Qualitative Research Design And Approaches

1. Qualitative Research Design And Approaches Dr. Belal Hijji, RN, PhD December 9 & 16, 2010 Read Polit & Beck Chapter 11

2. Learning Outcomes At the end of this lecture, students will be able to • Identify the characteristics, phases, and features of qualitative research design. • Discuss some qualitative research traditions.

3. Qualitative Research Design • Quantitative researchers carefully specify a research design before data collection. In qualitative research, by contrast, the study design evolves over the course of the project. Decisions about how best to obtain data, from whom to obtain data, how to schedule data collection, and how long each data collection session should last are made in the field as the study unfolds.

4. Characteristics of Qualitative Research Design • Often involves a merging together of various data collection strategies, such as interviewing, observations, and documents. • Is flexible and elastic, capable of adjusting to what is being learned during the course of data collection. • Tends to be holistic, trying to understand the whole. • Requires researchers to be deeply involved , often remaining in the field for lengthy periods of time. • The researcher is the data instrument. • Ongoing analysis of data to formulate subsequent strategies and to determine when field work is over.

5. Phases in Qualitative Design • The naturalistic inquiry progresses through three broad phases while in the field: • Orientation and overview. Quantitative researchers believe that they know what they do not know. They know exactly what type of knowledge they expect to obtain by doing a study. Qualitative researchers, by contrast, enter the study not knowing what is not known. That is not knowing what it is about the phenomenon that will drive the inquiry forward. • Focused exploration. This phase is more focused scrutiny and in depth exploration of those aspects of the phenomenon that are judged as salient [prominent]. • Confirmation and closure. Here, researchers undertake efforts to establish that their findings are trustworthy, often by going back and discussing their results with participants.

6. Qualitative Design Features • Control over the independent variable: Qualitative researchers do not conceptualise their studies as having IV and DV, and rarely control or manipulate any aspect of the people or environment in the study. Qualitative research is almost always non-experimental seeking to develop rich understanding of a phenomenon as it exist naturally. • Type of group comparison: As the aim of qualitative research is to describe and explain a phenomenon, researchers do not plan in advance to make group comparisons. Sometimes, comparisons are planned when studying two different cultures. • Number of data collection points: Qualitative studies could cross-sectional or longitudinal to observe the evolution of a phenomenon. An example will follow.

7. Cross-sectional: Dewar & Lee (2000) examined how people who sustained major injury managed their circumstances. Ina single interview, participants were asked to describe their coping processes over time. • Longitudinal: Reising (2002) studied early socialisation processes of new critical care nurses by interviewing them multiple times over a 5-month period. • Occurrence of the ID and DVs: Qualitative researchers would not apply the terms retrospective or prospective to their studies. However, they may study the effects of a phenomenon prospectively. An example is exploring the short and long-term effects of getting normal test results from gene testing for neurodegenerative disorders. • Research Setting: Qualitative researchers collect their data in real world, natural settings. They may also deliberately strive to study phenomena in a variety of natural contexts.

8. Overview of Qualitative Research Traditions • Research traditions that provide theoretical underpinning for qualitative studies come, primarily, from anthropology, psychology, and sociology. Traditions of interest are outlined below and discussed afterwards.

9. Ethnography • Ethnography involves the description and interpretation of cultural behaviour. • Ethnographies are a blend of a process and a product, field work, and written text. • Ethnograpahers, through field work, come to understand a culture, and use the text to communicate and portray the culture. • Culture is not visible. As such, it is inferred from the words, actions, and products of members of a cultural group. • Ethnographic research is, sometimes, concerned with broadly defined cultures (Samoan village culture), and this is referred to as macroethnography.

10. If you think this is paradise, ponder the idea that almost all the time in a Samoan village everyone sees what everyone else is doing. Neighbours keep a perpetual eye on each other. The lack of privacy makes others witness to arguments, fights, disagreements, and any number of other matters. Europeans keep hidden from public view in their many-roomed domiciles. Bear in mind, also, that in a traditional Samoan fale, 20 or more people may be sleeping on the floor next to each other.

11. Microethnography focus on more narrowly defined cultures. In microethnography, small units in a group or culture (homeless), or specific activities in an organisational unit (nurse’s communications with patients), are studied. • Ethnographers seek to learn from members of a cultural group, to understand their world view, from emic and etic perspectives. Emic refers to the way members of a culture envision their world – the insiders’ view. Etic refers to the outsiders’ interpretation of the experiences of a culture; it is the language used by researchers to refer to the same phenomena.