Doing Qualitative Research

Circles Within Circles

Margaret Anzul, Margot Ely, Teri Freidman, Diane Garner, Ann McCormack-Steinmetz

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• eBook ISBN: 9781135386627
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This is designed for those learning qualitative research and those more advanced in the field. It focuses on understanding both the cognitive processes of qualitative research and the affective feel engendered.

Chapter 1
Grounding

Dear Reader,

Right at the start we planned to present you with one lucid, crystal-clear sentence to establish the character and purpose of this book. That task proved a bit like squeezing an elephant into a pint container while keeping the poor thing alive and true to form.

You will find that this book is somewhat different from most texts on qualitative research. It invites you to experience some of the struggles and questions, the insights and visions of over seventy students, their teachers, and other established researchers about learning to do naturalistic inquiry. Our book started with a collection of papers by student ethnographers to which we added accounts by more advanced doctoral and postdoctoral researchers. These sources formed a database for our studies on the process of becoming qualitative inquirers. In time we found ourselves shaping the accounts and our analyses of them into a book that might benefit future classes of student ethnographers, our professional colleagues, and other researchers.

A distinctive feature of the book is its concern with the interplay between affect and cognition—how people feel and what they learn—as they go about the very messy but exhilarating business of learning to ‘do it’. Our interest in this interplay is not arbitrary. We are convinced that if practitioners of interpretive research are concerned solely with the technical aspects, they will miss the essentials of this type of research. We believe that qualitative study is forged in the transaction among what is done and learned and felt by the researcher. It is an intensely recursive, personal process, and while this may be the hallmark of all sound research, it is crucial to every aspect of the qualitative way of looking at life.

This book is predicated on the assumption that there is a need to make more public the interplay between the emotional and the intellectual in ethnographic research, since this interplay is an essential ingredient. Ourperception that there is a void to be filled has been supported in our experiences as professionals and researchers and has provided us with an impetus to forge ahead. For this reason, we write directly to students of the field, whoever you are in whatever roles, beginning or seasoned.

By now you are likely to have:

1 realized that we are using different terms in a roughly synonymous way:

naturalistic inquiry,
ethnographic methodologies,
qualitative research,
interpretive research; or

2 become irked, piqued, or interested because we have used so many different terms; or

3 not noticed at all.

The first two responses have much to commend them. The field is shot through with a variety of labels and proponents of those labels. These derive from a number of theoretical models and a range of modifications and variations upon these models that guide why and how to do research (Goetz and LeCompte, 1984, p. 37; Patton, 1980, p. 203). Underlying this collection of competing labels are certain commonalities that link them together—a network of underlying principles and philosophical beliefs that constitute a paradigm or world view. We are living in an era of paradigm revolution (Kuhn, 1970). Most of us grew up in a positivist or empirical era in which the claims of empirical scientific research were held to be absolute. Particularly within the past few decades, however, this empirical world view has been challenged by an alternative paradigm, frequently referred to as naturalistic. Those who work within the naturalistic paradigm operate from a set of axioms that hold realities to be multiple and shifting, that take for granted a simultaneous mutual shaping of knower and known, and that see all inquiry, including the empirical, as being inevitably value-bound.

Lincoln and Guba (1985) and Lofland and Lofland (1984) are among many who list a variety of terms for research done within this postpositivistic, naturalistic paradigm.

Social science is a terminological jungle where many labels compete, and no single label has been able to command the particular domain before us. Often…researchers simply ‘do it’ without worrying about giving ‘it’ a name. (Lofland and Lofland, 1984, p. 3)

But you see, we did worry. How could we write a book about ‘Unnamed Research’?

One of the more frequently used terms is ‘ethnography’. There are conflicting claims, however, for what can be properly termed ethnography. There is also an interesting case made for labeling various levels of ethnography that range from the study of a complex society as a macro-ethnography to the study of a single social situation as a microethnography (Spradley, 1980, p. 30). Indeed, in attempting to define the essence of ethnography, Werner and Schoepfle (1987) conclude that ‘…the ethnographic variety is almost limitless’ (p. 41). It could be reasoned that the correct label for the kind of research this book is about must contain the word ‘approaches’, or ‘methodologies’, as in ‘ethnographic approaches’ and ‘naturalistic methodologies’, since such labels highlight more clearly both what researchers do in this multifaceted research and what they cannot claim to do. For example, Harry Wolcott finds it ‘…useful to distinguish between anthropologically informed researchers who do ethnography and…researchers who frequently draw upon ethnographic approaches in doing descriptive studies’ (1988, p. 202).

