Internet in Qualitative Research

Internet in Qualitative Research

The internet is a tool, and also a field-site for qualitative research. The relationship of the internet to the research project depends largely on how the internet is defined.

Some users perceive publicly accessible discourse sites as private.

It is important to distinguish between the research scenario, as already categorized, and the characteristics of the internet that will become salient as the purpose of research is identified or unfolds. Depending on the focal point in each scenario, the internet can acquire or display particular characteristics that, in turn, influence the design and enactment of the research project.

Use of a particular form of internet medium may appear to be homogeneous at the surface level of activity.

If used as a tool for research, the capabilities of the internet should be matched to the goals, topics, and participants of the project. Because internet technologies are defined and adapted in distinctive ways by different users and groups, this is often an inductive process.

As an interpretive issue rather than a legalistic one, anonymity can be discomfiting for researchers who might not know who the participants are, at least not in any embodied tangible way. This raises concerns about authenticity. On the one hand, interacting with participants in anonymous environments results in the loss of many of the interactional qualities taken for granted in face-to-face interviews and observations.

In addition to collapsing distance, internet technologies can disrupt the traditional use of time in interaction. Because internet technologies accommodate both asynchronous and synchronous communication between individuals and groups, the use of time can be determined more individually. In real time conversations, users can see their messages before they are sent. Backspacing and editing are made possible by stopping time in this way. In text based environments, pauses and gaps are expected.

Online discussion sites can be highly transient. For example, researchers who gain access permission in June might not be studying the same population in July and vulnerable persons are difficult to identify in certain online environments.

 

 

 

Institutional Research

Institutional Research

Institutional research (IR) is any qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methodology research activity undertaken in a college, university, hospital, or other institutional setting that produces data, information, or knowledge in support of the institution’s efforts to measure the effectiveness of its mission, goals, and objectives.

Instructional Research was conceived during the 1950s as a mechanism for centralizing and facilitating the compilation, analysis, and reporting of data regarding an individual college or university, and since that time Instructional Research has also been adopted by companies and organizations outside the world of education.

Instructional Research is conducted in a collaborative manner similar to action research where the members of the Instructional Research office will work with their colleagues from across the organization in planning research and assessment activities and in the actual collection, analysis, and interpretation of data.

As practiced within the context of institutional effectiveness, Instructional Research personnel help their peers (a) to identify mission-critical policies, programs, personnel, and performances to assess; (b) to collect, analyze, and interpret relevant data; and (c) to use the results of the analysis to improve or enhance the institution.

 

Institutional Review and Qualitative Research

Qualitative research methodologies and methods are used in IR to provide useful insights regarding perspectives of board members, personnel, customers, and other stakeholders critical to institutions and to give context to the numbers. Qualitative research is useful when measuring complex phenomena such as leadership and brand and when gaining insights into diverse academic cultures.

Qualitative methodologies can also help to bring both the researchers and the decision makers closer to the research participants, and through this greater proximity can come thicker and richer descriptions, interpretations, explanations, and understandings of stakeholder expectations and needs.

Historiography

Historiography

Historiography is concerned with historical interpretations and representations of the past—put another way, the writing of history as opposed to history itself. Although historiography is primarily a disciplinary phrase introduced by contemporary academics, the inquiry it represents can be traced back to the very earliest origins of historical writing in the work o ancient Greek writers who reflected on each others’ historical conclusions.

Historiography reflects on the theories and philosophies that inform and motivate them and how they both might influence the conclusions drawn. This reflection might involve, for example, critical reflection of the authenticity, subjectivity, and authority of various information sources.

As a practice, historiography has progressed and changed. Over recent years, it has moved from practical concerns on data sources to include far greater consideration of these aforementioned contexts and forces.

As the social sciences have gradually become more interested in historical reflection, historiography has played an important role in the development of sub disciplines such as historical sociology, historical geography, and historical economics in terms of reflecting both on how social sciences influence history and on how they represent history (and the people and groups who make history—such as women, working classes, and numerous ethnicities and cultures).

Historiography—both as a critical way of writing history and as a reflection on the writing of history—has involved the use of a range of methods, often in combination, which includes the use of archived material and written historical accounts (including research, autobiographies, memoirs, diaries, and oral histories).

For more recent historiographies, representation in the television, media, and other forms of mass communication might also be consulted. The distinguishing factor, however, in historiographers’ uses of these sources is a critical comparison and critical perspective on their origins, uses, and biases.

Historical Research

Historical Research

Any contemporary issue is bound intrinsically with the social and historical milieu of the past. Most historical research involves some type of conceptual idea, theme, or person in history.

This entry discusses the stages in historical research design, the types of data used, and the forms such research can take. It also explores issues in the evaluation and analysis of such data and briefly reviews the impact of technology on historical research.

Historiography goes beyond data gathering to analyze and develop theoretical and holistic conclusions about historical events and periods. It includes a critical examination of sources, interpretation of data, and analysis that focuses on the narrative, interpretation, and use of valid and reliable evidence that supports the study conclusions.

Historical research has 5 different stages:

1)The first stage of a historical study is the identification of a researchable phenomenon and includes reading relevant literature, listening to present ideas about the phenomena, and even more important, reflecting on the researcher’s interest.

2) The second stage involves developing hypotheses or research questions and identifying a theoretical perspective to guide the data collection process and interpretation of results. A theoretical framework can provide a guide for the historical study, both in data collection and analysis.

3) The third stage is the data exploration and collection stage, which can be the most time- and laborintensive part of the research process depending on the subject and accessibility of data sources.

