Foundational
Qualitative
Domain
Theories
One
hallmark of common sense reasoning is the ability
to
draw useful inferences even with little information.
Research
on mental models suggests that qualitative
representations
are an essential component of
common
sense reasoning about the physical world.
This
common sense qualitative knowledge also
provides
the framework for efficient application of
more
quantitative and/or domain-specific knowledge.
Qualitative
reasoning orchestrates the use of more
detailed
knowledge by detecting what important
questions
remain unresolved, and by identifying the
relevant
phenomena which must be investigated to
resolve
them. Because of this, qualitative reasoning is
seeing
widespread application in engineering tasks.
We
believe qualitative physics can provide similar
payoffs
for the tasks driving the HPKB initiative. In
JFACC
campaign planning, for example, an important
capability
is estimating the indirect effects of actions.
Traditional
planning representations encode the direct
effects
of an action on the environment. But they do
not
support reasoning about the indirect physical
effects
of actions, especially the changes wrought by
physical
processes. The ability to support reasoning
about
the effects of actions on complex engineered
systems,
even with little detailed information, could
provide
valuable support to effects-based planning.
Qualitative
physics can similarly provide payoffs for
the
Genoa Intelligence Analysis task. Physical
metaphors
and simple qualitative models are often
combined
with other kinds of knowledge to describe
the
economic aspects of a country. For example, a
rising
population combined with a poor harvest means
either
starvation, importing food, or adventurism to
gain
the necessary resources for survival. This
common
sense inference rests on treating the
population
as an entity that requires flows of certain
inputs
(e.g., food) to remain in existence, knowing
what
can disrupt those flows (e.g., poor harvest), and
knowing
what such entities are likely to do when faced
with
those sorts of conditions (which requires
combining
this qualitative knowledge with other
common
sense knowledge of people, economics, and
geopolitics).
Qualitative representations provide the
appropriate
level of resolution for situations involving
significant
uncertainty, because they neither impose
unrealistic
computational requirements (i.e., accurate
numerical
data and mathematical models) nor do they
generate
misleadingly detailed predictions (i.e., a
floating
point number predicting how many days until a
revolution,
given the number of inches of rainfall that
year).
The ability to quickly identify classes of
behaviors
and their causes, coupled with the ability to
characterize
the conditions that might lead to one
behavior
rather than another, could be valuable both in
detecting
nascent crises and in suggesting courses of
action.
Returning to our example, a prediction of bad
weather
over a region, combined with knowledge of
its
demographics and economic state, can thus lead to
the
detection of potential political instability and the
identification
of courses of action that could mitigate
the
problem (i.e., negotiate trade arrangements to
relieve
the pressure on the food supply). Tools to craft
and
trigger indicators for such situations that are based
on
underlying qualitative models similar to those used
by
people are likely to be easier to use, and their
results
will be easier to interpret.
We
are creating a library of foundational qualitative
domain
theories that can provide the common sense
substrate
for these and similar tasks. The bulk of this
library
will be created by synthesizing the results of our
previous
research efforts, which have already yielded
powerful
models of space, quantity, physical
processes,
and causality. Our starting points include
the
following:
Space: Diagrammatic representations that
integrate symbolic and numerical spatial
information. Qualitative descriptions of
space
useful for reasoning about motion that
can be
used to characterize paths, boundaries,
and
accessibility. Qualitative
representations of
surfaces and angle that provide important
spatial relationships for reasoning about
contact. Qualitative representations of
flow
fields that provide "back of the
envelope"
descriptions of spatially distributed
phenomena.
Quantity: Qualitative descriptions of
magnitude
and qualitative representations for
expressing
partial information about functional
relationships
(e.g., "population growth depends on
food
available").
Time-varying behavior: Symbolic
representations of patterns of behavior
(e.g.,
increasing, asymptotic approach,
equilibrium,
oscillation) that can be generated by
qualitative
reasoning and/or be detected in numerical
data.
Substances: Qualitative models of liquids
and
gases, including contained stuff,
molecular
collection, bounded contained stuff, and
plug
ontologies. Models of phase changes.
Physical processes: A general
representation
system for physical processes, with an
integrated causal account that closely
matches
common sense intuitions regarding
physical
domains.
Causality: A vocabulary of causal
relationships
that is grounded in psychological
explorations..
[For
more details, see our papers here.]
While
we are starting from a decade-plus accumulated
research
base, creating an integrated, coherent library
of
domain theories still requires work. The formalism
used
for many of these representations were optimized
for
particular styles of reasoning such as envisioning.
We
must recode these representations in the newer
formalisms
we have developed that better support
multi-task
reasoning. These representations were also
optimized
for a particular class of applications, e.g.,
engineering
problem solving. We must do new
representation
work to fill in the gaps between these
theories,
to achieve the broad coverage required for
common
sense reasoning.
To
overcome the brittle encodings of these ideas, we
will
recode them in an augmented axiomatic
framework.
Specifically, we will use a full predicate
calculus
language (e.g., KIF) augmented with
higher-order
representation conventions that provide
more
natural encodings for particular classes of
concepts.
More specifically, we will use
compositional
modeling to express much of the
non-spatial
content of these domain theories.
Compositional
modeling organizes domain knowledge
into
model fragments, which are pieces of
knowledge
about a phenomenon, principle, law, or
equation
and modeling knowledge, which expresses
relevance
information. Given a situation to be
represented
in the context of some task, a model of
that
situation is composed by automatic model
formulation
algorithms that use modeling assumptions
to
reason about which aspects of the domain theory
are
relevant to the task at hand.
The
methodology of compositional modeling meshes
well
with the goals of the HPKB program. The
abilities
to incrementally add detail, to shift perspective
and
granularity, and to specify control knowledge
separately
from the domain physics all provide critical
support
for using foundational domain theories in
task-specific
knowledge bases.
Model
formulation algorithms are still an area of active
research,
but there are already sufficient useful results.
We
will use CML (Compositional Modeling
Language),
a representation language we developed
jointly
with Xerox PARC, Stanford KSL and UT
Austin,
in writing our domain theories when possible.
CML
is a work in progress; the state of the art is
evolving
too quickly to expect it to remain static. Any
extensions
we find necessary to CML based on this
project
will be merged into the specification as
appropriate.
Our
methodology for creating representations includes
rigorous,
incremental testing. We will use our existing
reasoning
systems for this purpose. For example, we
will
use Gizmo Mark2, a qualitative reasoner designed
to
provide efficient, incremental qualitative reasoning
to
test these models. We will also use our
diagrammatic
reasoning tools in conjunction with
Gizmo
Mk2 to test the spatial aspects of our
representations.
To
focus our domain modeling, we will draw on
examples
of concern to JFACC and GENOA. In
addition
to the Challenge Problems, we are focusing
on
theories of weather and climate, civilian logistics
distribution
systems, and basic properties of vehicles.
Multi-Visual
Qualitative
Method: Observing Social
Groups in Mass Media
by
George Tsourvakas+
The Qualitative Report, Volume 3, Number 3,
September, 1997
(http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR3-3/tsour.html)
Abstract
In
reviewing the bibliography upon which
qualitative
method is based, the author refers to
ethnography,
ethnomethdology, symbolic
interactionism
and cultural studies, and argues
that
a combination of the qualitative methods is
actually
possible. To enforce his point, he gives
the
example of research that was recently
conducted
about the National Television
Channel
of Greece. Moreover, through the
theoretical
review, he asserts that the
application
of all qualitative methods is a way to
transfer
ourselves from observation to focusing
and
depth interviews. He believes that such an
application
can be really effective while
collecting
data as well as while analyzing and
presenting
the results of the research. Finally, it
is
his firm conviction that this shift to qualitative
multi-methods
can be also achieved in other
scientific
fields, apart from that of mass media.
Introduction
In
this article I aim to present the way in which
three
qualitative research methods can be
effectively
combined: observation, focus groups,
in-depth
interviews. In order to see the
application
of their simultaneous use in the same
field,
I have initially considered the national
television
channel of Greece and, specifically,
the
journalists through their labour relations. The
article
consists of four parts: first, I present a
theoretical
review of the foundations of the
qualitative
methods; second, I refer to the
specific
choice of the multi-visual qualitative
method;
third, I develop its application into three
distinct
levels of research: design, data collection
procedure
and analysis; and fourth, I evaluate
the
qualitative method itself.
Interpretative Social Inquiry:
Influence in Communication
Research
The
frameworks of interpretative social science
were
many years in the making and involved the
development
of concepts from several branches
of
the human sciences. In their work, Weber,
Husserl
and Schultz, provided warrants for
many
concepts that later became important,
including
the social construction of reality
(Berger
& Luckmann, 1967; Garfinkel, 1967),
the
rules of language use (Cicourel, 1974), and
the
self in social life (Goffman, 1959). Their
ideas
continue to exert great influence on nearly
all
of the human sciences.
Interpretative
inquiry has been practiced in a
number
of social scientific disciplines, but it is
especially
prominent in sociology. The approach
itself
has many names: interactionist (Fisher &
Strauss,
1978; Silverman, 1985, p. 85),
humanistic,
phenomenological, naturalistic
(Wester,
1987, p. 14) or, simply, qualitative
sociology.
The
common heritage is Weber's (1964, p. 88)
classic
formulation of sociology: "a science
which
attempts the interpretive understanding of
social
action in order thereby to arrive at casual
explanation
of its course and effects". The
essence
of interpretive sociology is the analysis
and
interpretation, through understanding
(verstehen)
or emphatic understanding, of the
meaning
that people give to their actions.
Four
methodological sources merit further
discussion:
ethnomethodology, ethnography,
symbolic
interactionism, and cultural studies.
The
first form of interpretive inquiry seeks to
identify
the rules that people apply so as to
make
sense of the world around them. Whereas
ethnomethodology
originates from the work of
phenomenologists,
in particular Husserl (1931)
and
Schultz (1967), the central figure in its later
development
has been Garfinkel, who conceived
the
term, formulated the core ideas and has
served
as a source of inspiration for other
ethnomethodological
researchers. For Garfinkel,
ethnomethodology
is a form of "practical
sociological
analysis" (Schultz, 1967, p. 1). This
sociological
analysis, however, is not merely an
undertaking
of professional sociologists; on the
contrary,
ethnomethodology is an everyday
activity
in which social agents constantly engage
as
they arrive at an interpretive understanding of
other
agents and actions through interaction,
thus
making sense of social reality.
As
a sociological approach, ethnomethodology is
actually
a peculiar one. It forsakes the usual
theory-building
path of developing explanations
of
human behavior in topical fashion.
Ethnomethodology's
distinct "topic" is the local
construction
of meaning through certain
interactional
practices, mostly conversational
(Sacks,
1963). The content of those practices is
of
little, if any, importance or consequence.
What
are consequential are really situational
resources
and the sequence of activities used in
constructing
coherence for a given practice.
That
is, the nature of work is not to be found in
the
products, proclamations or expressed
ideologies
of organizations, but in the observable
activities
and use of artifacts in the workplace.
Every
workplace has its own organization of
resources
and sequence of activities. The focus
is
on how and when people engage in an
activity,
not what its functional status might be.
A
thorough look at some key concepts reveals
the
interpretive basis of ethnomethodology.
All
social life is enacted in contexts. The
practical
reasoning in which people engage
depends
upon their use of situational resources
in
specific contexts. Expressions that draw upon
particular
aspects of the local context to
establish
orderliness, naturalness and factuality
are
called indexical expressions. The meanings
of
most, if not all, utterances would be
unfathomable
if we did not know the contexts in
which
they are spoken (Dore & McDermott,
1982).
Indexicality involves the artful
organization
of behavior and other resources of
a
setting (like workplace) in order to create a
meaningful
act. As Garfinkel (1967, pp. 1-11)
points
out, indexical expressions possess rational
properties
because they are responsible for
creating
the order in interaction. The rules and
norms
of social situations are evident in the
indexicality
of the communicative action itself.
There
is no one research method associated
with
ethnomethodology. Nevertheless,
participant
observation and in-depth interviewing
are
frequently employed as significant elements
of
an open research strategy. A prominent place
is
almost always given to everyday
conversation,
this being the primary medium of
everyday
interaction. A special approach,
refined
to perfection by Garfinkel and his
colleagues,
is that of experiments which are
designed
to disrupt those rules of conversation
that
are taken for granted. As Garfinkel (1967,
p.
37) himself described the technique:
"[p]rocedurally
it is my preference to start with
familiar
scenes and ask what can be done to
make
trouble". Douglas (1976), in particular, has
greatly
contributed to the development of this
approach,
and has in the process ignited a
continuing
debate of the ethnical legitimacy of
such
research strategies (Cavan, 1978). The
justification
given for using a disruptive mean of
research
is that its final result is the underlying
rules
governing human behavior in everyday
situations.
Ethnomethodology
has had a major impact on
the
communication research agenda. Its most
direct
application is found in the area of
conversation
analysis.
As
it is evident from the list of research
concerns
that was mentioned above, the
overriding
interest in the structure of speech
virtually
leaves little or no room for its relational,
affective
or cultural aspects. The value of
conversation
analysis as a way to describe the
local
construction and organization of
interactional
coherence has been increasingly
recognized
in the communication field.
(Heritage,
1984). In terms of method,
conversation
analysis often relies on transcripts
of
discourse tape-recorded under naturalistic
conditions.
Unlike discourse analysis, however,
conversation
analysis admits additional types
and
levels of contextual detail beyond the
transcript
itself, and usually results in an
interpretive
rather than statistical analysis
(Hopper,
Koch, & Mandelbaumet, 1986).
Media
studies that draw, in part, on this
approach
include Mollotch and Lester's (1974)
examination
of news as purposive behavior and
Tuchman's
(1978) investigation of news
organization.
A landmark study of interpretive
social
inquiry into media, drawing according to
its
references on symbolic interactionism,
ethnomethodology
and ethnography was Lull's
(1980)
examination of the social uses of
television.
He wondered how media, particularly
television,
"play a central role in the methods
which
families and other social units employ to
interact
normatively" (Lull, 1980, p. 198). Using
a
combination of participant observation and
interview
research methods, Lull and his
associates
examined interaction and
communication
patterns in their natural setting:
the
home. This work actually functioned as a
preparation
of the way for many recent studies
in
the ethnography of communication.
The
second tradition leading to qualitative
communication
inquiry draws inspiration from
anthropological
and socio-linguistic approaches
to
language. The ethnography communication
considers
discourse as pro-vital to the study of
social
life.
The
greater part of research falling under the
ethnography
of communication rubric concerns
speech
performance. Its theoretical grounding
derives
from several sources, of which the most
prominent
is the philosophy of Wittgenstein
(1953).
Wittgenstein asserts that the practice of
language
can be effectively analyzed only in
terms
of the logic of "language games". He
argues
that there are no private rules of
meaning
in language. The meanings of language
emerge
only when we are aware of the social
rules
that govern its usage.
Two
streams of empirical study came together
to
form the ethnography of communication
research
program: socio-linguistics and folklore.
Socio-linguistics
is concerned with the
relationship
between linguistic forms (especially
grammatical
rules and vocabularies) and their
social
uses and meanings. It also includes a
focus
on how people as members of a specific
culture
gain competence in the use of linguistic
codes
and forms. On the other hand, folklorists
study
oral and material cultures. Operating
somewhere
between humanistic (literature and
ethnic
studies) and scientific (anthropology and
linguistics)
disciplines. Folklore studies involve
the
collection of examples of "in situ" speech or
musical
performance in order to develop a clear
understanding
of their cultural and historical
origins
and functions. In contrast to socio-
linguistics,
which stresses the social practice of
language,
folklore studies stress the artful
performance
of feeling and thought in regional,
ethnic
or national cultures.
Today,
ethnography is practiced in other
disciplines
as well, such as anthropology, within
which
several versions of this approach now
exist
(Clifford & Marcus, 1986; Ellen, 1984;
Sanday,
1983). However, despite such diversity,
most
anthropological seem to agree on three
major
core principles.
First,
ethnographic research is concerned with
cultural
forms in the widest sense of the term,
including
everyday life as well as religion and
arts
(Fetterman, 1989; Hammersley & Atkinson,
1983).
Second, studies generally acknowledge
the
need for long-term participant observation,
with
the researcher functioning as the primary
instrument
of inquiry. And third, multiple
data-collection
methods are generally employed,
according
to Sanday (1983, p. 21), as a check
on
observational findings.
More
specifically, Sanday (1983) identifies three
distinct
types of anthropological ethnography:
holistic,
semiotic and behavioristic. Of these
three,
the holistic one has the longest tradition
and
it is dominant within the discipline. The
word
"holistic" refers directly to scope of inquiry
and
specifically to the purpose of investigating
many
aspects of the particular group or society
that
is being studied. For this exact reason,
anthropological
ethnographies have commonly
been
situated in clearly defined settings, such as
a
village or other small geographical community.
Finally,
the establishment of rapport between the
researcher
and the group studied is considered
to
be a critical element of ethnography (Seiter,
Bochers,
Kreutzner, & Warth, 1989). This is
one
of the reasons why some researchers
(Wolcott,
1975) suggest a minimum of one year
for
the fieldwork phase of an ethnographic
project.
The
1960's and 1970's saw the development of
the
field of communication ethnography with
several
anthologies, field studies and pragmatic
statements
making its progress (Bauman &
Sherzer,
1975; Leeds-Hutwitz, 1984; Stewart &
Philipsen,
1984). Fieldwork has been conducted
that
it describes role-based communicative
styles
as they function in particular subcultures
or
social situations. Through these studies, we
can
learn how communities "enforce" speech
norms,
and what happens when they are
breached.
The speech community is viewed as
a
constantly performed accomplishment, with a
basis
in consensual rules.
Braber
(1989) examined critically three
ethnographic
studies of women and popular
culture,
and essentially came to the same
conclusion
that much of what is considered to
be
ethnography deviates somehow from what
anthropologists
mean by the term. Moreover,
Braber
questioned Hobson's (1982) analysis of
the
British soap opera "Crossroads", Radway's
(1984)
study of female readers of popular
romance
fiction, and Seiter and colleagues'
research
on soap opera viewers. All three
studies
were limited, definitely to a varying
degree,
in regard to the aspects of
anthropological
ethnography that Braber
considered:
centrality of the concept of culture,
employment
of participant observation, and
smallness
of the research setting.
In
spite of these subject, the call for more
ethnographies
of media audiences is frequent
and
forceful. Ian Ang, in her book "Desperately
Seeking
the Audience", disparages the emphasis
on
de-contextualized quantitative data, largely
promoted
by the television industry, and
recommends
"ethnographic understanding" of
audiences
as an alternative (Ang, 1991). On the
other
hand, although she argues at length for the
value
of ethnography in audience research, still,
she
devotes no more than a footnote to the
characteristics
of ethnography as a concrete,
empirical
approach to conducting research.
For
all the discussion and disagreement among
anthropologists
about the nature of ethnography,
the
anthropological consensus, as noted above,
may
well provide the best starting point for
designing
ethnographic media research. At the
same
time, there are a number of general issues
outstanding
in the scientific debate on how to
develop
systematic and applicable qualitative
research
methods.
Symbolic
interactionism was the form of
interpretive
inquiry at the center of the
theoretical
and methodological reorientation of
the
1960's and 1970's; it is the study of how the
self
and the social environment mutually define
and
shape each other through symbolic
communication.
It is grounded primarily on
Mead's
book Mind, Self and Society (Mead,
1934),
which was described as the "single most
influential
book to date, on symbolic
interactionism"
(Manis & Meltzer, 1967, p. 140).
Others,
(e.g., Cooley, 1930; Dewey, 1925;
Thomas,
1928), also contributed to its
development,
but there is general agreement
that
the refinement of the theoretical position
came
from Blumer (1969). He posited, first of
all,
that people act on the basis of the meaning
they
themselves ascribe to objects and
situations.
Second, Blumer held the conviction
that
meaning derives from interaction with
others,
and that this meaning is transformed
further
through a process of interpretation
during
interaction (Meltzer, Petras, & Reynolds,
1975,
p. 2).
Coupled
to these notions was a methodology
stressing
respect for the world and actions in
that
world, what is often referred to as a
naturalistic
perspective (Lincoln & Guba, 1985).
Specifically,
participant observation is normally
associated
with the naturalistic perspective and
generally
with the work of symbolic
interactionists
(Ackroyd & Hughes, 1981, pp.
102-103;
Rock, 1979, p.178).
Other
sociologists also contributed a lot to the
development
of the naturalistic perspective.
Goffman
(1959), for example, is credited with
the
creation of a distinct "dialect" of symbolic
interactionism,
the dramaturgical approach
(Meltzer,
Petras, & Reynolds, 1975).
Symbolic
interactionism has several points of
affinity
with communication. It is mostly
concerned
with the role of symbolic expression
in
processes of social affiliation as well as of
social
conflict. It provides explanations for the
relationships
among understanding, motive and
message
design. What is most important for
students
of communication is that symbolic
interactionism
offers a way inside the meanings
inherent
in roles and actions (Duncan, 1962;
Faules
& Alexander, 1978).
Furthermore,
symbolic interactionism has
directly
influenced the development of the
constructivist
approach to interpersonal
communication
(Delia, 1977). Constructivism
seeks
to explain how persons adjust and adapt
their
communicative situations. It has borrowed
widely
from rhetorical theory, personal construct
theory,
and cognitive-developmental psychology.
It
also draws on such concepts from symbolic
interactionism
as role taking, the definition of the
situation,
and the emergence of meaning in
interaction.
Qualitative methods of inquiry have
played
a small role in empirical studies of
constructivism.
For the most part, the approach
relies
on structured coding systems applied to
simulated
social situations.
Interactionism
concepts have also contributed to
the
interest in looking at organizational
communication
as a cultural phenomenon. The
interpretive
debts of this approach are quite
eclectic,
with strong elements of
ethnomethodology,
narrative theory, and cultural
hermeneutics
cited in its founding essays
(Pakanowsky
& O'Donell-Trujillo, 1983).
However,
its emphasis on the performance
organizational
myth, ritual and everyday
interaction,
as well as the focus on conflict,
belies
an interactionist influence.
As
Raymond Williams documents generously in
his
book Keywords (1976), "[c]ulture is one of
the
two or three most complicated words in the
English
language" (p. 87). From its early
meaning
of the "cultivating" of resources and
knowledge,
the word took on its own current
usages:
a) "general process of intellectual,
spiritual,
and aesthetic development", b) "a
particular
way of life, either of people, a period,
a
group, or humanity in general", and c) "the
works
and practices of intellectual and
especially
artistic activity" (p. 90).
