Qualitative methods Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything than can be counted counts. Einstein

1. Philosophical Underpinning Qualitative methodsNot everything that counts can be counted, and not everything than can be counted counts. Einstein

2. Alternative to Positivism • Human experience is mediated historically, culturally, and linguistically (social constructivism) • • Our perception or experience is one version of reality • • There are knowledgeS, not knowledge

3. Qualitative Methodology: Guiding principles • • Interest in meaning: • - How do people make sense of the world? • - How do people experience the world? • • Interest in participants’ meanings rather • than researchers’ meanings • • No interest in preconceived variables & • cause-effect relationships • • Aim is to insightfully describe or explain but • not to predict

4. Criticism of the Scientific Method • Does not allow for new theory development • Treating humans as automata • Experiments eliminate meaning • Reductionist • Ignores social context • Ecological validity

5. Qualitative data • Non-numerical data, mostly in the form of meanings: • what people say • pictorial e.g. graffiti, film, popular culture • content of songs, stories myths advertisement • uncategorized, unedited recordings of behaviour

6. Differences between Quantitative and Qualitative Methods

7. Differences between Quantitative and Qualitative Methods

8. Criteria for achieving validity in qualitative research • Trustworthiness and genuineness • Triangulation • Respondent validation • Peer agreement • Independent audit

9. Practical issues in qualitative research • Can be very time consuming to conduct • Can take more of participants’ time compared to an experimental approach

10. Participant Observation Qualitative Methods

11. Observation: Naturalistic, Controlled and Participant • Takes place in natural settings (e.g. hospital, schools) • Observer can be covert or overt • Observations can be systematic but not necessarily so • Researcher engages in variety of activities – participation, documentation, interviewing and reflection • Balance between participation and observation • Notes rich in data are taken

12. Advantages • Useful when phenomena cannot be replicated in lab • Ecological validity is high but can be not in controlled observation (e.g. Bobo Doll) • Compared to interviews participants far more truthful • Participants less effected by demand characteristics • Can study both humans and non-humans • Clear operational definitions improve validity and reliability • In event sampling, detailed information gathered about frequency, duration and sequence of behaviour

13. Disadvantages • Questionable reliability and validity (subjective) • Time consuming and labor intensive • Difficult to control variables • Difficult to obtain high inter-observer reliability though training can help • So much complex behaviour means that every event may not be recorded • Cause and effect relationships are not established • Ethics of invasion of privacy and deception with participant observation • Replication difficult

14. Interviews • Usually face-to-face but also telephone and internet and computer assisted • Most common method of data collection • Easier to arrange than other forms of qualitative data collection • Balance between controlling interview and leaving space for participant to take control

15. Interviews: Forms • Structured • Pre-determined questions and possible responses • Semi-structured • Mixture of pre-determined questions and more open questions • Unstructured • No questions just general topics • Conversational • No pre-determined questions • Maximum flexibility to follow topic as they develop

16. Interview: Settings • Individual face-to-face • Most common form • Can enhance rapport but also demand socially acceptable responses • Small Group or Focus Group • Responses build upon each other “synergistic approach” • Email , Telephone Computer assisted • Access to remote populations • Can lessen the demand to provide socially accepted responses

17. Recording Interviews • Tape recording • Video recording • Note-taking

18. Transcription of Interviews • Traditional transcripts • Word only • Quick and easy • Subtle meanings may be lost • Post-Modern transcripts • Words plus all aspects of non-verbal communication e.g. tone, pauses, expression posture • Data rich but time consuming and inter-rater reliability an issue

19. Interviews: Advantages • A range of techniques can be employed including open and closed questions • Data form structured interviews can be quantified to aid analysis • Rich think data

20. Interviews: Disadvantages • Requires time & effort • As it is a self-report method it relies on the ability to describe own behavior/experiences • Remaining issues of reliability and validity

21. Verbal Protocol • Verbal protocols – recordings of what people say when carrying out a task under instructions to verbalise all thoughts. • E.g. administering emergency care in a hospital • Used most in problem solving tasks to provide extra information about strategies etc

22. Verbal Protocol: Advantages • Useful for the participant to verbalize what it is they are doing • Provides a spot analysis of a particular more effectively than an interview

23. Verbal Protocol: Disadvantages • Participants may not include vital information • Participants need training and practice • Verbalizing my hinder the task being performed especially for those not adept at multi-tasking or who are natural communicators

24. Content Analysis • Decide how categories will be derived (from data, existing research, or theory) • Establish set of categories / codes from textual data (questionnaires, interviews, newspapers, books, advertisements) • Establish units of analysis (words, sentences, • themes) • Count the number of instances in the data

25. Content Analysis: Advantages • Unobtrusive therefore no demand characteristic • Easy to replicate as document permanent • Provides longitudinal data • Inter-rater Reliability high – Precisely defined categories –Well trained coders

26. Content Analysis: Disadvantages • Experimenter effects: Imposing conceptual framework on data: – Data ‘forced’ into analytic categories – Does not take account of meanings/experiences as relevant for participants – Variability and context dependence of meaning neglected • Documentation limited or not available • Cause and effect (chicken and egg question i.e. Do documents reflect social world or do documents cause the social world?

27. Case Studies • an intensive description and analysis of an individual or related group • Research method originated in clinical medicine and takes an idiographic approach • In-depth investigation of experiences to identify interactions and influences on psychological processes • May consist of a case history (background) interviews, observation and questionnaires and may take place over a long period of time

28. Case Studies: Advantages • Rich source of in-depth data that other methods might overlook • Effective in studying atypical behaviour i.e. Genie • High ecological validity

29. Case Studies: Disadvantages • Difficult to generalize • Time consuming • Can lose objectivity by getting to know the participant too well • Difficulty in establishing case and effect relationships • Difficult to replicate

30. Famous Case Studies • Phineas Gage • Anna O, The Rat Man and Little Hans • Three Faces of Eve • Genie • HM • Sperry’s Split Brain patients • Kitty Genovese

31. Survey and Questionnaires • A written means of collecting data that does not require the presence of he researcher • A widely used form of data collection in the social sciences • Excellent for investigating beliefs and attitudes characteristic of a respondent, such as attitudes, preferences, interests, values, or personality.

32. Survey and Questionnaires: Likert Scale • Opinion Surveys: e.g. Likert attitude scales • Strongly disagree • Disagree • Neither agree nor disagree • Agree • Strongly Agree • Highly replicable but biased to illicit socially acceptable answers

33. Survey and Questionnaires: Psychological Tests • Psychological tests: personality and IQ tests. Items are standardized and tested to ensure reliability and validity • Highly replicable and easy to score • Standardized allowing comparisons between individuals

34. What specific methods can be used to establish the validity of a qualitative analysis? • Inter-rater reliability • Triangulation - of sources (people, places, times) - of investigators - of methods - of theoretical approaches 4. Participant feedback/respondent validation 5. ‘Paper trail’ + making raw data available + audit

35. Sampling • Selecting participants from a target population • If the sample is representative, generalizations can be made • Ideal size difficult to determine

36. Sampling: Types Random • Every potential participant has an equal chance of being selected + best chance of an unbiased representative sample - the larger the target population the harder it is to obtain a random sample

37. Sampling: Types Stratified • Dividing the population into sub categories and ensuring that your sample has the same proportions of these strata + ensures that sample is representative - time consuming

38. Sampling: Types Opportunity • Selecting participants that are available at the time + quick and convenient • Unrepresentative sample as a bias may exist in group that is selected • a bias may be introduced by the researcher who is selecting participants