Reviewing Qualitative Research Susan Hawkshaw. Qualitative research Comprises of many methodologies and research practices rooted in the social and human.

Reviewing Qualitative Research

Susan Hawkshaw

Qualitative research

Comprises of many methodologies and research practices rooted in the social and human sciences

Questions asked by qualitative researchers focus on in-depth understanding of the human experience and the contexts in which the experience occurs.

Qualitative Research approaches

Are inductive - the researcher does not start are with a hypothesis or theory to test, but observe patterns & trends from particular cases in the field; they can be used when little is known about an phenomenon

Aim to understand and explain the world by incorporating participants’ meanings

Its reflective and data driven- that is working explanations and theories develop during data analysis; in this way a valid account is constructed that can be used to guide knowledge development within a discipline

Incorporate subjectivity Acknowledge the interaction between

researcher and the participants

Influences on nursing research

Nursing Focus Illustrative study Research approach

Origins

Testing or proving efficacy of interventions

Selecting a wound dressing

Randomised clinical control trial

Quasi-experimental design, natural sciences (positivism)

Understanding the patients / clients world

Coping with depression

Phenomenological Existential Philosophy:psychology

Understanding social processes

Nurse /patient rehabilitations interactions

Grounded Theory Sociology

Understanding group or culture behaviour

The factors influencing cigarette smoking amongst street gang teenagers

Ethnography Anthropology

Empowering others (effecting social change)

Helping women to access screening facilities

Action research Feminism, critical theory

PHENOMENOLOGY RESEARCH TERMS

Essences: Internal meaning structures of a phenomenon grasped through the study of human lived experience.

Lived experience: Everyday experience, not as it is conceptualized, but as it is lived (ie, how it feels).

Phenomenology

Phenomenology is proposed as a way of understanding the meaning of phenomena as they really are, and phenomenological research is the process of gaining understanding.

It focuses on the human phenomena as known through the meanings ascribed by individuals. i.e. ‘the lived experience’

Phenomenological perspectives Realist/interpretive perspective of

Husserls- the study aims to convey the essence of the phenomenon, those experiences which individuals might not recognise. By interviewing enough people, recurrent issues will suggest the essence of the phenomena might be (deeper meaning).

Phenomenological perspectives Hermeneutic (Heideggerian) perspective,To understand the phenomenon through

working with the respondents. Just as the world is constructed, so research accounts are constructed. By working together the accounts are more meaningful than those of individuals. The emphasis is on shared truths rather than the pursuit of deeper meaning.

Phenomenology

Method of data collection –obtain by interview (unstructured or semi structured) which is typed and transcribed.

Purposive sampling (not subjects, they are participants or respondents)

Data is analyses by content analysis Construction of description of the essence of the

phenomenon is achieved from the analysis process.

Authenticity

Phenomenology is not generalisable. The aim is authenticity, i.e. the reader can follow

how the research was conducted and ascertain from this whether the results are authentically represented.

Many researchers ask participants to review the account of the interview including quotes to verify it reflects their contribution.

Others use critical readers to see the codes seem accurate in terms of the raw data shown.

Ethnography

Involves the study of a social groups culture through time spent combining participant – observation, in-depth interviews and document analysis in the informants natural setting

This cultural understanding may help answer questions about, peoples health illness beliefs and practices, work –world issues of concern, individual experiences in certain types of settings.

Ethnography (Atkinson & Hammersley, 1998)

Is a form of social research that exhibits A strong emphasis on exploring the nature of a

particular social phenomena. A tendency to work with unstructured data (no

preset criteria for data collection) Investigation of a small number of cases Analysis of data that involves interpretation of

the meanings and functions of human actions, the product which takes the forms of verbal descriptions and explanations.

Ethnography research terms Culture: Shared knowledge and behaviour of people

who interact within distinct social settings and subsystems.

Participant-observation: Observation and participation in everyday activities in study informants’ natural settings.

Fieldwork: All research activities carried out in and in relation to the field (informants; natural settings).

Key informant: A select informant/assistant with extensive or specialised knowledge of his/her own culture.

Emic and etic: Contrasting “insider” views of informants (emic) and the researcher’s “outsider” (etic) views.

Qualitative Descriptive Studies

Serve to summarise factual information about the human experience with more attention to the feel of the data’s subjective content than tends to be found in quantitative description but with less reading into, between, over the data required of the more interpretative traditions.

Grounded Theory

The purpose of grounded theory, developed by Glaser & Strauss (1967) is to generate theory about how people deal with life situations that is “grounded” in empirical data and describes the processes by which they move through experiences over time.

Grounded Theory

Data collection: Observation and interviews Data analysis: the goal is to discover core

variable through procedures of constant comparison (i.e. coding, categorising, analysing incoming data and examined in different contexts)

Theoretical sampling that directs data collection to saturation (completeness)

Action Research (Critical theory) Action research is a methodology which

involves reflection (Scho¨n 1987, Hart & Bond 1995) and its spirals become an advantage as the repetition of the cycles together with reflection can progressively narrow the theory–research–practice gap (Lewin 1946, Elliot 1978, Kemmis 1988).

Action Research

The four common criteria of AR presented by Holter & Schwartz-Barcott (1993) and Hart & Bond (1995):

the collaboration between the researcher and the practitioners;

the definition of the problem; the change in practice; the theory development.

Action Research Methodologies

Usually a combination of methods like the use of like case studies, reflective diaries, brainstorming, portfolios, surveys, observation, documentation analysis and discussion groups are used.

Sampling – Qualitative Research Since the aim of naturalistic research is to

discover the meaning, generalisability is not the goal. Researchers target people who can give authentic accounts of the phenomenon under investigation. The two guiding principles for sampling are appropriateness and adequacy.

Purposive sampling Theoretical sampling

Data collection

Interviews – unstructured, semi structured Focus groups Observation – participant / independent Field notes Diaries Document analysis

Data Analysis Analysis of qualitative research involves

extracting themes, patterns, processes, essences and meaning from “textual data”

Content analysis most common, with procedures that involve breaking down data (e.g. coding, comparing, contrasting, and categorising). Then reconstituting them in some new form, such as descriptions, interpretations or theory.

Authenticity and Credibility

Some authors use terms reliability and validity others use any number of terms such as

Trustworthiness Credibility Dependability Transferability

Credibility Credibility (roughly like validity) – refers to

the believability of the data. Various techniques & activities are used increase credibility, such as prolonged engagement (adequate scope of data coverage) and persistent observation (which aim to achieve sufficient dept). Triangulation – use multiple referents to draw conclusions about what constitutes the truth (peer debriefings and member checks).

Dependability, Confirmability, Transferability Dependability refers to the stability of data

over time and conditions (Inquiry audit). Confirmability refers to the objectivity or

neutrality of the data (audit trail). Transferability – extent to which findings

can be transferred. It is enhance by the use of thick descriptions of the context of data collection.

In conclusion

Research Focus Research approach

Understanding the patients / clients world

Phenomenology

Understanding social processes

Grounded Theory

Understanding group or culture behaviour

Ethnography

Empowering others (effecting social change)

Action research