All
three usages, Williams notes, are closely
related,
but in the social sciences the second
meaning
has predominated. In cultural
anthropology,
where the concept is crucial,
culture
is the system of meanings through which
social
practices make sense to a people, and by
which
these practices carry on across
generations
in enduring form (Geertz, 1973;
Schneider,
1976 ). Culture also distinguishes the
range
of behaviors and statuses permitted to the
members
of a group or a social body. Artifacts
such
as totems, metaphorically clarify the
identities
of tribes and ethnic groups. So,
considered
as a system, culture makes it
possible
to think of all the material and
organizing
efforts of a people.
Apart
from that, it can also be argued that
cultural
studies embody diverse approaches that
all
have an interest in the matter of signification.
From
a classical marxist framework, the
primary
function of ideology is to naturalize the
conditions
of societal inequity and economic
class
dominance existing in capitalistic societies.
The
concept of cultural hegemony has been
used
widely in cultural studies in order to
characterize
the political struggle for domination
(Gitlin,
1979; Gramsci, 1971; Hall, 1982).
In
some ways, like the Chicago School symbolic
interactionists,
British cultural studies,
psychoanalysts,
and reception studies analysts,
also
began to examine in close detail the
marginal
and struggling elements in society,
including
working class male students (Willis,
1977),
punk subculture (Hebdige, 1979), and
teenage
girls (McRobbie, 1982). In their
accounts,
cultural action is an artful and
self-conscious
attempt to secure spaces and
moments
of identity in a society obsessed with
instrumental
control. Therefore, culture was
seen
in a new light: "[c]ulture is understood both
as
a way of life--encompassing ideas, attitudes,
languages,
practices, institutions, and structures
of
power--and a whole range of cultural
practices:
artistic forms, texts, canons,
architecture,
mass- produced commodities, and
so
forth" (Nelson, Treichler, & Grossman, 1992,
p.
5).
In
some of its forms, feminist research has
followed
a cultural studies path in attempting to
understand
how women interpret male and
female
signs in mainstream texts such as
television.
Feminist theory holds the conviction
that
practices of everyday communication tend
to
exclude, marginalize, or distort the future
interests
of money, because these practices
serve
the interests of a patriarchal social
system.
Feminist research seeks to document
these
practices, their effects in gender
relationships,
and how creative resistance to
them
can occur. Other feminist studies focus on
how
women use specialized media so as to
explore
their own aspirations and identities
(Brown,
1990; Grodin, 1991). In accordance
with
their beliefs about women's culture and
interpersonal
styles, feminist researchers often
use
a collaborative approach that involves close
relationships
with participants in defining and
exploring
the research problem (Stanley &
Wise,
1983).
In
a structruralistic, semiological and
postmodern
culture, the intertextuality of a
cultural
artifact tends to draw attention
reflexively
to its own stylistic conventions,
historical
antecedents, and ways of "reading" it
(Fiske,
1987). Some proponents of
post-modernism
claim that the media have
become
such skilled readers of mediated
culture,
that notions of either ideological
dominance
by the media or the autonomy of self
are
passé (Gergen, 1991). Postmodern life is
seen
as situational, fragmented, fluid, style
centered,
participatory, and reflexive. The
textual
form of communication studies exhibits
some
of these same characteristics, especially in
the
sense of breaking down the author's
imposed
master narrative of traditional social
science
(Browning & Hawes, 1991).
To
sum up, cultural studies has no stable object
of
inquiry. It is up to the theoretical perspective,
and
often to the purpose of individual analysis, to
drive
work in cultural studies.
Multi-Visual Qualitative Method
Qualitative
approaches try to bring us close to
the
performances and practiced of
communication.
The qualitative inquirer seeks
somehow
to get inside this action. The research
"instrument"
is the human investigator, who
reflexively
becomes an inseparable part of both
the
action itself and the ensuing description. The
"human
subject" is the other person(s), whom
we
respect and from whom we learn. The
"data"
are texts, which change over time as the
researcher's
interests, knowledge, and abilities
change
through time. The "products" are
typically
full of voices, stories, events,
interpretations,
hypotheses, and claims. The
"qualitative
research" of this article concerns the
empirical
study of communication from an
interpretive
and cultural- hermeneutical
perspective.
A
particular example comes from the results of
our
recent multi-method qualitative research act
about
the journalists who work in National
Television
Channel of Greece.
First,
the objective of this multiple method study
was
called "idiographic". One does generalize in
qualitative
research, but not in a way that tries
to
attain the scope of a universal law. Instead,
the
richness of the particular elements that have
documented
and the patterns of themes they
exhibit,
allow the researcher to generalize in
other
cases of the same problem in the culture
of
a people.
Second,
theory in qualitative inquiry usually
consists
of some ways to understand a people's
(journalistic
work) rationality. Then, we are
interested
in their logic and in the kind of
evidence
they consider worthwhile or relevant.
But
the purposes of research are clearly not
exhausted
there. To expand the implications of
the
case(s) under study, we bring other frames
of
reference to bear, such as the conceptual
resources
of the communication discipline. One
uses
the case to inform theoretical and practical
arguments
about morality, ideology, politics,
social
interaction, or symbolic discipline. A
useful
representation of the case results from
our
ability to translate the practices of the other
person(s)
into language and into a set of
problems
with which we are familiar in the
communication
discipline.
In
our research, we used a qualitative
multi-method,
such as observation, focus groups
and
individual in-depth interviews. In these
combined
uses of qualitative methods, the goal
was
to use a qualitative multi-method, such as
observation,
focus groups and in-depth
interviews.
In these simultaneously combined
uses,
our goal was to use each method so that it
contributes
something and/or unique to the
understanding
of the phenomenon under study.
This
mix of qualitative methods actually gives
new
opportunities for an effective research,
perhaps
of any kind.
An
often quoted definition of observation has
been
offered by H. S. Becker and B. Geer:
By participation observation we
mean that method in which the
observer participates in the daily
life of the people under study,
either openly in the role of
researcher of covertly in some
disguised role, observing things
that happen, listening to what is
said, and questioning people, over
some length of time. (Becker &
Geer, 1957, p. 28)
The primary purpose of participant
observation research, accordingly,
is to describe in fundamental terms
various events, situations, and
actions that occur in a particular
social setting. This is achieved
through the development of case
studies of social phenomena,
normally employing a combination
of data collection techniques. But,
what are the actual advantages of
naturalistic settings? Three major
advantages of such settings are: a)
an ability to collect data on a
larger range of behaviors, b) a
greater variety interactions with
the study participants, and c) a
more open discussion.
Observation
will always have a advantage
whenever
it is necessary to observe behaviors in
their
natural context and, especially, when it is
necessary
to follow these behaviors in detail
over
time. Moreover, such a method is the
primary
tool for the investigation of broad
aspects
of culture, like television organizations.
However,
when we wish to study a participant
group
like journalists, it is surely preferable to
follow
focus groups as a second (not
alternative)
qualitative method in the same case.
Focus
groups are not really new. Within the
social
sciences, Bogardu's description of group
interviews
is the earliest published work.
Furthermore,
group interviews played a notable
part
in applied social research programs during
World
War II, including efforts to examine the
persuasiveness
of propaganda and the
effectiveness
of training materials for the troops
(Merton
& Kendall, 1946) as well as studies on
factors
that affected productivity of work
groups
(Thompson & Demerath, 1952). At
present,
there are two principal means of group
interviews
have: collecting qualitative data in
groups
and open-ended interviews, both of
which
typically occur with individuals. Likewise
group
interviews, focus groups not only occupy
an
intermediate position between the other
qualitative
methods, but it also possesses a
distinctive
identity of their own.
Focus
groups as a qualitative method have the
following
characteristics: a) it is limited to verbal
behavior,
b) it only consists interaction in
discussion
groups, c) the groups are created and
managed
by the researcher, d) it requires
greater
attention to the role of the moderator,
and
e) it provides less depth and detail about the
opinions
and experiences of any given
participant.
As
a result of these, thus, they offer something
of
a compromise between the strengths of
participant
observation and individual
interviewing.
Functioning in this way, that is as a
compromise
between the weaknesses and the
strengths
of these other qualitative techniques,
focus
groups are not as strong or effective as is
either
of them within their specialized domain.
The
respective weaknesses of observation and
individual
interviewing, however, allow focus
groups
to operate across traditional boundaries,
but
this flexibility may be the greatest strength
of
this method helping our progress in a
scientific
field.
Broadly
speaking, four approaches inform
interviewing
practice: ethnographic, feminist,
postmodernist
and personal construct approach.
In
all approaches, however, reflexivity is
accorded
a key role, in the sense of the
researcher
reflecting on his or her own
experience
and role within the conduct of the
research.
George
Kelly's research designs (1955) are an
integral
part of his personal construct
psychology.
For Kelly, objective reality is a
myth.
Our subjective reality is based on the
meaning
that we have attached to previous
experiences.
It is the meaning that is influential,
not
the event itself. Such personal meanings are
the
basis of our individual theories or
frameworks,
through which we filter and
interpret
current experiences. Kelly's focus is on
the
individual as the maker of meaning. It is the
idiosyncratic
nature of our experience that
accounts
for the difference between people.
Personal
construct approach, there, is a dynamic
element
of personal agency. "People are neither
prisoners
of their environment nor victims of
their
biographies, but active individuals struggling
to
make sense of their experiences and acting in
accordance
with the meaning they impose on
those
experiences" (Kelly, 1995, p. 15).
This
kind of individual interviewing has a clear
advantage:
a greater amount of information for
each
informant to handle and share, as he or she
is
able to evaluate each situation calmly and
correctly.
As these suggestions show,
observation,
focus groups and individual
interviews
can be complementary techniques
across
a variety of different research designs.
In
particular, either of them can be used in
either
a preliminary or a follow-up capacity with
the
rest. This illustrates the larger point that the
goal
of combining research methods is to
strengthen
the total research project.
Planning and Research Design
The
first choice and move is the research
design:
the funnel and the cycle share the image
of
circularity, but for the cycle itself it is
dominant
(Carbaugh & Hastings, 1992;
Spradley,
1980). The basic idea is that the
researcher
initially formulates a research
problem,
engages in such activities of
observation,
focus groups and individual
interviewing,
and develops tentative
explanations.
The he or she goes back to collect
new
data, possibly to consult the literature again,
to
revise and test new explanations, and so on.
The
process continues until he or she "gets it
right",
that is until the task of interpreting
problematic
data is finally resolved.
Coming
full circle in our discussion, the release
of
control opens us to unexpected paths of
questioning
and discovery. Curiosity and
creative
suspicion are continually turned on both
the
design and our own process of converting
experience
to knowledge. An insistence on
control
would surely prevent us from being fully
skeptical
about how we can familiarize
ourselves
with another cultural reality.
Multi-visual
qualitative method needs to be
planned
in the same systematic way as any
other
type of research. It is useful to draw up a
checklist
of preliminary questions in order to
develop
a description of the situation, such as :
"What
is happening already? What is the
rationale
for this? What am I trying to change?
What
are the possibilities? Who is affected?
With
whom will I have to negotiate?" (Elliot,
1980).
The
outline of the stages of multi-visual
qualitative
research is:
a.Select the general area,
b.Discuss, observe, read, and decide on
your first action,
c.Take your action,
d.Examine the information you have
collected,
e.Evaluate, processes and outcomes,
f.Plan next action,
g.Take next action, and
h.Continue.
Data Collection: Observing -
Focusing - Interviewing
We
need to gather data in order to come to a
position
of being able to monitor the practice
which
is at the center of the inquiry. The
methods
selected for gathering the information
you
need for action will depend on the nature of
the
information required. It is highly important to
gather
information that will tell us more as a
practitioner
than we already know in general.
This
should be done in such a way that it
informs
the thinking of not just us, perhaps, as a
"key"
researcher, but of all concerned with the
intervention
programmes, and so offer the
opportunity
to evaluate the efficacy of
intervention
programmes in general. This may
involve
a combination of the following
procedures,
wherever this is appropriate. At this
point,
it is important to stress that if we are
carrying
out practitioner research, we must
select
those data collection methods that do not
distort
our practices in an unwelcome way or
lead
us to wrong conclusions that make our
research
useless:
a.Collection of document relating to the
situation,
b.Detailed diary,
c.Observation notes,
d.Notes of meeting with the focus group,
e.Interviews,
f.Shadowing: shadow studies can give vital
information when the study extends over
boundaries into different aspects of
practice, as can happen in institutional
life,
g.Tape, video, photographs recording,
h.Triangulation: this is an essential
ingredient whereby you use a range of
the above methods to check out the
information gained, the interpretations,
and your decisions about action.
In
a multi-visual qualitative research that was
recently
conducted in the greek National
Television
Channel 1, we tried to consider the
various
bureaucracy problems that usually
appear
in an organization like this:
a.We carefully observed the behavior of
officers and employees in all
organization
fields,
b.We experimented with small groups of
new journalists,
c.Focusing on the constructs and choosing
only few of the evident associations, we
noticed that those colleagues construed
as supportive, are also experienced as
inventive, trustworthy, and less likely
to
be politically malleable.
The
whole study was based on the analysis of
observations,
documents from focus groups and
interviews.
The cycle of the research process
moved
from gaining an initial picture through this
material
to exploring themes and writing up. At
each
stage followed, the analysis generated was
discussed
with the participants employed in the
organization.
The individual interviews focused
on
the topics of the past, present and future of
the
specific organization, its values, atmosphere
and
ethos, its purpose and mode of functioning,
the
working environment, the composition of
workers,
the participants' experience and views
on
the position of the organization in society,
and,
finally, the current use of the organization
and
its facilities. Hence the study was organized
around
bureaucracy principles of consultation
about
the research questions, reciprocity within
the
process of generating the accounts and
analysis,
and accountability over the emerging
issues.
Analysis
focused on the following issues:
structure,
how this was perceived by the
participants
as well as by the researcher, what,
if
any, kinds of role divisions exist, management
structure,
the patterns and flow of workday;
communication
and information processing,
decision-making
structures, regularity of
meetings
and who attends them, access to
records,
how people find out about what is going
on
and how democratic this is; environment,
appearance,
accessibility, how well resourced
this
was and how conducive to successful
organizational
and worker functioning, relations
with
external organizations (private television);
effectiveness
to the extent perceived by the
organization,
and why, whether considered in
terms
of personal development, success rates or
mere
survival; power and politics, formal versus
informal
forms of power, power used positively
and/or
negatively, the value accorded to
expertise,
confidence and time spent within the
organization.
As
a result of building up this picture of the
specific
television separately and given the
different
focus of the services and varying
levels
of financial security, each step exhibits a
different
profile of strengths and weaknesses,
achievements
and problems. Nevertheless,
some
similarities of structure sere discernible,
with
high levels of member participation, few
role
divisions, high levels of trust and
cooperation,
and collective forms of work. The
structures
on which the organization was based
all
relied heavily on personal networks that were
used
to organize work. Despite a common
preoccupation
with issues of structure,
communication,
resources and development, the
organization
demonstrated differences in their
fluidity
of organizational boundaries, differential
demands
made of workers and corresponding
ability
to cope with stress, differences in ability
to
take positive action over which journalists
used
and worked within the organization and
different
accounts of the role of political
commitment
within the work.
Hence
the tensions or contradictions of
bureaucratic
practice were crucially played out
through
organizational structures and roles. In
terms
of the role of personal networks, these
are
the arteries along which the blood of the
organizations
flow. They worked best when
based
on prior or current friendship; but, owing
to
their informality, some members could be
inadequately
supported, and these were
precisely
those most likely to leave.
On
the other hand, in terms of its adequacy,
sociological
theory appears to have little to say
about
organizational structures such as these
experienced
in this research. Therefore, the
study
poses new questions for both media and
sociological
research including: the role of
friendship
within organizational structures and
formats;
strategies deployed in, and political
analyses
of, the process of managing
engagement
with outside structures (politic and
social
services) without recuperation; the
perception
and exercise of power relations--how
these
are used positively and/or destructively,
and
how this relates to the position of each
organization
externally.
Now
that some of the key subjects of the
analysis
have been outlined, we can step back to
the
focus on the production of this account.
In
these two steps, Planning and Collecting data,
we
didn't give attention to the technique of
qualitative
multi-method (focus group interview
practice,
tactical observing, sampling, adopting
roles,
question design and use etc.) as much as
to
the methodology of multi-visual qualitative
analysis.
Besides, each researcher is allowed to
follow
his or her own technique in the
application
of a qualitative method, bearing in
mind
some ground principles, which he or she
shouldn't
take for granted.
Analyzing and Writing Texts in the
Field
There
is some strategies of qualitative analysis:
metaphorical,
dramatistic, typological, discursive
and
phenomenological (Lindlof, 1995).
It
is commonly accepted that language forms
the
greater part of all the exemplars examined
so
far. This should not be surprising, given that
language
does a great deal more than convey
the
content of our thought. Oral and written
languages
constitute the primary means by
which
individual experience becomes an
accessible
social reality. It is through the
practice
of language that we define and
accomplish
foals in relationships. Indeed, if we
want
to know how something is done and what
it
really means, we do have to consider how it is
talked
about.
Yet,
the development of computer technologies
and
software, some designed for qualitative data
applications,
is proceeding apace and seems to
be
exerting some serious influence on analytic
practice.
Conclusively,
the way in which we write and
present
every qualitative research, depends
directly
on each researcher as an individual. In
our
study of the bureaucratic behavior of the
workers
in the greek National Television
Channel,
writing had a double style in its
appearance:
first, we presented, on the basis of
hypothetical
questions, the dialogues and the
specific
words of the participants who were
interviewed,
and second, followed the
hermeneutical
conclusion.
Assessment
There
may be external validity problems. At
times,
the results can end up in being very
subjective,
depending more on who the
researcher
was than the situation which was
being
observed. Researchers may well notice
different
aspects of the situation while doing
their
job.
A
researcher can produce results that are
over-impressionistic,
carelessly produced, or just
idiosyncratic.
The fact that somebody is known
to
be interested in a particular (social)
phenomenon,
could well affect people's behavior
and
response, and this is likely to be different
when
the observer is present and when he or
she
absent.
The
question "why" may be poorly formulated,
leading
directly to a concentration on the wrong
aspects
of a situation. As it has already been
mentioned,
one should be aware of the possible
inter-dependence
of observations and
interpretations.
The question "what", may also
be
quite problematic, as there may well be
internal
problems of validity. The researcher
could
be blind towards what is being looked at,
(s)he
may not understand or conceive it, (s)he
may
think that (s)he has noticed something or
may
influence the ongoing process both
consciously
and unconsciously.
In
conclusion, despite the potential drawbacks,
multi-visual
qualitative method will surely
produce
rich and exciting results when applied,
which
could well end up in challenging all the
existing
assumptions about social life so far.
Moreover,
it could question our ideas about
experience
and rules, and point out the way
towards
new developments. Admittedly, a lot
still
depends on who the researcher is, but
following
the guidelines described above should
help
to minimize the problems of this effect. Of
all
qualitative methods it is probably the least
reactive
and the one that is most likely to
produce
valid results and insights that are very
much
rooted in "real life".
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Author Note
+George
Tsourvakas, Ph.D., is a lecturer of
Sociology
at Panteio University of Political and
Social
Sciences. His research interests in mass
media,
qualitative research methods, and visual
forms
and styles, are recorded in three books: a)
Images
and Contents of Television:
Communication:
An ethnographic content
analysis
(dissertation) (published in Greek by
Korfi
Publications, 1995), b) Qualitative
Research:
Applied for Studying Mass Media
(Union
Greek Authors, 1996 - in Greek), c)
Social
Representations in Visual Advertising
Reality
(Basdeki Publications, 1997 - in Greek).
He
can be reached at 8-10 Deinostratou str.,
117
43 N. Kosmos, Athens, Greece. His e-mail
address
is karyos@acropolis.net.
Article Citation
Tsourvakas, G. (1997, September).
Multi-visual
qualitative method: Observing social
groups
in mass media [75 paragraphs]. The
Qualitative
Report [On-line serial], 3(3).
Available:
http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR3-3/tsour.html
George
Tsourvakas
1997
copyright
Return to the top of the paper.
Return to the Table of Contents.
Practicing
Qualitative Research
Keeping Things Plumb in
Qualitative Research
by
Ronald J. Chenail+
The
Qualitative Report, Volume 3, Number 3,
September, 1997
(http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR3-3/plumb.html)
Abstract
As
qualitative research projects are
conceptualized
and conducted, they can grow
out
of alignment as researchers make choices
as
to their Area of Curiosity, Mission Question,
Data
Collected, and Data Analysis. This
phenomenon
of being muddled is a natural, and
sometimes
necessary, part of the overall
process.
The important part of being in a
muddle
is to recognize it and to work to tidy it
up.
In this paper, a way to keep qualitative
research
projects plumb is presented. A case
study
is also shared to show how one project
was
found to be out of alignment and how it
was
realigned using the Qualitative Research
Plumb
Line.
Introduction
In
an earlier paper (Chenail & Maione, 1997),
Paul
Maione and I wrote about qualitative
research
and the importance of sensemaking in
the
construction of coherent inquiries. Crucial
to
this sensemaking process was for
researchers
to understand how the research
project
at hand fit within the larger contexts of
the
literature on the topic, their previous
experiences
with the phenomenon in question,
and
the sense they were making of the
phenomenon
out in the field. From this
perspective,
this circular process of comparing
and
contrasting what was known of the
phenomenon
from field, literature, and personal
experience
(i.e., "The Y of the How")
becomes
the triangulatory engine of qualitative
inquiry.
The
term, triangulation, comes from the
practice
by which sailors and surveyors
determine
location by studying the intersection
of
three points. With the proper equipment and
with
careful measurements, people are able to
circumnavigate
the world and to construct
magnificent
buildings accurately within a few
degrees
or inches.
Triangulation
in research terms (Denzin, 1978)
usually
means that researchers use different
sets
of data, different types of analyses,
different
researchers, and/or different
theoretical
perspectives to study one particular
phenomenon.
These different points of view
are
then studied so as to situate the
phenomenon
and locate it for the researcher
and
reader alike. At the same time, a careful
reflection
of what the researchers use as the
particular
points (of view) to triangulate the
phenomenon
tells us as much about the
"location"
of the researchers themselves as it
does
about the phenomenon itself. And that's
the
rub!
With
sailing and surveying, the object of
triangulation
is for you to locate where you are
in
relation to some other points. In research,
the
object of triangulation is for you to locate
the
meaning of some other phenomenon "out
there."
In doing so, it is easy to forget that you
are
always part of the equation, too. Lose
yourself
in your study and you lose your study!
If
you have done at least one qualitative
research
study, then you have probably lost
yourself
at least once in and amongst that vast
region
located somewhere between the
literature,
the field, and yourself. Projects
which
start so simply can so often end up in
such
a complex muddle (Bateson, 1972). Why,
or
how does this happen?
Research
projects, especially qualitative ones,
can
become muddled and do get out of line
because,
when the richness of our curiosities
meets
the richness of qualitative data,
researchers
can easily become overwhelmed
with
the choices they have to make. This
embarrassment
of richness can be brought to
an
even higher level when researchers study
phenomena
with which they have previous,
direct
experience, as is the case when
practitioners
study what they also practice.
