Qualitative Research

An Introduction to Methods and Designs

Stephen D. Lapan, MaryLynn T. Quartaroli, Frances J. Riemer, Stephen D. Lapan, MaryLynn T. Quartaroli, Frances J. Riemer

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781118118856
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Evaluation & Assessment in Education

The authors—noted scholars and researchers—provide an up-to-date guide to qualitative study design, data collection, analysis, and reporting. Step by step, the authors explain a range of methodologies and methods for conducting qualitative research focusing on how they are applied when conducting an actual study. The book includes methods of data collection, specific approaches to qualitative research, and current issues in the field. Specifically, chapters cover the methods, designs, and analyses related to the methodologies of history, case study, program evaluation, ethnography, autoethnography, narrative, life histories, emancipatory discourses, feminist perspectives, African American inquiry, indigenous studies, and practitioner qualitative research.

PART ONE: A QUALITATIVE FRAME OF MIND

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION TO QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

Stephen D. Lapan

MaryLynn T. Quartaroli

Frances Julia Riemer

Key Ideas

• Empirical knowledge may be generated using scientific or social scientific approaches to study both physical and human phenomena.
• Qualitative research, as contrasted with quantitative studies, places more emphasis on the study of phenomena from the perspective of insiders.
• Quantitative researchers attempt to remain independent of the phenomena they study with the aim of generalizing findings, whereas qualitative researchers immerse themselves, viewing meaning as more context- and time-specific and, in most cases, not generalizable.
• Qualitative research from the critical theoretical view uses interpretive frameworks but also reveals ways that power is embedded in social contexts.
• Research methods refer to the kinds of tools used to collect data in studies, whereas methodologies are the more comprehensive designs and frameworks used in investigations.
• The qualitative methodologies presented in this text share important themes, including the view that reality is complicated and socially constructed and that qualitative research designs must be open to change during investigations.

Most of us seek knowledge and understanding as we attempt to make sense of the world around us. We use whatever means available to us as we negotiate the events in our lives. In some instances we might use personal experience—knowing from earlier encounters that leaning against a cactus, for example, may not turn out well. Or we might rely on tradition, our well-developed habits—without thinking about it much, we decide to buy the same trustworthy automobile or go to the same coffee shop every morning. At other decision moments we may choose to depend on reasoning—we carefully examine the pros and cons before arriving at what we determine to be a logical conclusion about which car to purchase or coffeehouse to visit. And, finally, there are many circumstances in which we trust authority, the judgments of experts or respected others, to guide our final decision about such important areas as selecting a school or finding a good physician. So, as we consider the range of events and issues we must resolve, we are likely to apply any combination of personal experience, tradition, reasoning, and authority as our principal sources of knowledge.

Disciplined Inquiry

In research-based knowledge, conclusions are derived from carefully planned studies based on systematic observation using disciplined inquiry (involving an organized research plan or design that is considered acceptable by those with long experience in each relevant field of study). Characteristic of these inquiries are time-tested frameworks that are subject to critical review by peers in each area of investigation.

Some disciplines tend to focus on quantitative research. Chemists and other scientists conduct quantitative experimental research to study the physical world and its phenomena. Economists employ micro- and macroanalyses to study production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Some sociologists use demographics, organizational analysis, surveys, and correlational research to learn about social organization. Linguists employ discourse analysis to study language.

Other disciplines rely on qualitative inquiry. Anthropologists conduct ethnographic research to study culture. Historians employ their craft to interpret past events. Political scientists use policy and organizational analysis to understand the nature and distribution of power. Other researchers conduct arts-based inquiry to study phenomena aesthetically. Across all these disciplines, the reasons for knowing differ, and may include testing theory, learning something new, assessing needs, improving programs to inform practice, or evaluating. Whether quantitative or qualitative approaches are used, research findings should be and usually are subject to inspection and replication by those who conduct similar studies.

The gathering of empirical information, derived through direct observation, experience, or experiment, is usually referred to as either scientific or social scientific research. We commonly use the term scientific when applied to physical areas, such as chemistry or biology, and social scientific when used to study people and their interaction with environments in such research areas as anthropology and history. Scientific studies are more often those investigations carried out in highly controlled, laboratory-like settings in which potential causes are manipulated and observed to measure the effects. Social scientific inquiry, however, is generally conducted in real-life environments in which events are observed as they unfold without manipulation of normal patterns. Current research practices reflect a variety of strategies, procedures, and rules used in both scientific and social scientific studies that represent differing emphases in their designs. It is the case, though, that particularly in the physical domains, most approaches can be traced to what has been called the scientific method. This historic framework is characterized by the quantification of even qualitative events and the application of statistical analysis.

