Qualitative Research - KO-Boek H1 PDF

 1 Some very important starting information OVERVIEW What is quali...

 1 Some very important starting information OVERVIEW What is qualitative research? Qualitative research as a paradigm The emergence of a qualitative research paradigm (in psychology) What do I need to become a good qualitative researcher? Why we love qualitative research Our approach in this book We’re about to introduce you to the wonderful world of qualitative research. It’s vast and exciting, full of new areas to discover. We hope you’ll learn to love and feel as passion- ate about it as we do. As we know that won’t be the case for everyone, we want you to feel that you really ‘get’ it: that you understand both the purpose and premise of qualita- tive research, and, crucially, that you know how to actually go about doing a qualitative research project. In order for this to happen, you may need to put aside ideas you have about what research is, and approach this field with ‘open eyes’ – like an explorer who can only understand a completely different culture if they don’t view and judge it by the perspectives and values of their own culture. WHAT IS QUALITATIVE RESEARCH? The most basic definition of qualitative research is that it uses words as data (see Chapter 2), collected and analysed in all sorts of ways. Quantitative research, in contrast, uses 01-Braun & Clarke_Ch-01-Section 1.indd 3 27/02/2013 3:52:49 PM  4 Successfully getting started in qualitative research numbers as data and analyses them using statistical techniques. The term qualitative research is used to refer both to techniques (of data collection or data analysis) and to a wider framework for conducting research, or paradigm. Paradigm here refers to the beliefs, assumptions, values and practices shared by a research community (see Kuhn, 1962), and it provides an overarching framework for research. Qualitative research, as we define it, is not just about data and techniques – it’s about the application of qualitative techniques within a qualitative paradigm, which is quite different from a quantitative paradigm (see Table 1.1). It has been referred to as Big Q qualitative research, and contrasted with small q qualita- tive research (Kidder & Fine, 1987), which is the use of specific qualitative data collection and techniques, not (necessarily) within a qualitative paradigm (see Box 1.1). Table 1.1 Some broad differences between qualitative and quantitative paradigms Quantitative Qualitative Numbers used as data Words – written and spoken language – (and images) used as data Seeks to identify relationships between variables, Seeks to understand and interpret more to explain or predict – with the aim of generalising local meanings; recognises data as the findings to a wider population gathered in a context; sometimes produces knowledge that contributes to more general understandings Generates ‘shallow’ but broad data – not a lot of Generates ‘narrow’ but rich data, ‘thick complex detail obtained from each participant, descriptions’ – detailed and complex accounts but lots of participants take part (to generate the from each participant; not many take part necessary statistical power) Seeks consensus, norms, or general patterns; often Tends to seek patterns, but accommodates aims to reduce diversity of responses to an average and explores difference and divergence within response data Tends to be theory-testing, and deductive Tends to be theory generating, and inductive (working up from the data) Values detachment and impartiality (objectivity) Values personal involvement and partiality (subjectivity, reflexivity) Has a fixed method (harder to change focus once Method is less fixed (can accommodate a shift data collection has begun) in focus in the same study) Can be completed quickly Tends to take longer to complete because it is interpretative and there is no formula Adapted (and expanded) from Tolich & Davidson (2003) 01-Braun & Clarke_Ch-01-Section 1.indd 4 27/02/2013 3:52:50 PM  Some very important starting information 5 BOX 1.1 EXAMPLES OF SMALL Q QUALITATIVE RESEARCH The use of qualitative techniques outside a qualitative paradigm (small q qualitative research) happens in different ways: A qualitative research project may be conducted in a realist, positivist way, where the values and assumptions of Big Q qualitative research are rejected. Qualitative methods can be used as a precursor for quantitative research. For example, in a study of the effects of the experiences of depression, US professors of psychiatry and nursing James Coyne and Margaret Calarco (1995) conducted two focus groups and thematically organised participants’ statements into eight categories, drawing on these to develop a survey, which they used to generate the data they analysed. It can be used alongside quantitative methods as part of a mixed methods design (see Mertens, 2005). In many mixed method designs, the qualitative component may be subsumed within a primarily quantitative, realist project, and it is rarely Big Q qualitative research. For instance, in food and farming researcher Charlotte Weatherall and colleagues’ (2003) study of UK consumer’s perceptions of food, farming and buying locally produced goods, the qualitative data from six focus groups were used to identify consumers priorities when buying food, perceptions of farming/food provision, and interest in local food production, and informed the development of a quantitative survey. The qualitative analysis was presented and