Doing Qualitative Analysis In Psychology

Nicky Hayes

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780863777417
• eBook ISBN: 9781317774884
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

In recent years, qualitative analysis has become accpeted as part of modern psychology. Concern about the limitations of conventional laboratory- based research combine with a growing interest in real world issues to produce an awareness of the rich potential of qualititative analysis. Virtualy all psychology students underatake practical work as part of their courses. More and more of them are seeking to conduct research which includes qualitative analysis. Too often, though, students lack awareness of the range and diversity of qualitative approaches. Qualitative analysis can take many different forms, and can use any different sources of data. At one end of the spectrum, this diversity provides the eclectic psychologists with a rich anaytical "tool-box". For those at the other end qualitative analysis is an integral part of a full theoretical critique of positivistic methodologies in psychology. This text provides examples of how different psychologists have used qualitative analysis in research. Each chapter is based around a real piece of research, and the researcher discusses exactly how they went about conducting the analysis. The text covers a wide range of theoretical and methodological approaches to qualitative analysis, and should be of interest to research psychologists as well as to students.

1 Qualitative research and research in psychology

Nicky Hayes

Department of Behavioural Sciences, University of Huddersfield

DOI: 10.4324/9781315804552-1

The aim of this book is to provide psychology students, and others, with examples of different ways of going about qualitative research. The idea originally developed during a meeting to discuss issues around qualitative research in psychology, which in turn had arisen from an initiative funded by the British Psychological Society’s Scientific Affairs Board. The various psychologists involved in this book all have an interest in, and a commitment to, qualitative research of one form or another. The book’s diversity is a testament to the many different forms that such an interest and commitment can take.

Qualitative Research: Some Background

Qualitative research in psychology is not new. In psychology’s early years, it was commonplace: a trawl through the psychological journals of the 1920s and 1930s reveals many papers which discuss personal experience as freely as statistical data. Indeed, the founder of experimental psychology, Wilhelm Wundt, together with other “introspectionists” of the last century, was under no doubt that qualitative methods were as valid a way of developing a scientific understanding of the human being as were quantitative approaches, and more appropriate in many respects (see e.g. Farr, 1996).

This position changed with the advent of the behaviourist revolution, which dominated both American and British psychology for many years. Following a somewhat idealised version of physical science (see Hayes, 1995), behaviourism emphasised a reductionist approach, seeking the basic “elements” of behaviour and rules of combination. Although behaviourism as such was rejected with the advent of the “cognitive revolution” in the 1970s and 1980s, its methodology, and in particular its emphasis on controlled experimentalism, was retained by the psychological community as a whole. Undergraduates were socialised into research paradigms which emphasised the identification of single causes, and in which the ultimate goal of psychological research was portrayed as “pure” data, which was “uncontaminated” by complex, uncontrollable influences from the world outside the research laboratory.

This resulted in a systematic devaluing of qualitative methods (and also, incidentally, of higher-order theory-building) since the idealised model of physical experimentation emphasised reliability, generalisability, and a redefinition of validity. The insistence on reliability of research findings negated the study of unusual or one-off human experiences, while the search for generalisable rules produced an emphasis on normative methods, which in its turn negated the study of human experiences which were unique and personal. Validity became redefined in a self-referential manner, emphasising the comparison of new methods with pre-existing criteria, and deemphasising relationships between measures of behaviour and the way that people went about their day to day lives. The outcome was a scientific community in which qualitative research was viewed with deep suspicion. Unless, of course, it occurred in a medical context: it is worth noting en passant that investigators of brain function or similar areas have always been free to adopt qualitative methods (e.g. Penfield & Rasmussen, 1950). Presumably, the scientific nature of their topic meant that their methods were accepted as “scientific” by association, and were therefore beyond suspicion.

In recent years, however, another paradigm shift has become apparent. Qualitative approaches are becoming increasingly accepted as a valuable part of modern psychology. This change is particularly visible at research levels, where an increasing number of conference papers and research projects are incorporating qualitative analyses to augment and enrich quantitative information, and some have eschewed quantitative techniques altogether. A growing concern about problems of artificiality in research data, together with an equally growing interest in “ecological validity” and research which is relevant to the problems of society, have produced a realisation that qualitative techniques may have a great deal to offer.

