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COORDINATION OF QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE RESEARCH: POSSIBLE? USEFUL?

COORDINATION OF QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE RESEARCH: POSSIBLE? USEFUL?. Devorah Kalekin-Fishman University of Haifa Faculty Seminar Series on Research Methods: Tuesday, 21 March 2006. PUBLICATION POSSIBILITIES. ANTHROPOLOGICAL QUARTERLY – AND ALL ANTHROPOLOGICAL JOURNALS

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COORDINATION OF QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE RESEARCH: POSSIBLE? USEFUL?

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  1. COORDINATION OF QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE RESEARCH: POSSIBLE? USEFUL? Devorah Kalekin-Fishman University of Haifa Faculty Seminar Series on Research Methods:Tuesday, 21 March 2006

  2. PUBLICATION POSSIBILITIES • ANTHROPOLOGICAL QUARTERLY – AND ALL ANTHROPOLOGICAL JOURNALS • INTERCULTURAL EDUCATION • JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTIVIST PSYCHOLOGY • QUALITATIVE INQUIRY • QUALITATIVE SOCIOLOGY • QUALITATIVE STUDIES IN EDUCATION • QUALITATIVE STUDIES IN HEALTH • STUDIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION (see handout)

  3. PRINCIPLES GOVERNING Qualitative Research - 1 • Reality has no intrinsic meaning except through dialogue and discourse by means of which: * people make sense of their world * researchers make sense of the actions, situations, they study * findings are constructed and conveyed

  4. PRINCIPLES GOVERNING Qualitative Research - 2 • OBJECTIVITY IS ACTUALLY INTER-SUBJECTIVITY To ensure it: • Explicitness – research design, analytic strategy • Credibility – description believable • Verifiability – checking that (verbal) description corresponds adequately to that of participants / other observers • Plausibility – findings concur with / evoke human experience

  5. PRINCIPLES GOVERNING Qualitative Research - 3 • Revised meanings of: VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY Validity: Design appropriate to question? Reliability and Replicability to ensure that similar things will appear upon replication, one collects as wide a variety of data as possible

  6. TRIANGULATION • Look at whole • Look at process • Talk to people on site • Talk to people elsewhere about the site • Examine documents created there • Examine documents about the site

  7. CONTRAST:QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH: VISION OF REALITY • ‘Out there’ but can be manipulated ‘at will’ • Connection with language arbitrary

  8. QUANTITATIVE RESEARCHPresuppositions • LIFE CAN BE DIVIDED INTO COMPONENT ELEMENTS • ELEMENTS CAN BE REPRESENTED IN MATHEMATICAL TERMS • ELEMENTS ARE CONNECTED IN SOME ORDER, SYSTEM

  9. VISION OF SCIENCE • NEUTRAL • THEORIES == LAWS OF NATURE • DEDUCTION CAN LEAD TO UNDENIABLE TRUTH

  10. FORM OF KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION COMPLEX OF ABSTRACT IDEAS, HIERARCHICAL ORGANIZATION, NORMS THAT IMPOSE THE NEWTONIAN MODEL ON THE SOCIAL / HUMAN SCIENCES THAT IS THE MODEL OF “ESTABLISHED SCIENTIFIC (FORMAL) PRACTICE”

  11. THUS, SCIENTISTS ARE • OBJECTIVE • OPEN-MINDED • KNOWLEDGEABLE • COMMITTED TO APPLICATION OF THEORY • ABLE TO HYPOTHESIZE (ACCURATELY) RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN ELEMENTS • HONEST IN DRAWING ONLY THE LOGICALLY IMPLIED CONCLUSIONS

  12. BUT SCIENTISTS • ARE OFTEN MOVED BY SELF-INTEREST • SOMETIMES CLOSED-MINDED • DON’T ALWAYS KNOW WHAT THEY PURPORT TO KNOW • ARE NOT ALWAYS HONEST

  13. GOALS of QUALITATIVE RESEARCH CAPTURE FLAVOR OF EVENTS PRODUCE DESCRIPTION AS THICK AS POSSIBLE PLUMB SIGNIFICANCE OF WHAT IS HAPPENING

  14. RESEARCH REFLECTS LIFE • To get a wide variety of data, look for diverse counterintuitive examples, extreme cases • Embrace threats to internal validity as part of the study and as opportunities: selection, history, maturation, repeated testing, instrumentation, regression to the mean, experimental mortality, experimenter bias and interactions among these.

