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Copyright © 2010 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

Chapter 10

Qualitative Designs and Approaches


Characteristics of Qualitative Research Design

• Flexible, elastic

• Holistic

• Intense researcher involvement

• Emergent: ongoing analysis guiding design decisions

• Bricolage: merging various data collection strategies


Advance Planning and Activities in Qualitative Studies

• Selecting a research tradition

• Selecting a study site

• Identifying gatekeepers, gaining entrée

• Identifying needed equipment for the field

• Analyzing personal biases


Overview of Qualitative Research Traditions

• Anthropology (Domain: Culture)

– Ethnography; Ethnoscience

• Philosophy (Domain: Lived Experience)

– Phenomenology; Hermeneutics

• Psychology (Domain: Behavior)

•Ethology; Ecological psychology


Overview of Qualitative Research Traditions (cont.)• Sociology (Domain: Social Settings)

– Grounded theory; Ethnomethodology

• Sociolinguistics (Domain: Communication)

– Discourse analysis

• History (Domain: Past Events, Conditions)

– Historical research


Question

Is the following statement True or False?

• The primary research tradition of philosophy is ethnography.


Answer

• False

– Ethnography is the primary research tradition of anthropology. Hermeneutics and phenomenology are associated with philosophy.


Ethnography• Describes and interprets a culture and cultural

behavior

• Culture is the way a group of people live—the patterns of activity and the symbolic structures (for example, the values and norms) that give such activity significance.

• Relies on extensive, labor-intensive fieldwork

• Culture is inferred from the group’s words, actions, and products.

• Assumption: Cultures guide the way people structure their experiences.


Ethnography (cont.)

• Seeks an emic perspective (insider’s view) of the culture

• Relies on wide range of data sources (interviews, observations, documents; some may be quantitative)

• Participant observation is a particularly important source.

• Product: An in-depth, holistic portrait of the culture under study


Types of Ethnography

• Macroethnography (broadly defined cultures)

• Microethnography (narrowly defined cultures)

• Auto-ethnography/insider research (the study of one’s own culture)

• Ethnonursing research (the intersection of nursing concerns and human culture)


Phenomenology• Focuses on the description and interpretation of

people’s lived experience

• Asks: What is the essence of a phenomenon as it is experienced by people, and what does it mean?

• Acknowledges people’s physical ties to their world: “Being in the world”

• Four key aspects of experience: Lived space, lived body, lived time, lived human relation

• Main data source: In-depth conversations with a small number of participants who have experienced the phenomenon


Descriptive Phenomenology

• Describes human experience

• Based on philosophy of Husserl

• Steps: Bracketing, Intuiting, Analyzing, Describing

• Bracketing (identifying and holding in abeyance preconceived views)

– May involve maintaining a reflexive journal


Interpretive Phenomenology

• Emphasis on interpreting and understanding experience, not just describing it

• Based on philosophy of Heidegger: Heideggerian hermeneutics

• Bracketing does not occur.

• Supplementary data sources: texts, artistic expressions


Question

Which of the following would be associated with descriptive phenomenology?

a. Emic perspective

b. Bracketing

c. Fieldwork

d. Lived human relation


Answer

b. Bracketing

• Descriptive phenomenology involves four steps, the first of which is bracketing. Emic perspective and fieldwork are associated with ethnography. Lived human relation is characteristic of phenomenology in general.


Grounded Theory

• Focuses on the discovery of a basic social psychological problem that a defined group of people experience

• Elucidates social psychological processes and social structures

• Has a number of theoretical roots—e.g., symbolic interaction

• Originally developed by sociologists Glaser and Strauss


Grounded Theory Methods

• Primary data sources: In-depth interviews with 20 to 40 people; may be supplemented with observations, written documents

• Data collection, data analysis, sampling occur simultaneously


Grounded Theory Analysis

• Constant comparison used to develop and refine theoretically relevant categories

• Focus is on understanding a central concern or core variable

• A basic social process (BSP) explains how people come to resolve the problem or concern


Alternative Views of Grounded Theory

• Glaser and Strauss (generation of explanatory theory linking related concepts); called Glaserian methods

• Strauss and Corbin (full conceptual description)

• Nurse researchers have used both approaches


Case Studies• Not all qualitative studies are conducted within a

disciplinary tradition. Examples include:

• Case studies

– These focus on a thorough description and explanation of a single case or small number of cases.

– Cases can be individuals, families, groups, organizations, or communities.

– Data often are collected over an extended period.


Question

Is the following statement True or False?

• When applying grounded theory methods, the researcher obtains the sample first and then collects data.


Answer

• False

– When using grounded theory methods, data collection, data analysis, and sampling occur simultaneously.


Narrative Analysis

• Texts that provide detailed stories are sometimes analyzed through narrative analysis.

• There are numerous approaches to analyzing texts.

• One example is Burke’s pentadic dramatism: analyzes 5 elements of a story (act, scene, agent, agency, purpose); meant to be analyzed in ratios, such as act:agent


Descriptive Qualitative Studies

• Many studies do not claim any specific type of approach or disciplinary tradition.

• Such descriptive studies seek to holistically describe phenomena as they are perceived by the people who experience them.

• The researchers may say that they did a content analysis of the narrative data with the intent of understanding important themes and patterns.


Research With Ideological Perspectives

• Critical theory research:

– Such research is concerned with a critique of existing social structures and with envisioning new possibilities.

– Transformation is a key objective.

– Ethnographies are especially likely to be critical.


Research With Ideological Perspectives (cont.)

• Feminist research:

– Focuses on how gender domination and discrimination shape women’s lives and their consciousness

• Participatory action research (PAR):

– Produces knowledge through close collaboration with groups or communities that are vulnerable to control or oppression


Question

Which of the following would best describe the key objective of critical theory research?

a. Long-term data collection

b. Gender domination

c. Transformation

d. Vulnerable groups


Answer

c. Transformation

• A key objective of critical theory research is transformation. Data collection over time is common in case studies. The effect of gender domination and discrimination is associated with feminist research. Groups or communities vulnerable to control or oppression are associated with participatory action research.


Traditional Qualitative Research vs. Critical Research


End of Presentation

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