A search for factors underlying this gradual paradigm shift produces several sources. One of them is the influence of feminist psychology, with its challenging of positivistic and sterile empirical analyses, and its insistence that psychological research should tackle human meaning and experience as well as behaviour. Another factor can be identified in the growing importance of ethical issues in research, and the development of guidelines and principles for psychological researchers. The conscious rejection of a researcher’s entitlement to manipulate the “subject” without their consent led to an awareness of the need to respect the research participant. While some researchers sought more imaginative and considerate experimental techniques, others re-evaluated their research questions, and adopted alternative methodologies such as account analysis, which were more able to express that respect. A third factor may be located in research funding. As more research was commissioned by agencies and commercial bodies, and researchers needed to emphasise the applicability of their research projects, real-world research began to change from a poor relation to a more respected type of psychological. Accompanying this re-orientation was a recognition that qualitative methods were often the most suited to real-world research projects.

Given these factors, and others, it has become apparent that qualitative analysis is not a passing fad on the part of researchers, but something completely different. To some, it is an entire philosophy of research; challenging and replacing outdated positivistic methodologies. To others, it is a much-needed addition to the range of methods available to the research psychologist. Each phase of psychology’s history has left its mark on its methodology, ranging from the quantitative surveys and experimental techniques of the behaviourist school, to the clinical interview which was the legacy of Piaget in the 1950s and the ethological methods which evolved in developmental and comparative psychology during the 1960s. It is too soon to label the present period, but the growth of interest in qualitative research is strong, and its growing incorporation into psychology does appear to reflect the present mood.

Further indication of the increasing acceptance of qualitative methods is also apparent in the way that so many undergraduate courses are incorporating an introduction to qualitative analysis into their methodology courses. Virtually all psychology students undertake practical work as part of their courses, and their induction into the research methods of the discipline plays a primary role in their socialisation as psychologists. For the reasons already given, more and more psychology students are seeking to conduct research which is relevant to the real world, and this research is often particularly suited to qualitative forms of analysis. There is, however, relatively little guidance for students on how to set about undertaking such research, although there are a vast number of books on quantitative methods of psychology. Hence this book.

What is Qualitative Research?

One of the issues thrown into broad relief by this book is the question of what we mean by qualitative research—or, to be more specific in this particular case, by qualitative analysis. Conventionally speaking, qualitative methodology has tended to be associated with a concern on the part of the researcher with meanings, context, and a holistic approach to the material. It has generally been seen in opposition to quantitative methodology, which, in psychology at least, often produced extremely restricted attempts to measure human behaviour or human cognitive process, which severely lessened their relevance to everyday living.

At first sight, the terms appear straightforward: we use the term “qualitative” in opposition to “quantitative”, and this appealing dichotomy appears to represent a clear distinction between the two. When we examine the criteria implicit in that dichotomy, though, the distinction becomes rather less clear. Hammersley (1992) identified seven component meanings of the qualitative/quantitative divide, which are listed in Table 1.1. While each appears on the surface to be a dichotomy, on closer examination they are revealed to refer to a range of values, not a simple either-or distinction. Although Hammersley was discussing these issues in relation to sociological and ethnographic research, and not all of them are entirely appropriate to psychology, there are enough similarities to make them worth exploring briefly.

Table 1.1 Component Meanings of the Qualitative/Quantitative Divide

Qualitative vs quantitative data Natural vs artificial settings Focus on meanings rather than behaviour Adoption or rejection of natural science as a model An inductive vs a deductive approach Identifying cultural patterns vs seeking scientific laws Idealism vs realism

Adapted from: Hammersley, 1992.

The first of these component meanings is to do with quantification. For some, this seems straightforward: for example, Strauss and Corbin (1990) insist that qualitative analysis is analysis which does not involve numbers or counting. For others, however, the distinction is more problematic. Quantities can be, and often are, indicated using words: concepts such as “more”, “fewer” or “frequent” are not unknown in qualitative research, and these are all about quantification. Hammersley (1992) argued that the real issue here is not about numbers or words, but about establishing an appropriate level of precision for the data. Numbers, too, can be imprecise at times, particularly where they imply an exactness in the data which is not justified. What appears to be a clear dichotomy is really a continuum when we look at it more closely, and that continuum is all to do with the degree of precision which our data expresses.

