1. SOWK 6003 Social Work Research Week 9 Qualitative Research and its Analysis
By Dr. Paul Wong

2. Overview Topics Appropriate for Qualitative Research
Prominent Qualitative Research Paradigms
Qualitative Sampling Methods
Strengths and Weaknesses
Standards for Evaluating Qualitative Studies
Research Ethics in Qualitative Research

3. Qualitative Research Methods
Qualitative research methods attempt to tap the deeper meanings of particular human experiences, generating theoretically richer observations that are not easily reduced to numbers
By going directly to the phenomenon under study, and observing it as completely as possible, researchers can develop a deeper understanding of it
Qualitative research is not only a data-collecting activity, but also frequently, and perhaps typically, a theory-generating activity.

4. Topics Appropriate for Qualitative Research
Qualitative research is especially appropriate to the study of topics for which attitudes and behaviors can best be understood within their natural setting
Qualitative research is especially appropriate for the study of social processes over time (e.g., rumblings and final explosion of a riot as events actually occur)

5. Topics Appropriate for Qualitative Research
Appropriate topics for field research include:
Practices
Episodes
Encounters
Roles
Relationships
Groups
Organizations
Settlements
Social worlds
Lifestyles or subcultures

6. Prominent Qualitative Research Paradigms
Naturalism
An old tradition that emphasizes observing people in their everyday settings
E.g., Ethnography involves naturalistic observations and holistic understandings of cultures or subcultures
Grounded Theory
Attempts to derive theories from an analysis of the patterns, themes, and common categories discovered among observational data
This section examines four qualitative field research paradigms that are particularly applicable to social work: naturalism, grounded theory, participatory action research, and case studies.

7. Prominent Qualitative Research Paradigms
Participatory Action Research
Implicit belief that research functions not only as means of knowledge production, but also as a tool for education and development of consciousness as well as mobilization for action
Case Studies
Idiographic examinations of a single individual, family, group, organization, community or society

8. Qualitative Sampling Methods
Probability sampling is sometimes used in qualitative research, however nonprobability techniques are much more common
Nonprobability samples used in qualitative research are called purposive samples

9. Qualitative Sampling Methods
Purposive samples include:
Quota sample
Snowball sample
Deviant case sample
Intensity sample
Critical incidents sample
Maximum variation sample
In purposive sampling, you select a sample of observations that you believe will yield the most comprehensive understanding of your subject of study. For example, in a study of homelessness, you might wish to observe many different locations in the city. You could use standard probability methods to pick a sample of locations, or you could use a rough quota system, observing busy areas and deserted ones, or including samples from different times of the day.

10. Strengths and Weaknesses
Depth of understanding
Flexibility
Cost
Subjectivity
Generalizibility
Strengths: depth of understanding, flexibility (can modify research design), cost (relatively inexpensive)
Weaknesses: subjectivity (=less reliability), generalizability (seldom can generalize findings to larger population)

11. Standards for Evaluating Qualitative Studies
Given the variety of research methods and paradigms, a general agreement exists that one key issue in evaluating the rigor of qualitative research is trustworthiness
Three key threats to trustworthiness:
Reactivity
Researcher bias
Respondent bias

12. Standards for Evaluating Qualitative Studies
Contemporary Positivist Standards
Strategies to minimize threats:
Prolonged engagement
Triangulation
Peer debriefing and support
Negative case analysis
Member checking
Auditing

13. Standards for Evaluating Qualitative Studies
Social Constructivist Standards
This paradigm views trustworthiness and strategies to enhance rigor more in terms of capturing multiple subjective realities than of ensuring the portrayal of an objective social reality, the objective of contemporary positivists.

14. Standards for Evaluating Qualitative Studies
Empowerment Standards
Those who take a critical social science or participatory action research approach to qualitative research include empowerment standards in critically appraising qualitative research
Research must evoke action by participants to effect desired change and a redistribution of power

15. Research Ethics in Qualitative Research
Conducting qualitative research responsibly
involves confronting ethical issues that arise
from the researcher’s direct contact with
participants:
Is it ethical to talk to people when they don’t know you will be recording their words?
Is it ethical to see a severe need for help and not respond to it directly?
Is it ethical to “pay” people with trade-offs for access to their lives and minds?

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

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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

20. 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

21. 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

22. 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)

23. 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

24. 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

25. 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

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

27. Focus Groups Inexpensive Generate speedy results
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

28. Questionable representativeness of participants
Focus Groups
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

29. 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

30. 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.

31. 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.