The
posture of "not knowing" is a hallmark of
qualitative
inquiries. It is the wonderful
strength
of these approaches to research and
practice.
It can also become a grave weakness
if
researchers fail to understand how they go
about
"not knowing" or, said in more positive
terms,
researchers have to know how they go
about
not knowing!
Before
we go on, it is important for me to say
that
getting into a muddle is a natural, and,
probably
necessary, part of every qualitative
research
project. Qualitative research projects
that
become too tidy too soon are probably
ones
in which researchers never give
phenomena
a fair chance to show their
richness
in variety or in which researchers are
more
interested in "truthifying" their theories
than
falsifying them.
Plumbing in Qualitative Research
Having
said this, I do think that somewhere
along
the line, qualitative researchers need to
"plumb
up" their projects. By plumb, I mean
that
there should be a basic and simple reason
for
doing a study; something like a mission
statement
or maybe, a mission question for the
project,
by which you can keep track to see if
you
are beginning to drift from your line of
inquiry
or if you are staying on course with
your
research.
After
you have constructed your mission
question,
you should keep it in your pocket and
carry
it with you where ever you go in your
research
travels. And, every once and a while,
you
should pull this mission question out of
your
pocket, and let it dangle from your hand
like
a carpenter or mason's plumb line. Hold
the
mission question up to your mind's eye and
see
if your mission question is plumb with your
project
as it is unfolding. In many cases, you
will
find that things have come out of
alignment.
How
can such a thing happen? Well, for one, it
can
be fairly confusing once you enter a
project
and begin making operational decisions
(see
Maione, 1997 for a fuller discussion of
choice
points in constructing a research
project).
In many ways, the project can begin
to
take on a life of its own. For instance, once
you
enter the field and come into contact with
all
the variety of data that can be collected out
there.
It is easy to begin to gather data, which
is
wonderful in and of itself, but does not relate
directly
to your mission question.
For
example, say you want to study what
happens
in a work group as they develop a
new
product. As you join with the folks in the
work
group, you begin to talk with them about
their
experiences of being members of the
group.
These informal talks lead to more
formal
interviews and you begin to collect
some
fantastic stories about what it is like
working
in the work group. It's time to take the
mission
question plumb line out of your pocket
and
see how this data is lining up with your
question.
In
your hand, you have the question, "What
happens
in a work group as workers develop a
new
product"? Out there in the field, you are
collecting
stories from the workers about
working
in work groups. This leads to an
interesting
question: Are stories about working
in
a work group going to help you address your
mission
question regarding what is going on in
work
groups? They might, and then again, they
might
not. You would have to ask yourself if
collecting
and studying stories about the work
groups
is a better way of studying group
processes
than collecting and studying
conversations
of the workers as they actually
develop
a project in the group. Interview data
may
be great stuff, but in the context of your
mission
question, things seem to be getting
out-of-alignment
and your project is drifting
from
its original course.
If
you are not aware of the drifts which may
occur
in a project, you may soon find yourself
far
away from the project you had originally
proposed.
This in itself may not be a bad thing.
Maybe
the project as it evolves is a better one
than
what you had originally conceptualized.
The
problem arises if you are not cognizant of
this
growing incoherence between the project
as
proposed and the project as constructed.
Given
this possible confusion (e.g., the talk of
work
groups being mistaken for the talk of the
workers
about group work talk or the worker's
talk
about group work talk being mistaken for
group
work talk itself), I propose a simple
Qualitative
Research Plumb Line to help you
line
up your decisions properly or to see when
things
have gotten out of line. In doing so, you
will
avoid the problems which beset many an
unaware
qualitative researcher.
The
Qualitative research Plumb Line consists
of
a series of four components:
1.Area of Curiosity
2.Mission Question
3.Data to be collected
4.Data Analysis Procedure
By
"Area of Curiosity," I mean the area or
phenomenon
you want to study in your project.
For
instance, an area of curiosity could be
doctor-patient
interaction, a village in
Honduras,
re-engineering in organizations, or
whatever
piques your curiosity.
By
"Mission Question," I mean "What are the
actual
questions you want to address in your
study?"
or "What to you want to know about
this
area of curiosity?" For example, in the
area
of doctor-patient interaction, you may
want
to know "How do doctors and patients
explore
patients' current states of health?".
With
the village in Honduras, your question
might
be "What are the ways in which parents
and
children resolve conflict?". For the
re-engineering
area of curiosity, your question
may
be "What do the members of the
organization
think about the current
re-engineering
efforts in their company?"
By
"Data to be collected," I mean "What is
collected
or what is generated by your
activities
‘in the field'?" In the area of
doctor-patient
interaction, you could collect
recordings
of their conversations, review case
notes,
and/or interview the doctors and patients
about
their interactions. In the case of our
Honduran
village study, you could generate
field
notes from your observations of certain
rituals
in the community, you could interview
key
informants about these rituals, and/or you
could
participate in these rituals and record
your
experiences in a diary. With the
re-engineering
in organizations project, you
could
collect and study the company's annual
reports
and strategic planning documents, you
could
sit in on planning sessions and take field
notes,
and/or you could interview stakeholders
both
inside and outside of the organization and
collect
their opinions on the progress of the
re-engineering
project.
By
"Data Analysis Procedure," I mean, "How
are
you going to analyze that which you have
collected
out in the field?" This process starts
by
the researcher naming that which was
collected.
It sounds simple, but it can be tricky.
My
father had an expression that he was fond
of
saying on our dairy farm which I think is
pertinent
here. He used to say, "You tell me
what
it is and I'll tell you what to feed it!" In
the
case of research, "You tell me what the
data
are, and I'll tell you with what to study it!"
Just
as it is important for you to know whether
your
data are ordinal or categorical in
quantitative
research when you make a
selection
of a correlational coefficients, it is
also
crucial for you to declare whether your
data
are talk or observations of talk when you
make
a selection of qualitative data analyses.
In
our three hypothetical projects, the studies
of
doctor-patient interaction, a village in
Honduras,
and re-engineering in an
organization,
we could have generated and
collected
an endless variety of data. As we
engage
in this process, we should know how to
name
that which we collecting. From this
process
of making the nature of our data overt,
we
can then systematically go about selecting
qualitative
data analyses which fit. For
instance,
if what you collect in an interview is
deemed
as the other person's story, then it
would
follow or line up that you would want to
look
at those data analysis approaches which
are
used to study narratives (e.g., Riessman,
1993).
If, however, you consider these
interviews
to be collected conversations, you
then
would probably be best served by
examining
the choices available in the domain
of
conversation analysis (e.g., Psathus, 1995).
Then,
again, you may consider this all to be
discourse,
so if that is the case, you should
take
a look at those analytical approaches from
discourse
analysis (e.g., Schiffrin, 1994).
Of
course, you can always "mix and match"
different
analytical approaches in your project,
as
well as using more than one approach to
study
the same body of data. My suggestion
here
is to keep things simple at first. Try some
standard
analytical approaches, ones which
have
been employed previously with the type
of
data you have so carefully collected, before
you
go out and try some more exotic method.
Taking
the time to conceptualize these three
areas
is a crucial preliminary step to building a
sound
research project. Once those decisions
are
made, it is still imperative for researchers
to
check how things are developing. That is
where
the Qualitative Research Plumb Lines
comes
into play. To demonstrate how this
process
works, I will present one research
project
and show how using the Qualitative
Research
Plumb Line helped one research
team
get out of their muddle and get their
project
re-aligned.
A Case Example of Plumbing in
Qualitative Research
Back
in graduate school, I was part of a
research
group which was interested in
studying
referrals of young patients with
innocent
heart murmurs to pediatric
cardiologists
(Chenail, 1991; Chenail, et al.,
1990).
We were curious as to how these
referrals
were being made because the
pediatric
cardiologists in our group wanted to
know
why the parents of the referred children
were
so stressed during the hospital visit since
the
kids were being referred with a relatively
benign
heart condition. A heart murmur is
simply
a "clicking" sound in the heart which
can
be detected during a routine checkup such
as
a well baby visit to a pediatrician or during
physicals
given to children before they are
cleared
to play organized sports.
From
a physiological perspective, the condition
was
not very worrisome, but from a parental
point
of view, the referral seemed to be quite
another
story. The doctors of our research
group
guessed that somehow the referral
process
was contributing to the anxiety they
were
seeing in the patients' families when they
came
to the hospital. To address this curiosity,
we
proceeded to interview parents about their
referral
experiences to find out what, if
anything,
had happened in these previous
doctor-patient/parent
interactions which may
have
added to their worry over their children.
This
study may sound fine to you, but before I
go
too far, I need to draw the Qualitative
Research
Plumb Line to see how things are or
are
not lining up.
First,
I ask, "What is the area of curiosity?"
Referrals to Pediatric
Cardiologists when the
presenting problem is a child with
a suspected innocent heart
murmur.
Second,
I ask, "What questions do I have about
this
area of curiosity?"
The Mission Question: What
happens, if anything, during these
referrals which may get the
parents of the patients with
innocent heart murmurs to
become upset, or at the least,
very concerned?
Third,
I ask, "What data will be collected that
will
help me to address my question(s)?"
Audiotaped interviews of parents
talking about their referral
experiences.
Fourth,
I ask, "What will be our method of data
analysis?"
Conducting discourse analysis
(DA) of the audiotape interviews
to discover themes in the
interviewees' talk.
Now
that I have addressed all of the plumb
line
questions, let's see how the answers lined
up:
First
Qualitative Research Plumb Line
Attempt:
Area of
Curiosity:
Referrals to pediatric
cardiologist
Mission
Question:
What happens in these
referrals to cardiologist?
Data Collected:
Interviews about these
referrals to cardiologists
Data Analysis:
DA about the interviews
about the referrals
Do
you see the problem? The Area of
Curiosity
and Mission Question line up, the
Data
Collected and Data Analysis line up, and
the
Area of Curiosity and the Data Collected
are
aligned. But, when you compare the
Mission
Question with the Data Collected, you
can
see that things are not quite plumb. The
Area
of Curiosity aligns with both the Mission
Question
and with the Data Collected in that
all
three are concerned with referrals, but the
Mission
Question is focused on the referrals
themselves,
whereas the Data Collected are
the
talk about these the referrals. The two are
connected,
but not quite the same! In this case,
the
talk of the referral is not the same as the
talk
about the talk of the referral. We had a
coherence
problem in the study: The key
components
were not lining up. We had
substituted
something about the thing (i.e., the
interviews)
for the thing itself (i.e., the
referrals).
Given this alignment problem, we
had
to decide how to plumb up our project.
In
our situation, we felt that the stories of these
families
were very important in the overall
referral
process. The tales the families were
telling
us helped us to hear that it was just as
important
for people to know how families
experienced
referrals as it was to know just
what
happened in the referrals when they
were
made in the first place. With this in mind,
we
gradually shifted our focus from the
referrals
themselves to the experiences of
families
about these referrals.
Second
Qualitative Research Plumb Line
Attempt:
Area of
Curiosity:
Parents sensemaking of
their and their childrens'
referrals to pediatric
cardiologists for innocent
heart murmurs (About
referrals)
Mission
Question:
How did the parents make
sense of these referral
episodes? (About referrals)
Data Collected:
Audiotape interviews with
parents who are talking
about their childrens'
referrals for innocent heart
murmurs (About referrals)
Data Analysis:
Discourse Analysis of the
audiotape interviews with
the parents (About
referrals)
This
is not to say that studying the referrals
was
not important or that that would not make
a
great study, too. We could have kept going
on
the Area of Curiosity / Mission Question
line
and have brought our Data Collection
process
more in line. In our situation, we chose
not
to do this because we simply did not want
to
sacrifice the moving and informative stories
we
were collecting. We felt that we would
rather
realign our Mission Statement from
"What
happens, if anything, during these
referrals
which may get the parents of the
patients
with innocent heart murmurs to
become
upset, or at the least, very
concerned?"
to "How do parents experience
the
process of having their children being
referred
for an innocent heart murmur to a
pediatric
cardiologist?" With this change, our
project
now came into perfect alignment.
Conclusion
Believe
it or not, this sort of thing happens
quite
often in the process of conducting
research
projects. Muddles can happen as you
begin
to make choices in your inquiries. The
first
step in working out any sort of this bind is
to
draw your plumb line early and often.
Studies
can get out of line at any time.
Sometimes
your initial attempts at defining
your
Area of Curiosity may need subsequent
clarification
or calibration. This is probably one
reason
why Weick (1995) says, "How can I
know
what I think until I see what I say." or
why
von Foerster (1984) states, "Doing =
Knowing"
(p. 60). Sometimes you just have to
begin
to "do" a study before you can "see"
what
is going on. With these words in mind
and
your plumb line in hand, you should be able
to
tidy up any muddle you encounter (or
create!)
in your qualitative research
endeavors.
References
Bateson, G. (1972). Metalogue: Why do
things
get in a muddle? In Steps to an ecology
of
mind. New York: Ballentine.
Chenail, R. J. (1991). Medical discourse
and
systemic frames of comprehension.
Norwood,
NJ: Ablex.
Chenail, R. J., Douthit, P. E., Gale, J.
E.,
Stormberg,
J. L., Morris, G. H., Park, J. M.,
Sridaromont,
S., & Schmer, V. (1990). "It's
nothing
serious, but...": Parents' interpretations
of
referral to pediatric cardiologists. Health
Communication,
2(3), 165-187.
Chenail, R. J., & Maione, P. (1997,
March).
Sensemaking in clinical qualitative
research
[28 paragraphs]. The Qualitative
Report
[On-line serial], 3(1). Available:
http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR3-1/sense.html
Denzin, N. K. (1978). The research act:
A
theoretical introduction to sociological
methods
(2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Maione, P. V. (1997, July). Choice
points:
Creating
clinical qualitative research studies
[37
paragraphs]. The Qualitative Report
[On-line
serial], 3(2). Available:
http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR3-2/maione.html
Psathas, G. (1995). Conversation
analysis:
The study of talk-in-interaction.
Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Riessman, C. (1993). Narrative analysis.
Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Schiffrin, D. (1994). Approaches to
discourse.
Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
von Foerster, H. (1984). On constructing
a
reality.
In P. Watzlawick (Ed.), The invented
reality:
How do we know what we believe
we
know? (Contributions to constructivism)
(pp.
41-61). New York: W. W. Norton.
Weick, K. E. (1995). Sensemaking in
organizations.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Author Note
+Ronald
J. Chenail, Ph.D., is Dean of the
School
of Social and Systemic Studies and
Associate
Professor in the Department of
Family
Therapy at Nova Southeastern
University,
3301 College Avenue, Fort
Lauderdale,
Florida 33314 USA. His e-mail
address
is ron@nsu.acast.nova.edu.
Article Citation
Chenail, R. J. (1997, September).
Keeping
things
plumb in qualitative research [37
paragraphs].
The Qualitative Report [On-line
serial],
3(3). Available:
http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR3-3/plumb.html
Ronald
J. Chenail
1997
copyright
Return to the top of the paper.
Return to the Table of Contents.
A
Pragmatic View of Thematic
Analysis
by Jodi Aronson
The
Qualitative Report, Volume 2, Number 1,
Spring, 1994
(http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/BackIssues/QR2-1/aronson.html)
Ethnographic
interviews have become a
commonly
used qualitative methodology for
collecting
data (Aronson, 1992). Once the
information
is gathered, researchers are faced
with
the decision on how to analyze the data.
There
are many ways to analyze informants'
talk
about their experiences (Mahrer, 1988;
Spradley,
1979; Taylor & Bogdan, 1984), and
thematic
analysis is one such way.
Although
thematic analysis has been described
(Benner,
1985; Leininger, 1985; Taylor &
Board,
1984), there is insufficient literature that
outlines
the pragmatic process of thematic
analysis.
This article attempts to outline the
procedure
for performing a thematic analysis.
Performing a Thematic Analysis
The
ethnographic interview is a commonly
used
interviewing process employed by
research-clinicians
(Kuehl & Newfield, 1991;
Kuehl,
Newfield & Joanning, 1990; Newfield,
Joanning,
Kuehl, & Quinn, 1990; Newfield,
Kuehl,
Joanning & Quinn, 1991; William,
1992).
From the conversations that take place
in
a therapy session or those that are
encouraged
for the sake of researching a
process,
ideas emerge that can be better
understood
under the control of a thematic
analysis.
Thematic analysis focuses on
identifiable
themes and patterns of living and/or
behavior.
The
first step is to collect the data. Audiotapes
should
be collected to study the talk of a
session
or of an enthnographic interview
(Spradley,
1979). From the transcribed
conversations,
patterns of experiences can be
listed.
This can come from direct quotes or
paraphrasing
common ideas. The following is
an
example.
A
family was interviewed to get a better
understanding
of their experience with a
juvenile
justice system. The entire interview
was
transcribed. The first pattern of
experience
listed, was the process of the
juvenile
being arrested, and the different
explanations
from the various family members.
The
second pattern of experience listed was
the
attitude that each family member had
toward
the process (Aronson, 1992).
The
next step to a thematic analysis is to
identify
all data that relate to the already
classified
patterns. To continue the above
example,
the identified patterns are then
expounded
on. All of the talk that fits under the
specific
pattern is identified and placed with
the
corresponding pattern. For example, each
family
member somehow named their
"attitude"
while they were speaking. The father
stated
that he is "anti-statist," the mother said
that
she is "protective," and the son stated that
"felt
bad for what he had done" (Aronson,
1992).
The
next step to a thematic analysis is to
combine
and catalogue related patterns into
sub-themes.
Themes are defined as units
derived
from patterns such as "conversation
topics,
vocabulary, recurring activities,
meanings,
feelings, or folk sayings and
proverbs"
(Taylor & Bogdan, 1989, p.131).
Themes
are identified by "bringing together
components
or fragments of ideas or
experiences,
which often are meaningless
when
viewed alone" (Leininger, 1985, p. 60).
Themes
that emerge from the informants'
stories
are pieced together to form a
comprehensive
picture of their collective
experience.
The "coherence of ideas rests with
the
analyst who has rigorously studied how
different
ideas or components fit together in a
meaningful
way when linked together"
(Leininger,
1985, p. 60). Constas (1992)
reiterates
this point and states that the
"interpretative
approach should be considered
as
a distinct point of origination" (p. 258).
When
gathering sub-themes to obtain a
comprehensive
view of the information, it is
easy
to see a pattern emerging. When patterns
emerge
it is best to obtain feedback from the
informants
about them. This can be done as
the
interview is taking place or by asking the
informants
to give feedback from the
transcribed
conversations. In the former, the
interviewer
uses the informants' feedback to
establish
the next questions in the interview. In
the
latter, the interviewer transcribes the
interview
or the session, and asks the
informants
to provide feedback that is then
incorporated
in the theme analysis.
The
next step is to build a valid argument for
choosing
the themes. This is done by reading
the
related literature. By referring back to the
literature,
the interviewer gains information
that
allows him or herself to make inferences
from
the interview or therapy session. Once
the
themes have been collected and the
literature
has been studied, the researcher is
ready
to formulate theme statements to
develop
a story line. When the literature is
interwoven
with the findings, the story that the
interviewer
constructs is one that stands with
merit.
A developed story line helps the reader
to
comprehend the process, understanding, and
motivation
of the interviewer.
References
Aronson,
J. (1992). The interface of family
therapy
and a juvenile arbitration and
mediation
program. Unpublished doctoral
dissertation,
Nova Southeastern University,
Fort
Lauderdale, FL.
Benner,
P. (1985). Quality of life: A
phenomenological
perspective on explanation,
prediction,
and understanding in nursing
science.
Advances in Nursing Science, 8(1),
1-14.
Constas,
M. A. (1992). Qualitative analysis as
a
public event: The documentation of category
development
procedures. American
Educational
Research Journal, 29(2),
253-266.
Kuehl,
B. P., & Newfield, N. A. (1991).
Family
listeners among the Nacirema: Their
curative
ceremonies and how the natives view
them.
Family Therapy Case Studies, 6(1),
55-66.
Kuehl,
B. P., Newfield, N. A., & Joanning, H.
(1990).
Toward a client-based description of
family
therapy. Journal of Family
Psychology,
3(3), 310-321.
Leininger,
M. M. (1985). Ethnography and
ethnonursing:
Models and modes of qualitative
data
analysis. In M. M. Leininger (Ed.),
Qualitative
research methods in nursing
(pp.
33-72). Orlando, FL: Grune & Stratton.
Mahrer,
A. R. (1988). Discovery-oriented
psychotherapy
research. American
Psychologist,
43(9), 694-702.
Newfield,
N. A., Kuehl, B. P., Joanning, H., &
Quinn,
W. H. (1990). A mini-ethnography of
the
family therapy of adolescent drug abuse:
The
ambiguous experience. Alcoholism
Treatment
Quarterly, 7(2), 57-80.
Newfield,
N. A., Kuehl, B. P., Joanning, H., &
Quinn,
W. H. (1991). We can tell you about
psychos
and shrinks: An ethnography of the
family
therapy of adolescent substance abuse.
In
T. C. Todd & M. D. Selekman (Eds.),
Family
therapy approaches with adolescent
substance
abusers (pp. 277-310). Boston:
Allyn
& Bacon.
Spradley,
J. (1979). The ethnographic
interview.
New York: Holt, Rinehart and
Winston.
Taylor,
S. J., & Bogdan, R. (1984).
Introduction
to qualitative research
methods:
The search for meanings. New
York:
John Wiley & Sons.
William,
J. L. (1992). Don't discuss it:
Reconciling
illness, dying, and death in a
medical
school anatomy laboratory. Family
Systems
Medicine, 10(1), 65-78.
Jodi
Aronson, Ph.D., LMFT is the Clinical
Director
of MCC Behavioral Care, 3313 West
Commercial
Boulevard, Suite 112, Fort
Lauderdale,
FL 33309.
Return
to the Table of Contents
Qualitative
Research: Central
Tendencies and Ranges
by Ronald J. Chenail
The
Qualitative Report, Volume 1, Number 4,
Fall, 1992
(http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR1-4/tendencies.html)
It
is always interesting to listen closely when
someone
says, "Qualitative research is..." or
curious
to read intently an article or book
which
prominently features "qualitative
research"
in the title, and then experience a
strange,
defamiliarization process as the words
of
the conversation, lecture, article, or book
don't
seem to fit your notion of what
"qualitative
research" is and isn't. Well, you are
not
alone in your confusion. As far as I know,
no
one has copy rights on the term so it ends
up
meaning a variety of things for a variety of
people.
As a matter of fact, that is the most
important
point: Qualitative research can be a
diverse,
rich, and sometimes self-contradictory
world
of inquiry. Meta-analyses of qualitative
research
methods and philosophies are quite
common
in the field and serve as good
introductions
to this diversification of approach.
