QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN PERSPECTIVE

QUALITATIVE APPROACHES -Qualitative research is an interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and sometimes counterdisciplinary field -It crosses the humanities and the social and physical sciences -Qualitative research is many things at the same time -It is multiparadogmatic in focus Nelson et al’s (1992, p4)

QUALITATIVE APPROACHES -Its practitioners are sensitive to the value of the multi-method approach -They are committed to the naturalistic perspective, and to the interpretative understanding of human experience -At the same time, the field is inherently political and shaped by multiple ethical and political positions Nelson et al’s (1992, p4)

Qualitative Research… involves finding out what people think how they feel - or at any rate, what they say they think how they say they feel -This kind of information is subjective -It involves feelings and impressions, rather than numbers

-Qualitative research is multi-method in focus, involving an interpretative, naturalistic approach to its subject matter -Qualitative Researchers study “things” (people and their thoughts) in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them.

-Qualitative research involves the studied use and collection of a variety of empirical materials - case study, personal experience, introspective, life story, interview, observational, historical, interactional, and visual texts – that describe routine and problematic moments and meanings in individuals lives -Deploy a wide range of interconnected methods, hoping always to get a better fix on the subject matter at hand

-What humans say and do are the results of how they interpret their social world – their behaviour depends on learning rather than biological instinct -Human beings communicate what they learn through symbols – language (symbolic interaction) -The core task is to capture the essence of this process for interpreting or attaching meaning to various symbols -Try this test…

Exploring personal attributes can be problematic -Personal construct -Learning processes External and internal factors – the perception of personal characteristics as a result of the learning processes

Blumer (1969) argues that research as possessing a two-fold agenda: 1.Exploration – where the researcher examines and observes specific situations and events, followed by 2.Inspection wherein the researcher uses the data to refine concepts, and then to use these in general statements describing human life and behaviour

JM Dabbs (1982) -Quality refers to what, how, when and where -Refers to meanings, concepts, definitions, characteristics, metaphors, symbols, and description of things

BL Berg (2009) -provide a means of accessing unquantifiable facts about the actual people researchers observe and talk to or people represented by their personal traces ( letters, photographs, newspaper accounts, diaries, and so on) -to share in the understandings and perceptions of others and to explore how people structure and give meaning to their daily lives

BL Berg (2009) -systematic and have the ability to be reproduced by subsequent researchers -Replication and reproducibility are central to the creation and testing of theories and their acceptance by scientific communities -the use of various descriptive or nonparametric statistics sometimes is to offer an introductory level of information developing and conducting high-quality qualitative research

INSPIRING CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE MINDS HOW DO YOU EXPLORE THEM, TO LEARN ABOUT THEIR EMOTION, TO UNDERSTAND AND DERIVE CONCLUSION FROM IT?

Quantitatively? -Cognitive abilities -Psychomotor -Language development -Emotion -motivation Qualitatively? -explore how they structure and give meaning to their daily lives (Berg, 2009) -refers to what, how, when and where (Dabbs, 1982) -finding out what they think, and how they feel - or at any rate, what they say they think and how they say they feel

CHARACTERISTICS OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH -Carried out in a naturalistic setting -Ask broad research questions to explore, interpret, understand -Non-random participants -Observation and interview – close contact with the participants -Interactive role – to understand the social context -Ongoing analysis – hypotheses are formed after the data collection -The study reports data in narrative form

STEPS IN CONDUCTING QUALITATIVE STUDY 1.Identifying a research topic/focus 2.Conducting review of literature 3.Defining the role of the researcher – develop an insiders’ point of view 4.Managing entry into the field and maintaining good field relations 5.Selecting participants – key informants of the study 6.Writing foreshadowed questions – based on the initial observations and the review of the literatures 7.Collecting the data – observations, interviews and document analyses (triangulation) 8.Analysing the data – themes and patterns that emerged 9.Interpreting and disseminating results – relate with past findings

Ethical Considerations in Qualitative Research Informed consent Confidentiality Avoiding harmful consequences Genuine reasons for conducting research Honesty Reciprocity

Short Activity Think of any topic/issue/problem that might be potentially becoming your actual research work in future -The nature of the problem? -Why do you want to study it? -How do you want to study it? -What are the expected output from the study? Talk to your friend next to you and explain your research interest

Ensuring Quality of Qualitative Research Triangulation Divergent cases/themes Reflexivity Member checks Prolonged engagement Audit trial (evidence/appendices) Peer debriefing Thick description Collaboration/Participant verification

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