Sources:
- Bryman, A. (2016). Social research methods (5th edition). New York: Oxford University Press.
- N. Oosterman. (2020). Personal communication (lecture notes).
- Personal lecture notes.
Methods of Qualitative Research
The fundamentals of qualitative research
Chapter 1: the nature and process of social research
Social research is the study of human beings and society. Social research employs the ideas and
methods of the social sciences to formulate research questions and get ideas about interpreting
results.
Context of social research methods
Social research builds on and is influenced by existing theories because theories are necessary to
understand social situations. In addition, social research results can complement theory with new
information and knowledge of the social world.
There are contrasting ideas about how research should be conducted. Some say theory comes before
research, whereas others say that theory results from the research.
Qualitative research is mostly inductive in nature because we add knowledge that we acquire from
our research to a theory. It doesn’t start off from theory but creates and adds to that theory
afterwards.
Elements of the process of social research
Literature review: it’s necessary to read literature about past research so that you can come up with
your own original research and not cover old ground. Moreover, it’s important to assess the
significance of already existing literature and how each item fits into your literature review at the
beginning of your research.
Concepts are labels that we give to aspects of the social world that seem significant to us in order to
understand that world. Concepts are necessary for theories. Familiarity with existing research is
important in the process of understanding concepts of past research and to see how these concepts
are either useful or limited in unravelling the main issues being studied.
A research question is a question that provides an explicit statement of what the researcher wants to
find out about; it states the purpose of the investigation. Good research questions will guide your
research with a clear focus on what you want to find out. A hypothesis is not stated as a question but
merely provides an anticipation of what will be found out.
Because time and costs limit the amount of cases we might want to include in our research, sampling
is used to select a few cases to study.
Data collection can be done using a structured or open-ended approach. Questions of quality of the
data should be considered.
Data analysis is about reducing the amount of data obtained and has several stages. The obtained
data have to be managed to see if there are any obvious flaws. The researcher then can code the
data into components. After that, the data are interpreted.
, Writing up consists of writing the research according to recurring elements, such as introduction,
literature review, research methods, results, discussion and conclusion.
Chapter 17: the nature of qualitative research
Qualitative research is a research strategy that usually emphasizes words rather than quantification
in the collection and analysis of data.
As a research strategy it’s broadly inductivist, constructionist, and interpretivist, but researchers do
not always subscribe to all three of these features.
Qualitative research uses many methods for collecting data and all methods differ from each other. It
is often possible (and done) to use multiple methods for one research project.
Main research methods of qualitative research are:
- Ethnography / participant observation à researcher is immersed in a social setting for some
time to gain an understanding of that social group or culture.
- Qualitative interviewing
- Focus groups à interviewees discuss a particular subject in a group
- Conversation analysis
- Collection and analysis of texts and documents
- Field work
- Qualitative content analysis
- Case-study etc.
Theory and research are closely related to each other.
Theory emerges out of the data that was collected and analysed. This is an iterative process which
can result in having to look back upon your previously stated research question(s) and having to
rewrite or specify them, based on your newly acquired theory from your data.
Criteria for assessing a qualitative study
There is unease about using reliability and validity for evaluating qualitative research since those
concepts are more practical for assessing quantitative research. Therefore, other criteria were
developed to assess a qualitative study:
- Credibility, which parallels internal validity: how believable are the findings?
- Transferability, which parallels external validity: do the findings apply to other contexts?
- Dependability, which parallels reliability: are the findings likely to apply at other times?
- Confirmability, which parallels objectivity: has the investigator allowed his/her values to
intrude to a high degree?
Main preoccupations of qualitative researchers
Interpretivism: the social world must be interpreted from the perspective of the people being
studied. Focusing on and looking for meaning (Verstehen). This assumes that there is not only one
single right answer when doing social research, as there are many interpretations of the same data.
Context: qualitative research is often full of details about the social world/cultures/subjects being
studied, since context is an extremely important aspect of their research. We cannot understand the
social behaviour of members of a social group or culture other than in terms of the specific
environment in which they live.