In
this short essay I offer one such
examination
of the field by presenting a series
of
couplets which help to exemplify central
tendencies
(CT) and ranges (R) of qualitative
research.
Couplet One
CT: Qualitative research is synonymous
with ethnographic and participant
observation methods.
R: Qualitative research is polysemous
when it comes to method.
Much
of qualitative research is dominated by
research
traditions from education, sociology,
and
anthropology. The researchers from these
fields
favor such methods as ethnography,
participant
observation, and naturalistic inquiry.
In
addition to these popular methods,
qualitative
research can also include methods
from
fields like communication (e.g., discourse
analysis
or conversation analysis), literature
(e.g.,
narratology or figurative language
analysis),
or Biblical studies (e.g., exegesis or
hermeneutics).
Couplet Two
CT: Qualitative research is conducted
from a scientific perspective.
R: Qualitative research can be conducted
from a number of contexts.
Much
of qualitative research is practiced from
a
scientific viewpoint. It is legitimized by its
juxtaposition
with quantitative approaches (i.e.,
qualitative
research as pre-quantitative,
qualitative
research as post-quantitative, or
qualitative
and quantitative research in
triangulation
configurations) and it is
undertaken
with similar goals in mind as
quantitative
approaches (e.g., to predict, to
confirm,
etc.). There are many varieties of
qualitative
research which do not embrace a
scientific
way of knowing and doing. There is
artistic
or literary qualitative research which is
based
upon an artist's way of practice and
knowledge
production. Another type is clinical
qualitative
research which constructs its
investigations
by examining clinicians' methods
and
applying those ways of knowing in
research
inquiries (e.g., the use of circular
questioning
in data collection and analysis).
Couplet Three
CT: Qualitative researchers assume a
monological position of privilege with
their practice knowledge.
R: Qualitative researchers assume a
dialogical position of difference with their
practice knowledge.
In
our culture, knowledge produced from a
practice
of research, qualitative or quantitative,
is
usually placed above awareness derived
from
a practice of practitioners as in the case
of
educators reflecting on their teaching or
therapists
re-searching their work in the clinic.
Some
researchers, qualitative and quantitative,
realize
that researchers can take their place
along
side other practitioners and engage in
dialogue
towards a creation of a community of
knowing
and not knowing.
Couplet Four
CT: Qualitative researchers attempt to
replicate known forms of method in their
studies.
R: Qualitative researchers attempt to
create new method forms for their
studies.
For
some, aesthetics and pragmatics in
qualitative
research mean that researchers
attempt
to approximate a known,
well-practiced,
and established form or
tradition
in their research project at hand (e.g.,
"In
this study, the researcher employed a
Glaser
and Strauss grounded theory
approach.")
or improvise on a well-known
approach
(e.g., "The Spradley ethnographic
interview
was modified in the following
ways...").
Other qualitative researchers feel
that
particularities of each research project are
so
unique that they require a distinctive method
for
every study. They may identify research
tradition(s)
which inspired their method for a
specific
project, but they will also allow each
study
to have its own project-specific method
which
emerge from the special characteristics
of
the project.
Couplet Five
CT: Qualitative researchers' analyses
tend to focus on central tendencies and
pre-study variables in the data.
R: Qualitative researchers' analyses also
focus on ranges and serendipities in the
data.
Qualitative
researchers have a habit of
focusing
on what is familiar and central to the
study
at hand. That which was known through
literature
searches and previous observations
before
the study was conducted becomes
central
in the unfolding process of the
research.
Also, that which is observed as
happening
or occurring the most during the
study
garners the lion's share of the spotlight.
What
may be missed through this style of
inquiry
is an opportunity for investigators to
know
what might not have been known to
them
prior to the study. Space and time have
to
be allowed in research to create room for
such
discoveries. Also, the margins of a
project
often provide some of the most
interesting
and informative patterns for
investigators
if they include a curiosity for the
exception
in their work and a hesitancy to
explain
quickly that which might turn out to be
unexplainable.
Couplet Six
CT: The end product of qualitative
research project resembles the style of a
classic or traditional research report.
R: Qualitative research may produce a
variety of final products which include
poems, collages, pictorials, videos, and
clinical pieces.
For
the most part, qualitative researchers'
reports
of their work approximate the shapes
of
a traditional research report: problem,
literature
review, hypothesis(es) and/or
research
questions, method, analysis(es),
discussion,
and conclusion(s). These sections
may
follow a linear progression or may be
presented
in a circular or recursive pattern, the
choice
being dependent on the process
followed
in the study and/or prescriptions
suggested
by the publishing source. Qualitative
researchers
may also choose literary or artistic
modes
of re-presentation for their work. These
choices
include novel and poetic forms, as well
as
expressions of pastiche and collage. Other
researchers
explore more audio-visual
re-productions
in the forms of videos, films,
and
pictorial exhibits. Still other qualitative
investigators'
reports assume forms usually
associated
with clinical expression--the case
study,
for example. For all of these
researchers
great care is taken in choosing a
medium
which contributes to the message of
the
research.
Hopefully,
this short series of dialectics helps
to
exemplify both the popular and the possible
when
it comes to qualitative research practice
and
production. It is important that such
options
are known and explored because all
too
often, qualitative research suffers from a
lack
of fit between the intent of researchers in
conducting
their work and the choices of
method
that they make in trying to accomplish
those
goals. Producing compelling and relevant
qualitative
research begins with awareness,
appreciation,
and critical consumption of the
variety
of expressions available to the
researchers.
In addition, acceptance or
dismissal
of qualitative research by editors,
reviewers,
teachers, funding sources,
practitioners,
and researchers should also
emerge
from a comprehension of the central
tendencies
and ranges of these methods.
Author Note
This
article appeared in the AFTA Newsletter
No.
47, Spring 1992 and is reprinted here by
permission
of the American Family Therapy
Association,
Inc.
Ronald
J. Chenail is the Dean of the School
of
Social and Systemic Studies at Nova
Southeastern
University, Fort Lauderdale,
Florida
33314, USA. His e-mail address is
ron@nsu.acast.nova.edu.
Return
to the Table of Contents
The
Hermeneutics of Transcript
Analysis
by Joyce G. Love
The
Qualitative Report, Volume 2, Number 1,
Spring, 1994
(http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/BackIssues/QR2-1/love.html)
My
goal was to understand the subjective
understandings
that medical couples have
about
their lives. My interest in career and
home
life dates back fifteen years to the time
that
I completed a master's thesis on medical
and
law students. After taking a rather
extended
hiatus which included marrying a
physician,
having children, and divorcing a
physician,
I decided to compare my own
experience
with the experiences of other
medical
wives. As I reviewed the published
literature
on medical couples, it soon became
evident
that the trend included a rather bleak
view
of physicians and their marriages. The
overall
theme that ties together the several
hundred
articles and books on the topic reflects
a
pathologizing perspective discussed in the
familiar
deficit descriptions depicted in the
medical
model of doctors' and their spouses'
personalities.
Such descriptions include the
doctor
as a compulsive, workaholic,
emotionally
distant robot and his wife as a
dependent
shell of a being whose most
characteristic
feature is that of an emotional
cripple.
By the time I exhausted the literature
on
the topic of medical marriages, I knew that
a
significant element of the research was
missing.
I knew that the research should invite
the
voices of the couples themselves and
explore
these couples' lives by exploring the
perspectives,
meanings, understandings,
descriptions,
and interpretations the couples
themselves
brought forth. I wanted what
ethnographic
research typically calls an emic
or
native perspective. The goal of emic
understanding
is elaborated in hermeneutic and
phenomenologic
methodologies (Kvale, 1983;
Packer,
1985).
The
"hermeneutic circle" described by
Schleiermacher
(Palmer, 1969) became a
useful
concept in my methodology since it
addressed
the ways in which two people in
conversation,
or a reader reading a text,
mutually
transform each other's ideas through
continuing
interaction. Gergen (1988) uses "the
dance"
in describing the ever changing and
continuous
movement of partners, their
relatedness
and their reasoning in social
interchange.
Additionally, there is an internal
dialogue
in the hermeneutic circle in which the
researcher
continually uses metaphors,
explanatory
principles, and prior knowledge to
understand
what is read or heard in an
interview.
Geertz (1983) uses the baseball
game
as an example of this aspect of the
hermeneutic
circle (see p. 69). Geertz (1983)
further
emphasizes how we can know
another's
thought through our own words and
mind.
He describes an "intellectual
movement,....a
conceptual rhythm...a
continuous
dialectical tacking between the
most
local of local detail and the most global of
global
structure (p. 69).
I
chose seven couples who varied by the
following:
medical specialties, spouses' careers,
ages,
stages in life in terms of years married,
number
of marriages within couple, and
number
and ages of children. All but one of the
couples
depicted the traditional marriage
where
the husband was the physician. I
conducted
in-depth, semi-structured interviews
centering
around issues that I found in the
literature,
around my own preconceived
notions,
prejudices and biases, and around
ideas
that the couples brought up or focused
on.
I had no goal or particular hypothesis to
prove
or disprove as would be along the lines
of
quantitative research methods. I merely
wanted
to hear the ways the couples managed
what
appeared to be stressful lives, how they
balanced
busy careers and hectic, demanding
family
lives, and what methods or avenues
they
took to create workable or not so
workable
lives.
My
creativity was set in motion when the
struggle
to utilize a hermeneutic methodology
collided
with the challenge to interpret the
transcribed
interviews. How was I to
determine
what was important enough to
discuss
and what was not? I needed signs,
indications,
manifestations, symbols that I
eventually
called "features of significance."
These
features tapped revealing information of
difference-
difference from my
presuppositions,
prejudices, and biases;
difference
from what was discussed and
interpreted
in previous literature; and,
difference
from what the interviewees
determined
to be acceptable and mundane
understandings
of their lives.
Within
a few days after an interview, I listened
and
took notes. I listened for themes of interest
and
began to attempt to put into my words the
ways
in which the spouses interpreted their
lives.
As I received the completed transcripts,
I
read each one carefully. I listened to the
tapes
again as I read over the transcripts.
Where
I noticed items of interest, I placed
themal
notes in the margins. Transcripts were
photocopied
and data that was seen as very
significant
was cut out and attached to index
cards.
Index cards were coded for
identification
and location in transcript. The
marginal
notes and the index cards served as
building
blocks for perceived themes.
Researcher's
ideas, hunches, and
interpretations
were kept in a journal.
A
central question throughout these analyses
was,
"What is a theme?" How was I to
recognize,
invent, construct, deconstruct,
reconstruct,
and textualize "themes?" Some
might
say that anything said by an analyst is a
"bias"
or a "prejudice." Another voice (e.g.,
Gadamer,
1976) might celebrate the inner
dialogue
of the researcher and encourage the
author
to include such pondering in the text. In
the
spirit of this voice, I have chosen several
ways
to voice the themes I heard in the
interviews
and read in the transcripts.
Themes
were identified by utilizing several
features
of significance. These include (from
Love,
1992):
1. Repetition within and across
interviews. Ideas, beliefs,
concerns, and issues that one or
the other or both spouses discuss
repeatedly throughout the
interview or/and are brought up
at least once in an interview and
are then again noted in other
interviews are considered
significant.
2. Levels and nature of affect.
This includes emotion that is
evident through nonverbal cues
such as a sudden rise in vocal
volume, change in facial
expressions and other bodily
movements all noted
concomitantly with particular
content lend significance to that
content or theme.
3. Historical explanations,
descriptions, and interpretations.
Stories of the past that explain
and justify present behaviors and
meanings are considered
significant.
4. Explicit and implicit
interpretations. These require
connections between thoughts
and activities and meanings
ascribed to them whether they be
obvious and direct or implied and
metaphoric. These interpretations
are considered significant.
5. Serendipity. Behaviors and
expressions of the participants
that are different from what was
expected, based upon my reading
and experience. These
unexpected surprises are
significant since they allow the
research to recognize ideas
which have not yet been
published. (pp. 123-124)
The
interview transcripts were extensively
annotated
with identification of features of
significance,
as well as descriptions of my
reactions
to what they said and what I said. I
thoroughly
examined each transcript for ideas
which
seemed to add voices to the discussion
on
medical families. Also, I closely reviewed
the
transcripts for signs of my own
transformation.
As I conducted the interviews,
I
was intrigued, and somewhat embarrassed,
by
my own "slips" of the tongue and by my
more
personal questions of the spouses.
An
example of how I used the features of
significance
to search for themes involves a
couple
where the husband was a physician and
the
wife was a dentist. The couple described
their
decision in terms of the theme "quid pro
quo"
as the wife assessed both hers and her
husband's
careers in the following:
As I said before, I mean David's
career came FIRST, and so he,
that was his first responsibility
and mine was more part time so
the kids were more my
responsibility. (Love, 1992, p.
209)
Several
features of significance were used
here
to determine the importance of this
snippet.
Repetition was obvious in the
comment
"As I said before" and also in
rereading
the entire transcript the theme "quid
pro
quo" came up on numerous occasions.
Levels
and nature of affect is noticeable in the
word
"FIRST" which is capitalized to indicate
in
the transcript the rise in vocal volume
indicating
the significance of this comment.
Historical
explanations was another feature of
significance
that was used in connecting the
present
behaviors and meanings to the history
of
the relationship. Since David's career came
first
and the raising of the children was the
wife's
responsibility for the most part, this
couple
found their day-to-day living to be
consistent
with their unwritten agreement.
I
found that each couple utilized unique
maneuvers
to make life as liveable and
enjoyable
as possible. They each tried their
best
to conduct their lives in the most serene
manner
as possible. The themes that were
invented
through the analysis are constructs
reflecting
the creative solutions I noticed they
used
in facing the day-to-day challenges of
career/family
life. In re-reviewing the literature
and
my presuppositions and prejudices, I found
a
striking difference between these and what I
learned
from an emic perspective. As I took
an
insider's view, I found myself to be totally
immersed
in the lives of the people I studied.
Finally,
I began taking on an increased respect
and
understanding of the lives that at one time
were
viewed from a pathologizing, negative,
and
hopeless perspective.
References
Geertz,
C. (1983). Local knowledge: Further
essays
interpretive anthropology. New
York:
Basic Books.
Gergen,
K. J. (1988). If persons are texts. In
Presenting
Qualitative Data
by Ronald J. Chenail
The
Qualitative Report, Volume 2, Number 3,
December, 1995
(http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR2-3/presenting.html)
After
all the data have been collected and the
analysis
has been completed, the next major
task
for qualitative researchers is to re-present
the
study in the form of a paper or a lecture.
The
challenge of converting mounds of data
and
analysis can be quite overwhelming even
for
the experienced researcher. To help you
with
your efforts at presenting qualitative
research
in your papers and in your talks, I ask
you
to consider the following ideas: Openness,
Data
as Star, Juxtaposition, and Data
Presentation
Strategies.
1.
Openness
In
1993, Marc Constas wrote a very helpful
article
for those qualitative researchers who
process,
analyze, organize, and present their
qualitative
data in categories. In his paper,
"Qualitative
analysis as a public event: The
documentation
of category development
procedures,"
Constas presented a simple chart
which
can help qualitative researchers make
overt
their assumptions, logics, and choices
when
conducting a research study. Constas
wrote
his article for a number of reasons. First,
he
was concerned that qualitative researchers
make
all sorts of choices in creating our
research
studies and methods, and that for the
most
part, we are not very good at sharing
these
decisions, and the rationales for these
choices
in our presentations of our work. He
pointed
out that quantitative researchers are
also
guilty of this oversight, but Constas also
argued
that qualitative researchers are
especially
vulnerable to this
method-reporting-deficit.
Unlike their
quantitative
brothers and sisters, qualitative
researchers
often create new methods for
their
particular studies, or they improvise and
modify
current, extant approaches.
Given
this idiosyncratic leaning with their
methods,
qualitative researchers can be easily
criticized
for leaving the reader "in the dark"
when
it comes to describing the
method-creation
process. One irony to this
whole
situation is that for researchers who
pride
themselves on their skills at description,
explanation,
and interpretation, qualitative
researchers
are often woeful on applying these
abilities
in their presentations of their methods.
To
address these shortcomings, Constas
advocated
a spirit of openness in the
presentation
of qualitative research methods.
He
asked researchers to focus their
descriptive
and narrative skills on themselves
and
their researching activities, and to present
the
story of their method construction in their
qualitative
research presentations.
When
I talk about this point, I usually
paraphrase
the anthropologist Gregory Bateson
(Harries-Jones,
1995) and say that it takes two
studies
to present one in qualitative research.
One
study is the "official" research project and
the
other study is the study about that study. In
a
well-done qualitative research study, in
addition
to seeing the results of the labor, the
reader
should have ample opportunities to
examine
the particulars of the inquiry: What
choices
were made by the researcher in the
construction
of the study, what were the steps
in
the process of forming the research
questions,
selecting a site, generating and
collecting
the data, processing and analyzing
the
data, and selecting the data exemplars for
the
paper or presentation.
It
is in this spirit of openness that trust is built
between
the researcher and the reader. It is
not
a matter of the researcher simply telling
the
reader that a study is valid or reliable for
that
qualitative research study to be valid or
reliable.
Rather, the process of establishing the
trustworthiness
of any study comes down to
the
quality of the relationship built between the
researcher
and the community of readers and
critics
who examine the study (Atkinson,
Heath,
& Chenail, 1991). As with any
important
relationship, for example, husband
and
wife, parent and child, friend and friend, or
researcher
and reader, openness is an
extremely
important factor in the value and
quality
of that interaction.
A
way to maintain this posture is to consider
the
other in the process at all times and make it
a
priority that you present as much of the
"back
stage" information of your research as
possible.
By back stage I mean that you
communicate
as clearly as you can what it
was
that you did to create your project, what
were
your choices along the way, what else
did
you consider doing in the project but chose
not
to do. Get clear with yourself what it is that
you
are doing at every point along the way of
doing
your project. Note it and present it to
your
readers. Even if what you were doing
was
intuitive guessing, let the reader in on it
(Chenail,
1994).
Openness
also entails involving "the other" in
your
research. The other can be the
participants
in your study and they can also be
your
colleagues who comment on and who
read
your work. In presenting your study, tell
the
reader what it is that you are planning to do
in
your study and then ends with you doing it.
Someone
who is reliable is someone whom you
can
depend on in a certain situation. They are
consistent:
They do it the same way all of the
time,
and they let you know if they had to
change
their plans. The same would hold for
reliability
in qualitative research: Be open with
what
it is you are going to do, give the details
of
your design and process as best you can,
and
then follow the plan each and every time
you
collect data, or transcribe, or categorize,
and
so forth. If through the process you decide
that
it would make sense to adjust what it is
you
are doing, note the change, describe it in
detail,
and follow through with the new plan.
Throughout
this process, you invite the reader
and\or
co-participants in the study to dialogue
with
you as to how you are doing with your
description
of what it is you are doing and the
actual
carrying out of the plan (Chenail, 1994).
If
you are successful in carrying out this plan
of
being open in your presentation of your
study,
other researchers should be able to
come
along after you, and be able to step into
your
shoes. This is very important for two
reasons:
One, this will allow your readers to
judge
the validity of your efforts. After having
been
presented both the process and the
results
of the analysis, readers are in a much
better
position to see if they can see what you
were
seeing or at least accept that your take
on
the data was a valid one. Two, by
re-presenting
plenty of the data, you will also
allow
the reader to see what they can see in
the
data. It is a way to "share the wealth" and
to
invite another to continue the inquiry and
conversation
(Chenail, 1994).
2.
Data as Star
I
believe that the data, which have been
painfully
collected, should "be the star" in the
relationship.
By this I mean, the main focus in
qualitative
research is the data itself, in all its
richness,
breadth, and depth. When all is said
and
done, the "quality" in a qualitative research
project
is based upon how well you have done
at
collecting quality data. So, it only seems
natural
that when it comes time to present "the
fruits
of your labor," you should make every
effort
to feature the data in your presentations.
In
addition to the considerations stated in the
earlier
section on Openness, there are still
other
ways to embrace this aspect in your
work,
especially when it comes to data.
Present
as much of the data you collected as is
physically
possible in your papers and
presentations.
Store your data and make it
available
for others to view and re-view. Of
course
in doing this you will have to notify the
other
participants in your study that this is your
intention
and secure their permission. A good
example
of this trend in qualitative research is
Waitzkin's
(1991) recent work. Not only did he
present
lengthy excerpts in his book from the
transcripts
he collected and analyzed, but he
also
made the complete transcripts available to
the
reader by storing them with a national
clearinghouse.
In this way, anyone who
wanted
to study the complete transcripts could
do
so.
Another
factor in this data-rich notion of
presenting
qualitative research is the "just one
thing"
rule. In order to give your data its due in
your
conference presentations and in your
writings,
you have to concentrate on one
aspect
of your study. For instance, if you have
been
studying doctor-patient interaction by
examining
transcripts and audio recordings of
doctors
talking with patients during routine
visits
to the clinic, you will have to select one
aspect
of this wonderfully rich interpersonal
communication,
say "taking the patient's
personal
history," and concentrate your efforts
on
re-presenting just this one feature of the
talk.
Of
course, there are other ways to present
more
and different aspects of your analysis,
but
this effort to fit more themes, categories, or
features
in your time-limited talks or
word-limited
papers will require you to do a
number
of things. One, you will have to reduce
your
data in order to present more of it. This
can
be done by using quantitative techniques
like
structuring your data into central
tendencies
and ranges, or frequency guided
shapes.
Two, you may have to greatly limit the
number
of examples you can present per
category.
And three, you may have to do more
"summarizing
talk" in which you talk about
your
data or above your data instead of
presenting
the data in the juxtaposing style
described
below.
As
data analysis turns to data presentation it
can
be easy for the researcher and reader
alike
to loose a sense of place for the data. As
the
process of winnowing the data begins, the
emphasis
becomes one of selecting one
poignant
exemplar after another as all of the
significant
"wheat" (i.e., that data which is
deemed
significant or exemplary) gets
separated
from all of the non-significant "chaf"
(i.e.,
that data which is determined to be
non-significant
or redundant) (Hopper, 1986).
To
balance this tendency towards data
separation
and data isolation, researchers have
to
take great care to situate their data so
readers
can have an appreciation of "from
whence
the data came" and can begin to
evaluate
the meaning of the data in context.
Acknowledging
that there is always a degree
of
reduction in qualitative research,
researchers
must still endeavor to give the
readers
an impression of where the data was
found,
how was it generated and collected, and
what
was its context prior to its being
separated
in analysis and isolated in the
re-presentation
process? Although this task of
"grounding
the data" may sound daunting, there
are
a number of ways that the data selected
for
analysis and presentation in a paper can be
contextualized
and "placed" for the readers.
One
way to do this is to begin to think like a
novelist,
someone who must create a setting in
which
to place their characters. For without a
setting,
it would be quite difficult for readers to
have
a sense of just who these fictional folks
are.
