Doing Your Qualitative Psychology Project

Cath Sullivan, Stephen Gibson, Sarah C.E. Riley, Cath Sullivan, Stephen Gibson, Sarah C.E. Riley, Author

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780857027467, 9780857027450
• eBook ISBN: 9781446291320
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Research & Methodology in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

?Thanks to this new book, psychology students now have a trustworthy and practical guide that takes them through all stages of qualitative research with rich examples and different paradigmatic perspectives.?

Svend Brinkmann, Aalborg University, Denmark

?A well thought-out, accessible and engaging guide to conducting qualitative research projects. This is a must-read for any student beginning the qualitative journey.?

Abigail Locke, University of Huddersfield, UK

This book is for students who are embarking on a qualitative research project in psychology or a related discipline. While focusing mainly on undergraduate dissertations, this book will also be useful for postgraduate students. It takes you through planning a qualitative project, stage by stage, addressing key issues and concerns along the way. The focus throughout is on how to make your project excellent!

 

Packed full of examples from student projects to help you to put theory into practice, the book guides you through:

 

• designing your research

• ethical considerations

• collecting your data

• analysing your data

• writing your report or dissertation.

 

In addition, the book will help you with time management and working with your supervisor, as well as providing guidance on how you can use your project as the basis for publication or further study.

1

INTRODUCTION AND AIMS OF THE BOOK

Cath Sullivan, Stephen Gibson and Sarah Riley

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In this chapter we provide an overview of the book and how it can be used. We also consider three key underlying issues, which come up repeatedly in later chapters. The first two issues are decision making and critical thinking; these underpin many activities that you need to do when undertaking a research project. Our third issue concerns methodology. It can be useful to think of your method as a tool you use in research. For example, you could use an interview as a tool to create a person’s life history. However, methods are always used with an underlying philosophy – this underlying philosophy is called the ‘methodology’. Considering some of the foundations of methodology will help you to get to grips with your research project (and the rest of the book), which is why we focus on it in this chapter.

Aims of the book

In the chapters that follow, we take you through the process of completing a student qualitative research project. This will be useful for students of psychology, sociology, criminology, education and other related disciplines that use qualitative methods. It will be most useful to those completing an undergraduate final-year project (often called a ‘dissertation’), but it will also be helpful for students completing other undergraduate qualitative projects earlier in their degree, and conversely, for postgraduate students, especially those who feel like they need a more solid foundation to their understanding of qualitative research before they continue with their studies.

In a nutshell: aims of the book

• To provide a guide to the decisions you need to make at key stages of your project, including:
  • choosing a topic and designing research questions;
  • reviewing literature;
  • designing and managing the process of your project;
  • collecting and analysing data;
  • writing up and evaluating your work.
• To provide useful tips and strategies for your project, including how to deal with challenges and difficulties when they arise.
• To give ideas of ways in which you can build upon and extend your project – for example, as a way of demonstrating your skills when you apply for jobs or courses in the future.

Our main focus is on helping you to plan and execute the stages of your project, so we deal extensively with issues such as research questions, planning, supervisory relationships and writing up. Various methods of collecting and analysing qualitative data are considered and we provide overviews and key information to help you to select appropriate methods. We also provide many suggestions for further reading and information so that you can read up on your chosen methods of data collection and analysis in more depth.

Before we go any further, we would like to spend a little time considering what your research project means in the context of your course.

Your research project

Your research project allows you to apply and develop the research skills learned earlier in your course, and allows your lecturers to assess how well you can apply them to an independent piece of work. It is a complex piece of work that involves many stages. For most students it is the largest single piece of assessed work that they will do and it is a time-consuming, challenging and rewarding journey. Many people regard the final year (or master’s) research project as a key indicator of a student’s ability and it often has a very large contribution to make to the overall marks on a course. Because of this, and because it is a big step towards independence for many students, it can be a daunting prospect. Part of what is rewarding about doing a research project is its challenging and independent nature.

It’s important then that before we start talking about the specifics of doing a qualitative research project, we take a step back and talk you through some of the core principles of good academic work, from which you can build. First, we consider decision making, as this has a central role in your research project at every stage.

Decision making

As you work on your research project, you will need to make a series of decisions. Throughout this book we aim to identify those decisions and to provide you with information and ideas that will aid you in making them.

Decision making involves a series of steps, skills and processes. In order to achieve your aims, you have to make practical decisions about what to do, when to do it, how to do it and where. At times when we find making decisions hard, such as when we are stressed or when the outcome is very important to us, it can be useful to break down the decision-making process into a number of components.

In a nutshell: what is decision making?

Decision making can be defined as the process of identifying a course of action that will allow you to overcome obstacles and move towards a goal in a context of uncertainty or risk (Thomas, 2008).

To make a decision we must figure out what our objective is, collect information about it, identify possible options for moving towards it and evaluate those options so that we can make a choice (Thomas, 2008). We then also need to try and evaluate our course of action to see if it is working or whether our decision needs to be reviewed (Thomas, 2008).

In a nutshell: decision making in your research project

Examples of some of the kinds of decisions you will need to make include:

• deciding on a topic area for your project;
• selecting literature to include in your literature review;
• identifying appropriate methods of data collection and analysis;
• deciding on sub-goals and deadlines as you work towards your final deadline;
• selecting material to include in your research project write-up.