- Bryman, A. (2016). Social research methods (5th edition). New York: Oxford University Press.
- N. Oosterman. (2020). Personal communication (lecture notes).
- Personal lecture notes.
Methods of Qualitative Research
The fundamentals of qualitative research
Chapter 1: the nature and process of social research
Social research is the study of human beings and society. Social research employs the ideas and
methods of the social sciences to formulate research questions and get ideas about interpreting
results.
Context of social research methods
Social research builds on and is influenced by existing theories because theories are necessary to
understand social situations. In addition, social research results can complement theory with new
information and knowledge of the social world.
There are contrasting ideas about how research should be conducted. Some say theory comes before
research, whereas others say that theory results from the research.
Qualitative research is mostly inductive in nature because we add knowledge that we acquire from
our research to a theory. It doesn’t start off from theory but creates and adds to that theory
afterwards.
Elements of the process of social research
Literature review: it’s necessary to read literature about past research so that you can come up with
your own original research and not cover old ground. Moreover, it’s important to assess the
significance of already existing literature and how each item fits into your literature review at the
beginning of your research.
Concepts are labels that we give to aspects of the social world that seem significant to us in order to
understand that world. Concepts are necessary for theories. Familiarity with existing research is
important in the process of understanding concepts of past research and to see how these concepts
are either useful or limited in unravelling the main issues being studied.
A research question is a question that provides an explicit statement of what the researcher wants to
find out about; it states the purpose of the investigation. Good research questions will guide your
research with a clear focus on what you want to find out. A hypothesis is not stated as a question but
merely provides an anticipation of what will be found out.
Because time and costs limit the amount of cases we might want to include in our research, sampling
is used to select a few cases to study.
Data collection can be done using a structured or open-ended approach. Questions of quality of the
data should be considered.
Data analysis is about reducing the amount of data obtained and has several stages. The obtained
data have to be managed to see if there are any obvious flaws. The researcher then can code the
data into components. After that, the data are interpreted.
, Writing up consists of writing the research according to recurring elements, such as introduction,
literature review, research methods, results, discussion and conclusion.
Chapter 17: the nature of qualitative research
Qualitative research is a research strategy that usually emphasizes words rather than quantification
in the collection and analysis of data.
As a research strategy it’s broadly inductivist, constructionist, and interpretivist, but researchers do
not always subscribe to all three of these features.
Qualitative research uses many methods for collecting data and all methods differ from each other. It
is often possible (and done) to use multiple methods for one research project.
Main research methods of qualitative research are:
- Ethnography / participant observation à researcher is immersed in a social setting for some
time to gain an understanding of that social group or culture.
- Qualitative interviewing
- Focus groups à interviewees discuss a particular subject in a group
- Conversation analysis
- Collection and analysis of texts and documents
- Field work
- Qualitative content analysis
- Case-study etc.
Theory and research are closely related to each other.
Theory emerges out of the data that was collected and analysed. This is an iterative process which
can result in having to look back upon your previously stated research question(s) and having to
rewrite or specify them, based on your newly acquired theory from your data.
Criteria for assessing a qualitative study
There is unease about using reliability and validity for evaluating qualitative research since those
concepts are more practical for assessing quantitative research. Therefore, other criteria were
developed to assess a qualitative study:
- Credibility, which parallels internal validity: how believable are the findings?
- Transferability, which parallels external validity: do the findings apply to other contexts?
- Dependability, which parallels reliability: are the findings likely to apply at other times?
- Confirmability, which parallels objectivity: has the investigator allowed his/her values to
intrude to a high degree?
Main preoccupations of qualitative researchers
Interpretivism: the social world must be interpreted from the perspective of the people being
studied. Focusing on and looking for meaning (Verstehen). This assumes that there is not only one
single right answer when doing social research, as there are many interpretations of the same data.
Context: qualitative research is often full of details about the social world/cultures/subjects being
studied, since context is an extremely important aspect of their research. We cannot understand the
social behaviour of members of a social group or culture other than in terms of the specific
environment in which they live.
