Week 8

Qualitative research is concerned primarily with people's experience and putting that into word and images

It is usually inductive
The process starts with field research, then concepts and theories are developed

It tends to be interpretivist
- Concerned with finding out what an action or event means to the people involved

Often constructionist
- Social life is not seen as fixed, but as an outcome of interactions and negotiations

Takes a naturalist perspective
When doing research, the social world should be left as undisturbed as possible

true- even as a qualitative researcher, you start off with some theory (often times a grand theory)

1.) Ethnography/participant observation

2.) Qualitative interviewing

3.) Focus groups

4.) Discourse and conversation analysis

5.) Content analysis

6.) Participatory action research

Immersed in the social setting

In-depth, semi-structured or unstructured

gotta be quick-witted about it

intuitive and you tend to get more better with practice

tends to be a little more reactive; gotta be more on your feet for semi-structured interviews rather than

unstructured interviews

interview several people together

- 4 and 10 people
- facilitator will have their list of questions and let the dynamics of the group play out
- generally about having a conversation
- challenges of focus groups could be that people may start answering with the same responses
"groupthink"- everyone is saying the same thing and so you're not getting accurate responses

- in general, focus groups are pretty cheap to conduct

Analyze the language

- mainly looking at language
- particularly with newspapers
- do it in a couple of ways
- discourse analysis for prisoners for example
- typically done with news media or newspaper and seeing where certain vocabulary or terms show up
ex.) use of language has changed over time for the new york times

text analysis/ media/ newspapers/ audio clips etc

- looking a themes or topics that show up a lot in people's conversations
- the connotations about certain topics
- perspectives being shared

Engage participants to produce social change
- common in critical theory research
- to bring about social change and research
- not uncommon in research for prison reforms
- seen a lot in criminology

1. Establish a general research question
2. Select a relevant site and subjects
3. Data Collection
4. Interpret the data
5. Conceptual and theoretical work
6a. Tighter specification of the research question
6b. Collecting more Data
7. Writing up and findings/conclusions

What interesting social issue are you studying?

- where do you wanna do the research
- who do you wanna study
- does not have to be representative (an advantage of - qualitative research over quantitative research)- you don't need to get a representative sample

E.g., do high crime communities have low social control?

Where is the research being conducted and who are the research subjects?

E.g., residents in a high crime neighbourhood

Determine which methods to use
- It may be more appropriate to use more than one method
- E.g., ethnographic observations and interviews

Determine the meanings that the research subject put to activities that occur in the social environment

E.g., residents don't perceive crime as a problem because there is a low incidence of violent crime, in spite of the high crime rate

Evaluate the data related to your research question

- E.g., crime may not be as damaging to a community as outsiders might think if there are cushioning factors. Although crime is recognized as common, networks of localized support reduced the potential or at least fear of actual violence. How does available data answer this question?
(a) Tighter specification of the research question

Here the interpreting and theorizing process is intermixed data collection. This is an iterative process. Data may confirm or contradict the interpretation which may lead again to more data collection

you start to ask different types of questions because there is a lot more variability/ human influence/ human perceptions that can alter what you are doing in the moment

as a researcher, you need to have some flexibility to move to a different topic or different area if your research question was not sufficient or accurate enough


E.g., more interviews with research subjects, perhaps some new or some revisited

The researcher must demonstrate the credibility of the research and why the research matters

E.g., provide insight into why crime may flourish in an area essentially under the nose of residents

Qualitative research often involves the "grounded theory" approach: the use of data to develop theories
- This may involve an iterative process: going back and forth from data to theory, revising the theory in the process


Qualitative research may involve testing theories
- This can be done through an iterative process, or occasionally through theory testing in the conventional sense

- definitive concepts
- sensitizing concepts

Definitive concepts: defined with nominal and operational definitions, as in quantitative research


Sensitizing concepts: provide only a general sense of reference and guidance as to the content of the concept
- Begin with a broad definition of a concept and narrow it down through the research process

- trustworthiness
- Authenticity

- Credibility
- Transferability
- Dependability
- Confirmability

Do the people studied agree with the interpretation of their thoughts and actions offered by the researcher?

idea that the people studied might have their own interpretations of phenomena that are different than the research