We solved our dilemma in the following ways. First, you know from the title of this book that we chose to use ‘Qualitative Research’ as the umbrella term. We did this because it appears to us that the term ‘qualitative’ has the broadest denotations. The word itself highlights the primarily qualitative-as-descriptive nature of work within this paradigm in contrast to the primarily quantitative emphasis of positivist approaches. Second, because our own research and that of our students is based on a variety of data-gathering and analysis strategies, rooted in a number of traditions, we write to researchers who work in similar ways. Third, because of this, we highlight those characteristics common to a variety of qualitative research models as we discuss the information in the chapters to come. This means that you, our reader, are asked to live with a number of research labels from now on.

And these are many! For instance, in her analysis of texts on qualitative research, Tesch (1990) compiled a list of forty-six terms that social scientists have used to name their versions of qualitative research. Even though Tesch further categorized these terms into twenty-six approaches under four basic research groups, the sheer number is mindboggling. What is more, theorists change their labels quickly these days as their understandings of their research evolve. We were quite comfortable with Lincoln and Guba’s (1985) use of the term ‘paradigm of naturalistic inquiry’ when they provided a rationale four years later (1989) for adopting a different label, ‘paradigm of constructivism research’. We’ll try to hold to a reasonable number of research labels in this book.

Now, to the definition of qualitative research, which is not as straightforward as it seems. After serious and unsuccessful attempts to present you with a universal definition at this point, we were relieved to come across this statement by Lincoln and Guba (1985). These authors were speaking of defining naturalism, but the statement applies to defining qualitative research as well:

…it is precisely because the matter is so involved that it is not possible to provide a simple definition…. (p. 8)

Thus fortified, we decided that the term ‘qualitative research’ is perhaps better understood by the characteristics of its methods than by a definition. Several experts such as Bogdan and Biklen (1982), Lincoln and Guba (1985), and Lofland and Lofland (1984) present lists of such characteristics. We here base our description on the work of Sherman and Webb (1988) who analyzed what leading qualitative researchers had to say about their work in philosophy of education, history, biography, ethnography, life history, grounded theory, phenomenography, curriculum criticism, uses of literature in qualitative research, and critical theory (p. 2). Their analysis produced five characteristics similar to all of those species of qualitative research, and one that is characteristic of many (pp. 5–8).

1. Events can be understood adequately only if they are seen in context. Therefore, a qualitative researcher immerses her/himself in the setting.
2. The contexts of inquiry are not contrived; they are natural. Nothing is predefined or taken for granted.
3. Qualitative researchers want those who are studied to speak for themselves, to provide their perspectives in words and other actions. Therefore, qualitative research is an interactive process in which the persons studied teach the researcher about their lives.
4. Qualitative researchers attend to the experience as a whole, not as separate variables. The aim of qualitative research is to understand experience as unified.
5. Qualitative methods are appropriate to the above statements. There is no one general method.
6. For many qualitative researchers, the process entails appraisal about what was studied.

Further, from these characteristics, Sherman and Webb amalgamated the following summary:

…qualitative implies a direct concern with experience as it is ‘lived’ or ‘felt’ or ‘undergone’…. Qualitative research, then, has the aim of understanding experience as nearly as possible as its participants feel it or live it. (1988, p. 7)

The essence of these characteristics weaves its way throughout this book, albeit in expanded form and different words. You may want to return to these statements by Sherman and Webb as you read, for we see this framework about qualitative research as a springboard for this entire volume.

All five of us have worked as a team on every aspect of this book. Each of us, however, served as the primary author and facilitator for one chapter, and in it inevitably touches on her own research experiences and her own perspectives on this project. Each chapter begins with an introduction to the person who shepherded that chapter to completion. Each author speaks in the first person ‘I’ in her chapter when she writes about her own experiences and insights, and in the first person plural ‘we’ when talking about the writing team. When we refer to one another, we use first names. This has not been as complicated as we first envisioned. We think you’ll understand immediately as you continue.

Each chapter is composed of our text as well as that drawn from the database provided by students and other researchers. We include quotations from field logs, student articles, and excerpts from published articles and books. Our writing speaks to, with, and occasionally in opposition to what other people write as we introduce, weave strands together, pose questions, discuss, and generally say what we feel needs to be said.

Chapters 2 through 5 end with postscripts. While primary authors made the largest contributions to their specific chapters, Margot developed the postscripts so that they would provide highlighting— more discussion, new input, another point of view, challenge, or disagreement. Some consider our own affective and cognitive processes as these apply to the topic at hand.