  15. What Is This About? • Looking at configurations of situations, structures, relationships as wholes • Focusing on finding pertinent - and impertinent questions

  16. ELEMENTS OF RESEARCH PROCESS • Wonder • Focusing • Design • Uncovering meanings • Organizing findings

  17. WONDER • LOOKING AT THE FAMILIAR • FINDING IT STRANGE / TROUBLING • ASKING ‘WHAT IS THIS?’

  18. FOCUSING • WHAT MAKES THIS FAMILIAR? • AS A PARTICIPANT IN THE FAMILIAR WHAT IS / WOULD BE IMPORTANT TO ME? • AND IF I WERE FROM ANOTHER PLACE? OUTER SPACE? • WHAT WOULD MAKE THIS STRANGE?

  19. Position of the Researcher • Troubled citizen • Ignoramus • Constantly uncertain

  20. Collecting Material • Talking • Looking • Tasting • Smelling • Touching

  21. METHODS • Talking to people: Interviews • Looking at people: • Examining what people look like • Noting how people behave • Collecting documents and artifacts - what people have written, drawn, photographed

  22. TALKING: THE INTERVIEW • FORM: structured, semi-structured, unstructured • CONTENT: life-story, significant events, selected problem(s) • LENGTH: highly variable, depending on the topic and form – half an hour to a series of encounters (interview in installments)

  23. ZOOMING IN ON BIOGRAPHICAL INTERVIEWING Initially: “TELL ME THE STORY OF YOUR LIFE …” Listen with no interruptions Narrative pointed questions about topics raised only Using only words the interviewee used in the order used. [Wengraf, (2001) Qualitative Research Interviewing. London: Sage]

  24. LOOKING: DOING OBSERVATIONS • FORM • - prepared categories • - evolving categories • - verbal stream - ethnography • CONTENT – EVOLVING • LENGTH - measured in hours over months

  25. COLLECTING DOCUMENTATION DOING ARCHEOLOGY OF THE CONTEMPORARY • EVERYTHING PRODUCED ON SITE • WRITING • ARTIFACTS • GRAPHIC ARTS • PHOTOGRAPHY • POSTPONE:READING EVERYTHING WRITTEN ABOUT / PHOTOGRAPHED BY STRANGERS ON / THE SITE

  26. COMPILING A REPORT Basis: • NOTES working diary; impressions • RECORDS of deliberate research acts • FILLING IN BLANKS – intermixing, adding, going back for more

  27. DESCRIPTION OF WHAT HAS BEEN DONE • THE BASIS FOR THE ANALYSIS IS THE RESEARCHER’S STORY • Choices of what to put in and what to leave out: • Language: How to Describe the Site, the People • Objects / subjects focused on • Chronology • Grasp of place, space • Quotations – WORDS OF THE PEOPLE STUDIED

  28. ANALYZING

  29. READING-REREADING-ASKING • HOW DOES A PARTICIPANT SEE ‘THIS’? • HOW WOULD A STRANGER SEE ‘THIS’? • WHAT OTHER POINTS OF VIEW ARE POSSIBLE? • WHAT EXISTENTIAL (POLITICAL / ECONOMIC / SOCIAL) POINT OF VIEW DO I BRING TO ‘THIS’? • WHAT THEORETICAL POINT OF VIEW DO I BRING TO ‘THIS’?