Conducted through respondent (member) validation

- The people studied may become defensive and try to censor the research
- The people studied may not give genuine feedback on what the researcher produced, but may instead try to please the researcher
- The people studied may not have the expertise to provide meaningful comments

- people would be provided with some kind of summary of the research and what you found and be given a chance to comment on it

- show transcripts, early drafts, field notes, chances to ask questions, offer criticism etc. from people involved in the study

- goal is finding out if you've accurately portrayed what people's interpretations of their own experiences are

- trying not to skew people's ideas to favour your own perspective

degree to which research is transformative and emancipatory" for the people studied and the society at large
- in order to change society essentially
definition has roots in critical theory/ praxis
you are dealing with a smaller set of individuals in general in qual research

applicability- external validity is tough to establish
is whatever your findings applicable outside of the content of your study?
- if it isn't- at the end of the day, it might produce trivial research


a remedy to this ^ is to give a thick description
- rich details of account as you can, so that other people looking at your research can determine whether they think that there is meaningful comparison to what they are doing is transferable (transferability to other research)

Can the findings be applied to other contexts or people not studied?

"Thick" description helps to determine whether transferability is possible
- Provides enough information to conduct later comparison to findings from other studies

Were proper procedures followed?
Can the study's theoretical inferences can be justified?

- "Auditing" is sometimes done wherein peers review the research and procedures to see if the study is dependable

- May be time consuming and expensive because of the amount of data gathered in a qualitative research project

- an aspect of qual research that is in crisis- because we don't have sufficient methods (with the available tool kits) to establish dependability

- Was the researcher objective and unbiased?
- Did the researcher sway the results dramatically?
- "Auditing" can be used to examine this

wanting to look at whether or not another person doing the same research is coming up with the same results
- are the conclusions predetermined by the beliefs or ideologies by the person doing the research? was objectivity there?
- somewhat in crisis- it can be easy for people to fall into an echo chamber and publish things that align with their own beliefs

- Probing "beneath the surface" of social behaviour
- Seeing through the eyes of the people studied

Behaviour that may seem odd or irrational may become more understandable if the context is described

Naturalism is an approach that helps the researcher gain an understanding of the social context

Observing people in their own environment

- Showing how events and patterns unfold over time

- A long time spent in the field allows the researcher to understand individual and social change and its context

- This can also be done with semi-structured interviewing, unstructured interviewing, and life history approach

true- especially in the early stages of research

- There is usually little or no theory driving the research

- The topics explored in the research may change as the study progresses

- Allows the researcher to find new directions of study

- seeing through the eyes of others

- bringing out a sense of process

- having a flexible and unstructured method of inquiry

- achieving a deep understanding of the people or groups being studied

- pursue social justice and bring about social change


ultimate goal is to show change over time/ process over time via an empathetic understanding of the subject matter

- too subjective
- difficult to replicate
- problems of generalization
- lack of transparency

- It can be too impressionistic and subjective

- Bias can result from personal relationships that develop during the research

- It may be unclear as to how a particular topic or theme became the focus of the research

- ideological bias (*)
- personal relationship bias

- in particular, if you look at the social sciences, there is often a post-modernist/ marxist bias or even critical theory biases that superimpose certain conclusions
any conclusion will be fed through the pre existing lens (often gran theories) that can affect your middle range theories/ grounded theories in what you see in your research

- everything ends up getting fed through a particular ideological framework which ends up skewing the research

- critical theory for instance might view social phenomena as being the oppressor and the oppressed

- your conclusions might remain within the framework of critical theory

might want to cast people in a good light

Reactive effect can be expected

Subsequent researchers will bring a different reactive effect to their gender, race, or social position

However, generalization may not be the goal of the research

In-depth description and understanding of meaning may be what the researcher is aiming for

It may be difficult to determine how the research was conducted, why certain people were chosen for in-depth interviews, etc.

Unclear how researchers arrived to specific findings

Can be diminished by researchers keeping the detailed record of decisions taken at various stages of research

- Numbers vs. words

- Point of view of researcher vs. points of view of participants

- Researcher distant vs. researcher close

- Theory and concepts tested in research vs. theory and concepts developed from data

- Structured vs. unstructured

- Generalizable knowledge vs. contextual understanding

- Theory testing vs. theory development

- Hard reliable data vs. rich, deep data

- Macro vs. micro

- Behaviour vs. meaning

- Artificial settings vs. natural settings