Characteristics of the Qualitative Researcher

1. Characteristics of the Qualitative Researcher prepared by Jane M. Gangi, Ph.D. February 10, 2011

2. To Look at Any Thing by John Moffitt To look at any thing, If you would know that thing, You must look at it long: To look at this green and say ‘I have seen spring in these Woods,’ will not do—you must Be the thing you see: You must be the dark snakes of Stems and ferny plumes of leaves, You must enter in To the small silences between The leaves, You must take your time And touch the very peace They issue from. (as cited in Stake, 2010, pp. 71-72)

3. Ability to Observe □ Smith (2002): 1.Hold in abeyance preconceived notions as to what what’s happening, or not happening, means to the participants. 2. Let the important questions to be addressed as well as the answers emerge from the context. 3. Do not view the participants as subjects but as colearners with the investigator, each using the other to reach shared and ever-deepening understandings. 4. Take seriously the uniqueness of each setting and set of events. 5. Take as of primary importance relationships …

4. Smith, continued, on Observation 6. Assume that people inevitably act to make sense of the world they are experiencing. 7. Assume that patterned behavior reflects the presence of underlying power relations. 8. Recognize that genuine understanding can only come through genuine participant observation. 9. Understand that ultimately the power to solve their problems, or even to determine what they are, rests with participants in an activity. 10. Change takes place when we hear another’s ‘story’; it resonates with our own experience and we feel free to take from it for our particular uses. (p. 174)

5. Sharan Merriam summarizes Taylor and Bogdan(1984): • Pay attention • Shift from a “wide angle” to a “narrow angle” lens—that is, focusing “on a specific person, interaction, or activity, while mentally blocking out all the others” (p. 54) • Look for key words in people’s remarks that will stand out later. • Concentrate on the first and last remarks in each conversation. • Mentally play back remarks and scenes during breaks in the talking or observing. (Merriam, 1988, p. 97)

6. Tolerate ambiguity Bateson: “Ambiguity is the warp of life, not something be be eliminated” (as cited in Clandinin and Connelly, 2000, p. 9)

7. Background Knowledge Corbin and Strauss (2008): “Background, knowledge, and experience not only enable us to be more sensitive to concepts in data, they also enable us to see connections between concepts. As the famous biologist Selye…once wrote, ‘It is not to see something first, but to establish solid connections between the previously known and hitherto unknown that constitutes the essence of specific discovery’” (p. 34).

8. References Clandinin, D. J. & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in narrative research. San Francisco: Jossey Bass Publishers. Corbin, J. M., & Strauss, A. L. (2008). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory (3rd ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Smith, D. M. (2002). The challenge of urban ethnography. In Y. Zou, & E. T. Trueba (Eds.), Ethnography and schools: Qualitative approaches to the study of education (pp. 171-184). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

9. Resources Glesne, C. (2011). Chapter 3, Being there: Developing understanding through participant observation. Becoming qualitative researchers: An introduction (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.