  30. TEAMWORK IN THE SPIRIT OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH NON-HIERARCHICAL GROUPS HETEROGENEOUS AND TRANSITORY ORGANIZATIONAL FORMS. MEANING: • No preference to university institutionalization. • Close interaction of many actors. • Utilizes an ample range of criteria to apply quality controls. CONSEQUENCES • Production of knowledge socially accountable. • What counts as “good science” becomes more flexible. (Gibbons et al. : 3-8). • I

  31. FATHOMING INTERVIEWS(from Tom Wengraf) • GROUP READING • FOLLOWING TURNING POINT TO TURNING POINT (as brought up by interviewee) AND DISCUSSING WHAT COULD THEN HAPPEN • COMPARING LIFE AS LIVED TO LIFE AS TOLD

  32. EXAMPLE of STRUCTURED ANALYSIS: GROUNDED THEORY • RECORD • CODE • COLLATE CODES • COMBINE CODES • FIGURE OUT STRUCTURES

  33. CODING • Examine text produced (protocol of interview, protocols of observations) • Summarize line / sentence / paragraph in expressions that sum up what you think is the underlying intention

  34. COLLATING and COMBINING • LIKE TO LIKE: HIERARCHICALLY, IN CONCATENATION • LOCATING PATTERNS • DEFINING STRUCTURE, SUGGESTING AN ANALOGY • FORMULATING THE THEORY HELD BY PEOPLE YOU HAVE LOOKED AT

  35. OUTCOMES • QUESTIONS HAVE TO BE CHECKED AGAIN • TYPOLOGY (OR) IDEAL TYPE • Can be applied to ‘similar’ phenomena as a point of departure • GIVEN THE TYPOLOGY – WHAT NEW QUESTIONS ARISE (or) WHERE CAN IT BE APPLIED? • POSSIBILITY: HYPOTHESES SUITABLE FOR QUANTITATIVE STUDY SUGGESTED, I.E., HYPOTHESES ABOUT SOME SINGLE ASPECT OF THE PHENOMENA THAT HAVE BEEN EXPLORED

  36. EXAMPLES (1) • CITIZENSHIP • LAWS CANNOT BE SUMMED UP IN NUMBERS • MEANING TO PEOPLE WHO HAVE AND DO NOT HAVE CITIZENSHIP

  37. Examples (2) • SOUND EVENTS IN A KINDERGARTEN REAL-LIFE SOUNDS ARE ‘DIRTY’ BUT THEY CAN BE MARKED AND PROFILED: loud / soft 2/1 high/ low 2/1 fast / slow 2/1 thin / thick 2/1 NOTE: NUMBERS CANNOT SHOW IF THE COMBO IS NOISE // FUN // PLAY // WORK // (UN)FRIENDLY

  38. EXAMPLES (3) QUANTITATIVE STUDY FIRST --- QUALITATIVE STUDY NEEDED WHY SOME PUPILS SUCCEED IN MATRICULATION AND SOME DON’T: • Income in community • Education “ • Division of Labor “ • (Shlomo Swirski, “Advah”) but not all pupils in a given community and not always SO THE QUANTITATIVE STUDY IS JUST THE BEGINNING. THE IMPORTANT QUESTION IS: • WHAT meanings do these factors have to different people? What MAKES THE DIFFERENCE?

  39. Examples (4)Comparative Political Science Similar electoral systems may have different consequences in different political settings. [Election of president in Portugal and in Africa] Multiparty elections do not mean the same thing in every state. Ethnicity does not mean the same thing in every state THEREFORE EACH CASE HAS TO BE EXAMINED IN THE CONTEXT OF THE MEANINGS THAT PREVAIL IN THE SPECIFIC SOCIETY

  40. POSSIBLE GAINS • Qualitative Research • Solution to a focused question, problem • Grasp of meanings – understanding of the world around us • Characterization of a phenomenon as lived

  41. POSSIBLE GAINS • Quantitative Research • General ‘laws’ • Clear pictures of specified relationships • (Dis)Confirmation of a hypothesis about some elements that were cut out of the stream of life

  42. Can They Go Together? • Yes, if we mean under the umbrella of good science: but not at the same time NOT WITH THE SAME ORIENTATION TO REALITY NOT IN THE SAME WAY and not for the same type of outcome

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