1. Chapter One Qualitative Research: An Opening Orientation

2. Overview The dynamic processes of qualitative study
Situating qualitative research
Defining qualitative research
The key components of qualitative research
The role of the researcher
The horizontals of qualitative research
criticality, reflexivity, collaboration, and rigor
Overview of approaches to qualitative research

3. Not one-directional or “discrete and sequential” but tends to follow these trends as presented in this figure.

4. Situating qualitative research
No universal, static ‘Truths’
Context and contextualization are central
Questions the interpretive role and authority of the researcher and acknowledge the subjectivity of all researchers
Relational aspects of research (interpersonal dynamics and broader issues of power) shape research and findings

5. Defining qualitative research
“Qualitative research, broadly, is based on the methodological pursuit of understanding the ways that people see, view, approach, and experience the world and make meaning of their experiences as well as specific phenomena within it.”

6. Key components of qualitative research
Fieldwork and naturalistic engagement
Descriptive and analytic
Seeks complexity and contextualization
Researcher as instrument
Fidelity to participants
Meaning and meaning-making
Inductive
See Table 1.1: Components of qualitative research

7. The role of the researcher
Researcher’s identity
Social location
Positionality

8. Social location/identity
Researcher’s identity markers (e.g., gender, social class, race, sexual identity/orientation, culture, ethnicity, language communities, etc. and intersections of these)

9. Positionality
Researcher’s relationship to the context and setting of the research

10. Horizontals in qualitative research
Criticality
Reflexivity
Collaboration
Rigor

11. Criticality A critical methodological approach
Creates the conditions to see, engage, contextualize, and make meaning of the complexity of people’s lives and society
Serves as a counter-narrative to dominant and normative cultural knowledge

12. Reflexivity
“the systematic assessment of your identity, positionality, and subjectivities” (p. 15)

13. Collaboration
Should occur throughout the research process, regardless of whether you are on a team or a lone researcher
Dialogic engagement: The collaborative, dialogue-based processes that qualitative researchers engage in throughout a research study that push you to think about various aspects of the research process (and products) in dialogue with others.

14. Rigor Responsive research design Fidelity to participants’ experiences
Seeks complexity and contextualization in design and representation
Transparency
Reflexive engagement

15. Approaches to qualitative research
Action research
Case study
Ethnography/critical ethnography
Evaluation research
Grounded theory

16. Approaches to qualitative research
Narrative research
Participatory action research
Phenomenology
Practitioner research

17. Questions for reflection
What are the general processes of a qualitative research study?
How does the history of qualitative research affect its practice?
What are the key components of qualitative research?
What are core values, beliefs, and assumptions upon which qualitative research is based?
What role(s) does the researcher play in qualitative research?

18. Questions for Reflection
How are the terms iterative, recursive, positionality, social location, emergent, epistemology, ontology, methodology, criticality in qualitative research, binaries, and dialogic engagement used in qualitative research?
How are criticality, reflexivity, collaboration, and rigor integral to qualitative research?
What stands out about the different approaches to qualitative research?
What do you consider to be the possibilities of qualitative research?