently
imposing her or his own (etic) interpretation onto a participant’s (emic)
interpretation.
In this sense, fieldwork descriptions are “constructed” (Guba, 1990). Even a
field “setting” is not a “pre-given natural entity” but is something that is
constructed.

When studying the culture of a people or of a place, the

researcher’s descriptions may be considered second- or third-order
interpretations.

In other words, real-life encounters dominate fieldwork. In these situations,

your five senses will be the main modalities for measuring and assessing information
from the field. You also will be constrained by your ability to recall and
remember actions, and you will be exercising your own discretion in deciding what
to record. All these functions mean that you will be serving as the main research
Instrument.
Realist vs Relativist Types of Inquiry
 The Uniqueness of Human Events?
Human events may be considered as either being entirely unique or having some
properties that are relevant and potentially applicable to other situations.

Within qualitative research, phenomenological studies, emphasizing hermeneutic

or interpretive analyses, are most strongly devoted to capturing the uniqueness of
events.

phenomenology are to clarify, describe, and make sense of the structures and dynamics of pre-reflective human experience. hermeneutics
aims to articulate the reflective character of human experience as it manifests in language and other forms of creative signs. 

René Rosfort (Mar 2019) Phenomenology and Hermeneutics Retrieved from

https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198803157.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780198803157-e-29
As an example, as part of a psychological study, you might immerse yourself in the lives
of persons being trained to practice family medicine. In carrying out such an inquiry, you
might follow them during their initial years of residency, share their particular struggles,
contradictions, and conflicts, and attempt to derive a deep understanding of what it has been
like for those persons to undergo such a training experience
 Whether to Emulate One of Qualitative
Research’s Variants

• Action research • Grounded Theory

• Case Study • Life History
• Ethnography • Narrative Inquiry
• Ethnomethodology • Participant-observer Study
• Feminist research • Phenomenological Study

Despite these variations, the common qualities that distinguish qualitative

research across all of its variations also have persisted and become better recognized.
Regardless of any particular variation, virtually all qualitative research appears to
follow most, if not all, of the five features of qualitative research described earlier.
 Mediating Strategies
You can mediate within the mosaic of orientations and methodologies in either
of two ways. Both ways help you to proceed with a qualitative study, whether you
plan to follow one of the variations or to conduct a generalized form of qualitative
research.

- ways of knowing
epistemological location - based in part on its positioning on such dimensions as the relativist–
realist or unique–not unique views of real-world events.

epistemological similarity - concerned with the common endeavor of establishing their trustworthiness
and credibility by being transparent, methodic, and empirically based.
 Floor D
Building Trustworthiness and Credibility into
Qualitative research

Ready for the Last Round?

Let’s Go!
 Reminder!

Preview
• Three objectives for building the trustworthiness and credibility of
a qualitative study.
 Three objectives for building the trustworthiness and
credibility of a qualitative study.

TRANSPARENCY
The general idea is that others should be able to scrutinize your work and
the evidence used to support your findings and conclusions. The scrutiny
can result in criticism, support, or refinement. Moreover, any person,
whether a peer, a colleague, or a participant in your qualitative research
study, should be able to undertake such an examination. In this manner,
the final study should be able to withstand close scrutiny by others (e.g.,
Yardley, 2009, pp. 243–250).

scrutiny - critical observation or examination.

 Methodic-ness

• Being methodic means following some orderly set of research procedures and
minimizing whimsical or careless work whether a study is based on an explicitly
defined research design or on a more informal but nonetheless rigorous field routine.
• Being methodic also includes avoiding unexplained bias or deliberate distortion in
carrying out research.
• Finally, being methodic also means bringing aCREDITS:
sense
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Whimsical- unpredictable, impulsive action

 Eisenhart (2006)

Eisenhart also urges qualitative researchers to demonstrate that the data and
interpretations are accurate from some point of view [emphasis added], which
leads in particular to a sensitivity about the need to report. Especially relevant
in recording such self-reflexivity may be a researcher’s journal, which “will
contain a record of experiences, ideas, fears, mistakes, confusions,
breakthroughs, and problems that arise”.
 Adherence to Evidence

● A final objective is that ● Regardless of the kind of data being

qualitative research be collected, a study’s conclusions should be
based on an explicit set of drawn in reference to those data. If there are
evidence. multiple perspectives, Anderson-Levitt
(2006, p. 289) notes that analysis may mean
making sense from each perspective and
also testing the evidence for consistency
across different sources—with deliberate
efforts made to seek out contrary cases to
strengthen the findings even more.
 Terms that we need to remember

The evidentiary objective is pursued throughout this book. The objective

is reflected by use of the term empirical research, also found
throughout the book. The goal is to base conclusions on data that have
been collected and analyzed fairly.

The inductive approach helps to display another aspect of the mosaic of

qualitative research—its diversity in representing numerous academic
disciplines and professions.
Recap for Chapter 1:
Terms, phrases, and concepts that you can now define:
1. Participants in a qualitative study 11. Phenomenological studies

2. Contextual conditions 12. Formally recognized variations in qualitative

3. Multiple sources of evidence research

4. Reflexivity 13. Epistemological location in contrast to

5. Emic–etic epistemological similarity

6. Naturalistic ethnography 14. Transparency

7. Thick description 15. Methodic-ness

8. The construction of fieldwork descriptions 16. Empirical research

9. The field researcher as the main research instrument

10. Relativist versus realist types of inquiry