The scientific method begins with stating the problem and formulating a hypothesis, a reasoned and research-supported guess about what might cause a result or desired outcome. One might hypothesize, for example, that involving staff in decisions is likely to result in staff members’ feeling more a part of the organization. Using the scientific method, such a hypothesis could then be pre- and posttested to arrive at conclusions either proving or disproving the hypothesized effect of staff involvement.

The development of the scientific method cannot be easily traced, but evidence of its application is found long Before the Current Era (BCE). Aristotle (384–322 BCE) is responsible for refining the process associated with the scientific method of establishing hypotheses, making observations, and determining answers through repeated experiments in order to test the relative truth of an original problem statement. Many other philosophers and mathematicians furthered Aristotle’s work. A thoroughly modified and advanced current generation of quantitative designs is best represented in the early work of Campbell and Stanley (1963) and has evolved into conceptualizations found in Shadish, Cook, and Campbell (2002). This formulation of quantitative research is best characterized by true experiments found in the literature today, studies that include treatment and control groups, with participants randomly assigned to each hypothesized cause or intervention.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

1. Explain in your own words the ideas behind the term disciplined inquiry.

2. How would you define the concept of empirical information or knowledge?

Historical Roots of Qualitative Research

The proliferation of qualitative studies in current research literature can be traced to at least one clear historical benchmark—the application to the human or social sciences of the German term Verstehen, loosely translated as “to understand” or “to interpret,” by the German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey (1989) in the mid-nineteenth century. Dilthey and other philosophers used the term to describe an individual’s first-person perspective on his or her own experience, culture, history, and society. Subsequently, German sociologists Max Weber and Georg Simmel advocated Verstehen as a mode of sociological research in which an outside observer systematically gathers information on a particular phenomenon from the perspective of insiders, rather than interpreting it in terms of the researcher’s outsider view. Advocates of this perspective argue that researchers are not really able to see the world as study participants experience it. These investigators are therefore obligated to gain insider views that may well differ from their own.

In the early twentieth century, German philosopher Edmund Husserl’s (1913/1982) work on phenomenology advanced a research method to capture the processes through which humans come to know the world. In the early decades of that century, University of Chicago sociologists (called the Chicago School) listened to and recorded the views of those underrepresented in society, including immigrants, criminals, and the impoverished (Merriam, 2009). These and other social theorists laid the groundwork for qualitative researchers, who now use different methodologies and methods, seeking to uncover the meanings individuals bring to life experiences. The growth in the application of qualitative research approaches was pronounced by the 1970s, with the most significant expansion occurring in the last two decades of the twentieth century. Today there are dozens of journals, handbooks, research texts, and organizations devoted to qualitative designs and strategies (for examples, see Organizations and Web Sites at the end of this chapter).

The assumption in popular discourse and among novice researchers is that quantitative researchers count and qualitative researchers describe. And in truth, from the terms qualitas and quantitas, the term qualitative implies observing the kinds of things in the world, whereas the term quantitative suggests locating the amount. Quantitative researchers, on the one hand, do ask such questions as “How many of something are there in this place in the world?” Qualitative researchers, on the other hand, ask questions like “What are the kinds of things that are important for the conduct of social action in this local community of social practice?” Specifically, the quantitative investigator is likely to pose such a research question as this: “Is there a measurable increase in students’ achievement after they experience the special science program?” The qualitative researcher, by contrast, might ask: “What are the participants’ experiences with and reactions to the special science program?” In practical terms, though, quantitative researchers also describe, and qualitative researchers also count.

As a cautionary note, Strauss and Corbin (1998) remind us to carefully examine studies that may purport to be qualitative but do not actually follow the dictates of the paradigm:

The term “qualitative research” is confusing because it can mean different things to different people. Some researchers gather data by means of interviews and observations, techniques normally associated with qualitative methods. However, they code the data in a manner that allows them to be statistically analyzed. They are, in effect, quantifying qualitative data. (p. 11)

Thus the terms quantitative and qualitative function as shorthand for differences far more complicated than the simple dichotomy of counting or not counting. They illuminate different assumptions about how we come to know the world. These differences are epistemological, asking questions about knowledge and how knowledge is acquired, and ontological, inquiring about the nature of reality and what it means to be or exist. These underlying assumptions reflect what Thomas Kuhn (1962) called different paradigms, or sets of practices that define a scientific discipline or approach to conducing research.

For the quantitative researcher, seeking understanding involves the concerted effort to remain independent of the phenomenon being studied, and when possible to establish cause-and-effect relationships that may be generalizable to other settings. This perspective has a long history beginning with the scientific method and early ideas of positivism (a precursor to current quantitative frameworks), but it has been thoroughly revised in a more advanced framework.

Current literature suggests that...