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Epidemiologist Nick Black has argued that a finding or a result is more likely to be accepted as a fact if it is
quantified (expressed in numbers) than if it is not. There is little or no scientific evidence, for example, to
support the well known "facts" that one couple in 10 is infertile, or that one man in 10 is homosexual. Yet,
most of us are happy to accept uncritically such simplified, reductionist, and blatantly
incorrect statements so long as they contain at least one number!!
Researchers who use qualitative methods seek a deeper truth. They aim to "study things in their natural
setting, attempting to make sense of, or interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to
them," and they use "a holistic perspective which preserves the complexities of human behaviour."
Lets discuss issues in qualitative research
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I am thinking about working on a qualitative piece. One of the issues I keep hearing about is validity. Most of my work has quantitative, so I am not sure how one deals with validity. Any thoughts?
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I think sometimes we use numbers in our arguments to provide a common understanding of the issue in hand. For example, if one says "a small portion of couples are infertile", it would be difficult to figure out what s/he means by "a small portion". So I guess as long as everyone involved in discussing an issue is clear on the content of the argument, there is no harm in having no numbers and viewing phenomena less quantitatively. After all there are many ways to expand the borders of knowledge.
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The answer to your question is triangulation. Triangulation is typically a strategy (test) for improving the validity and reliability of research or evaluation of findings. Here is what Mathison states Quote:"Triangulation has risen an important methodological issue in naturalistic and qualitative approaches to evaluation [in order to] control bias and establishing valid propositions because traditional scientific techniques are incompatible with this alternate epistemology". (p. 13) Patton (2001) advocates the use of triangulation by stating “triangulation strengthens a study by combining methods. This can mean using several kinds of methods or data, including using both quantitative and qualitative approaches”
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Let me clarify my comments on triangulation. While triangulation may include multiple methods of data collection and data analysis, but does not suggest a fix method for all the researches. The methods chosen in triangulation to test the validity and reliability of a study depend on the criterion of the research.
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A commonly asked question in qualitative research is when would use a certain technique, eg., gounded theory, narrative analysis etc. Any thoughts?
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Prior to understanding which qualitative technique to use, its important to understand when to choose qualitative methods!
There are several considerations when deciding to adopt a qualitative research methodology (QRM).
1. Strauss and Corbin (1990) claim that qualitative methods can be used to better understand any phenomenon about which little is yet known.
2. They can also be used to gain new perspectives on things about which much is already known, or to gain more in-depth information that may be difficult to convey quantitatively.
i.e., QRM are appropriate in situations where one needs to first identify the variables that might later be tested quantitatively, or where the researcher has determined that quantitative measures cannot adequately describe or interpret a situation.
The ability of qualitative data to more fully describe a phenomenon is an important consideration from both the researcher's as well as the reader's perspective.
Qualitative research reports, typically rich with detail and insights into participants' experiences of the world, and therefore be more meaningful.
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Thanks for begining this post. I am a doctoral student in business in MD. I find qualitative research very exciting, problem is noone in my dept seems to know too much about it. Any thoughts?
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Thats a common issue. The problem is researchers try to fit social sciences to the natural scientific method. Social sciences are not natural sciences. In the social sciences we deal with people. By utilizing qulaitative research you have the oppotunity identifying many research gaps. This is because of the richeness of the data that is collected in qualitative research.
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I agree with both of you. I use qualitative research as an exploratory mechanism, to really understand a phenomenon. Its something you learn as you conduct the research. In fact the boundaries among the various techniques are so fuzzy, which is why I maintain a 'researcher log' when I conduct reseach
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Thats explains it alot. For some of my research ideas a survey or experiment dont make any sense. Ethnography seems to make sense. When and where can I apply Ethnography? I know its the study of culture, does the researcher have to be part of the study?
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Ethnography is two things:
1. the method., the central question
2. the product, i,e., the written text produced to report ethnographic research results.
Ethnographic questions generally concern the link between culture and behavior and/or how cultural processes develop over time. The data base for ethnographies is usually extensive description of the details of social life or cultural phenomena in a small number of cases.
To answer the research questions and gather research material, the researcher aka fieldworkers, most often lives among the people they are studying, or spends a considerable amount of time with them. While there, the researcher engages in participant observation, which means that they participate as much as possible in local daily life while also carefully observing everything they can about it.
Through the participant observation method, the researcher records detailed fieldnotes, conduct interviews based on open-ended questions, and gather whatever site documents might be available in the setting as data.
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I find the concept of emic and etic in ethnography a bit confusing from an application point of view. As I understand it
Emic perspective (i.e., the insider's perspective) and emic terms (i.e., specialized words used by people in a group).
Etic perspective (i.e., the external, social scientific view) and etic terms (i.e., outsider's words or specialized words used by social scientists).
How does one apply this?
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The emic perspective focuses on the intrinsic cultural distinctions that are meaningful to the members of a given society. The native members of a culture are the sole judges of the validity of an emic description.
The etic perspective, relies upon the extrinsic concepts and categories that have meaning for scientific observers. Researchers are the sole judges of the validity of an etic account.
Therefore emic is where the categories emerge from the community being studied, whereas the etic perspective is where categories are imposed on the community.
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Speaking about ethnography, here is a link about one of the most famous ethnographers Levi-Strauss http://www.cnn.com/2009/...nthropologist/index.html
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Anyone familiar with digital ethnography? check this out.. http://digg.com/u1Fmy3
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this is really interesting. Do you know if anyone else offers this?
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I looked around here is an interesting site on digital ethnography http://mediatedcultures.net/mediatedculture.htm
Looks like there is a great opportunity to create a course in this area
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