Much of the research on decision making has focused on creating and testing models of how the best decisions are made. There is also research that examines how people make decisions and this can help us by providing tips for those situations when we’re finding it hard to work out what to do next.

Decision-making tips

Take ownership

Remember from the outset that your project is an independent piece of work, your chance to show that you can really shine when you work on your own. Your supervisor will help and guide you, but the sooner you begin to own your decisions the better off you will be in the long run. When you decide something, it is you that will have to write a justification for it in your project. So, even if your supervisor can think of 10 good reasons for you to use, for example, grounded theory (see Chapter 7), you will be the one who has to construct a good argument in your write-up for that choice. It’s therefore very important that you know why you made it.

Focus on your goals

When we make decisions, it is usually for a reason – that is, we have some long-term purpose in mind. Imagine that you are trying to choose between a number of potential methods of recruiting participants. It is easy to slip into a state where the only goal we can see is that we have to make the decision. Often, there is no problem with this, but when you are finding it hard to make a decision it can be useful to think about what your ultimate goal is. This will help you to really think through what criteria you should use to evaluate the options you have. Your ultimate goal, the reason you are making this decision, is that you are trying to identify a method that will allow you to get the kind of data you need, from the people who are likely to have it, and in a way that is practicable and achievable for you. As you can see, thinking about the ultimate aim here instantly gives us a set of criteria that you can use to judge the different options.

Find a reason

Research (for example, Shafir et al., 1993) has shown that when people are choosing between two options, they tend to try and look for reasons to accept one possible course of action and reject the others. This means that decisions can be especially hard when a clear reason to do something, or not do it, doesn’t really stand out. This can lead to us feeling paralysed and not actually making a choice (Ayton, 2005). Imagine, for example, that you are struggling to see which of two methods of analysis you should use, and obvious reasons for rejecting or selecting options do not immediately appear. In this instance, one thing that you could do to help yourself is to find out as much as you can about these methods and any underlying methodologies associated with them. Try and ask yourself critical questions that can help you find a reason for a decision. Information is key here, so try to:

• Read as many relevant sources of information about these methods as you can.
• Talk to your supervisor about the suitability of different methods.
• If you are working in a group – either informally or formally – speak to your fellow students, as ‘peer researchers’ can be good sources of information, as they have to negotiate similar issues to your own.
• Consider the practical consequences and feasibility of each option, such as how much time it would take and whether you have the training and resources you need.
• Write lists to get yourself thinking in concrete ways about the advantages, disadvantages and key features of the various options.

Remember that, in a situation where there don’t seem to be any particularly salient or obvious reasons, you can help yourself by gaining more information.

Don’t sweat the small stuff

Designing and conducting your project involves many decisions and, inevitably, some of these are more important than others. One way to help you put your energies where they will bring the most reward is to try and distinguish those decisions that are the most important. This can be challenging, especially at the beginning, and this book, along with the other things you read, and discussions with your supervisor, should help you to do this. Some tips that can help with this are:

• Consider the consequences. Some decisions are very important because they have big consequences for other stages of the project. For example, the method of data collection that you choose will have big implications for the kind of analysis that you can do, and how well you can do that analysis (see Chapter 6 for more on this). Try and identify the big decisions that have many consequences.
• Think about the justification. The most important decisions that you make will tend to be those that need to be fully justified in your write-up. Your research questions, for example, will need to be fully and convincingly justified in your write-up.

Efficiency or outcomes?

Many decision-making models rest upon the idea that certain choices have greater ‘utility’ – that is, will bring a more positive or valued outcome. However, one thing that you need to consider is that you may often be in a situation where there are several possible options that are equally as good. Or, at least, where the differences in how positive the outcomes will be are so small as to make little practical difference.

Often students get bogged down at the early stages of their project in particular because they find it hard to make decisions. Understandably, given the importance of the research project, students worry that they will make a wrong choice. This can often happen in relation to the choice of a topic area (see Chapter 2). However, at this stage, you are probably going to be faced with a huge array of potential research areas that are all equally interesting and equally suitable from an academic point of view. It’s important to make a relatively informed choice at this stage, but remember that making a choice too late and getting behind is probably more of a risk than making the wrong choice when your choices are between three equally suitable and equally interesting topic areas. You may find that it is useful to set yourself firm deadlines for key decisions in order to keep yourself from getting behind (see Chapters 3 and 4 for more on this).

In a nutshell: help yourself to make decisions

• Be aware of when decisions are needed and of when you have made one.
• Gather information and talk your decisions through with your supervisor, other lecturers or fellow students.
• Consider at every stage whether you will be able to justify your decisions and how you will do it – this is crucial for doing a good write-up.
• Record your decisions in a research diary; it can be easy to forget what you did, and why, at an earlier stage.
• Be aware that sometimes yo...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on Contributors
• 1 Introduction and Aims of the Book
• 2 Coming Up With a Research Question
• 3 Planning and Ethics
• 4 Managing the Project
• 5 Doing a Literature Review
• 6 Collecting Your Data
• 7 Analysing Your Data
• 8 Evaluating Qualitative Research
• 9 Writing Up a Qualitative Project
• 10 What Next?
• 11 Overview and Conclusion: Be a Scholar
• Index