"I always begin a novel with place," writes
Shelby
Hearon (1992, p. 17) in her article,
"Where
Fiction Lives'...Placing Fiction." For
her
place is synonymous with plot, but not the
plot
taken to mean a series of events in a
story.
In contrast, Shelby follows her Oxford
dictionary
and considers plot to be "a small
portion
of any surface differing in character
and
aspect from the rest" (p. 17). To her, "this
seems...to
be a fine way to think about where
fiction
begins: with that plot, that parcel of land,
that
place that you make yours and no one
else's"
(p. 17).
I
think the same holds for researchers when
they
write their case studies and
ethnographies.
The studies started in some
place.
The data was collected at some local.
The
text started with some context. For their
studies
to then have situational validity when
finally
appearing in print, researchers must
re-construct
the data's setting and allow us to
return
to the place where the data once lived.
This
is the artistry that is writing qualitative
research.
One
of the beauties of this qualitative research
is
how qualitative researchers seek out these
places
of character and aspect and attempt to
make
the events and happenings of these
parcels
of data come alive for the reader. To
this
artistic end, qualitative researchers have to
think
how to create "round" informants instead
of
"flat" ones in their papers. Researchers
have
to work hard at developing the details of
these
plots so that their readers can have a
sense
of where the data was naturally
occurring
when it was originally encountered
by
the researcher. The readers have to have a
clear
picture of the data's setting so that they
can
begin to have a perspective from which to
judge
the observations being made by the
researcher
regarding the data. Without the
setting,
without the developed characterization,
there
can be no context and with no context
for
the data, there can be no significant
meaning
in the analysis.
Robert
Hopper (1986) in his paper, "Speech,
for
Instance. The Exemplar in Studies of
Conversation,"
presents another good way
qualitative
researchers can create context in
their
data re-presentations. His technique,
which
I call "letting the tape recorder run," is a
very
simple process to accomplish a context
building
goal. In doing a conversation analysis,
one
major step is to select exemplary pieces of
talk
for commentary and review. Within a
conversation
there may be many moments of
interaction
which pique a conversation
analyst's
curiosity. After repeated listenings
and
transcribing, the researcher is ready to say
something
about this bit of winnowed data.
Instead
of re-presenting just the slice of talk
which
is the focus of the analysis, Hopper
suggests
that researchers should display their
data
with ample preceding and following talk
so
that the readers can get a sense of flow and
be
able to see the data in its natural setting. In
this
way, readers can have a better
perspective
to judge the merits of the
researcher's
claims regarding the data.
By
providing this "bigger picture" through this
context
building, researchers can give their
data
its "star treatment." In addition, readers
are
provided a good view of the proceedings
and
are given a solid vantage point to render
their
critiques of the show.
3.
Juxtaposition, Juxtaposition,
Juxtaposition
When
Bob Costas was the host of the late
night
talk show, Later, he asked Mel Brooks,
"What
is your definition of comedy?" Mel
answered,
"Juxtaposition, Juxtaposition,
Juxtaposition!"
By this he meant that his
approach
to comedy was a matter of
juxtaposing
things which would produce a
funny
reaction on the part of the audience. For
instance,
having the Monster in Young
Frankenstein
doing a soft shoe routine while
singing
the sophisticated song, "Putting on the
Ritz,"
was a comedic juxtaposition for Mel, and
his
audience too!
In
qualitative research, juxtaposition is also the
key
to producing a quality presentation or
paper.
To do so, you have to juxtapose data
excerpts
with your talk about the data. Be it in
the
presentation of categories, themes,
taxonomies,
typologies, pictures, or drawings,
the
essence of presenting qualitative research
comes
down to how well you are able to
juxtapose
the data with your descriptions,
explanations,
analysis, or commentaries.
Also
involved in this juxtaposition of data and
talk
about the data is how you choose to use
"the
literature" in this weave. Do you annotate
the
data by citing relevant previous studies or
theoretical
pieces? Do you contrast the data
you
have collected with what has been
previously
said in the literature about similar
data?
Do you use the data to guide you to
areas
in the literature you had not previously
considered?
Do you triangulate your data with
the
literature as way of validating your
observations?
In all of these choices,
juxtaposition
is still the central concern!
In
this process of juxtaposition, your emphasis
should
be on staying close to the data. The true
art
of presenting qualitative research is to be
restrained
by your data. Don't overstate the
data
and don't understate it as well. Keep the
whole
process as simple as possible: Look at
the
data and record that what you see-- Report
nothing
more and nothing less! If you keep to
that
aesthetic, your data will help to support the
validity
of your analysis and your analysis will
help
to feature the richness of your data.
An
important concept to keep in mind as you
juxtapose
your data and your talk about the
data
is that of rhythm. By rhythm, I mean for
you
to create a template for re-presenting your
data
so that there is a recognizable pattern
throughout
the Analysis or Findings section of
your
paper. In this way, the readers can begin
to
read in a rhythm.
To
accomplish this rhythm, you need to
structure
each phase of your data
re-presentation
in a similar pattern. For
example,
the following is a common way in
which
your findings can be displayed:
Section Heading
Present the Distinction or Finding
Introduce the First Data
Exemplar of this Distinction
Display the First Data Exemplar
of this Distinction
Comment Further on the First
Data Exemplar
of this Distinction
Make Transition to Second Data
Exemplar
of this Distinction
Display the Second Data
Exemplar
of this Distinction
Comment Further on the Second
Data Exemplar
of this Distinction
Make Transition to the Next
Data Exemplar
of this Distinction and Repeat the
Pattern
Until the Closing of this Section
As
you write (and re-write) your Findings or
Analysis
section, having a pattern to structure
your
text will greatly improve your ability to lay
out
the data upon which you want to comment
and
then for you to weave your comments
throughout
the narrative.
As
a matter of fact, that is exactly how I
construct
my Findings sections. After I have
selected
my data exemplars (e.g., quotes from
a
transcript), I arrange them out in the word
processing
file (see the next section on Data
Presentation
Strategies for different ideas as to
how
to do this step). Then, I go from exemplar
to
exemplar adding my comments. Sometime I
call
these steps the "Tarzan Process," because
I
think of the quotes as vines in the jungle. As I
maneuver
myself from one quote to the next, I
imagine
myself as Tarzan swinging from one
vine
to another. It's a great way to travel and a
fun
way to conceptualize the data
re-presentation
process.
Just
as the patterning was helpful for you as
you
wrote up your findings, it will also serve
your
readers well as they begin to navigate
through
your paper. The soon-to-be-familiar
rhythm
of your presentation style will serve as
an
involvement strategy as the readers will
grow
accustomed to your pace of data
re-presentation.
In addition, it will make it
easier
for them to go from section to section.
Although
the data will be changing, the pattern
will
remain the same. In this manner,
cross-section
comparisons can be made more
readily
by the readers, which, in my opinion,
helps
to make the whole paper reading process
much
more coherent.
For
an excellent example of how this
rhythm-making
can be accomplished, I suggest
taking
a look at the recent paper in Social
Science
& Medicine by Margarete
Sandelowski
and Linda Corson Jones (1996)
entitled,
"'Healing Fictions': Stories of Choosing
in
the Aftermath of the Detection of Fetal
Anomalies."
As you look over the Findings
section
of this paper, you should be able to see
how
the authors create an easy to follow
pattern
and they hold to that rhythm throughout
their
re-presentation of the data. One last point
about
this paper is that you should also take
notice
how Sandelowski and Jones also create
simplicity
and rhythm in their account by
organizing
their data re-presentation around the
single
concept of "choice." Time and time
again,
they use this complex word (Empson,
1989)
to draw wonderful and illuminating
distinctions
in the stories of these women and
couples.
By
keeping to this or another similarly rhythmic
pattern,
you can help to bring some simplicity
to
the complexity of data re-presentation.
Throughout
all the steps entailed in conducting
a
qualitative research study, you must always
attempt
to build in some sort of simplicity.
Without
it, both you and the reader will be
overcome
and you all will end up drowning in a
sea
of endless data.
4.
Data Presentation Strategies
Constas'
second reason for writing his piece
was
that he wanted to create a taxonomy for
the
creators of categories to follow, or at the
least,
his article would be a helpful generator
of
possibilities for qualitative researchers to
ponder
and examine as they considered their
tact
in a particular research project.
In
the spirit of Constas' paper, I would like to
make
a few suggestions which should greatly
improve
qualitative researchers attempts at
presenting
their carefully collected data. These
strategies
should not be taken as the way or as
the
only way to present data, just some ways
with
which to play and experiment.
The
following are just of the many ways data
can
be arranged and presented:
Natural
- The data is presented in a shape that
resembles
the phenomenon being studied. For
instance,
if the data are excerpts from a
therapy
session, present them in a sequential
order
or in an order that re-presents the flow
of
the session itself.
Most
Simple to Most Complex - For sake
of
understanding, start the presentation of data
with
the simplest example you have found. As
the
complexity of each example or exemplar
presented
increases, the reader will have a
better
chance of following the presentation.
Erving
Goffman's work is a good example of
this
style.
First
Discovered/Constructed to Last
Discovered/Constructed
- The data are
presented
in a chronicle-like fashion, showing
the
course of the researcher's personal journey
in
the study. This style is reminiscent of an
archeological
style of presentation: What was
the
first "relic" excavated, then the second and
so
forth.
Quantitative-Informed
- In this scheme data
are
presented according to strategies
commonly
found in quantitative or statistical
studies.
Data are arranged along lines of
central
tendencies and ranges, clusters, and
frequencies.
Theory-Guided
- Data arrangement is
governed
by the researcher's theory or
theories
regarding the phenomenon being
re-presented
in the study. For instance, a
Marxist-informed
researcher might present
data
from a doctor-patient interview in terms
of
talk which shows who controls the means
for
producing information in the interaction,
talk
which illustrates who is being marginalized,
and
so forth. In clinical qualitative research,
this
approach is quite prevalent as clinicians
organize
the data in terms of their
understandings
of how doctor-patient, or
nurse-patient,
and therapist-client interact.
Narrative
Logic - Data are arranged with an
eye
for storytelling. Researchers plot out the
data
in a fashion which allows them to
transition
from one exemplar to another just as
narrators
arrange details in order to best relate
the
particulars of the story.
Most
Important to Least Important or
From
Major to Minor - Like the journalistic
style
of the inverted pyramid, the most
important
"findings" are presented first and the
minor
"discoveries" come last.
Dramatic
Presentation - This one is the
opposite
of the inverted pyramid style. With
the
dramatic arrangement scheme, researchers
order
their data presentation so as to save the
surprises
and unforeseen discoveries for last.
No
Particular Order Order - As it sounds,
data
are arranged with no particular, conscious
pattern
in mind, or the researcher fails to
explain
how or why the data are displayed the
way
they are.
Conclusion
Does
it sound simple? Well, that's the idea with
qualitative
research: Try to keep your method
simple
because in qualitative research the
complexity
is in the data. If you get too
complex
in your method, the reaction between
a
complex method and complex data will be
disastrous.
The beauty of qualitative inquiry is
that
by asking simple questions like "What is
care?",
"How do physicians and nurses talk
with
each other?", and "What is the quality of
life
for our patients?", we can begin to study
some
of the most wonderfully complex
phenomenons
in the world. Qualitative
research
is the practice of asking simple
questions
and getting complex answers. The
art
of managing both the simplicity and the
complexity
is the real secret to being
successful
at conducting qualitative inquiries.
Does
it sound exciting? I hope so!
References
Atkinson,
B., Heath, A., & Chenail, R. (1991).
Qualitative
research and the legitimacy of
knowledge.
Journal of Marital and Family
Therapy,
17, 161-166.
Chenail,
R. J. (1994). Qualitative research and
clinical
work: "Private-ization" and
"Public-ation".
The Qualitative Report
[On-line
journal], 2(1), 1, 3-13. Available
World
Wide Web:
http://alpha.acast.nova.edu/nova/centers/ssss/index.html
Constas,
M. A. (1992). Qualitative analysis as
a
public event: The documentation of category
development
procedures. American
Educational
Research Journal, 29, 253-266.
Empson,
W. (1989). The structure of
complex
words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University
Press.
Harries-Jones,
P. (1995). A recursive vision:
Ecological
understanding and Gregory
Bateson.
Toronto: University of Toronto
Press.
Hearon,
S. (1992). Where fiction "lives"...
placing
fiction. Writer, 105(7), 17-18.
Hopper,
R. (1988). Speech, for instance. The
exemplar
in studies of conversation. Journal
of
Language and Social Psychology, 7(1),
47-63.
Sandelowski,
M., & Jones, L. C. (1996).
Healing
fictions': Stories of choosing in the
aftermath
of the detection of fetal anomalies.
Social
Science & Medicine, 42(3), 353-361.
Waitzkin,
H. (1991). The politics of medical
encounters:
How patients and doctors deal
with
social problems. New Haven, CT: Yale
University
Press.
Author Note
An
earlier version of this paper was presented
as
part of the following workshop:
Burnett,
C., Chenail, R., Flemons, D., Green,
S.,
& Polkinghorn, B. (1995, December).
Introductory
workshop on qualitative
research.
Workshop presented at the Tenth
Annual
Primary Care Research & Statistics
Conference,
San Antonio, TX.
Ronald
J. Chenail, Ph.D. is the Dean of the
School
of Social Systemic Studies and an
Associate
Professor in the Department of
Family
Therapy at Nova Southeastern
University,
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33314,
USA.
His e-mail address is
ron@ssss.nova.edu.
Return
to the Table of Contents
Mixing
Methodologies:
Can Bimodal Research be a Viable
Post-Positivist Tool?
by Douglas S. Nau
The
Qualitative Report, Volume 2, Number 3,
December, 1995
(http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR2-3/nau.html)
Introduction
The
field of systemic family therapy has often
taken
the view that qualitative research is a
more
appropriate research methodology for
that
field than is quantitative research. In fact,
it
is almost heretical in some institutions to
suggest
that quantitative research is a
legitimate
domain for understanding. It is this
author's
opinion that such a view severely
limits
the scope the field and may lead to a
description
of the subject or family which is
monocular.
In
a recent commentary, Fraenkel (1995)
urges
family therapy clinicians and researchers
to
consider using both "knowledge about
patters
of adjustment" (p. 113) as well as
considering
that "each family [i]s utterly
unique"
(p. 113). In the debate between
nomothetic
and ideographic ways of
understanding
commented that "virtually every
field
of intellectual endeavor has struggled with
this
tension between the general and the
unique"
(p. 116). This same tension exists in
the
debate between research modalities as
well.
He comments that "no matter how
statistically
powerful a nomothetic [read
quantitative]
finding, it can never definitively
predict
the experience and action of the
individual
person [qualitative research]." The
research
community has historically seen these
two
modes of research as historically opposite.
Instead,
he argues, why not use the strengths
of
both to gain a greater perspective on
families.
A research paradigm which utilized
both
qualitative and quantitative methodologies
could
be productive.
In good family therapy, general
knowledge of how many families
respond to frequently occurring
situations and challenges...[can
be] used as a backdrop with
which to begin rather than
conclude a clinical inquiry and
treatment. (Fraenkel, 1995, p.
118)
Blending
qualitative and quantitative methods
of
research can produce a final product which
can
highlight the significant contributions of
both.
The studies mentioned below combine
both
methodologies to produce contributions to
the
field of research. The first is a description
of
physician-patient conversations and the
second
looks at how traditional beliefs fade
with
each subsequent generation.
The Waitzkin and Britt Study
Waitzkin
and Britt (1993) use data collected in
an
earlier long-term quantitative study
(Waitzkin,
1984) to determine how physicians
communicate
about "self-destructive
behaviors"
with their patients. In this study, the
authors
used a method of qualitative inquiry
which
was somewhat of a hybrid of several
accepted
methodologies: literary criticism,
critical
theory, and narrative analysis. Their
journey
into the world of the doctor-patient
encounter
attempted to contextualize the
conversations
around what was happening in
the
lives of the two patients they used as case
examples.
Such dialogues helped the reader to
understand
why the attempts of physicians to
curb
those "behaviors" may have had little
impact.
The
authors began their inquiry from questions
which
arose from an earlier quantitative study
(Waitzkin,
1984). That study identified certain
assumptions
that quantitative research placed
the
physician "as the central figure in the
interview"
(p. 1123). Therefore, the authors
wanted
to put back the sociocultural contexts
of
the physician-patient discourse to rediscover
"the
crucial ways that contextual issues pattern
the
meaning of words exchanged by patients
and
doctors" (p. 1123).
The
rationale for the qualitative research
method
employed in their subsequent study
was
that a richer description was needed in
order
to understand the ways in which the
physician's
"speech genre" (Bakhtin, 1986)
seemed
to clash with the experiences of the
patient
in the context of his or her daily life.
Such
different ways of communicating, they
theorized,
might be at odds with each other. As
it
turned out, their transcripts of over 50
encounters
proved just that.
The
authors reviewed the works of Mishler
(1984),
Riessman (1990), Viney and Bousfield
(1991)
in social psychology, Kleinman (1988)
in
the field of cultural anthropology, Cicourel
(1985)
in the field of cognitive studies, and
several
from the field of medical humanities.
They
supported their research with the
writings
of Bakhtin (1986) in literary theory
and
Foucault's (1977) critiques of medicine and
social
control.
The
authors' analysis of their data led them to
conclude
that there was an inherent "medically
phrased
moralism" (p. 1127) in the dialogue
between
patient and doctor. They found that
physicians
paid little attention to the contextual
issues
in a patient's life or the social context of
their
coming to see their physician. The
authors
found that attention to socially relevant
details
were "marginal in medical encounters"
(p.
1134).
The
original plan for this study was a
quantitative
one. The authors later realized the
limitations
of that methodology. The voices of
the
participants were never heard by anyone
outside
the research team. To correct this,
they
embarked on a subsequent effort to let
their
research participants speak and when
they
did, they discovered new information. The
Waitzkin
and Britt (1993) study offered the
research
community one example of how
qualitative
depth can be linked with quantitative
breadth.
The authors offered personal stories
and
transcripts of actual conversations
between
physicians and their patients which
centered
around health and health
maintenance.
The conclusions the authors
drew
suggested that physicians may benefit
from
letting their patients tell their own stories
without
placing a veneer over the encounter
that
is loaded with medicalese or technical
terminology.
By listening more attentively,
physicians
may be able to achieve greater
"success"
(p. 1135).
While
the Waitzkin and Britt (1993) study was
a
more distinct two-step process, others have
streamlined
the process. One such two-step
process
which is more refined and integrated is
a
combined qualitative-quantitative study of an
immigrant
population. The following study
demonstrates
a method for research which
illustrates
how qualitative research and
quantitative
research can be joined together.
The Tripp-Reimer Study
Tripp-Reimer
(1985) has suggested that an
ethnomethodological
research study can be
enhanced
by simultaneously combining
qualitative
and quantitative methodologies. In
her
ethnographic research study of the "evil
eye"
(Greek: matiasma) in Greek immigrants
to
the United States, she encouraged health
care
workers to become more culturally
sensitive.
Such sensitivity would, she argued,
better
equip practitioners to offer "holistic or
comprehensive
health care" (p. 191). The
author
convincingly argued for a combined
research
method using qualitative and
quantitative
techniques.
The
author believes that Tripp-Reimer (1985)
may
offer another way of mixing methods by
first
using qualitative questions to inform the
scope
of the quantitative ones. Qualitative and
quantitative
methods used in conjunction "may
provide
complementary data sets which
together
give a more complete picture than can
be
obtained using either method singly" (p.
197).
This author believes this reasoning to be
sound
because both methods provide a
different
lens through which to view data.
Tripp-Reimer
(1985) suggested that both
research
methods have strengths which can be
used
effectively. Qualitative research methods
often
provide "rich descriptive and
documentary
information about a topic or a
phenomenon"
(p. 197). She believes that it is
best
to use qualitative research first to
generate
"important questions" (p. 197) to ask
research
participants. The author contended
that
qualitative research, when used first in
what
might be termed a bimodal process,
could
help to "facilitate serendipitous findings,
raise
unexpected questions, and identify topics
the
investigator might not have otherwise
considered"
(p. 197).
Quantitative
research methods, on the other
hand,
are most appropriately used to "test
hypotheses
with the goal of predicting or
explaining"
(p. 180). Tripp-Reimer (1985)
suggested
that quantitative methods tend to be
more
number-driven when the researcher
wished
to know how often or how much of a
phenomenon
is present. These numbers usually
are
able to serve as a base for explaining or
predicting
what has occurred or what will
occur
in the future.
Tripp-Reimer
(1985) used this methodology to
study
the Greek immigrant population of the
Columbus,
Ohio metropolitan area between
1976
and 1977. Her methods of data collection
began
with a questionnaire to the population
identified
by the Greek community. From this,
she
was able to select five individuals to
participate
in a pilot study. The author and her
research
team used semi-structured interviews
and
participant observation to "obtain
descriptive
data concerning the practice of
matiasma"
(p. 184). During these interviews,
data
was simultaneously collected and later
analyzed
using quantitative research methods
and
a computer-assisted analytical tool. The
results
of her research revealed that first
generation
Greek-Americans were 34% more
likely
to believe in the concept of the evil eye
than
were fourth generation Greek-Americans.
Tripp-Reimer
(1985) believed that such a
combined
research method was able to allow
her
to see in ways she may not have been able
to
see with either qualitative or quantitative
research
method alone.
Tripp-Reimer
(1985) wrote that such bimodal
research
permitted a "full understanding of the
situation"
(p. 192). Such a statement is difficult
to
prove and reflected a positivist viewpoint.
Such
a perspective could severely limit any
postmodern
study because it posits that
objective
reality can be known.
Is Bimodal Research Viable?
Denzin
and Lincoln (1994) write that "objective
reality
can never be captured" (p. 2). To
assume
that even with binocular vision one can
"have"
all the information, or even "know"
what
is true is a dangerous positivistic position.
The
rub between the two methodologies
comes
when we analyze the assumptions
behind
each one. These are clearly spelled out
in
detail by Denzin and Lincoln (1994, pp. 4-6)
and
can be summarized as follows. The
differences
between quantitative and
qualitative
research is that the first is positivist,
limiting,
unable to capture the subjects'
perspective,
abstract, and based on flat
descriptions.
Qualitative research, the critics
claim,
tends to be unscientific and based on
slipshod
methodologies. It's proponents claim
that
it offers a postmodern and post-positivist
view
more in keeping with prevailing social
attitudes.
They also claim that such a research
method
is able to capture the voices of many
and
provide what Geertz (1973) called a "thick
description"
of everyday life.
Can the Marriage be Saved?
There
is ongoing contention surrounding
whether
or not the two research methods
mentioned
above are suitable partners given
their
broad theoretical discrepancies. Such a
position
which proposes a "marriage" between
them
is, no doubt, a post-positivist one.