interpreted alongside the quantitative results. The analysis described the content of what was said, assuming a direct relationship between what people say and what they believe (and do). Qualitative data might be converted to a numerical representation, and analysed quantitatively. For instance, public health researchers Mary Story and Patricia Faulkner (1990) collated a selection of episodes of 11 of the most popular US prime-time TV shows and coded the text of those programmes according to food references. The frequency of codes was compared, and was used to determine messages about food and eating presented during prime-time. Overall, they reported ‘pervasive’ (p. 740) references to food, the majority of which were related to low-nutritional-value snacks, and concluded that the shows and advertising promote poor nutritional practice. The typical method here is content analysis, where qualitative data are coded and analysed numerically, and there is debate about whether it is, or can be, a qualitative method. Many say no – for instance, The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005b) barely discusses it; we don’t consider it in this book because we want to focus on wholly qualitative methods. The quantitative focus in content analysis has been substantively critiqued (Mayring, 2004), and more interpretative forms developed – often referred to as qualitative content analysis (e.g. Hsieh & Shannon, 2005; Mayring, 2004), which is similar to thematic analysis. 01-Braun & Clarke_Ch-01-Section 1.indd 5 27/02/2013 3:52:50 PM  6 Successfully getting started in qualitative research QUALITATIVE RESEARCH AS A PARADIGM A broad cluster of features and assumptions make up a non-positivist qualitative research paradigm. One thing absolutely fundamental is that it tends not to assume there is only one correct version of reality or knowledge. Instead, it comes from a perspective that argues that there are multiple versions of reality – even for the same person – and that these are very closely linked to the context they occur in. Most quali- tative researchers would argue that we should not, even must not, consider knowl- edge outside of the context in which it was generated. This refers both to the context of data generation, such as an interview setting, and to the broader sociocultural and political contexts of the research. New Zealand psychologists Maree Burns and Nicola Gavey’s (2004) work on the meanings and discourses of body weight, body size and body practices provides a nice illustration of this (which they actually built into their research design). They contextualised their analysis of the talk of women who practise bulimia through also analysing public health messages promot- ing ‘healthy weight’ (as a response to the ‘obesity epidemic’), and demonstrated a conceptual linking of ‘healthy weight’ to slenderness. This common-sense meaning was deployed by women who practised bulimia to explain and justify their purging and compensating practices (e.g. vomiting, excessive exercise): such practices were framed as about obtaining a ‘healthy’ (i.e. slim) body. Through contextualising the women’s accounts, and specifically analysing public health messages, their analysis provided a compelling insight into the ways something which seems to be a useful message in one domain – that of ‘healthy weight’ – can actually be deployed in very ‘unhealthy’ ways in another. Other elements of a qualitative paradigm include (Silverman, 2000: 8): the use of qualitative data, and the analysis of words which are not reducible to numbers; the use of more ‘naturally’ occurring data collection methods that more closely resemble real life (compared to other possibilities, such as experiments) – this develops from the idea that we cannot make sense of data in isolation from context; an interest in meanings rather than reports and measures of behaviour or internal cognitions; the use of inductive, theory-generating research; a rejection of the natural sciences as a model of research, including the rejection of the idea of the objective (unbiased) scientist; the recognition that researchers bring their subjectivity (their views, perspectives, frameworks for making sense of the world; their politics, their passions) into the research process – this is seen as a strength rather than a weakness. So the qualitative paradigm is quite different from the quantitative one. Depending on where you are in your studies, and what you’re studying, this might contradict what you’ve been taught constitutes good research – controlled, rigorous, reliable, validated, quantitative and experimental. We’re teaching you about a whole different world of 01-Braun & Clarke_Ch-01-Section 1.indd 6 27/02/2013 3:52:50 PM  Some very important starting information 7 research that grew as a response and challenge to the perceived limits of that model of research. THE EMERGENCE OF A QUALITATIVE RESEARCH PARADIGM (IN PSYCHOLOGY) Quantitative approaches and ‘the scientific method’ have dominated psychology (in a way that isn’t the case in all other social sciences). It’s tempting to see the emergence of qualitative research in two ways: a) as a new development; and b) as simply offer- ing a complementary data collection and analysis toolkit for quantitative psychology. We would warn against both conclusions, and offer a very brief history of qualitative research in psychology to illustrate why. From the emergence of psychology as a discipline in the second half of the nine- teenth century, it has been marked by contestation over the ‘appropriate’ ways to research and theorise the things we study in psychology. The focus, topic and purpose of psychology itself are similarly contested, but we won’t discuss those here. Qualitative ideas and approaches have been part of psychology from its inception. However, first with behaviourism in the early twentieth century, and subsequently with the cognitive revolution in the second half of the twentieth century, quantitative methods employed within a (post)positivist, experimental paradigm dominated the discipline (Ashworth, 2003; Howitt, 2010). Such approaches situated themselves in opposition to the more subjective, interpretative introspective (qualitative) techniques of early psychology, which became classified as ‘unscientific’ – a criticism of qualitative research which continues to this day, from some quarters, although that of course depends on how we define science itself (Kvale, 1996). What we think of as psychology, and indeed how you do it, has been strongly shaped by the behavioural and cognitive traditions. Within such approaches, psychology should seek to understand and determine an observable, objective (universal) psychological reality. The dominance of behaviourism and then cognitive experimentalism meant that it wasn’t until the 1980s that qualitative approaches regained a foothold, and subsequently flourished, in some areas of psychology (their history in other social sciences, such as sociology, is different, e.g. Vidich & Lyman, 1994). Their (re)appearance reflected the development of a number of oppositional approaches within the social sciences, which challenged mainstream (post)positivist empiricist research design and practice, and the bases on which psychology and the other social sciences theorised and concep- tualised their subjects (Ashworth, 2003; Howitt, 2010). Approaches including femi- nism (Crawford & Unger, 2004), poststructuralism (Gavey, 1989), postmodernism (Gergen, 1990), social constructionism (Burr, 2003), hermeneutics (Schwandt, 2000) and phenomenology (Langdridge, 2007) in different ways questioned or rejected the idea of an observable, independent (singular and universal) reality, with humans under- stood as responding to external and internal influences. Instead, the person was theorised as operating within a subjective, interpreted world, the organisation of which offered 01-Braun & Clarke_Ch-01-Section 1.indd 7 27/02/2013 3:52:50 PM  8 Successfully getting started in qualitative research a certain version of reality. The relationship between person and context was seen as more fluid and reciprocal, with influence in both directions. Qualitative methods were touted as allowing access to people’s subjective worlds and meanings, and to groups marginalised (e.g. by their gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity/culture) and often invisible within western psychology. They were seen as crucial for identifying and theorising dif- ferent constructed versions of reality, and for the ways people are both constructed by, and constructors of, reality (see Box 1.2 for a classic example). The use of a qualitative paradigm was in many cases then an implicit and often explicit rejection of the val- ues, assumptions and practices of quantitative, experimental psychology (although see Michell, 2004). This rejection was driven from anything from theoretical convictions to political social change agendas. What we wish to emphasise is that qualitative research has a long, but often mar- ginal, history in psychology, and its strong emergence in certain places (e.g. the UK) in recent decades reflects a shakeup of the very foundations of the discipline. That explains why, in some cases, the response to qualitative research is hostile. You don’t need to know much of this history to do qualitative research, but it’s important to understand that it’s not simply a complementary approach to a quantitative research paradigm, and why this is. BOX 1.2 A CLASSIC OF QUALITATIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH British social psychologist Michael Billig’s (1978a, 1978b) interview-study of members of the British far-right group the National Front provided profound insights into the nature of the organisation, and into the frameworks of meaning and logic that National Front members deployed when talking about race, racism and their ideal of a ‘white only’ Britain. Like many others who have been shown to ‘do racism without being racist’, National Front members often denied they were racist, and instead argued that their position was a logical response to the situation of increased non-white migration to the UK. In simultaneously providing compelling insights into this group, and demonstrating the limitations of social cognitive frameworks (e.g. attitudes) for explaining these insights, Billig’s study was at the forefront of the development a new approach to social psychology, providing the foundations for the critique and alternative approaches of what would soon become discursive (Potter & Wetherell, 1987) and rhetorical psychology (Billig, 1987) (see Chapter 8). CONTEXTS OF LEARNING Reflecting this history, within the psychology undergraduate curriculum, qualitative meth- ods tend to be sidelined in favour of quantitative methods. This occurs even in the UK, where they are required in any British Psychological Society (BPS)-accredited psychology 01-Braun & Clarke_Ch-01-Section 1.indd 8 27/02/2013 3:52:50 PM  Some very important starting information 9 curriculum. If taught, qualitative methods are typically allocated far less time on the cur- riculum than quantitative methods, and often treated as a single approach, rather than a field as diverse as ‘quantitative methods’. They are also often taught after quantita- tive methods and experimental design have been presented. If this is the case, qualitative research often comes as a culture shock (Howitt, 2010) at best; at worst, it is seen as ‘unscientific’ or as anxiety provoking because it lacks the clarity and control of quantita- tive research and experimentation, which have often been presented as the pinnacles of research excellence. To become a good qualitative researcher requires a different way of thinking about research. WHAT DO I NEED TO BECOME A GOOD QUALITATIVE RESEARCHER? Obviously, there’s quite a bit you need to know – you’ll learn that throughout this book. Do you need a whole lot of technical skills? Not really. If you’re a bit of a Luddite (like Victoria), you’ve found a home in qualitative research! Assuming you know basic word processing, and are familiar with the internet, qualitative research is unlikely to pose technical chal- lenges. However, if you’re a tech-savvy gadget kid (which Virginia tries to be), qualita- tive research also offers you a home. Qualitative research can be conducted low-tech or high-tech, so there’s something for everyone. But there is one thing that’s really essential: developing a qualitative sensibility. A QUALITATIVE SENSIBILITY A qualitative sensibility refers to an orientation towards research – in terms of research questions, and analysing data – that fits within the qualitative paradigm. Certain skills or orientations that make up a qualitative sensibility include: an interest in process and meaning, over and above cause and effect; a critical and questioning approach to life and knowledge – you don’t take things at face value and simply accept the way they are, but ask questions about why they may be that way, whose interests are served by them and how they could be different; the ability to reflect on, and step outside, your cultural membership, to become a cultural commentator – so that you can see, and question, the shared values and assumptions that make up being a member of a particular society – this involves identifying your own assumptions, and then putting them aside (referred to as bracketing them off) so that your research is not automatically shaped by these. It is hard to do, but vitally important for being able to get ‘deep’ into qualitative data; the development of a double-consciousness or an analytic ‘eye’ or ‘ear’, where you can listen intently, and critically reflect on what is said, simultaneously (e.g. in an interview, being able to focus both on the content of what is being said, and 01-Braun & Clarke_Ch-01-Section 1.indd 9 27/02/2013 3:52:50 PM  10 Successfully getting started in qualitative research possible analytic ideas within it) – this helps produce much better (more complex, richer) data; reflexivity: critical reflection on the research process and on one’s own role as researcher (Finlay, 2002a, 2002b), including our various insider and outsider positions (Gallais, 2008) – we have insider status when we share some group identity with our participants (for example, a male researcher researching men would be an insider), and outsider status when we do not share some group iden- tity with our participants (for example, a white man researching Asian men would be an outsider), but for any research, we are likely to have multiple insider and outsider positions; good interactional skills – a warm/friendly manner that puts people at ease and helps establish ‘rapport’ and ‘trust’. This is does not mean you need to be really extroverted or outgoing. Some of these may come naturally to you; others may be a bit of a struggle. Give them time. In addition, to become a good qualitative researcher, the following need to be added to the qualitative sensibility you have and are developing: a basic grasp of some methods of data collection and analysis, which you build to in-depth understanding; a conceptual understanding of qualitative approaches. The skills you will develop in doing qualitative research don’t just apply to this field: reading and engaging with information critically; learning to discern and distil out what is vital from a large body of information; active listening; writing and presenting inter- esting and compelling ‘stories’ – all these skills will stand you in good stead in the ‘real world’, as well as in qualitative research. WHY WE LOVE QUALITATIVE RESEARCH We love qualitative research: it’s rich, exciting, and challenging in lots of ways; it cap- tures the complexity, mess and contradiction that characterises the real world, yet allows us to make sense of patterns of meaning. In line with the importance of reflexivity and contextualisation for qualitative research (see Chapter 2), you can find out a bit about why we each love qualitative research, and what we each bring to it as researchers, in Boxes 1.3 and 1.4. OUR APPROACH IN THIS BOOK Learning to do qualitative research has been seen by some as akin to riding a bike. British psychologist Jonathan Potter (1997) likened the analytic method discourse analysis (see Chapter 8) to a ‘craft skill’, something that not only takes time to learn, but also requires the ‘doing’. This suggests it cannot be learnt by following a recipe, 01-Braun & Clarke_Ch-01-Section 1.indd 10 27/02/2013 3:52:50 PM