A second, generally implicit, meaning of the qualitative/quantitative divide has to do with whether the investigation takes place in “natural” or “artificial” (controlled experimental) settings. It is possible, of course, to dismiss the concept of “artificial” settings, on the grounds that a court of law, a shopping centre, or a classroom is no more “natural” than a psychological research laboratory, but this distinction also conceals a more fundamental issue. This is to do with the control which the researcher exerts on the data. Research may take place in “natural” settings yet still be tightly controlled, as both organisational and consumer psychologists are aware. Alternatively, a research project may be located within an “artificial” setting yet still involve a qualitative approach to the material: a classic example here, of course, being Irwin Silverman’s investigations of the human subject in the psychological laboratory (Silverman, 1977). The “natural/artificial” distinction thus becomes another range of values, rather than a straightforward dichotomy.

Across the range of values, however, it is certainly possible to argue that qualitative research has become associated with less insistence on control on the part of the researcher, at least at the period of initial data collection. For the most part, psychologists committed to qualitative analysis tend to be interested in listening to and analysing what their research participants can tell them—whether visually or verbally. As a result, they generally seek ways of collecting those data which constrain the research participants as little as possible. This concern is apparent in the various chapters of this book, where it manifests itself in many different ways.

A third meaning of qualitative research which Hammersley identifies is that it focuses on meanings rather than behaviour. Again, this dichotomy reveals itself to be an indicator of a range of values rather than a dualism_ some quantitative research is directly concerned with meaning, such as the quantitative analyses of social representations discussed by Doise, Clemence and Lorenzi-Cioldi (1993); whereas there are many examples of qualitative analyses, such as some forms of conversation analysis (e.g. Zimmerman, 1992), where the emphasis is on understanding behaviour rather than meaning. Although, of course, qualitative research sits more happily towards one end of this continuum than the other, it is important to bear in mind that it is a continuum and not the simplistic dualism which it might appear to be on the surface.

The rejection of a natural science model of research is another issue that has come to be associated with qualitative research, and in psychology, at least, it ties in very closely with the fifth issue identified by Hammersley, which is concerned with the distinction between inductive or deductive methodologies. There are a number of points to be made here; but the central one is that again, we are dealing with a range of issues rather than with a straightforward dichotomy. There are many natural sciences, and they adopt a wide range of different approaches to research. Biology, astronomy, and even nuclear physics utilise research methodologies which are very different from the idealised experimentation implicit in some research debates. Whether a researcher uses an inductive or a deductive methodology is again less of a dichotomy than it may seem, and the distinction is also less tightly linked with the use of qualitative methods than some have implied. The chapters in this book provide a range of examples of qualitative analysis in this respect: from inductive, grounded-theory approaches to an explicitly hypothetico-deductive approach.

The sixth meaning which Hammersley attributes to the qualitative/quantitative distinction may have more relevance for sociology and anthropology than for psychologists; although if it is reformulated into an issue about description as opposed to prediction it has relevance in psychology too. Many of the contributors to this book aim to cultivate understanding through description. Others, though, use qualitative analysis as a way of investigating predictive laws or principles; while for many, the iterative processes involved in description lead on to the development of more general laws. Yet again, the apparent dichotomy disguises a range of possibilities.

The final issue in Table 1.1 is that of idealism vs realism. Some theorists (e.g. Smith, 1989) have associated quantitative research with a realist epistemology, and qualitative research with idealism. This raises the philosophical question of whether there is a necessary connection between qualitative method and a particular epistemological position. Some of these issues are explored in the final chapter of this book, while others are scattered throughout the other chapters, but the range of approaches manifest here implies that a simple one-to-one connection is elusive, to say the least. While qualitative research may sometimes lean towards idealism and quantitative research towards realism, neither is irretrievably associated with one or the other.

The overall message, then, is that any attempt to produce simplistic distinctions between qualitative and quantitative research is liable to fall apart on closer inspection. Absolute pronouncements about qualitative research, or even just about qualitative analysis, are unlikely to hold true in all circumstances. Our aim for this book, therefore, is that it should reflect some of the diverse forms and richness of qualitative analysis in psychology. It does not aim for homogeneity, or consensus.

About This Book

This book aims to provide the student with something which is a little more than a “cook-book” of techniques. Of course, it can be used in this way, and a student or researcher who wishes to is welcome to do so. On the other hand, adopting a qualitative methodology can involve a fundamental change in the way that the individual regards psychological research. To this end, the book’s contributors have each outlined the methodological and theoretical features of their approach to qualitative research, in order that the reader can become fa...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction: Qualitative research and research in psychology
• PART I ACCOUNT ANALYSIS AND ITS RELATIVES
• PART II: THEORY-DRIVEN APROACHES TO QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
• PART III: GROUNDED THEORY AND PHENOMENOLOGY
• Final note
• References
• Author index
• Subject index