However,
the field of family therapy itself
encourages
multiple perspectives and different
ways
of knowing. Perhaps one solution out of
the
potential gridlock might be to approach the
union
of potentially conflicting methods from a
therapeutic
stance. This is what Steinglass
(1995),
using a similar metaphor, calls "the
wedding
of family therapy and family research
methods"
(p. 126).
Fraenkel
(1995) urges that "the tension
between
nomothetic and ideographic
approaches
should come to have more the
form
and flavor of a healthy dialectic, rather
than
that of an acrimonious debate" (p. 120).
In
fact, Sells, Smith, and Sprenkle (1995) have
argued
convincingly for what they termed a
multi-method,
bidirectional research model.
They
suggest that ethnographic content
analysis,
for example, "lends itself to both
qualitative
and quantitative research goals and
combines
what are usually considered
antithetical
modes of analysis" (p. 202). Adding
yet
another twist to this discussion, Janet
Beavin
Bavelas (1995) suggests that we
should
challenge this dichotomy way of
viewing
the two approaches, and instead,
replace
it with a continuum way of discussing
and
using qualitative and quantitative research
methods.
What
these recent evocations suggest is that
there
are many questions to be pondered
regarding
the two approaches to inquiry. Can
qualitative
research be viewed with a
quantitative
lens? Can quantitative research be
viewed
with a qualitative lens? If common
ground
can be found on which to build a new
relationship,
perhaps differences which
separate
the two can be strategically
minimized.
"Qualitative and quantitative
methods
build upon each other and offer
information
that neither one alone could
provide"
(Sells, Smith, & Sprenkle, 1995, p.
203).
Just as two members of a family might
be
encouraged to see the world through the
eyes
of the other, perhaps research purists can
be
encouraged to see how listening to another
voice
may serve to broaden our understanding
of
ourselves in a way heretofore obscured.
References
Bavelas,
J. B. (1995). Quantitative versus
qualitative?
In W. Leeds-Hurwitz (Ed.), Social
approaches
to communication (pp. 49-62).
New
York: Guilford Press.
Bakhtin,
M. M. (1986). Speech genres and
other
late essays. Austin: University of Austin
Press.
Cicourel,
A. (1985). Text and discourse.
Annual
Review of Anthropology, 14,
159-185.
Denzin,
N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (1994).
Introduction:
Entering the field of qualitative
research.
In N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln
(Eds.),
Handbook of qualitative research
(pp.
1-17). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Foucault,
M. (1977). Discipline and punish.
New
York: Pantheon.
Fraenkel,
P. (1995). Commentary: The
nomothetic-ideographic
debate in family
therapy.
Family Process, 34(2), 113-121.
Geertz,
C. (1973). The interpretation of
cultures.
New York: Basic Books.
Kleinman,
A. (1988). The illness narratives.
New
York: Basic Books.
Mishler,
E. G. (1984). The discourse of
medicine:
The dialectics of medical
interviews.
Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Riessman,
C. K. (1990). Strategic uses of
narrative
in the presentation of self and illness.
Social
Science & Medicine, 30, 1195-1200.
Sells,
S. P., Smith, T. E., & Sprenkle, D. H.
(1995).
Integrating qualitative and quantitative
research
methods: A research model. Family
Process,
34(2), 199-218.
Steinglass,
P. (1995). Editorial: The clinical
power
of research. Family Process, 34(2),
125-126.
Tripp-Reimer,
T. (1985). Combining qualitative
and
quantitative methodologies. In M. M.
Leininger
(Ed.), Qualitative research
methods
in nursing (pp. 179-194). Orlando,
FL:
Grune & Stratton.
Viney,
L. L., & Bousfield, L. (1991). Narrative
analysis:
A method of psychosocial research
for
AIDS-affected people. Social Science
Medicine,
32, 757-765.
Waitzkin,
H., & Britt, T. (1993). Processing
narratives
of self-destructive behavior in
routine
medical encounters: Health promotion,
disease
prevention, and the discourse of health
care.
Social Science Medicine, 36(9),
1121-1136.
Douglas
S. Nau is a third-year doctoral
candidate
in the School of Social and Systemic
Studies'
Department of Family Therapy at
Nova
Southeastern University, Fort
Lauderdale,
Florida 33314, USA. His e-mail
address
is nautilus@ssss.nova.edu.
Return
to the Table of Contents
Categorizing,
Coding, and
Manipulating Qualitative
Data Using the
WordPerfect®+ Word
Processor
by
John H. Carney*, Joseph
F. Joiner**,
and Helen Tragou***
The
Qualitative Report, Volume 3, Number 1,
March, 1997
(http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR3-1/carney.html)
Abstract
In
this paper, we present a method of
categorizing,
coding, and sorting/manipulating
qualitative
(descriptive) data using the
capabilities
of a commonly-used word
processor:
WordPerfect®. We explain the
process
and its development in simple terms
for
the person who may be familiar with
qualitative
research and data, but not with
computer
and/or word processor manipulation
of
that data. Although we developed the
process
to suit our methods, it can easily be
adapted/evolved
to fit different research
situations
where a method of rapidly handling
large
amounts of descriptive data is desirable.
Introduction
In
our experience with qualitative research, we
discovered
WordPerfect® had the capability
we
needed to assist with categorizing, coding,
and
sorting/manipulating qualitative data. We
wanted
our qualitative data to speak for itself,
but
we became overwhelmed with the manual
process
of handling the data. We needed
computer
assistance to relieve us of this
manual
process. WordPerfect® provided us
with
an efficient filing system to pull the data
together,
place it in multiple categories with
subcategories,
and rearrange it to suit our
inductive
process. As a result, WordPerfect®
saved
us many hours of manual labor, allowing
us
to focus on the meaning of data. Before
describing
the process, we reviewed the
characteristics
of qualitative research.
Qualitative
Research
We
approached this research project from a
qualitative
design. For us:
The word qualitative implies an
emphasis on process and
meanings that are not rigorously
examined, or measured (if
measured at all), in terms of
quantity, amount, intensity, or
frequency. Qualitative
researchers stress the socially
constructed nature of reality, the
intimate relationship between the
researcher and what is studied,
and the situational constraints
that shape inquiry. They seek
answers to questions that stress
how social experience is created
and given meaning. In contrast,
quantitative studies emphasize
the measurement and analysis of
causal relationships between
variables, not processes. Inquiry
is purported to be within a
value-free framework. (Denzin
& Lincoln, 1994, p. 4)
As
opposed to quantitative research, qualitative
hypotheses
and theories emerged from the
data
set while the data collection was in
progress
and after data analysis started
(Morse
& Field, 1995). We continually
examined
the collected data, which consisted
of
transcriptions of interviews, for descriptions,
patterns,
and relationships between categories.
The
relationships we were looking for were
not
statistical, but descriptive. This required us
to
view our data set from an experiential
perspective
from the beginning.
Our
Production (Qualitative
Research)
Casting (the data)
Coffey
and Atkinson (1996) wrote, "the
segmenting
and coding of data are often
taken-for-granted
parts of the qualitative
research
process. All researchers need to be
able
to organize, manage, and retrieve the most
meaningful
bits of our data" (p. 26). Chenail
(1994)
wrote, "I believe that the data, which
has
been painfully collected, should ‘be the
star'
in the relationship" (p. 2). With these
thoughts
in mind, we set out upon our journey
of
coding and categorizing our data, not an
easy
task at first.
Due
to the nature of the project, our data
risked
being upstaged by the other actors. The
project
marked our first time together as a
team--three
people coming together with many
different
ideas, concerns, and temperaments.
In
the beginning, we decided to go away from
each
other (it was best not to get too close too
soon),
identify data bits, then come back
together
to see what data each believed to be
important.
After the first manual cut-and-paste
session,
we realized that a purely manual
operation
would take many hours and waste
reams
of paper. At that point, we realized we
needed
to address this issue, or the data, our
star,
risked being upstaged by the supporting
cast.
We did not want to manually code and
re-code.
We did not want to put the data in the
hands
of some unknown computer-driven
qualitative
program lest the program becomes
the
star.
A
star becomes and stays a star only with the
help
of the supporting cast and crew hard at
work
in the wings. The cast and crew must
utilize
their talents and come together as one in
order
for the star to shine--so it was with our
project.
We now take you back stage to show
you
how the cast and crew prepared for
opening
night . . .
Rehearsal (pulling the
data together)
Behind
the curtain, we first had a scissor party
to
cut out the individual data bits and we
dumped
them unceremoniously in a pile. With
the
data bits in a cluttered stack, we laid out
sheets
of paper on a large table and began
"scanning
the data for categories of
phenomena
and for relationships among the
categories"
(Goetz & LeCompte, 1981, p. 57).
As
we found similarities of units, we
assembled
them into piles of look-alike,
feel-alike
groups. We wound up with sixteen
stacks,
or categories, into which the data
seemed
to fall naturally. These sixteen
categories
served as our initial category set,
and
we assigned some initial short names to
these
according to our interpretation of what
each
seemed to be saying. Many had warned
us
that our initial category set would probably
be
just a starting point. As we sat at the end of
our
scissor party looking at each other and
reflecting
on the amount of work this had been,
we
hoped we were at least close to a final
category
set.
Independently
and collectively, the three of us
looked
at our initial category set. Even with
categories,
we still saw chaos and lack of
organization
with our data. Jointly, and
concurrently
with our research advisor, we
agreed
where and how to continue with data
organization.
We
realized we did not have sixteen simple
categories,
but rather multiple categories with
subcategories.
This implied we needed at least
one
major revision of our category set. We
continually
struggled with logical levels of data
categories.
It was at this point, thinking of
multiple
scissor parties yet to come, we
considered
the possibility of computer
programs
to help us.
We
had neither time nor inclination to purchase
and
learn another software program. But in
our
review of software programs, we realized
the
process itself was a simple one consisting
of
assigning codes to data bits and then sorting
and
tracking them.
Since
our transcriptions and data bits were
already
on file in WordPerfect® format, we
took
a closer look at WordPerfect® and
realized
it had the data handling capability we
needed.
It was the computer tool we needed.
We
still needed to code the data bits with
category
names, but we would have had to do
that
with any other programs as well.
Before
we finalized our category set, we went
through
ten revisions--several of which were
complete
major revisions. If we had made
these
revisions manually, we would still be
working
on the project. However, with the
computer,
we accomplished major revisions in
minutes
rather than hours.
Dress rehearsal (coding)
Once
the major task of transcribing interviews
was
done, the rest was simply a matter of
coding
and sorting the data according to the
category
schemes we developed as we
analyzed
our data. The following was the step
by
step process of how we accomplished that
with
WordPerfect®. We first coded the name
(an
alias) and turn number for each interview
transcript
as follows in Excerpt One:
Excerpt One
226
Rose
Q:
But you find with all these
new experiences and
_________ (inaudible) the
theater and knowing yourself,
it sounds like you really are,
you've done some incredible
work, do you feel you're able
to trust people more because
of your acting experience?
Not having...
227
Rose:
That weird, I can trust people
more on stage than in real life.
229
Rose:
____________ (inaudible) on
stage, you have to trust them.
"Line Space"
300
Rose:
....
We
saw several advantages in coding and
arranging
the interview in the above format,
and
we developed changes in our process as
we
went along--an evolutionary process. Turn
numbers
(i.e. 226, 227) enabled us to quickly
locate
and track interview information within
the
original interview. Sometimes we needed
to
review context, which might not have been
evident
once we reduced the interview to data
bits.
Since the names were already aliases, we
chose
to use the name as the "code" for the
person.
We could have used numbers, but
using
names made it easier to simplify our own
internal
identification of respondents.
We
also chose to separate the coding
information
from the body of the data to assist
with
identification and analysis. We created
this
alignment by using the "left indent"
capability.
We formatted our data bits as a
paragraph
for each bit. Left indent maintained
the
alignment until the end of each paragraph.
We
ended paragraphs with the "Return" or
"Enter"
key. Specifically, we entered the turn
number,
the name, F4 (left indent, function key
4
in version 6 of WordPerfect®), the data, and
then
the "Enter" key to end the paragraph.
[We
added this coding and alignment to
existing
transcripts by inserting the coding at
the
beginning of each turn: 226 Rose:F4
existing
data--].
We
then separately read all of the transcripts
(many
times) and high lighted the data bits. We
were
pleasantly surprised, when we got
together
again, that our agreement of data bits
exceeded
90%. Initially we decided to include
all
data bits anyone identified. Later in our
analysis,
we edited the files to remove data bits
that
seemed extraneous or non relevant.
After
our first scissor party with the identified
data
bits, we assigned initial categories to the
data
bits. We did this by manually arranging
them
on separate sheets of paper before we
developed
our computer process. We did it
manually
because we thought it beneficial for
us
to have gone through the process manually
the
first time, and we had not yet seen the
need
for computer help. Afterwards, we
wondered
if we could have done this first
exercise
on the computer had we known how.
Next,
we took our pages of categorized data
bits,
created a new file of each interview
(never
mess with the original files), and added
our
category coding (i.e. 9001) to the data bits
in
the new file. We chose numeric coding for
categories
and created a code page to explain
each
category. We chose numeric instead of
alphabetic
(name) coding because multi-level
categories
required a way of keeping track of
the
levels. Numbers provided us an easy way
to
accomplish this (see Excerpt Two).
Excerpt Two
9001
226
Rose
Q:
But you find with all
these new experiences
and _________
(inaudible) the theater
and knowing yourself, it
sounds like you really
are, you've done some
incredible work, do you
feel you're able to trust
people more because of
your acting experience?
Not having...
9001
227
Rose:
That weird, I can trust
people more on stage
than in real life.
9001
229
Rose:
____________
(inaudible) on stage, you
have to trust them.
"Line Space"
9001
300
Rose:
....
(Notice
that some changes have already
occurred.)
In our case, one interviewer (Ques:
or
Q:) conducted all of our interviews, so no
further
identification was necessary. We could
have
identified multiple interviewers within the
"Q"
and name or number, i.e., "QBob" or
"Q12",
etc.
Also
evident in our editing process at that point
was
our grouping of multiple components of
some
data bits. That is, sometimes, an answer
was
meaningless without the question, and
sometimes
the data bit spread over several
turns
or interruptions. In the above example of
a
data bit, a question (Q:) began the exchange
with
a response over two turns. We separated
(formatted)
the data bits as paragraphs by a
"Line
Space" before and after each data bit.
When
sorting, WordPerfect® looked for this
"Line
Space" to indicate the end of a
paragraph.
We
initially assigned a four digit category code
(9001,
etc.) to identify our categories for
sorting
and created a "code book" to provide
descriptions
of each category (i.e., Childhood
and
Adolescent Experiences). Later we made
one
of the first major changes to our category
scheme.
We changed from the four digit code
to
a five digit code. We did this to facilitate
additional
category/subcategory distinctions
within
the code. For small numbers of category
changes,
we simply edited the file and keyed in
the
changes, but for major changes, we used
the
"Replace" function of WordPerfect®
(Under
the "Edit" function of the menu bar at
the
top of the screen). The "Replace" function
allowed
us to "Search for" the old code (i.e.
3024)
and "Replace with" the new code (i.e.
32003).
(See Figure 1.) WordPerfect® then
found
all instances of 3024 in the file and
replaced
each with 32003.
With
this first major change to our category
scheme,
we coded levels of categories within
our
category code numbers, which we
illustrated
in the following category scheme
from
our code book (see Excerpt Three):
Excerpt Three
30000 Adult Experiences. - What
my life has been and is as an
adult.
31000 In Character
(on stage) - Those
experiences of life
directly relating to
performing.
31001
Authority
Figures
-
Experiences
of
directors,
parents,
teachers,
etc.
who
served
as
authority
figures
to
me.
31002
Observers
- My
experiences
of
those
that
served
as
observers
in my
life
(audience,
parents,
teachers,
peers).
31003
Self -
My
experiences
with
self -
the
thoughts,
feelings,
and
coping
with
the
events
in my
life.
32000 Out of
Character (off
stage) - Those
experiences of life
not directly related
to being on stage.
32001
Authority
Figures
-
Experiences
of
bosses,
parents,
teachers,
etc.
who
serve
as
authority
figures
to
me.
32002
Observers
- My
experiences
of
those
that
serve
as
observers
in my
life
(horse,
peers).
32003
Self -
My
experiences
with
self -
the
thoughts,
feelings,
and
coping
with
the
events
in my
life.
Although
five-digit category coding could
handle
much more complicated category
schemes
than we needed, it made level
visualization
an easier task. With the coding
completed,
we came to the point where we
could
sort files. We first sorted a single
interview
file to see what it looked like
according
to our category scheme. Satisfied
with
the format, we combined all of our data
bit
files into one large file. We did that using
the
"Cut and Pate" feature to add each file to a
single
master file. Next, we sorted the master
file
according to how we wished to view the
data
bits. Appendix A showed one example of
our
sorted coding alignment of our data bit files
in
their final format.
Show time (sorting)
WordPerfect®
sorted by selected words
within
a paragraph and could do both numeric
and
alphabetic sorts. Since we wished to view
our
data within our category scheme, we first
sorted
the data by category code (i.e., 32001),
which
was the first "word" (See Appendix A.)
in
each paragraph. We used version 6.0, which
had
the following procedures reflected in the
menus
of that version. (Different versions of
WordPerfect®
may have somewhat different
menus
to accomplish these functions.)
With
the file we wished to sort (master file) on
our
editing screen, we selected "Tools" from
the
menu bar, which listed the tools available.
(See
Figure 2.) From that list, we selected
"Sort."
Next appeared a screen that asked for
a
"Source and a Destination file." Although
WordPerfect®
allowed us to sort directly from
file
to file, we chose to sort from the
"Document
on Screen" to the "Document on
Screen."
This choice allowed us to sort the
data
and view it immediately without affecting
source
files on disk. Since we wanted to do
multiple
sorts and see the results as we went
along,
we chose this screen to screen option
and
used "Save" to save our files after we
were
satisfied with the results.(See Figure 3.)
If
you are not familiar with this type of
procedure,
the following sort procedure and
screens
may at first appear complicated. At
the
risk of being simple, we will explain sorting
concepts
and the step by step process as if you
are
unfamiliar with it. Our coding system is
contained
in the first three words of each
paragraph
(i.e., 32001 62 Butch:), so our
sorting
was done with these words. The first
"Sort"
menu (See Figure 4.) asked us for
information
about how we wanted to sort the
data.
The first thing (1) was the "Record
Type."
Our data consisted of words arranged
in
"Paragraph" form, which happened to be the
default,
so no change was necessary. The
default
"Type" shown (on the right side of the
menu,
Figure 4) happened to be for an "Alpha"
sort
for word "1." Our choice for sort was the
first
word, but it was numeric, so we selected
(2)
to change the "Sort Keys." "Edit" became
our
choice shown on the screen. The "Edit
Sort
Key" menu (See Figure 5.) allowed us to
select
the fields of the sort key to change. We
selected
number (2) and selected "Numeric"
for
that first sort. (See Figure 6.)
Once
we had the correct fields set up for the
sort
(See Figure 7.), clicking on "OK" brought
us
back to the "Sort" menu, and we selected
"Perform
Action" to accomplish the sort. In a
few
seconds, WordPerfect® sorted the file
and
displayed it in order of category code.
Considering
a manual process for doing this,
the
speed was absolutely astounding. The
sorted
file was then available as a normal
editing
file (on screen) for the next step.
Next,
especially for our final data presentation,
we
chose to continue our arrangement of data
using
another option of the sort capability. One
by
one we "Block[ed]" each category level just
as
one might block for "Cut and Paste." "Sort"
confined
itself to the part of the file we
blocked.
One by one, we separately blocked
each
category level. (i.e., all of the 32001's,
then
all 32002's, etc. See Appendix A.) Next
we
sorted the "Block[ed]" category by
interviewee
name using the "Edit Sort Key"
procedure
to select an "Alpha" sort, instead of
a
"Numeric" sort, on word three. (i.e., Butch,
see
Appendix A.)
Lastly,
we "Block[ed]" each name in turn and
did
a numeric sort of word two (i.e., 56, see
Appendix
A.) to put the interviewee name in
turn
order. Our final result was a file that was
in
turn order, within name order, within
category
order, which was also in order by
subcategories
within categories.
At
first, the above procedure seemed lengthy
and
tedious, but it was far faster and easier
than
doing it manually. Once we had done it a
few
times, we found it easy to use, and we
accomplished
even major revisions of our
category
scheme in minutes. Once we had a
printout
of the file, we viewed the structure,
determined
if we had properly categorized the
data
bits, and made changes to the copy as
necessary.
None
of us were accomplished typists. John
had
to look at the keyboard, and he still made
errors.
While he typed and watched the
keyboard,
one of the members of the team sat
behind
him reading the corrections and
verifying
his typing on the screen. Working in
that
manner, we experimented, modified, and
evolved
the categories without being dragged
down
by manual labor. We evolved our
process
to fit our particular study. Once we
understood
the concepts of coding and
manipulating
data, only our imagination limited
how
we might have evolved the process for
our
research data.
Finale (Conclusions)
WordPerfect®
helped us with our data in three
important
ways. First, it helped to speed up the
mechanistic
process--how to store (by giving
the
right commands to the computer), to code
(by
assigning numbers to each
interviewer/interviewee
turn), and to organize
the
data (by cutting-and-pasting and
categorizing
the selected data bits).
WordPerfect®
helped us to be patient and
curious
as we synthesized different themes,
categories,
and patterns, which were the
threads
that wove the themes into a
meaningful
tapestry.
Second,
by relying on WordPerfect®, we did
not
have to argue about which one of us was
responsible
for keeping the data--the four
interviews,
the nine sort keys, the several
drafts,
the final paper, and presentation aids.
All
of them were safely stored in separate and
accessible
files in the computer.
Finally,
by enjoying the easy access to the
data,
we speeded up the qualitative research
process
and attended to the importance of our
star--the
data. We attended to the many
relationships
that emerged during that process
among
and between data bits, subcategories,
and
categories. WordPerfect® did not do the
coding
for us. It was a user-friendly program
that
did the housekeeping. It kept our data bits
alive,
coded, saved, and easily accessible.
WordPerfect®
proved to be a great help,
reliable
source and a trusted crew member in
our
qualitative play.
References
Chenail, R. J. (1995). Presenting
qualitative
data. The Qualitative Report
[On-line
serial], 2(3). Available:
http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR2-3/presenting.html]
Coffey, A., & Atkinson, P. (1996).
Concepts
and coding. In A. Coffey & P.
Atkinson,
Making sense of qualitative data
(pp.
26-53). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Denzin, N., & Lincoln, Y. (Eds.).
(1994).
Handbook
of qualitative research.
Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Goetz, J. & LeCompte, M. (1981).
Ethnographic
research and the problem of data
reduction.
