Qualitative Methods II

Qualitative Methods II

1. Windows of Perception

   • different approaches can be thought of as different views
   • can any one approach really show us the whole thing?

2. DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

   • Discourse: the dictionary definition would be "a written or spoken communication or debate"
   • a special sort of analysis of the written accounts of these communications
   • purpose: to identify the social constructs that we are bound by
   • core belief: reality has been socially constructed
     • social constructs:
       • acceptable practice
       • behavioural expectations
       • common perception
       • cultural norm
       • customary practice
       • customs
       • shared understanding
       • societal norms
       • traditions
   • Steps in the analysis:
     • 1. establish the context
     • 2. explore the production process
     • 3. prepare the material for analysis
     • 4. code your material
     • 5. examine the structure of the text
     • 6. collect and examine discursive statements
     • 7. identify cultural references
     • 8. identify the linguistic and rhetorical mechanisms
     • 9. interpret the data
     • 10. present your findings
   • limitations:
     • can be work intensive
     • the researcher needs to remain critical: is your question really suited to this form of analysis?
     • it is a form of content analysis: it cannot indicate what goes on in peoples' heads

3. ETHNOGRAPHY

   • can be about:
     • learning about other people's lives and cultures
     • going to live in the community
     • learning the language
     • participating in the daily life of the participants
     • a "day in the life" approach
   • why the ethnographic approach?
     • helps to understand human behaviours, and therefore it helps understand complex societies where cultural diversity is great
     • offers an excellent strategy for discovering grounded theory in social science
     • helps to discover human needs, and therefore it helps to find ways for meeting those needs
   • what is the ethnography approach?
     • common methodologies:
       • participant observation where the researcher is involved fully with the groups being examined
       • field notes that document the experience
   • advantages:
     • provides a deep and rich understanding of people in a way that is impossible in other qualitative methods
     • helps to formulate sensible questions
     • prevents a false interpretation of the community studied
     • concerned with applying its findings to bring about change
   • disadvantages:
     • ethnography requires the researcher to see the world from the informants' perspective, which may be marked contrast to the researcher's worldview
     • timely and costly
     • may cause emotional and physical health problems to researcher
     • most difficult part of ethnography is gaining entry to the cultural group or community and sometimes it is impossible to gain access
     • information collected by means of ethnography from a relatively small number of people from one setting cannot be generalised to the wider population

4. INTERPRETIVE PHENOMENOLOGICAL ANALYSIS (IPA)

   • Interpretive: making sense out of the data as it presents itself
   • phenomenology: advocates that the scientific study of immediate experience should be the basis of psychology i.e. the focus should be on events, occurences and happenings as one experiences them. Avoid focusing on the physical event, and look at how they are percieved or experienced
     • for the phenomenologist, real meaning is derived by examining an individual's reaction to real-world events