We have provided wide margins near articles, quotations, and postscripts so that you can write your own comments and questions there, if you like to work in the ‘naturalistic way’. In this book student contributors are referred to either by true name or pseudonym, according to the wishes of each. The names of people and places from researchers’ logs that we have quoted have all been changed to protect their anonymity. At times the same quotation is used to support more than one section in this book. This is consonant with the way qualitative data are analyzed and presented.

We offer the following overview of the content of each chapter with the proviso that, because of the nature of this phenomenon called qualitative research, the topics are not as neatly separated and are more interwoven than is usual in many research books. Chapter 1, ‘Grounding’, provides an explanation about how this book is conceived, authored, and presented. Chapter 2, ‘Starting’, discusses those important points of beginning to learn about qualitative research and entering the field. Chapter 3, ‘Doing’, focuses on learning the tools that help us to see, to listen, and to interpret ‘qualitatively’. Chapter 4, ‘Feeling’, highlights the emotional/personal aspects that are part and parcel of the research process. Chapter 5, ‘Interpreting’, talks of the critical tasks of final analysis and writing. Chapter 6, ‘Reflecting’, presents some overarching themes that resulted from a meta-analysis of the entire database on what people do, feel, and learn as qualitative researchers. The Epilogue, ‘Margot’s Last Word’, considers social implications of the qualitative research endeavor.

And who is this ‘we’ so generously sprinkled throughout the foregoing pages? ‘We’ are the people whose voices you will hear. ‘We’ began with Margot, the professor who first planned and facilitated the qualitative research experiences described here. These led subsequently to the research and writing that have resulted in this book. ‘We’ are also a team of four who helped with every aspect of the work. Some time prior to first teaching the qualitative research course, Margot became acquainted with three graduate students who she felt might be fine members of a team to work with a class that generally has a high enrollment. Each was involved in naturalistic research. Diane was an early childhood and elementary school teacher who was completing her dissertation on children’s play styles. Ann was writing a dissertation proposal while teaching at a college and negotiating an active family life. Teri was collecting data for her dissertation, a study of women police officers, and anticipating her year’s clinical internship in psychology. None of these three needed any more work involvements, however fascinating they might be. They joined in right away. After the completion of the first course, we began to analyze the students’ papers, and saw the value of organizing them as a support for future classes and for the profession. At this point we asked Margaret to join the team. Writing furiously at her dissertation in the nooks and crannies between being an elementary school librarian and teaching an evening course at a university, Margaret found space. It has been four years since the team first began its odyssey. This book is based on the amalgamation of our experiences and student contributions over that time. Diane, Ann, Teri, and Margaret have all earned their doctorates.

But ‘we’ are more than this five. ‘We’ include over seventy people enrolled in a doctoral level qualitative research course called ‘Case Study’, in three semester groups. The students were asked as part of the course requirements to write ‘articles’ on their most meaningful insights about learning to become qualitative researchers, and to do so in an informal manner, as if writing to other students. Into this primary database we incorporated additional personal accounts gleaned from published literature in the field so that we could amalgamate insights from experienced researchers to complement our thinking and that of our students. In the text, students and doctoralgraduates are cited first by entire name and then by first name. Other authors are cited in styleguide form. The names or pseudonyms of students, as well as those of several other doctoral graduates, make up the list of colleague contributors on pages 239–40. Of no small importance in helping us integrate the work of so many people were the contributions of three colleagues and friends: Emily R.Kennedy, Belén Matías, and K.June McLeod, who provided editorial comments, moral support, and many dinners.

We wrote this book so that you might join with us in considering how affect and cognition relate to and ensue from being qualitative researchers. Throughout the book, we share some information about the course for what it can contribute to our topic. In essence, this book is the product of layers of qualitative research, and the course served as the linchpin. The course allowed us

to establish and document the processes of helping people to learn qualitative methodologies;

to think about these processes, to ‘go meta’;

to ask students to think about their processes as they wrote the articles that are woven throughout;

to study in ethnographic ways ourselves as the team as well as the class;

to plan how to write this book and how to involve in it the work of other colleagues, past and present students, and authorities in the field.

The writing here comes from people who are at various stages in the ever-evolving process of qualitative research learning. As learners we range from professors and people engaged in postdoctoral research to doctoral students in the beginning stages of experiencing the methodologies. Whatever our stages, however, it seems that all of us have chosen to share a way of research life—a way of life—that sweeps us along in continuous circles within circles of action, reflection, feeling and meaning making.

‘We’ is also you. If thi...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Chapter 1: Grounding
• Chapter 2: Starting
• Chapter 3: Doing
• Chapter 4: Feeling
• Chapter 5: Interpreting
• Chapter 6: Reflecting
• Epilogue: Margot’s Last Word
• References
• Colleague Contributors