Anthropology and Education
Quarterly,
12, 51-70.
Morse, J. M., & Field, P. A. (Eds.).
(1995).
Qualitative research methods for the
health
professionals (2nd ed.). Thousand
Oaks,
CA: Sage.
WordPerfect® Version 6.0 DOS:
Reference.
(1993). Orem UT: WordPerfect®
Corporation.
Author Note
+WordPerfect®
is a registered trademark of
Corel
Corporation.
*John
H. Carney, M.S. is a former employee
of
a major computer company. He earned a
Masters
in Counseling Psychology in 1988 and
has
now completed all but his disertation for a
Ph.D.
in Marriage and Family Therapy at
Nova
Southeastern University in Ft.
Lauderdale,
Florida, USA, 33314. His email
address
is carneyjh@worldnet.att.net.
**Joseph
F. Joiner, M.A. received his M.A.
in
Pastoral Counseling from La Sale University
in
Philadelphia, PA. He is currently enrolled in
the
Marriage and Family Therapy Ph.D.
program
at Nova Southeastern University in
Ft.
Lauderdale, Florida, USA, 33314. His email
address
is joiner07@nsu.acast.nova.edu.
***Helen
Tragou, M.S. earned a Bachelor of
Arts
in General Psychology from Deere
College
at Athens, Greece and a Masters in
Mental
Health Counseling at Nova
Southeastern
University. She has also earned a
speciality
degree in Medical Family Therapy
and
is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Marriage
and
Family Therapy at Nova Southeastern
University,
Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA,
33314.
Her email address is
elena@nsu.acast.nova.edu.
Carney, J. H., Joiner, J. F., &
Tragou, H.
(1997,
March). Categorizing, Coding, and
Manipulating
Qualitative Data Using the
WordPerfect®
[40 paragraphs]. The
Qualitative
Report [On-line serial], 3(1).
Available:
http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR3-1/carney.html
John
H. Carney, Joseph F. Joiner, and
Helen
Tragou
29
March 1997 copyright
Return to the top of the paper.
Return to the Table of Contents.
Can
Sociological Research
Be Qualitative, Critical and
Valid?
by
David Wainwright+
The Qualitative Report, Volume 3, Number 2,
July, 1997
(http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR3-2/wain.html)
Abstract
Qualitative
Research is enjoying a new found
respectability
in medical sociology, derived in
part
from an increasing willingness to submit to
positivist
criteria of reliability and validity. Whilst
such
claims to 'scientific' credibility have raised
the
status of the approach, this has only been
achieved
by driving a wedge between
ethnographic
methods of data-collection and
their
origins in the phenomenological strands of
sociological
thought. One consequence of this
schism
has been to rob qualitative research of
its
critical potential, transforming it from a
means
of challenging discursive formations into
a
mechanism of surveillance.
This
paper defines the broad contours of a
qualitative
methodology synthesised with the
perspective
of social critique. Positivist
arguments
are rebutted and validity is
re-conceptualised
as reflexive management of
the
relationship between the testimony of
informants
and a broader process of historical
and
structural analysis. The process of
managing
validity is illustrated for each stage of
the
research cycle.
Introduction
Qualitative
methods of inquiry have often been
viewed
with ambivalence and a degree of
trepidation
by researchers concerned with the
sociology
of health. On one hand such methods
offer
an important link to some of the main
concerns
of sociological thought, addressing
questions
of power, ideology and subjective
meaning.
Whilst on the other hand, they may be
viewed
as suspect in terms of their validity and
reliability,
particularly when compared with the
more
'scientific' methods available to the
quantitative
researcher. Traditionally, scepticism
about
the value of qualitative methods has been
strongest
in the sub-discipline of medical
sociology
where, until quite recently, the
dominance
of a positivist model of bio-medical
research
has tended to exclude
phenomenological
approaches.
Over
the last ten years the situation has begun
to
change, and qualitative research has gradually
acquired
a new respectability, with even the
British
Medical Journal, prepared to recognise
its
worth (Mays & Pope, 1995). But this new
found
acceptance has been achieved at a cost;
most
notably it has entailed, if not a complete
capitulation
to quantitative criteria of validity and
reliability,
at least a tendency to meet them
half-way.
Whilst this compromise has
undoubtedly
raised the status and acceptability
of
qualitative research it has also weakened the
link
between the technical process of
ethnographic
data collection and its basis in
sociological
theory. One consequence of this
schism
has been to rob the methodology of its
critical
content - the assumption appears to be
that
qualitative research can be valid, or it can
be
critical, but not both at the same time. The
purpose
of this paper is to refute that pessimistic
conclusion
by sketching out the broad contours
of
a qualitative research model that is not only
critical,
but also valid and reliable on its own
terms,
rather than in accordance with the
narrow
constraints of positivism.
What is qualitative research?
Generally,
qualitative research can be
characterised
as the attempt to obtain an
in-depth
understanding of the meanings and
'definitions
of the situation' presented by
informants,
rather than the production of a
quantitative
'measurement' of their
characteristics
or behaviour. This concern to
reveal
the subjective beliefs of those being
studied
is common to ethnography, participant
observation,
and the various other strands of
qualitative
research. For many qualitative
researchers
the subjective beliefs of the people
being
studied have explanatory primacy over the
theoretical
knowledge of the researcher, thus
Jorgensen
suggests:
While the researcher may have a
theoretical interest in being there,
exactly what concepts are
important, how they are or are not
related, and what, therefore, is
problematic should remain open
and subject to refinement and
definition based on what the
researcher is able to uncover and
observe. (Jorgensen, 1989, p. 18)
The
ethnographer's concern to avoid imposing a
theoretical
framework of meanings and
definitions
perhaps originates from the
anthropological
study of low technology tribal
cultures
in the third world, where the intention
was
mainly to describe cross-cultural variations
in
social behaviour and beliefs before they
disappeared.
Methodologically this entailed
detailed
observation and interaction by the
researcher,
in order to see the world 'through
the
eyes' of the people being studied. The same
approach
has been adapted to the study of
sub-cultures
within western society, most
notably
in the classic studies conducted by the
Chicago
School and succeeding generations of
neo-Chicagoans.
As Downes and Rock have
noted,
the primary imperative for such research
is
to catalogue and describe a particular
worldview
without imposing external theoretical
schema:
The interactionist takes his job to
be the documentation of the social
worlds that constitute a society.
He methodically plots the
connections between
communication, meaning,
symbolism, and action. He would
claim that there is little profit in
imposing alien interpretative
schemes on a world: people do not
build their lives on the logic of
sociology or the sensibilities of
foreign groups. They have their
own methods of doing things
together. (Downes & Rock, 1986,
p. 143)
Whilst
this approach has yielded a diverse and
colourful
variety of descriptions of everyday life,
it
poses a number of problems or limitations
when
viewed from the perspective of critical
social
research. First, no attempt is made to
place
the beliefs and behaviour of the people
being
studied into an historical or structural
context;
it is considered sufficient to simply
describe
different forms of consciousness
without
trying to explain how and why they
developed.
This leads to a second problem - the
tendency
to adopt an uncritical attitude to the
beliefs
and consciousness of informants, without
considering
their epistemological adequacy or
their
emancipatory potential. The result is a
form
of voyeuristic relativism where everyone's
testimony
is accorded equal status, and no
attempt
is made either to explain or inform the
development
of consciousness.
Superficially,
such an approach appears to be
the
epitome of a value-free sociology; rather
than
passing judgement on the lives of others the
researcher
becomes an impartial reporter
enabling
informants to express their own
definition
of the situation. However, the
reluctance
to address the processes by which
different
forms of consciousness are socially
and
historically constructed, coupled with the
absence
of any evaluation of the epistemological
status
and emancipatory potential of a set of
beliefs,
amounts to little more than a passive
legitimation
of dominant ideology. Moreover, it is
based
on an assumed antagonism between
social
theory and the immediate experience of
everyday
life. Rather than the means of
obtaining
a critical consciousness of ideological
oppression,
social theory is conceptualised as an
inevitable
part of the dominant ideology -
something
to be resisted and struggled against,
rather
than a basis for emancipatory activity. In
short,
it is assumed that the sociologist has
everything
to learn from the people she or he
studies,
but that critical social theory can have
no
reciprocal role in their emancipation.
In
the light of such criticisms a new generation
of
'critical' ethnographers (see Hammersley,
1992)
have attempted to synthesise the
traditional
focus on the meanings and definitions
of
those involved in a social phenomenon with
the
insights gained from social critique. The
objective
is still to access the subjective beliefs
of
the people being studied, but rather than
accepting
such beliefs at face value they are
examined
critically in the context of a broader
historical
and structural analysis. Whilst
Hammersley
is keen to distance himself from
critical
ethnography, he recognises the value of
this
shift in emphasis:
...we have no grounds for
dismissing the validity of
participant understandings outright:
indeed they are a crucial source of
knowledge, deriving as they do
from experience of the social
world. However, they are
certainly not immune to
assessment, nor to explanation.
They must be treated in exactly
the same manner as social
scientific accounts. (Hammersley
& Atkinson, 1983, p. 234)
Crucially,
appraisal of the testimony of
respondents
amounts to much more than simply
checking
that they are telling the truth, it entails
looking
at the processes that shaped their views
and
assessing the extent to which they may be
distorted
by ideology. The intention is not
primarily
to 'weed-out' unreliable testimony, but
to
use historical analysis and sociological theory
to
get beneath the surface of everyday
'common-sense'
assumptions in order to arrive
at
a deeper level of understanding that will not
only
be of academic interest to the researcher,
but
will also contribute to the development of
critical
consciousness amongst oppressed
groups.
However, the synthesis of ethnography
and
critical social research is an uneasy one, not
least
because it necessitates a
re-conceptualisation
of validity, in a form quite
different
to that adopted by traditional
ethnography
or positivist empiricism. The
purpose
here is to commence this
reconceptualisation,
and in so doing reclaim
qualitative
methods for a critical sociology.
What is critical social research?
Critical
inquiry is diverse and flexible and only
takes
on a specific form when applied to the
study
of a particular phenomenon. Even so, the
approach
has several essential elements, and the
intention
is to summarise them in order to arrive
at
a deeper understanding of the perspective,
and
its consequences for ethnographic validity.
At
the core of a genuinely critical methodology
lies
the application of dialectical logic.
Dialectical
reasoning is complex, and only a
brief
account can be given here. Essentially, the
approach
addresses the relationship between
objects
and events in the material world and
their
subjective representation in human
consciousness.
The dialectical character of this
relationship
was addressed by G. W. F. Hegel,
but
he took as his point of departure the realm
of
ideas, or human spirit, and was concerned
with
the way in which human thought became
materialised
through practical activity. From this
perspective
the individual's knowledge of the
world
was essentially knowledge of
materialised,
and therefore alienated, human
thought.
Through practical activity the individual
could
overcome his/her alienation and
re-appropriate
the human spirit as it had been
externalised
by previous generations. Ilyenkov
gives
an eloquent account of Hegel's approach:
This world was the materialised
thought of humanity, realised in the
product, was alienated thought in
general; and the individual had to
de-objectify, and arrogate to
himself, the modes of activity that
were realised in it, and it was in
that the process of his education
properly consisted. In the trained
mind categories actually
functioned as active forms of
thought activity, forms of
processing the material of sense
impressions into the form of a
concept. When the individual had
them in his experience, and made
them forms of his own activity, he
also possessed them, and knew
and realised them, as
thought-forms. Otherwise they
remained only general forms of
the things given in contemplation
and representation, and
counterposed to thought as a
reality existing outside it and
independently of it. (Ilyenkov,
1977, p. 208)
Thus
Hegel shifted the focus of logic towards
consideration
of sensuous human activity, and
indicated
the extent to which the products of
human
thought and intervention in nature take
on
a naturalised and ahistorical appearance.
Much
of Hegel's logic is retained in modern
dialectical
thought, but for one fundamental
difference.
By starting in the realm of ideas and
examining
their impact on the material world,
Hegel
was unable to account for the origins of
those
thoughts, and was obliged to rely on an
essentialist
and metaphysical account of the
'human
spirit'. Vulgar materialists, like Ludwig
Feuerbach,
noted that this amounted to little
more
than religious belief, and sought to ground
human
consciousness in experience of the
material
world. Thus for Feuerbach it was the
real
world that became imprinted on the physical
human
brain, rather than the unfolding of the
human
spirit that gave rise to the world.
Although
Feuerbach's account of human
consciousness
dispenses with the idealism of
Hegel's
approach, it only does so at the cost of
perceiving
humanity as the passive recipient of
data
from the material world. It took Marx to
combine
the materialist basis of consciousness
identified
by Feuerbach, with the dialectical
insights
of Hegel. For Marx, consciousness
came
from the individual's experience of the
real
world, but this experience was one of
practical
activity, of conscious intervention to
adapt
nature to meet human needs. From this
perspective
phenomena could still be identified
as
socially constructed, that is, as the product of
human
will, without resorting to a metaphysical
account
of 'human spirit'. Ilyenkov has noted the
advance
that this represents over vulgar
materialism:
Materialism in this case does not
consist at all in identifying the ideal
with the material processes taking
place in the head. Materialism is
expressed here in understanding
that the ideal, as a socially
determined form of the activity of
man creating an object in one form
or another, is engendered and
exists not in the head but with the
help of the head in the real
objective activity (activity on
things) of man as the active agent
of social production. (Ilyenkov,
1977, p. 261)
Importantly,
the human head is not seen as a
purely
physical entity, but as a social head, full
of
socially constructed information on how to
understand
and act in the world, for example,
language,
concepts and categories. The focus
on
conscious human activity (production in its
broadest
sense), essential to the materialist
conception
of dialectics, re-introduces Hegel's
problematic,
but sets it on a materialist footing -
effectively
turning Hegel on his head, as Marx
put
it. The problem resides in the gap between
socially
constructed phenomena as they exist in
the
real world, and the equally socially
constructed
representations of those phenomena
in
the consciousness of the individual. The key
to
this problem is the continuing process of
change
over time. First, the world in which we
find
ourselves is in a constant state of flux,
requiring
us to constantly act upon it, and
constantly
represent that process in
consciousness.
Unfortunately, as we know from
Hegel,
the phenomenal forms through which we
grasp
reality are constructed over generations,
and
may therefore present themselves to the
individual
as static and immutable. The
application
of dialectical logic enables us to
recognise
the historical specificity and social
construction
of prevailing phenomenal forms, in
order
that we can act to consciously transform
them,
and better satisfy our needs and wants.
The
dialectical logic revealed by Marx reflected
the
largely unconscious technique used by other
scientists,
for example, Darwin had been able to
reveal
an organic world in a constant state of
flux,
where minute quantitative changes over
time
led to the qualitative transformation from
one
species to another. That we bother to assign
fixed
labels to things which are constantly
changing
is a matter of practicality rather than
precision
- we name things in order to
understand
them, so that we might use them to
meet
our needs. However, the fixity of meaning
implied
in the act of naming cannot keep up with
a
world that is constantly changing, leading us to
continually
revise our knowledge of the world.
In
this sense a body of knowledge is always
historically
specific. This does not imply the
adoption
of a relativist epistemology, because at
any
given moment some truth claims will grasp
reality
more adequately than others. The
importance
of dialectical logic is that it enables
us
to choose between alternative truth claims
without
losing sight of their historical specificity
and
transitoriness.
The
adoption of dialectical logic has a series of
methodological
consequences for critical social
research.
First, it is essential to study the
historical
development of a phenomenon to
reveal
changes in the way it has been
conceptualised
over time. The purpose of
studying
a phenomenon over time is not simply
to
record changes in its appearance or
phenomenal
form, but to reveal the nature of the
relationship
between the phenomenon's
appearance
and its underlying essence. We
noted
above that the production of knowledge
involves
abstraction from the material world to
the
theoretical world, in order to better inform
our
practical activity. The dialectical approach
problematises
this relationship between objective
reality
and our attempts to represent it in
knowledge.
Part of the problem is that objective
reality
is in a constant state of flux and our
attempts
to grasp it through categorisation and
definition
must inevitably become out-dated or
inadequate
over time. The purpose of studying a
phenomenon
over time is, therefore, to reveal
the
historical specificity of phenomenal forms
and
the extent to which they are socially
constructed.
The
relationship between essence and
appearance
is not only problematic because
phenomenal
forms become outdated in the face
of
constant changes in the material world, but
also
because the historically specific categories
through
which we grasp the material world also
have
a political dimension in that they enable
powerful
groups to exercise domination over
less
powerful groups. Thus, the second element
of
social critique is the deconstruction of
categories
or phenomenal forms. This does not
simply
entail the production of a detailed
description
of the material contents of a given
category,
but an attempt to reveal the extent to
which
the existence of a category depends upon
a
series of relationships with other phenomena
in
the social and economic totality. For example,
an
uncritical definition of the category 'working
class'
might produce a list of occupations, or an
income
band, or cultural characteristics such as
educational
attainment or 'lifestyle choices'. A
critical
account, by contrast, would attempt to
locate
the category in a series of social and
economic
relations.
Viewing
a phenomenon as the product of a
whole
network of social and economic relations,
does
not mean that all of those social relations
carry
equal explanatory potential. It may be
possible
to find a key relationship or 'overriding
moment';
for example, with the category
'working
class' the key relationship might be that
workers
are obliged to sell their labour power to
the
private owners of capital, thereby forfeiting
their
right to exercise conscious control over the
production
and distribution of goods and
services.
This process of deconstructing a
phenomenal
form or explanatory category is
fundamentally
empirical; it is grounded in
observation
of phenomena in the real world at a
specific
location in time and space, and cannot
be
dogmatically generalised to a different
context.
Critique
of categories has a series of effects.
First,
it shifts explanatory emphasis from the
categories
themselves to the social relations that
underpin
them. This makes the categories
derived
from such analysis more enduring over
time.
For example, if the working class is
defined
in terms of particular occupations or
cultural
attributes, then the term must inevitably
become
redundant as the labour market changes
and
different cultural patterns emerge. For
instance,
it is often remarked that the working
class
has declined as a result of the
re-structuring
of manufacturing industry (Gorz,
1982),
however, if the category is defined in
terms
of the relationship between labour and
capital,
then the category continues to be of
value
while ever that relationship endures, even
though
its demographic content may change
over
time.
A
second effect of deconstruction is that in
laying
bare the essence of a phenomenon by
locating
its conditions of existence in a specific
network
of social and economic relations it also
reveals
political factors that cannot be grasped
from
its surface appearance. The classic
example
is Marx's critique of the phenomenal
forms
of bourgeois political economy (Marx,
1887/1983),
which revealed the essentially
exploitative
and coercive relations that lie behind
the
apparent freedom and equity of commodity
production.
The hidden political nature of
phenomenal
forms is not only to be found in
class
relations, but anywhere that knowledge is
implicated
in the domination of one group by
another,
for example, around gender and race.
The
objective of critical social research is to
make
such oppressive structures overt in order
that
they might be challenged.
This
relationship between critical social research
and
political activity is two-fold. First, for the
critical
social researcher the distinction between
the
material world and its abstract
representation
in knowledge is not absolute. As
well
as having an existence as text or as ideas,
knowledge
is also externalised through our
conscious
manipulation of material objects, for
example,
even a very basic manufactured object
like
a spoon has more than a purely physical
existence;
as well as being a piece of metal it is
also
a consciously designed instrument that can
be
used in a specific way to solve a specific
problem.
This process of externalising conscious
knowledge
to give it a material existence
extends
beyond the production of basic tools to
include
the built environment, social and
economic
institutions, et cetera. Thus, the
production
of an alternative body of knowledge
entails
much more than abstract
re-conceptualisation
of the material world, or the
production
of a text, it entails the transformation
of
the phenomenal forms of knowledge, that is
the
material objects, institutions and processes in
which
previous knowledge is embedded. As Lee
Harvey
has noted:
Knowledge changes not simply as
a result of reflection but as a result
of activity too. Knowledge
changes as a result of praxis.
Similarly what we know informs
praxis. Knowledge is dynamic, not
because we uncover more grains
of sand for the bucket but because
of a process of fundamental
reconceptualisation which is only
possible as a result of direct
engagement with the processes
and structures which generate
knowledge. (Harvey, 1990, p. 23)
This
unity between the subjective and objective
world
underlines the political basis of critical
social
research. The point is not simply to reveal
the
oppressive aspects of existing phenomenal
forms
as an end in itself, but to embed this
knowledge
in the consciousness of the
oppressed
in order that they might engage in
practical
activity to emancipate themselves.
Füredi
suggests that:
The power of Marxist theory is
derived, not from the elegance of
its arguments, but from its
capacity to make conscious the
unconscious forces driving
towards social change. (Füredi,
1990, p. xxiii)
We
noted above that the relationship between
theory
and practice is not uni-linear. Whilst the
objective
of critical social research is to inform
conscious
activity, it also derives its validity from
active
involvement in political struggle. From this
perspective
the production of knowledge is
deeply
embedded in the process of social
transformation;
both informing, and derived
from,
the struggle to consciously change the
material
world.
To
summarise, although critical social research
is
diverse and constantly developing the
following
characteristics are essential to the
approach:
the application of dialectical logic
which
views the material and social world as in
a
constant state of flux; the study of phenomena
over
time to reveal their historical specificity;
the
critique or deconstruction of existing
phenomenal
forms and analytical categories that
delves
beneath the superficial appearances
available
to unaided common sense to reveal the
network
of social and economic relations that
are
the essential conditions of existence for a
phenomenon;
the exposure of previously hidden
oppressive
structures; and a praxiological
orientation
in which knowledge is considered to
be
inseparable from conscious practical activity.
But
the question still remains as to whether this
approach
can be synthesised with ethnography
and
still constitute a valid methodology.
Can qualitative research be critical
and valid?
Not
all critical ethnographers would agree with
the
above definition of social critique, although,
most
would presumably agree that critical
ethnography
entails synthesising the subjective
testimony
of informants with a broader historical
and
structural analysis. But this synthesis of the
insights
that traditional ethnography provides into
the
subjective experience of everyday life, with
the
historical and structural insights offered by
social
critique, is by no means easy to maintain.
Not
least because it entails combining two quite
separate
and possibly incompatible formulations
of
validity. The possibility always remains that
the
analysis will slide into either a top-down
deductive
approach in which a pre-existing
theory
is simply legitimated by the selective and
biased
use of ethnographic data, or else into a
superficial
and particularistic account of the
views
of respondents. Giving explanatory
primacy
to the testimony of informants would
appear
to undermine the validity of social
critique
by contravening the injunction to always
look
beneath the surface of everyday
appearances;
whilst a broader historical and
structural
analysis might contradict the
traditional
ethnographer's claim that valid
research
does not impose a priori theoretical
constructs.
