1. What is Knowledge? External objective truth?
develop law of general understanding
Testable and measurable
External objective truth?
uncover meaning
Deepen understanding
Constructed interpretation?

2. Positivist Interpretivist Objective Quantitative Subjective
Qualitative
ISSUE AND DEBATE: Psychology as a Science!

3. Qualitative Research
Can you come up with some investigations a researcher might conduct that would need the use of qualitative data?
Why are female students reluctant to study physics at university?
How do teenage boys perceive STI’s?
Why does a particular community support the BNP?

4. Qualitative Methods Semi-structured interviews (opened ended)
Participant observation
Focus group discussions
Collecting written accounts/diary entries
Case study (variety of methods)

5. Qualitative Sampling
What do you think would be the main difference between a quantitative research project and a qualitative research project in terms of sampling techniques?
Quantitative - Large to ensure generalisation can take place
Random sampling
Qualitative – Small/clearly defined
Purposive sampling

6. Analysing Data Qualitative Quantitative
INDUCTIVE APPROACH – specific to general.
REFLEXIVITY – acknowledge subjectivity of researcher and participants
Qualitative
DEDUCTIVE APPROACH – general to specific.
REFLEXIVITY – objective information obtained, researcher bias minimised.
Quantitative

7. Analysing data 1) Organising Data – e.g. Transcription
2) Coding Data – depends on analysis
- Thematic analysis – picking out themes and patterns in the data.
- Grounded theory – generating theory from the data hence each line of text is coded.
- Content analysis– categorising qualitative data and counting instances of categories.

8. Thematic Analysis
Thematic analysis involves generating codes, which can come from theory, from how the researcher understands their data or from previous research.
Steps:
Familiarise oneself with data
Generate codes
Look for themes in the codes
Review the themes
Define and name the themes
Produce a report

9. Thematic Analysis Strengths Maintains richness in data
Allows insights that are not anticipated by the researcher
Flexible way of analysing qualitative data – from theory or from data
Weaknesses
Subjectivity – researchers’ use their judgment to find themes.

10. Grounded Theory Looking at data first before arriving at theory Steps:
Ask question
Collect empirical data (usually rich and detailed)
Code chunks of data
Put codes into concepts and keep revising
Build a model of how the concepts can be explained
Keep checking the concepts fit the model

11. Grounded Theory Strengths
Concepts measure what they claim to measure as they came from the participants thoughts and feelings
More creative than thematic and content analysis
Maintains richness in data
Weaknesses
Subjectivity – researchers’ use their judgment to find themes.
Not appropriate to ignore previous research
Impossible to code and categorise data into concepts without some theory in mind.

12. Evaluation Quantitative Qualitative
High Reliability
High Validity
Quantitative
High external validity and low internal validity and reliability
Trustworthy – check of doc by external party.
Transferability – can insights explain similar situations
Qualitative

13. Internal Validity: Definition
• Internal validity refers to the extent to which we can accurately state that the independent variable produced the observed effect. • If – effect on dependant variable only due to variation in the independent variable(s) • then – internal validity achieved

14. Example of the Issue
• Investigating effects of tutoring on grades • Compare those who receive tutoring with those who do not receive tutoring • Tutored students do better – brighter – receive more nonspecific attention – don’t stay out late • Internal validity is questionable

15. External Validity
• What is external validity? • Relates to generalizing your findings – to or across target populations – to or across tasks – to or across environments • Campbell and Stanely: “ the ability to generalize to or across exemplars of a particular to the entire class of a particular”

16. Exam questions
Explain the use of grounded theory in clinical psychology (4 marks)
Explain the use of grounded theory in child psychology (4 marks)
Explain how a thematic analysis would be conducted in the context of clinical psychology (4 marks)
Explain how a thematic analysis would be conducted in the context of child psychology (4 marks)
Outline one advantage of analysing data qualitatively (3)
Qutline one disadvantage of analysing data qualitatively (3)