SECOND QUARTER MODULE 1 – WEEK 1
Understanding Data and Ways to Systematically
Collect Data
Qualitative research design is an umbrella term for a various range of
approaches and methods, which vary considerably in terms of focus,
assumptions about the nature of knowledge and the role of the researcher.
Qualitative research designs are good at answering How?‘ and What?‘
questions (in contrast to the Whether‘ or If‘ queries commonly addressed by
quantitative research). The concept of research design within qualitative
research is more problematic than within quantitative research, with
alternative terms including research methodology, research approach and
research type. Reflecting on qualitative research initially describes research
design as the way in which a research idea is transformed into a research
project or plan that can then be carried out in practice by a research or
research team. In this part, examples of different qualitative research
designs are presented and discussed in the form of methodologies or
approaches.
Ethnography is the direct description of a group, culture or community.
The meaning of the word ethnography can be ambiguous; it is an overall
term for a number of approaches. Sometimes researchers use it as
synonymous with qualitative research in general, while at other times its
meaning is more specific. We will adopt the original meaning of the term, as
a method within the social anthropological tradition. The research methods
are as follows:
• Immerse themselves in the culture or subculture they study and try
to see the world from a cultural member’s point of view. Data are
collected during fieldwork through participants observation and
interviews with the key informants as well as through documents.
Researchers observe the rules and rituals in the culture and try to
understand the meaning and interpretation that informants give them.
• They compare these with their own ethnic view and explore the
differences between the two.
• Field notes are written throughout the fieldwork about events and
behavior in the setting
• Ethnographers describe, analyze and interpret the culture and the
local, ethnic perspective of its members while making their own ethnic
interpretations.
• The main evaluative criterion is the way in which the study presents
the culture as experienced by its members
Grounded Theory (GT) is an approach that generates and modifies a
theory. This research design has become a global phenomenon. It is an
approach to collecting and analyzing data. The finished product is also
called a GT—it is a development of theory directly based and grounded
in the data collected by the researcher. From its very start, this
approach has been modified, not only by the main protagonists
themselves but also by researchers who adopted and adapted it during
its application to their own inquiry. In this chapter, we will describe the
main features of GT and trace development and changes over time.
Data usually are collected through non-standardized interviews and
participant observation but also by access to other data sources.
Data collection and analysis interact. Researchers code and categorize
transcripts from interviews or field notes. The researcher has a
dialogue with the literature when discussing categories. Throughout
the analytic process, constant comparison and theoretical sampling
takes place. Memos— theoretical notes— provide the researcher with
developing theoretical ideas. The theory that is generated has
exploratory power and is grounded in the data.
Narrative Inquiry includes stories that reflect on people’s experience
and the meaning that this experience has for them. Narrative research
is a useful way of gaining access to feelings, thoughts and experience
in order to analyze them. For many decades, health research had
focused on the decision-making and thoughts of professionals and their
measurement of the treatment outcomes, while the feelings and ideas
of the patient, the insider, tended to be neglected. The perspectives of
patients are uncovered through their stories Narratives are tales of
experience or imagination and come naturally to human beings.
Narratives are rarely simple or linear, and they often consist of many
different stories rather than of a clearly defined tale. Illness narratives
are expressions of illness, suffering and pain. Narratives are often tales
of identity.
Health professionals gain knowledge of the illness experience from
their patients who assists in understanding the condition and the
person. There are a number of different ways of analyzing narrative
data, and all are legitimate. In narrative inquiry the final story is
constructed by participant, researcher and reader. Illness and
professional narratives are always located in the socio-cultural.
Phenomenology is a 20th century school of philosophy rooted in
philosophy and psychology which focuses on the subjective experience
of the individual and seeks to understand the essence or structure of a
phenomenon from the perspective of those who have experienced it.
Writers developed different conceptual formulations, (very broadly)
descriptive (Husserl), interpretive (Heidegger) and ontological-
existential (Sartre) which have been adapted as methods of inquiry by
researchers.
Researchers who use phenomenological methods have formulated
various methods of data analysis. The approach should not be
mechanical but insightful and illuminate the phenomenon under study
and capture its essence.
Case Study is a bounded system, a single entity, a unit around which
there are boundaries. It has definite quality (time, space and/or
components comprising the case). It has no particular method for data
collection or data analysis. A case study uses an interpretative
research. It is chosen precisely because researchers are interested in
insight and discover rather than the testing of a hypothesis. Yin defines
a case study as an empirical enquiry that investigates a contemporary
phenomenon within its real-life context, especially when the
boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident.