Designing Qualitative Research
Qualitative and quantitative research are two main categories of research methodologies which are widely used by researchers. This paper is focused on qualitative research methodology. From a historical perspective, this article first introduced how different qualitative research approaches were categorized. The article also discussed a few approaches which work well with specific population as well as genres from a critical point of view. This paper helped me foster a better understanding about various qualitative research approaches. It also provided me with a brief overview on how these conceptual theories may be applied in different research settings.
In this paper, qualitative genres were categorized into three major groups and which are ‘society and culture’, ‘individual lived experience’, as well as ‘language and communication’. The ‘Society and Culture’ group has a strong emphasis on examining human society, culture, how people collectively create and maintain a certain culture. In this group, ethnography, action research and case studies are typical methodologies to be used. Phenomenological approaches, often paired with in-depth interviews is central to the ‘Individual Lived Experience’ family. The last ‘Language and Communication’ group are for sociolinguistic approaches which include discourse lanalysis, critical discourse analysis, and conversation analysis.
In addition to the above three categories, I found the most interesting approach actually falls under the critical genres in qualitative research. The critical genre challenged traditional qualitative research assumptions which state that knowledge is subjective. In fact, it states that research involves power issues. In critical approaches such as critical theory, critical race and queer theory, they urged that traditional qualitative research may have unintentionally excluded voices from particular groups who are traditionally underrepresented, marginalized, or oppressed. As Marshall and Rossman mentioned in this paper, “research involves issues of power and that traditionally conducted social science research has silenced many marginalized and oppressed group in society by making them the passive objects of inquiry”.
When designing our researches, we, as researchers may think that we have a neutral interest in the knowledge production process; however, it is mostly important to remind ourselves to re-examine our assumptions, to deconstruct and review the research questions, and re-interrogate our research framework from a critical perspective. As researchers, we should examine how participants are represented in our research-Is the research being inclusive with the type of participants involved? Has the research designed in a way which may exclude the others who are traditionally marginalized or disadvantaged? In addition, we should closely examine how our own personal ‘biography, power and status, interactions” and how these factors may interfere with our research. Furthermore, we should be alert with the ethics and politics involved in our work.
Follow-up questions:
1. In this article, Marshall and Rossman stated that “the hallmark of participatory action research is full collaboration between researcher and participants in posing the question to be pursued and in gather data to response to them”. I would really be interested in learning more how “full collaboration ” is defined here and what factors may prevent full collaboration between the researcher and the participants.
2. “What will constitute thoughtful and ethical research”-this is one of the question raised in this paper. What are research ethics? What factors may define “ethical” research? Will culture, social structure, class, power impact ethical research?
In this paper, qualitative genres were categorized into three major groups and which are ‘society and culture’, ‘individual lived experience’, as well as ‘language and communication’. The ‘Society and Culture’ group has a strong emphasis on examining human society, culture, how people collectively create and maintain a certain culture. In this group, ethnography, action research and case studies are typical methodologies to be used. Phenomenological approaches, often paired with in-depth interviews is central to the ‘Individual Lived Experience’ family. The last ‘Language and Communication’ group are for sociolinguistic approaches which include discourse lanalysis, critical discourse analysis, and conversation analysis.
In addition to the above three categories, I found the most interesting approach actually falls under the critical genres in qualitative research. The critical genre challenged traditional qualitative research assumptions which state that knowledge is subjective. In fact, it states that research involves power issues. In critical approaches such as critical theory, critical race and queer theory, they urged that traditional qualitative research may have unintentionally excluded voices from particular groups who are traditionally underrepresented, marginalized, or oppressed. As Marshall and Rossman mentioned in this paper, “research involves issues of power and that traditionally conducted social science research has silenced many marginalized and oppressed group in society by making them the passive objects of inquiry”.
When designing our researches, we, as researchers may think that we have a neutral interest in the knowledge production process; however, it is mostly important to remind ourselves to re-examine our assumptions, to deconstruct and review the research questions, and re-interrogate our research framework from a critical perspective. As researchers, we should examine how participants are represented in our research-Is the research being inclusive with the type of participants involved? Has the research designed in a way which may exclude the others who are traditionally marginalized or disadvantaged? In addition, we should closely examine how our own personal ‘biography, power and status, interactions” and how these factors may interfere with our research. Furthermore, we should be alert with the ethics and politics involved in our work.
