Developing Qualitative Methods

Thematic Analysis

• A method for identifying themes and patterns of meaning across a dataset in relation to a research question, possibly the most widely used qualitative method of data analysis
• Inductive TA: aims to generate an analysis from the bottom-up, analysis is not shaped by existing theory (but shaped to some extent by the researcher's standpoint/epistemology etc)
• Theoretical TA: analysis is guided by existing theory and theoretical concepts (again shaped by researcher's standpoint blah blah blah)
• Experiential TA: focuses on the participants' standpoint-how they experience and make sense of the world
• Constructionist TA: Focuses on how topics are constructed and also how accounts construct the world
• TA can be used for most research questions as it isn't tied to any theory/epistemology, but there are more focused methods for certain aims (as shown above)

Evaluation

• Strengths
• Flexibility in terms of theoretical framework/research question/methods of data collection and sample size
• Accessible to researchers with little/no (qualitative) research experience, a great 'starter' qualitative method
• Relatively easy and quick to learn, and to do, compared to other more labour-intensive qualitative analytical methods
• The results of TA can be accessible to an educated wider audience (for this reason, can be appropriate for participatory approaches and is a useful method for applied research)
• Weaknesses
• Is perceived by some qualitative researchers as 'something and nothing', as lacking the substance of other 'branded' and theoretically driven approaches like IPA and GT
• Has limited interpretative power if not used within an existing theoretical framework, in practice analyses often consist simply of (realist) description of participants' concerns
• Lack of concrete guidance for higher level, more interpretative analysis
• Because of the focus on patterns across datasets, it can't provide any sense of the continuity and contradictions within individual accounts, also the 'voices' of individual participants can get lost (especially with larger datasets)
• Can't make claims about the effects of language use (unlike DA, DP or CA)

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

• Focuses on how people make sense of their lived experience, can be used to analyse individual cases or to generate themes across a small group of participants
• Phenomenological because it is concerned with how people make sense of their lived experiences, interpretative because understanding how people make sense of experience is achieved through interpretive activity on the part of the researcher
• Phenomenology: focused on how people perceive and talk about objects and events
• Accepts the impossibility of gaining direct access to participants' life worlds
• Hermeneutics - theory of interpretation
• Idiographic - work at the individual level to make specific statements about those individuals

Evaluation

• Strengths
• Accessible for novice qualitative researchers, like TA, great 'starter' qualitative method
• Clear and precise procedures specified for the entirety of a project
• A model of the person that resonates strongly with common-sense understandings of what it means to be human and how we experience ourselves, and with models of the person in many areas of applied psychology
• An approach developed within psychology that specifically orients to psychological concerns
• Some flavours of IPA seek to dialogue with mainstream psychology and are inclusive of mainstream psychology theories and concepts
• Allows a focus on individual experience and the detail of individual experience
• Suitable for use in time and resource limited research
• Weaknesses
• Because of the dual focus on individual cases and themes across cases, it can lack the depth and richness of narrative analysis and the substance of TA and GT
• Because of small sample sizes, a willingness to dialogue with mainstream psychology and the experiential focus, IPA is viewed by some as lacking substance and sophistication
• Clear and precise guidance may be viewed as a recipe that must be followed
• Can only be used to answer research questions about experiences, understandings and perceptions, and to analyse self-report experiential data
• Lacks the theoretical flexibility of TA
• The role of the social-cultural context in IPA is often unclear
• Lack of concrete guidance about higher-level (interpretative) analysis - analyses are often limited to simply describing participants' concerns

Grounded Theory

• Focuses on building theory from data and, because of its sociological origins, there is an emphasis on understanding social processes, analysis is organised around key categories (similar to themes)
• GT-lite: aims to generate a taxonomy of categories (clusters of related codes) from data, with some indication of the relationships between concepts and the relative importance of concepts to the research question, leaving aside questions of epistemology, the outcome GT-lite is very similar to that of thematic analysis and IPA (themes/categories that fit together in various ways)
• Full GT: generally aims to build a theory from the data, theoretical sampling is used, saturation is achieved and similar concepts are grouped together into categories and used to generate a theory
• Positivist GT: aims to represent reality
• Contextualist (constructivist) GT: acknowledges the role of the researcher in shaping the analysis, views meaning as contextual, and argues that it's not possible to generate one 'true' reading of the data
• (Radical) constructionist GT: similar to DA-lite and constructionist TA, pays closer attention to language use, emphasis on the discourses that shape accounts the discursive devices through which participants construct and give meaning to their lives, and acknowledges ambiguity and inconsistency

Evaluation

• Strengths
• Different versions of GT to suit different theoretical and epistemological frameworks
• A useful method for researchers interested in social and social psychological processes
• Mainly GT procedures such as line-by-line coding and memo writing are useful in almost any kind of qualitative analysis
• Weaknesses
• There are so many versions of GT, and so many different sets of guidance for doing GT, not to mention different terminology, that is can be difficult to know where to start
• Some versions of GT procedures are bafflingly complex
• GT was developed in sociology and so emphasises sociological concerns, such as social structures and processes, rather than psychological ones
• Completing a full GT is highly demanding and time consuming, in practice, many grounded theorists use GT-lite
• Difficult/impossible to complete a full GT in a small project

Pattern-Based Discourse Analysis

• Analysis is concerned with patterns in language use connected to the social production of reality, and with understanding how accounts of objects and events are constructed in particular ways
• Thematic discourse analysis (DA-lite): largely the same as constructionist TA, identifies discursive themes and patterns in data and applies the tools of DA 'lightly' to explore how themes construct reality in particular ways, a more detailed focus on discursive features of language than other forms of TA
• Poststructuralist DA: heavily influenced by poststructural theory, concerned with the ways in which discourses constitute objects and make available particular subject position, has an explicit concern for the operation of power in and through discourse
• Interpretative repertoires: interested in both the patterned resources that participants use in their talk about an object, such as race relations, and the function of the use to which such repertoires are put
• Critical discursive psychology: offers a 'synthetic' approach that cuts across different traditions, retaining an interest in both patterned socially available linguistic resources and language practices

Evaluation

• Strengths
• Many different versions to suit a variety of topics and research questions
• They take language seriously, treating it as more than information-transfer
• They offer exciting possibilities for understanding the social contexts in and through which individual psychological life is produced
• They provide methods for accessing and understanding the subtle uses and effects of broader language patterns
• They give credence to, and thus implicitly value, intuitive aspects of analysis, analysis is a skilled interpretative engagement, rather than the systematic application of a set of rules
• Practice guidance for discursively engaging with data is available
• Weaknesses
• Require a constructionist (or critical realist) view of language and social life, this can require a relearning of what psychology is, and how you talk about psychological concepts, and so can be a challenging task
• Need to fully understand the (theoretical) frameworks that DA relies on, these can be complex and take time to really 'get'
• Has been a lack of concrete/clear guidelines on how to actually do it, can leave new researchers confused and uncertain. If analysis is not a series of rules to follow, but a 'craft skill' that includes 'following hunches' - how do you know if you're on the right track?
• Certain versions can lose a focus on topics/issues which are often the things that researchers are interested in
• Can be too complex/difficult to learn for a small student project
• Doesn't produce analyses that easily translate for 'giving back' to participants, or for use in applied research and research with an explicit social change agenda

Q Methods

• Small Q
• Q-methodologies
• Content analysis
• Big Q
• Conversation analysis
• IPA
• Narrative analysis
• Ethnography and other combination
• A lot of big Q methods are adaptable to various perspectives
• Not one way to do any method so utmost necessity of;
• Clarity, transparency and thoroughness