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Teaching Quality in Qual Research

Teaching Quality in Qual Research. Nollaig Frost & Alasdair Gordon-Finlayson. Improving Quality. Common strategies taught to students to improve the ‘quality’ of their own research: Triangulation Trustworthiness Reflexivity Quality checklists. Strategies 1: Triangulation.

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Teaching Quality in Qual Research

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  1. Teaching Quality in Qual Research • Nollaig Frost & Alasdair Gordon-Finlayson

  2. Improving Quality • Common strategies taught to students to improve the ‘quality’ of their own research: • Triangulation • Trustworthiness • Reflexivity • Quality checklists

  3. Strategies 1: Triangulation • Between-method triangulation • Methodological triangulation • Within-method triangulation • Data triangulation • Investigator triangulation • Theory triangulation

  4. Strategies 2: Trustworthiness I • Lincoln & Guba (1985) identified four components of ‘trustworthiness’: • Credibility • Transferability • Dependability • Confirmability • “This paradigm, while disavowing… postpositivism, sustains, at one level, Strauss & Corbin’s commitment to the canons of good science” (Guba & Lincoln 1998, p.331)

  5. Strategies 2: Trustworthiness II • AGF’s summary of two components: • Authority • Reader will trust writer’s expertise as researcher • E.g. Methods section showing competent grasp of methodology, correct references, etc. • Transparency • Reader guided through analysis • Writer manages to write reflexively • Easier to present as two discrete jobs to students

  6. Strategies 3: Reflexivity • Tindall (1994) usefully differentiates between: • Personal reflexivity: • Revealing, rather than concealing, our level of personal involvement and engagement • Reflexivity allows us critical subjectivity helping to ensure that our findings do not stem from unexamined prejudice • Functional reflexivity: • Critical examination of the research process itself • Monitoring our role as researchers and our impact on the research process

  7. Strategies 4: Quality checklists • Three examples of quality checklists: • Henwood & Pidgeon (1992)Qualitative research and psychological theorizing • Elliott, Fischer, & Rennie (1999)Evolving guidelines for publication of qualitative research studies in psychology and related fields • Madill, Jordan & Shirley (2000) Objectivity and reliability in qualitative analysis: Realist, contextualist and radical constructive epistemologies • See final slide for references

  8. Teaching ‘Quality’: Challenges • Helping students to move beyond paying lip service to incorporating quality into practice • Recognising the place and role of positivist research teaching and learning • Helping students to develop and stick to an appropriate timescale for conducting high quality qualitative research • Helping student to recognise their role as researcher in enhancing the quality throughout the research process • Helping students to find a writing style appropriate to a qualitative research culture

  9. Writing-Up • What is expected of the write up? Why are you asking students to do it? … • Shows decisions made, • The data, • The people involved, the stories they tell … • Invites the reader to become involved in the process • Often written in the 1st person • Writing up is part of the qualitative research process…because the student chooses what to write and how to write it • Therefore REFLEXIVITY becomes an important quality criteria

  10. Writing up to include Reflexivity • Aims to show: • Conscious and unconscious impacts on the study of the topic • Researcher engagement with the research and its context • Is an opportunity for researcher to reflect on the topic and their study of the topic • Writing process as opportunity to reflect on what is being written about

  11. ‘Openness’ in writing up • See Chenail (1995) • Mixing reflexivity, description and detail by considering both the study and the topic under study • Creating a space to acknowledge the development of the method and its application, and the impact of the researcher • Considering the ‘other’ : the reader, the participants, colleagues, peers, supervisors etc who have taken part • If the reader trusts the writer the work will be considered trustworthy!

  12. References Chenail, R.J. (1995) Presenting Qualitative Data, The Qualitative Report, 2(3) http://www.nova.edu.ssss/QR/QR2-3/presenting.html Elliott, R., Fischer, C.T. & Rennie, D.L. (1999). Evolving guidelines for publication of qualitative research studies in psychology and related fields. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 38 (3), pp. 215-229. Elliott, R., Fischer, C.T. & Rennie, D.L. (2000). Also against methodolatry: A reply to Reicher. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 39 (1), pp. 7-10. Henwood, K.L. & Pidgeon, N.F. (1992). Qualitative research and psychological theorizing. British Journal of Psychology, 83 (1), 97-112. Lincoln, Y.S. & Guba, E.G. (1985). Naturalistic Inquiry. London: Sage Publications. Madill, A., Jordan, A. & Shirley, C. (2000). Objectivity and reliability in qualitative analysis: Realist, contextualist and radical constructive epistemologies. British Journal of Psychology, 91 (1), pp. 1-20. Reicher, S. (2000). Against methodolatry: Some comments on Elliott, Fischer, and Rennie. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 39 (1), pp. 1-6 Tindall, C. (1994). Issues of evaluation. In Banister, P., Burman, E., Parker, I., Taylor, M. & Tindall, C. Qualitative Methods in Psychology: A Research Guide (Chapter 9). Maidenhead: OUP.

  13. Any questions?

  14. Strategies 4: Henwood & Pidgeon • The importance of fit • The themes or analytical categories offered by the researcher should fit the data • Integration of theory • The degree to which findings can be integrated or generalised at different levels of abstraction • Reflexivity • Documentation • Theoretical sampling and negative case analysis • Sensitivity to negotiated realities • The researcher needs to demonstrate awareness of the research context, power differentials and participant reactions • Transferability

  15. Strategies 4: Eliott, Fischer & Rennie • Guidelines for journal editors… • Owning one’s perspective • Situating the sample • Grounding in examples • Providing credibility checks • Coherence • Accomplishing general vs. specific research tasks • Resonating with readers • See also response by Reicher (2000) and E, F & R’s rejoinder (2000), in same journal… “teach the controversy”?!

  16. Strategies 4: Madill, Jordan & Shirley • Realist analysis • Reliability, consistency – production of results that are not “wildly idiosyncratic”! • Contextual constructivist analysis • Triangulation to ‘flesh out’ rather than confirm; Reflection on subjectivity • Radical constructionism • Truth/falsity issues and ideas of reliability all set aside; writer needs to convince the reader of the internal coherence of her analysis

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