The
solution to this dilemma lies in ensuring that
the
analysis is informed by both strands of
inquiry,
for example, that issues emerging from
participant
observation or ethnographic data can
be
placed in an historical and structural context,
and
that problems identified in the academic
literature
can influence the direction of the
ethnographic
study. As such, critical
ethnography
entails a constant inter-weaving of
inductive
and deductive logic. The researcher
does
not set out to test a pre-conceived
hypothesis,
nor is an entirely open-ended
approach
adopted, instead the researcher begins
by
observing the field of study, both as a
participant
observer and as a reviewer of
academic
literature. From the synthesis of these
sources
a research agenda emerges that can be
pursued,
again, by a mixture of observation and
theoretical
work.
The
key to managing this unstable dialectical
relationship
between ethnographic observation
and
social critique is to re-conceptualise validity
in
terms of reflexive practice. Reflexivity refers
to
the researcher's conscious self-understanding
of
the research process (Hammersley &
Atkinson,
1983), or more specifically, to a
sceptical
approach to the testimony of
respondents
(i.e., Are they telling me what I
want
to hear?), and to the development of
theoretical
schema (i.e., Am I seeing what I
want
to see?). The purpose of reflexivity is not
to
produce an objective or value-free account of
the
phenomenon, because qualitative research
of
this kind does not yield standardised results,
as
Janet Ward-Schofield has suggested:
...at the heart of the qualitative
approach is the assumption that a
piece of qualitative research is
very much influenced by the
researcher's individual attributes
and perspectives. The goal is not
to produce a standardised set of
results that any other careful
researcher in the same situation or
studying the same issues would
have produced. Rather it is to
produce a coherent and
illuminating description of and
perspective on a situation that is
based on and consistent with
detailed study of the situation.
(Ward-Schofield, 1993, p. 202)
Thus,
reflexivity is not primarily a means of
demonstrating
the validity of research to an
audience,
but rather a personal strategy by
which
the researcher can manage the analytical
oscillation
between observation and theory in a
way
which is valid to him or herself. Of course,
this
will be anathema to the positivist. But is it
really
so different to the process of establishing
validity
in quantitative research? Random
sampling
and statistical testing may appear to
make
the assessment of validity transparent to a
third
party, but such techniques are not immune
to
manipulation by an unscrupulous researcher.
In
fact, the validity of particular research
findings,
be they qualitative or quantitative,
ultimately
depends upon trust in the researchers
integrity,
at least until the research is replicated.
Validity
therefore refers to the techniques
employed
by the researcher to indulge a
Socratic
distaste for self-deception, and in
critical
ethnography this is achieved by
reflexivity.
This
reflexive management of the research
process
in the pursuit of validity applies to each
stage
of the research process, from establishing
relations
in the field to writing up the
conclusions.
Rather than presenting a taxonomy
of
qualitative techniques, participant observation
and
in-depth interviewing are presented as the
main
exemplars of the ethnographic approach.
Selecting
and gaining access to a site
Choosing
an appropriate site to study, and
forging
a relationship with its participant
members,
is a key issue for all ethnographic
studies.
Ward-Schofield (1993) has explored the
consequences
of site selection for validity and
generalisability,
and suggests that both can be
maximised
either by selecting a 'typical' site or
else
conducting a multi-site study. However,
there
are problems with either option; first, how
can
one identify what constitutes a typical site
without
conducting at least a basic
reconnaissance
of all potential sites? Secondly,
given
that most qualitative studies are conducted
by
single researchers or small teams, is it viable
to
study multiple sites to the depth required by
qualitative
analysis?
Other
commentators set less rigorous standards
for
site selection, for example, Jorgensen (1989)
refers
to a number of qualitative studies derived
from
everyday life experiences, where the
researcher
literally found him or herself in a
fortuitous
location to study a phenomenon.
There
is more to recommend Jorgensen's
argument
than the dictates of pragmatism;
rather
it constitutes a refusal to be bound by
quantitative
criteria of reliability, particularly the
claim
that the informants in a qualitative study
should
be representative of a broader
population.
Clearly, if the need to identify a
representative
site is accepted, then qualitative
research
must always appear to be the poor
relation
of quantitative methods where random
sampling
can be applied. By contrast the
ethnographer
is more concerned with the
validity
of the data she or he collects, that is,
with
whether or not the data express the
considered
and authentic views of the informant,
with
minimal interference or distortion by the
research
process. It is this criteria of validity
(i.e.,
the potential to access the authentic views
of
the informants) that guides the ethnographer's
selection
of a site, rather than the largely
unattainable
goal of representativeness. Again
this
process needs to be reflexively managed
according
to the specific context, potential
considerations
include: ease of access to the
informants,
whether data can be adequately
recorded
(either by field notes or tape-recorder),
and
crucially, whether there are any
characteristics
of the site that might adversely
influence
an informant's testimony, for example,
the
close proximity of his/her employer or
spouse.
As the context for qualitative research
is
infinitely variable the characteristics of an
ideal
site cannot be prescribed in advance;
hence
the need for reflexive management by the
researcher.
Front-end
management
Having
chosen a site, the researcher must
establish
contact with the informants. Again the
character
of this relationship varies, for
example,
from the relatively brief contact of a
single
in-depth interview, to participant
observation
which might entail a close
relationship
between researcher and informants
lasting
several weeks or months. Again,
quantitative
criteria of validity cannot be
imposed
on this aspect of qualitative research.
Although
the ethnographer must take care not to
influence
the informants in ways which might
distort
their behaviour or testimony, the
necessity
of establishing a rapport in order to
gain
access to what might be sensitive or closely
guarded
information means that the degree of
detachment
associated with quantitative
research
may not be viable or desirable. Instead,
close
proximity to the phenomenon being studied
can
be viewed as an advantage, for example,
some
feminist writers (Stanley, 1990) have gone
so
far as suggesting that personal experience
can
be a vital source of inside information to be
tapped
as part of the research process. Nigel
Fielding
has also suggested that there may be
advantages
as well as disadvantages:
One is participating in order to get
detailed data, not to provide the
group with a new member. One
must maintain a certain
detachment in order to take that
data and interpret it [sic]). But it is
also important to note that another
problem is much less remarked in
the literature, though it may be
more common. This is the problem
of 'not getting close enough', of
adopting an approach which is too
superficial and which merely
provides a veneer of plausibility
for an analysis to which the
researcher is obviously committed.
(Fielding, 1993, p. 158)
Managing
the relationship with informants, or
'front
end management', is an important aspect
of
the validity of any qualitative study, but again
it
cannot be prescribed as a specific procedure,
and
its adequacy or effectiveness is unlikely to
be
immediately transparent to a third party.
Whilst
a conscious and reflexive attempt to
establish
valid relations in the field can be
reported
by the researcher, and may go some
way
to reassuring reviewers and readers, any
post-festum
assessment of the validity of this
process
is ultimately dependent upon trust.
Data
collection
Qualitative
researchers have a number of
techniques
at their disposal for data collection,
including
non-participant and participant
observation,
focus groups, and in-depth
interviewing.
Each of these techniques raises
particular
concerns about validity, for example,
participant
observers may have difficulty in
taking
adequate field notes. However, there are
techniques
for overcoming such difficulties, and
as
with site selection and front-end management
the
greater problem resides in demonstrating
validity
rather than achieving it.
As
noted above, a more fundamental difficulty
arises
in reconciling the 'bottom-up' approach of
qualitative
research with the structural and
historical
perspective adopted in critical social
inquiry.
For example, for many ethnographers
the
in-depth interview should be entirely open
ended,
with at most a series of topics to be
discussed,
but certainly no pre-conceived
questions,
as this would entail the researcher
imposing
his/her own definition of the situation
rather
than enabling the respondents to structure
the
research. Thus, Sue Jones suggests that
pre-conceived
interview schedules are
unacceptable
because:
...the interviewers have already
predicted, in detail, what is
relevant and meaningful to their
respondents about the research
topic; and in doing this they have
significantly prestructured the
direction of enquiry within their
own frame of reference in ways
that give little time and space for
their respondents to elaborate their
own. (Jones, 1985, p. 46)
Whilst
this may be a valid approach for
traditional
ethnography, or where the interview
is
the researcher's first contact with the
respondent,
critical ethnography may entail a
much
more focused approach to interviewing, in
which
questions are asked about specific issues
derived
from the broader social critique. This is
particularly
the case where extensive participant
observation
has already revealed issues to be
examined
in greater depth in the interviews.
Whilst
critical ethnographers are keen not to ask
leading
questions and to enable informants to
express
their views fully, the research agenda
and
scope of the study are not primarily
determined
by the informants. Rather, a
dialectical
approach is adopted, allowing the
researcher
to oscillate between the world view
of
the informant, (e.g., by departing from the
interview
schedule to pursue an interesting line
of
inquiry), and the insights offered by the
historical
and structural analysis, which may
enable
the constructs and categories employed
by
the informant to be actively deconstructed
during
the course of the interview.
The
validity of this tendency to structure the
research
agenda according to themes raised by
social
critique is more likely to be questioned by
traditional
ethnographers than by quantitative
researchers
who are more or less obliged to
commence
data collection with a pre-conceived
agenda.
For the critical ethnographer validity
depends
upon getting beneath the surface
appearances
of everyday life to reveal the
extent
to which they are constituted by ideology
or
discourse. Thus, rather than commencing the
process
of data collection with an 'empty head'
the
critical ethnographer is pre-armed with
insights
gleaned from social critique.
Data
analysis
Nigel
Fielding (1993, p. 163) has summarised a
common
approach to ethnographic data analysis
in
the following model:
Fieldnotes
Transcripts
Search for
categories
and
patterns
(themes)
Mark
up
or
cut
up
the
data
Construct
outline
(re-sequence)
Harvey
(1990) refers to the same process as
'pile-building',
in which the ethnographic data are
first
read 'vertically', usually in chronological
order,
to identify common themes and relations
which
are then coded. The data are then literally
cut
up and re-ordered into 'piles' that reflect the
key
themes. Specialist software is available to
facilitate
this process, but the 'cut and paste'
utility
of a word-processor is likely to be
adequate.
The re-ordered data are then re-read,
enabling
a sequential argument to be
constructed,
and illustrative quotations from the
transcripts
to be selected.
Harvey
also suggests that critical ethnography
differs
from traditional forms of qualitative data
analysis,
by bringing the broader critique of
social
relations to bear on the structuring of
analytical
themes. Hence the final analysis is not
derived
exclusively from the ethnographic data
but
from an oscillation between that and the
social
critique. As Sue Jones has noted, this
inevitably
entails going beyond the concepts and
understandings
of the respondents:
I know I cannot empathise with
the research participants
completely. I also know that I am
likely at some points to set my
understanding of their 'concrete'
concepts - those which they use to
organise, interpret, and construct
their own world - within my own
and/or an audience's concepts and
frameworks that are different
from theirs. When I do this,
however, I try to be clear that I
am doing this and why, and to
ensure that this 'second level' of
meaning retains some link with the
constructions of the research
participants. (Jones, 1985, pp.
56-57)
The
identification of themes and the selection of
quotations
to illustrate them also raises a
fundamental
issue about the validity of
qualitative
research; as David Silverman has
noted:
The various forms of ethnography,
through which attempts are made
to describe social processes, share
a single defect. The critical reader
is forced to ponder whether the
researcher has selected only those
fragments of data which support
his argument. (Silverman, 1985, p.
140)
Silverman's
preferred solution to this dilemma is
to
introduce simple counting procedures into the
analysis,
for example to identify how many
people
referred to a specific theme. But this
begs
the question of how many people must
refer
to a theme before it is deemed significant;
moreover
with a small quantitative study it is
unlikely
that a view shared by a majority of
respondents
could be claimed as representative
of
the views of a broader population. In fact, the
application
of quantitative criteria of validity to
qualitative
data is inappropriate. The rationale
for
conducting in-depth interviews is that people
involved
in a phenomenon may have insights
that
would not otherwise be available to the
researcher,
and it is the quality of the insight that
is
important, rather than the number of
respondents
that share it. This is what
Hammersley
meant (in the above quotation)
when
he suggested that ethnographic data
should
be treated in the same manner as social
scientific
accounts - when we quote the work of
a
particular social scientist we do so because of
its
explanatory power, not because it represents
a
commonly held view, and the same logic
applies
to qualitative data.
Mays
and Pope (1995) have addressed the
validity
issue by recommending that qualitative
researchers
pass their ethnographic data to
independent
researchers to see if they arrive at
the
same analysis. But again this is
unsatisfactory.
How are we to select an
alternative
researcher, and how many should we
consult
before we can conclude that the analysis
is
valid? Again the mistake lies in applying
quantitative
criteria of validity to qualitative data.
Whilst
two statisticians applying the same test of
statistical
significance to the same quantitative
data-set
might stand a good chance of arriving
at
the same result, it is extremely unlikely that
two
ethnographers would produce the same
reading
of a case study, for the same reasons
that
a group of students reading the same text
books
would be unlikely to produce the same
essay.
As
noted above, the researcher can influence
the
validity of an ethnographic analysis by
adopting
a reflexive perspective on his or her
work,
the problem resides in demonstrating this
validity
to the reader. Whilst the quantitative
researcher
may have more convincing ways of
demonstrating
validity, such as, random sampling
and
statistical inference, even here there
remains
the need for the reader to trust in the
integrity
of the researcher not to knowingly
engage
in deception, and this is doubly true of
qualitative
research. Beyond this, the qualitative
ethnographer
can strive to demonstrate the
validity
of the analysis by providing a 'thick'
description
of the case study, and including
sufficient
ethnographic data for an alternative
reading
to be constructed.
Writing-up
In
many accounts of the research process
'writing
up' receives little attention, or else it is
treated
as an independent activity from data
analysis.
Hammersley and Atkinson (1983)
however,
claim that writing-up is inevitably a
part
of the analytical process, suggesting that
the
structure of the report influences the type of
analysis,
or at least the way it is understood by
the
reader. They identify four types of report:
the
'natural history' (in which the report reflects
the
different stages of the research process as
they
progressed over time), the 'chronology'
(also
temporally organised, but reflecting the
development
or 'career' of the phenomenon
being
studied, rather than the research process),
'narrowing
and expanding the focus' (in which
the
analysis moves backwards and forwards
between
specific observation and consideration
of
broader structural issues), and 'separating
narration
and analysis' (in which the
ethnographic
data are presented first before
theoretical
issues are addressed).
The
'natural history' approach is a very common
format,
particularly for presenting quantitative
findings,
but it does not fit well with qualitative
research.
In fact it can lead to a form of
dishonesty,
giving the impression that that the
research
followed a tight structure of
background
reading, hypothesis construction,
research
design, data collection and analysis,
and
discussion of results. The qualitative
research
process is less well ordered.
Background
reading is essential, but which texts
are
relevant, and therefore, worth including in a
report
or publication, only becomes apparent
towards
the end of the research process, and
the
literature review should continue throughout
the
project as the ethnography raises new
themes
for analysis. Similarly, as the above
discussion
demonstrates, the sequence of
hypothesis
- data collection - analysis, is not
clear
cut or linear, but an ongoing and dialectical
process.
The
other three formats for writing-up are more
relevant,
but should be seen as different aspects
of
the process, rather than discrete types. Whilst
the
organisation of a report or publication cannot
in
itself confer validity, it can make the research
process
more transparent to the reader and
allow
validity to be more clearly assessed. It is
important
to use the report format to illustrate
the
oscillation between micro and macro
analysis
that comes from combining the
methodologies
of ethnography and critical social
research;
looking in detail at the informants'
testimony,
but broadening this out to a
consideration
of structural and historical issues.
Generalisability
An
important question to ask at the end of this
discussion
of methodology is the extent to which
the
methods employed in critical ethnography
enable
research findings to be generalised to
other
situations. In a quantitative study
generalisability
is largely determined by random
sampling
and statistical inference, obviously
such
techniques are not usually relevant to
qualitative
research, making generalisation more
of
a problem. In many respects, the way in
which
generalisation is conceptualised in
quantitative
studies is alien to both ethnography
and
critical social research. For the
ethnographer
what matters most is gaining an
in-depth
understanding of the attitudes, beliefs
and
behaviour of the people s/he studies; the
assumption
is that this worldview will be context
specific,
and that generalisation to others will
therefore
be extremely limited. Similarly, critical
social
research starts from the assumption that
society
is in a constant state of flux, that the
social
world and our understanding of it are
constantly
changing, again limiting the value of
generalisation.
However,
although ethnography and critical
research
may question positivist/quantitative
assumptions
about generalisability, both
approaches
aim to produce findings that have
relevance
beyond the immediate context of the
study.
Whilst the production of laws of
behaviour
is eschewed, there remains an often
almost
hidden claim that the behaviour found in
the
study will shed some light on the behaviour
of
others, even if this explanatory range is
limited
in time and space. As Janet
Ward-Schofield
(1993) has suggested this claim
entails
a re-conceptualisation of generalisability
in
terms appropriate to qualitative research. She
prefers
the terms 'fittingness', 'comparability', or
'translatability',
reflecting the process of detailed
description
of the content and context of a
study,
so that it can be generalised to examples
that
match it closely.
The
use of 'thick description' to boost the
generalisability
of a qualitative study, is
important,
but generalisability depends not just
upon
detailed description of a phenomenon, but
on
revealing the social relations that underpin it.
For
instance, a qualitative study might reveal
that
'patient empowerment' is an expression of a
specific
set of relations between the state,
healthcare
professionals and their clients, indeed
that
these relations are the condition of
existence
for patient empowerment.
It
might also be concluded that these relations
limit
the emancipatory potential of patient
empowerment,
and that this limitation will apply
wherever
those conditions prevail. To move
beyond
those conditions would be to move
beyond
something that was recognisable as
patient
empowerment.
Conceptualising
a phenomenon in terms of its
conditions
of existence and the social relations
that
characterise it, is a sounder basis for
generalisation
than the simple description of
immediate
appearances. For example, the
number
of people involved in a patient
empowerment
initiative might change, as might
the
designation of the healthcare professionals,
the
geographical location, even its claimed aims
and
objectives, but whilst the conditions of
existence
and social relations that characterise
the
phenomenon remain constant, then the
conclusion
that its emancipatory potential is
extremely
limited would remain valid. By the
same
token, a patient empowerment initiative
might
retain its outward appearance, in terms of
the
people participating, its geographical
location,
et cetera, but be transformed into a
completely
different phenomenon (with a
different
degree of emancipatory potential), if
change
occurred in the social relations that
underpinned
it. In either instance, defining the
phenomenon
in terms of social relations reveals
whether
or not generalisation is valid.
Conclusions
Over
the last decade qualitative research has
gained
a new respectability in the sociology of
health,
even in the more conservative
sub-discipline
of medical sociology. But
legitimacy
has been bought at the cost of
embracing
positivist criteria of reliability and
validity.
This compromise has effectively burned
the
bridge between ethnographic techniques of
data
collection and their origins in
phenomenological
thought. One important
consequence
of transforming qualitative
research
into another weapon in the positivist
arsenal
has been to rob the approach of its
critical
potential. Rather than being a means by
which
researchers and informants can jointly
travel
from the experiential reality of everyday
life
towards a critical understanding of discourse
formation
and the exercise of power, qualitative
research
is rapidly becoming a mechanism of
surveillance;
an instrument for measuring
subordination
to discourse instead of a means of
countering
it.
This
transformation is legitimated by the bogus
belief
that positivist criteria of validity confer a
degree
of authenticity upon research findings
that
is immediately transparent to a third party.
However,
even the powerful tests of validity
which
are available to the quantitative
researcher,
such as random sampling or
statistical
inference, are not immune to
manipulation
by disreputable researchers.
Rather
than a clearly discernible hallmark of
authenticity,
the techniques employed in the
pursuit
of validity comprise a means by which
the
researcher can minimise the risk of
self-deception.
Whilst these techniques can be
reported,
their acceptance by a third party must
ultimately
entail a degree of trust in the diligence
and
integrity of the researcher. This does not
mean
that all research findings should be blindly
accepted
at face value; the onus is always on
the
researcher to persuade his or her audience
that
the research findings are valid. The
appropriate
perspective for the reader of
research
should be, to borrow from Antonio
Gramsci,
'pessimism of the intellect, optimism
of
the will', and this applies equally to
quantitative
and qualitative research.
The
importation of positivist criteria of validity
into
the qualitative research process is not only
unjustified
on the grounds of scientificity, it is
also
grossly inappropriate for the type of
knowledge
produced by such a perspective. The
aim
of the qualitative researcher is not to
produce
a representative and unbiased
measurement
of the views of a population, but
to
deepen his or her understanding of a social
phenomenon
by conducting an in-depth and
sensitive
analysis of the articulated
consciousness
of actors involved in that
phenomenon.
Interview transcripts and field
notes
are read by the ethnographer, for the
same
purpose that academic texts are also
considered,
that is, in the hope of finding fresh
insights
and new ways of understanding a
particular
phenomenon. Positivist criteria of
validity
are quite inappropriate to this process,
their
imposition reduces ethnography to the
status
of a 'poor relation' of quantitative
research
- a means of gathering sensitive
information,
but ultimately less valid.
I
have argued in this paper for a
re-conceptualisation
of rigour and validity in
qualitative
research, based on a rejection of
positivist
criteria, in favour of the insights
offered
by social critique. From this perspective
validity
can be re-couched in terms of
reflexively
managing the relationship between
the
testimony of informants and a broader
process
of structural and historical analysis. This
is
an uneasy and in some senses contradictory
combination
that requires careful management
at
each stage of the research process.
However,
it does provide an opportunity to get
beneath
the surface of everyday appearances,
to
produce theoretically informed accounts of
social
phenomena that are grounded in people's
experience
of everyday life, but which take a
critical
approach to the categories and forms
through
which everyday life is experienced.
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Author Note
+David
Wainwright, Ph.D. is a Research
Fellow
at the Centre for Health Services
Studies,
University of Kent at Canterbury. Prior
to
this he worked for a London health authority.
He
received his B.A. in Sociology from Kent
University
in 1988, followed by an M.Sc. in
Social
Policy & Planning at the London School
of
Economics, and a Ph.D. in Sociology also
from
the University of Kent. Dr. Wainwright is
currently
conducting research into the health
consequences
of job insecurity. Other interests
include:
the medicalisation of social problems,
the
politics of health promotion, and the
construction
of professional self-identity. Recent
publications
include: 'The Political
Transformation
of the Health Inequalities
Debate,
Critical Social Policy, 16(4), 67-82
(1996),
and 'The Best of Both Worlds', The
Health
Service Journal, 106(5487), 30-31,
(1996).
His email address is
D.M.Wainwright@ukc.ac.uk.
Article Citation
Wainwright, D. (1997, July). Can
sociological
research be qualitative, critical and
valid?
[69 paragraphs]. The Qualitative Report
[On-line
serial], 3(2). Available:
http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR3-2/wain.html
David
Wainwright
June
2, 1997 copyright
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