Components of the Research Process

1. INFO 272. Qualitative Research Methods Components of the Research Process

2. Administrative • My Office Hours • Tuesdays 1:30 to 2:30

3. Outline • The relationship between qualitative and quantitative research • Research processes (differences in sequencing that derive from the inductive approach) • Discussion of Becker’s ‘Epistemology of Qualitative Research’

4. Myths of the Qual/Quant Divide • Renewed relevance for qualitative (inductive) approaches?

5. Myths of the Qual/Quant Divide • No quantification without qualification

6. Myths of the Qual/Quant Divide • No statistical analysis without interpretation

7. Myths of the Qual/Quant Divide • Methodological pluralism? • The timeline approach as a solution? • Another process of refinement, through iteration…

8. The Linear Model 1) theory/model 2) hypothesis 3) operationalization 4) sampling 5) data collection 6) interpretation 7) validation [Flick]

9. The Iterative Model 1) research topic/questions movement back and forth between these phases 2) ‘corpus construction’ 3) data gathering 4) analysis 5) write-up

10. The Iterative Model 1) research topic/questions movement back and forth between these phases 2) ‘corpus construction’ 3) data gathering Field work 4) analysis 4) more analysis Desk work 5) write-up

11. A Double Iteration 1) research topic/questions 2) ‘corpus construction’ 3) data gathering Field work 4) analysis 4) more analysis Desk work 5) write-up

12. 1) research topic/questions • academic setting: contextualized within the major debates in your discipline • ‘the boy with the hammer’ (law of instrument) = there should be a match between research questions and methods used to answer those questions • (does not mean that questions always precede choice of method, nor does it mean that you will not tend to favor certain methods)

13. 2) ‘corpus construction’ • recruiting people for interviews • selecting texts or images • fieldsite selection • Why not ‘sampling?’ • how to start, where to look, when to stop – meaning saturation • but more generally, the search for data richness and visibility of certain cultural processes

14. 3) data gathering • interviews (transcripts) • participant-observation (field notes) • collecting texts/images (from the field) • expediency • technique - how the communicative process between researcher and researched influences the data produced

15. 3) Analysis • Comments in your field notes, emerging themes • Established forms: • Discourse analysis • Rhetorical analysis • Content analysis • Semiotics • Grounded theory

16. 3) Final Report • Writing is committing (an extension of analysis) • Coping with heterogeneous data (tip: start with the most interesting bit) • Closeness to the data

17. A Double Iteration 1) research topic/questions 2) ‘corpus construction’ 3) data gathering Field work 4) analysis 4) more analysis Desk work 5) write-up

18. Qual/Quant Differences, in Summary

19. Conclusions (from the map) • Rigor and Refinement through Iteration • Timeline Approach from Qual to Quant (broad to narrow) is not a simple fix • Genuine and generalized curiosity (open-minded approach) means distributing attention evenly, logging data on everything concievable (see Becker)