Research Methods in Marriage and Family

Therapy

Qualitative Research Methods

Day Two

Agenda for Today

• RAT and CAT?

• Journal 22 – discuss

• Survey Research

• Task Analysis

• Focus Groups

•Please complete the R.A.T.

Survey

• Research based on direct contact with members of the population of interest

Surveys may be qualitative, quantitative or mixed

Terms

• Dependent and independent variables

• Nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio

• Error, power (power is inversely related to error)

• Sampling error: how well does the sample represent the population?

• Reliability, validity

Method

• What are the goals of the survey?

• What questions need to be asked to meet the goals?

• Where will you get your sample?

• Selection, Size, Representativeness

Probability Sampling

• Simple random

• Systematic (every nth)

• Stratified (a random wolf and a random sheep)

• Cluster (random section, random participant in section)

Nonprobability Sampling

• Experts (shepherds)

• Quota (1 wolf, 20 sheep)

• Convenience

• Word of mouth (sub of convenience)

Considerations

• Cost

• Error (nonprobability sample: greater error, perhaps less cost)

• Nonrespondents (dead sheep don’t speak against wolves)

Basic Family Therapy Skills Project

• What are the essential skills for beginning and intermediate therapists?

• Supervisors, trainers, students

Sample Selection

• AAMFT, AFTA

• Personalized invitations (response rate)

• Questionnaires (mail, telephone, internet)

Data Collection

• Demographics

• Interview (in-person, telephone, internet, mail)

• Structured, semistructured, unstructured

Data Collection

• Self-administered vs. Other-administered

• Closed (yes/no) vs. open questions (qualitative)

• Length

Increasing Response

• Reminders, thank-yous

• Mail and internet

• Telephone follow up

• Personalization

• Reward ($)

Discussion

• Advantage: volume of data, short time

• Disadvantage: error (sampling, nonsampling), meaning

• What examples of survey research have you seen in this course already?

Task Analysis

• A mixed method (may have qualitative and quantitative elements)

• Concerned with Process

• Attempts to answer, “How does change occur?”

Emotionally Focused Therapy

• Apparently it works

• Based on attachment theory

• “Soft” emotions promote attachment

My Therapy Room

The Goal

“Softened” blamer

Task Analysis

• Bradley et al. Toward a mini-theory of the blamer softening event: tracking the moment-by-moment process. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy (2004) vol. 30 (2) pp. 233-246

Bradley et al.

• Plysiuk on marital conflict: escalation, de-escalation, testing (spouse regresses to see how the partner will react), mutual openness

• What does the therapist need to know?

Methodology

• Therapist tapes (with permission)

• Examined in detail for events leading to blamer softening

• Compare rational model with empirical model

Task

Event marker

Therapist interventions

Client responses Resolved/Unresolved

Task

Event marker: blamer turns toward partner

- 10 min

+ 3 min

Event resolution: partner accepts blamer’s new stance

8 - 12 sessions!

Results

• statistics: validation of the measuring instruments

• content analysis

• six therapist interventions

• six thematic shifts

Interventions

• Evocative responding

• Heightening present and changing positions

• Validation of client responses

• Empathic conjecture/interpretation

• Reframing

• Restructuring interaction

Themes

• Processing possible blamer reaching

• Processing fears of reaching

• Promoting actual reaching

• Supporting softening blamer

• Processing with engaged withdrawer (blamer’s partner)

• Promoting engaged withdrawer reaching back with support

A Cook Book With Results

• Illustrations of each step (grounded theory)

• Measurements of the effect of each step (quantitative analysis)

• Relevant for therapeutic practice

Focus Groups

History of Focus Groups

• Social science researchers have used group interviews since the 1920s

• Lazarsfeld & Merton used focus groups in 1941 to evaluate radio programs

• Merton went on to write a paper in 1946 and the first book on focus groups in 1956

• There has been a threefold increase in the number of focus group studies in academic journals over recent years

Focus Groups• To understand how people feel or

think about an issue, product, service or idea

• Participants selected because they have characteristics in common that relate to the topic; six to eight people (invite ten)

• Conducted several times with similar participants (e.g. saturation)

Uses for Focus Groups• Decision making

• Product or program development

• Customer satisfaction, improving quality

• Planning and goal setting

• Needs assessment

• Understanding employee concerns

• Policy making and testing

When to Use Focus Groups

• Looking for a range of ideas or feelings people have about something

• Trying to understand differences in perspectives between groups or categories of people

• Uncover factors that influence opinions, behaviour, or motivation

• Pilot testing ideas, materials, plans or policies

• Needing information to design a large-scale quantitative study

Focus Groups Should NotBe Used When…

• You want people to come to consensus

• You want to educate people

• You are asking about sensitive information

• You need statistical projection

• The topic is emotionally charged and a group discussion would end in conflict

• Other methodologies can produce better quality information

A mother thought her daughter should have a comprehensive checkup before starting kindergarten. She made an appointment with an eminent psychologist to examine the youngster for any abnormal tendencies. Among the questions, the man asked, “Are you a boy or a girl?” “A boy,” the little girl answered.

Developing Questions

Somewhat startled, the psychologist tried again. “When you grow up, are you going to be a woman or a man?” “A man,” the little girl answered. On the way home her mother asked, “Why did you make such strange replies to what the psychologist asked?” In a serious tone the little girl replied, “He asked such silly questions, I thought he wanted silly answers!”

Developing Questions

Data Produced

• Audio or videotapes

• Transcripts from tapes

• Field notes, flip chart notes

• Questionnaires pre or post group

• Lists or materials produced by participants

Data Analysis• Code mapping:

• Read through transcripts

• Identify categories

• Code words, phrases, sentences, interchanges or conceptual units

• Cut and paste transcript into categories

• Use direct quotes to provide rich description

Reporting Results• Raw data model – present questions

then quotes

• Descriptive model – summary comments and illustrative quotes

• Interpretive model – summary comments, illustrative quotes and researcher’s interpretation (Morgan & Krueger,1998)

• Use clips of audio or video to enhance presentation

• “We have more information now than we can use, and less knowledge and understanding than we need… The true measure of any society is not what it knows but what it does with what it knows.” - Warren Bennis