Chapter 18 Qualitative Research: Specific Methods PowerPoint presentation developed by: E. Roberto Orellana & Lin Fang

Overview Preparing for the Field The Various Roles of the Observer Relations to Participants: Emic and Etic Perspectives Qualitative Interviewing Focus Groups Life History Feminist Methods Recording Observations

Preparing for the Field Search of relevant literature Use key informants Discuss the group/community with others who have already studied it Discuss the group with one of its members Establish initial contacts with the group to be studied

The Various Roles of the Observer Four different positions on a continuum of participant observation roles are: Complete participant Participant-as-observer Observer-as-participant Complete observer

The Various Roles of the Observer A complete participant may either be a genuine participant in what she is studying or pretend to be a genuine participant. People will see her only as a participant, not as a researcher A participant-as-observer would participate fully with the group under study, but would make it clear that he is also undertaking research

The Various Roles of the Observer The observer-as-participant is one who identifies herself as a researcher and interacts with the participants in the social process but makes no pretense of actually being a participant The complete observer observes a social process without becoming a part of it in any way. The participants in a study might not realize they are being studied because of the researcher’s unobtrusiveness

Relations to Participants: Emic and Etic Perspectives Qualitative researchers should learn how to simultaneously hold two contradictory perspectives: Trying to adopt the beliefs, attitudes, and other points of view shared by the members of the culture being studied (the emic perspective) Maintaining objectivity as an outsider and raising questions about the culture being observed that wouldn’t occur to members of that culture (the etic perspective)

Qualitative Interviewing Qualitative researchers often engage in in-depth interviews with the participants, interviews that are far less structured than interviews conducted in survey research Qualitative interviewing tends to be open-ended and unstructured. Three forms of qualitative, open-ended interviewing are: The informal conversational interview The general interview guide approach The standardized open-ended interview

Qualitative Interviewing An informal conversational interview is an unplanned and unanticipated interaction between an interviewer and a respondent that occurs naturally during the course of fieldwork observation With the interview guide approach to qualitative interviewing, an interview guide lists in outline form the topics and issues that an interviewer should cover in the interview, but it allows the interviewer to adapt the sequencing and wording of questions to each particular interview

Qualitative Interviewing The standardized open-ended interview consists of questions that are written out in advance exactly the way they are to be asked in the interview. Probes are to be limited to where they are indicated on the interview schedule

Focus Groups To conduct a focus group, researchers bring participants together to be observed and interviewed as group Focus groups are based on structured, semistructured, or unstructured interviews. They allow the researcher to question several individuals systematically and simultaneously

Focus Groups Inexpensive Generate speedy results Focus groups offer several advantages: Inexpensive Generate speedy results Offer flexibility for probing The group dynamics that occur in focus groups can bring out aspects of the topic that the researchers may not have anticipated and that may not have emerged in individual interviews

Focus Groups Questionable representativeness of participants Focus groups however, also have disadvantages: Questionable representativeness of participants The influence of group dynamics to pressure people to say things that do not accurately reflect what they really believe or do The difficulty in analyzing the voluminous data generated

Life History Life histories or life stories involve asking open-ended questions to discover how the participants in a study understand the significant events and meaning in their own lives. AKA: Oral history interviews Because life histories provide idiographic examinations of individuals’ lives, they can be viewed within the case study paradigm

Feminist Methods Many studies using feminist methods to generate findings that can be used to improve the well-being of women in an historically male-dominated society Feminist studies use both quantitative and qualitative methods. However, qualitative methods are used more commonly, as they can employ features that attempt to let the voices of women be heard from their own point of view

Recording Observations Tape recorders are powerful tools for qualitative interviewing. It ensures verbatim recording and frees interviewers to keep their full attention focused on the respondents The field journal is the backbone of qualitative research, because that is where the researcher records the observations. Journal entries should be detailed, yet concise.

Recording Observations Note-taking in qualitative research should include both the investigator’s empirical observations and the investigator’s interpretations of them. You should record what you “know” has happened and what you “think” has happened. If, possible observations should be recorded as they are made; otherwise, they should be recorded in stages and as soon as possible. Don’t trust your memory any more than you have to.