Follow-up questions:
1. In this article, Marshall and Rossman stated that “the hallmark of participatory action research is full collaboration between researcher and participants in posing the question to be pursued and in gather data to response to them”. I would really be interested in learning more how “full collaboration ” is defined here and what factors may prevent full collaboration between the researcher and the participants.
2. “What will constitute thoughtful and ethical research”-this is one of the question raised in this paper. What are research ethics? What factors may define “ethical” research? Will culture, social structure, class, power impact ethical research?
Hey Hui,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the great summary. I have to say that I am far more comfortable reading about qualitative rather than quantitative research as I find statistics and data analysis really challenging!
It was kind of eye-opening to read that research can be viewed as sometimes further marginalizing or oppressing the groups being studied. This goes some way to responding to my thoughts after my reading from last week: “I wonder then if research can sometimes take something away from our understanding rather than add to it.” Your summary explains that we really need to consider and involve the participants of our research or we run the risk of having our own status and prejudices refracting the information we gather; in effect, adding to the “problem” that we are looking at.
Your question about what would constitute “full collaboration” is a great one. I was under the assumption that we needed to keep a very clear boundary between our research (or our role as researcher) and the participants involved so as not to skew our data. I’m not entirely sure what “full collaboration” means either, but the idea that we involve our participants in “posing the question to be pursued” is certainly an interesting idea. This would allow for gaining a greater understanding of the context within which our research is being done and also make the process less “clinical”; i.e. not objectifying or marginalizing the participants.
Your second question, about ethical research, is probably even more challenging. The issues of power dynamics within research is really complicated and is definitely something I’d like to learn more about. I’d imagine culture, social structure, class, and power all influence research. As I understand it, research involving human subjects is overseen by a research ethics committee to make sure that proper procedure is followed. However, I’d imagine the definition “proper” procedure / best practice has changed quite a lot over the last decades and is likely to continue to change in the future.
Hi Hui,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your great summary of the reading which is about qualitative and quantitative research. I am quite impressed by the traditional qualitative research often ignores particular groups who are underrepresented, marginalized, or oppressed. That is a quite serious problem the research should face and improve.
As for your question about "full collaboration", I suppose that it is a smooth and harmonious cooperation between researchers and participants. when researchers consider their research question they should also consider the situation and feeling about their participants. Participants would better spare no efforts to help the research to complete their research.
For your second question, I guess the ethical research is a kind of research which related to some ethical problems, such as race, gender, etc..People who want to do this kind of research should be more cautious.
Crystal
Thank you for this detailed summary Hui!
ReplyDeleteAs you mentioned, this article is quite difficult to summerize because it involves different concepts, different genres and their issues. After reading the whole article, I was still thinking how to summerize it. And then I went it through again roughly and found that the subtitles are very helpful!
We both noticed the importance of being "neutral" as a research. However, another professor last term told me that it is not always a bad thing to have bias, or it is not completly possible to have one because when we design our research, we usually should have a hypothesis on mind and that is a bias already. Sometimes something stands out to us and triggers our interest to research is because we think that that thing is different and worth studying. So, I think, what we should do is exactly like you mentioned in my post that 'we should interrogate and re-examine the power relations presented in the research'.
As to you question, in my understanding, “full collaboration ” between researchers and participants refers to researchers being totally honest and open to their participants and try hard to avoid misleading them (if it is not needed in the test) and the participants at the same time be completely hoest in responding the question, never hide information out of personal interest.
Also about research ethic, I think one of the most basic principles is to never do anything that would cause permanent harm to research objects. For example, to study language deprivation, it would be unethical to lock a child in an isolated environment and not expose him/her to any linguistic stimuli, although I believe a lot of linguists really want to do so (laugh).
Hi Hui!
ReplyDeleteI ended up reading the same article as you, and had similar reflections from the article. I however, didn't go into the same details as you on what we need to do as researchers to ensure our research is inclusive. I appreciated how you explored how researchers need to consider their own "personal biography, power and status, interactions” and how participants are being represented. In response to your second question on what is research ethics, I'm sure that this acknowledgement is part of the answer. However, I wonder how considering the researchers personal position, and that of the participants is represented in the research paper. Do we have a separate analysis of these variables, and explain how these have been considered in the core research project?
In relation to your first question on participatory action research, I noted while I was reading how this is the method that was used in Rita Irwin's collaborative artmaking article. Seems that full collaboration could mean that the researcher is also acting as participant, working with the other participants to answer the same questions. In the case of this article. Irwin was also a participant in creating the installation quilt, but used as evidence the participant's reflections.