WThe desire to understand the lived experiences of people and the ways in which they make sense of their everyday lives rests at the core of qualitative research (Merriam, 2009). Unlike research studies in which settings are controlled, such as laboratory experiments, qualitative research typically occurs within natural, real-life environments such as schools, neighborhoods, and businesses. Researchers working with qualitative methods conduct naturalistic inquiry, examining real-world settings with an inductive mindset. In today’s post, I will discuss the key ideas behind qualitative research methodologies.
Quantitative approaches commonly develop a hypothesis and then collect data to test the hypothesis, while qualitative approaches employ an inductive mindset, allowing data to emerge and shape understanding. From the emergent data, the researcher generates patterns, themes, and categories that offer insight and new knowledge.
These patterns, themes, and categories facilitate stories that illustrate research participants’ diverse perceptions of reality. During the course of the study, the researcher develops a greater understanding of the participants’ lived experiences, such as the experiences of a first year teacher, college student perceptions of campus life, or the relationship between a superintendent and a board of education. Qualitative research begins from the assumption that reality is not objectivebut subjective—constructed by individuals interacting with their social world. This assumption means that qualitative researchers do not generally predict or conjecture but rather seek to understand and richly describe the realities in which their participants live. Patton (1985) emphasizes that qualitative research comes from:
An effort to understand situations in their uniqueness as part of a particular context and the interactions there. This understanding is an end in itself, so that is not attempting to predict what may happen in the future necessarily, but to understand the nature of that setting. (p. 1)
Through qualitative analysis, researchers describe what is happening in the setting under examination. How are people experiencing what is happening? How do they understand their circumstances? How do they interact with others? Qualitatively oriented questions might examine “how” or “why,” such as howa nontraditional student accesses information about college policies. Questions might also focus on “why” like whya school adopted a new schedule. Qualitative researchers analyze and share participants’ subjective experiences and describe in great detail the setting in order to increase the reader’s understanding of the situation or context. In its focus on setting, qualitative research represents “a situated activity that locates the observer in the world. It consists of a set of interpretive, material practices that makes the world visible… This means that qualitative researchers study things in their natural setting” (Denzin & Lincoln, 2008, p. 4).
As you may discern from these descriptions, qualitative research is an umbrella term for a variety of approaches to studying human behavior and meaning-making within specific contexts. The qualitative researcher serves as the instrument for data collection, making the process fundamentally social and human. This reality inevitably means that no universal approach to conducting qualitative research exists. While quantitative research focuses almost exclusively on numerical data, qualitative research encompasses a wide array of data. For this reason, many students initially express concern or confusion about the nature of qualitative data. What is it? Where does it come from?Simply put, words (interview transcripts, published writing, fliers and marketing materials, etc.), pictures, videos, and other typically non-numeric information comprise qualitative data. Qualitative data commonly represent information that may not be quantifiable, such social interactions, experiences, and perceptions.
Although students often place the qualitative and quantitative research approaches at opposite ends of a methodological continuum (and situate mixed-methods research in the middle), qualitative research is not inherently the opposite of quantitative work. Instead, each approach “presents a different view of the phenomenon studied and uses different means to persuade the reader of the validity of the conclusions drawn” (Firestone, 1987, p. 16). Assumptions about the world, the research purpose, the research approach, and the researcher’s role are key differences between qualitative and quantitative methods. The uniqueness of qualitative data extends beyond its non-numerical nature. Qualitative and quantitative data ultimately serve different, yet mutually reinforcing, purposes (Merriam, 2009).
Paradigms, or the basic beliefs and worldview that guide the researcher, constitute the theoretical underpinnings of qualitative research (Guba & Lincoln, 1994). Corbin and Strauss (2008) further explain a paradigm as “a perspective, a set of questions that can be applied to data to help the analyst draw out the contextual factors and identify relationships between context and process” (p. 89). Interpreting qualitative research means understanding that researchers operate within paradigmatic norms, which are typically defined through the lens of naturalism or social construction. Naturalism suggests that social life is best understood in the natural environment, while social construction concludes that the nature of knowledge and reality originates through human interaction. Scholars often group these two paradigms together as interpretive.
Researchers who adhere to principles of naturalism focus on social life in the setting where it occurs. Their studies are highly descriptive as a way to understand the setting, and have limited to no generalizability. The researcher plays a critical role. Bloor and Wood (2006) conclude, “The researcher is no neutral observer but is his or her own research instrument, seeking empathetic appreciation of a culture through the experience of co-participation” (p. 124). The related paradigm of social construction assumes that repeated, regular interactions establish patterns of meaning in the world and serve to construct reality. Language is the central means by which people make sense of the world and engage in these patterns. As a result, questions of knowledge are paramount: Who has knowledge? Who generates knowledge? What counts as knowledge?
Important assumptions related to the interpretive paradigm, and therefore to the practice of qualitative research, include: 1) that there are multiple, different, and sometimes conflicting realities; 2) that understanding a particular topic must incorporate the time and context of the topic; 3) that knowledge cannot be separated from the person holding or generating the knowledge; and 4) that the act of research can never be fully objective (Guba & Lincoln, 1994). These assumptions remind researchers about issues such as conditions (the why-where-how and what questions related to the topic), interactions or emotions (how people felt about these situations), and consequences (what happened as a result) (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). Making the case for pursuing qualitative research for your dissertation requires demonstrating how the research question and proposed methods best align with the interpretive paradigm and these assumptions.
This post is an excerpt from my book, The Qualitative Dissertation in Education: A Guide for Integrating Research and Practice.