4) The fourth stage, following data collection, includes fact-checking, evaluation of the validity and reliability of data, and the analysis of evidence from each source. During this stage, the researcher evaluates the data, including the analysis and meaning of missing data, and forms generalizations. It is at this stage that the researcher answers the research question or accepts or rejects the hypotheses and forms conclusions.

5) The fifth and final stage of historical research involves the writing of the report in which findings are described along with their interpretation and which provides detailed supportive evidence in defense of the conclusions.

We have Primary and secondary sources in historical research and data analysis.

 

Historical Discourse Analysis

Historical Discourse Analysis

Historical discourse analysis is a poststructuralist approach to reading and writing history; a mode of conceptualizing history through a theorized lens of critique. Historical discourse analysis works against the objectivist fallacy of traditional positivist historical methods in decentering the authority of the historian as a neutral recorder of facts and the claim of historical writings as objective reconstructions of past events.

The task of the historian is, from this perspective, to uncover and critique the technologies of power that have come to legitimate certain ideas as truths. Historical discourse analysis is a mode of critical social analysis.

 

The Concept of Discourse

Historical discourse analysis is founded on a poststructuralist conception of discourse: an antiessentialist perspective on language, identity, society, and social practices. From this perspective, language and discourse are viewed not as impartial tools that describe reality, but as constitutive modes of power that construct reality in unequal ways, demarcating the center from the periphery, truth from opinion, and reality from interpretation.

Discourses are understood as central modes and components of the production, maintenance, and conversely, resistance to systems of power and inequality; no usage of language is considered a neutral, impartial, or apolitical act.

 

The Role of the Historian

The positivist view of history, which presupposes the historian as an unencumbered subject who stands outside of discourse, is according to Derrida the original fallacy at the heart of Western metaphysics.

Working against the disciplinary assumptions of traditional history (scientific historiography or historical realism), historical discourse analysis contests the ideal of the historian as an objective observer or recorder of facts, an author who stands outside the texts she or he reads and writes.

 

Uses of Historical Discourse Analysis

Historical discourse analysis is used generally to trace the ways in which the particular discursive devices found in examined texts or discourses functioned to construct certain normative ideas and views of events and people. Such analyses tend to examine both formal and informal practices of a given period through the examination of the social, political, legal, and disciplinary codes and their discourses to see how a particular category of subject (e.g., the child, the immigrant, the insane, the criminal, the dependent, the homosexual, etc.) and subject categories (e.g., race, culture, gender, age, sexuality, etc.) become constructed.

Thus, to paraphrase cultural studies critic Stuart Hall, the hallmark of historical discourse analysis is the study of discourses as systems of representations.

Because historical discourse analysis is an approach to history rather than a set methodology as such, the specific analytical method for the examination of texts or discourses can vary. Methods of close reading, such as Derridean deconstruction, or the many techniques of discourse analysis in general can be applied to historical texts as ways of analyzing texts or discourses as the means of understanding linguistic practices as social practices.

Historical context

 

Historical context

Historical context refers to past conditions, which influence the present. Most social scientists would agree now that individual behavior is shaped by broader social, economic, political, and physical factors that interact with psychological characteristics in specific place and time.

The historical context refers to political, social, environmental, and cultural decisions or events occurring over time that can be described and linked to the situation under study. Political decisions might include policies that promote warfare, attempt to control population migration, eliminate of social welfare benefits, or decide to move or amalgamate a neighborhood hospital or to introduce a school voucher program—policies that all would have significant consequences for people with limited incomes or for those attempting to improve their life circumstances by crossing national borders to wealthier areas or whose efforts to improve their health and educational status are impaired.

Researchers who examine historical context must find ways of bounding the period of time they are considering. These ways may differ depending on whether researchers are considering relatively recent shifts, as in the case of illegal drug trends or the consequences of the destruction of public housing in Chicago, or long-term trends, as in the case of institutionalized discriminatory practices directed toward specific groups of minority students such as African Americans or Native Americans.

 

Hegemony

Hegemony

Hegemony refers to the domination of one group of people over another. More specifically, and more relevant to critical qualitative research, it refers to the domination of the ideas of one group over those of another. As such, hegemony refers to the mainstream deployment and acceptance of ideologies that justify the inequities inherent in modern society including capitalism, sexism, racism, and so on.

Hegemony as a concept was first employed in Marxist thought in the mid- to late 1800s. Marxist conceptions focused on political leadership and domination by the ruling bourgeois over the subordinate working class proletariat through politically endorsed systems of economic and material distribution. The term hegemony, however, was coined by Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) and most fully explicated in his work Selections from the Prison Notebooks.

Gramsci’s work extended Marxist thought beyond its focus on capitalist struggle to an analysis of intellectual struggle and the role of external forces such as the mass media in stifling creative thought.

Hegemony is of interest to qualitative researchers as a lens through which ideologies can be identified, documented, exposed, and used to create alternate ideology. Given the political nature of such research projects, it is no wonder that research into hegemonic thought is concentrated within critical research approaches, such as critical ethnography and critical discourse analysis, which aim to make explicit and often challenge power hierarchies.

 

 

 

 

Grounded Theory

Grounded Theory

Grounded theory refers simultaneously to a method of qualitative inquiry and the products of that inquiry. Like most discussions of grounded theory, this entry emphasizes the method of inquiry. As such, the grounded theory method consists of a set of systematic, but flexible, guidelines for conducting inductive qualitative inquiry aimed toward theory construction.

This method focuses squarely on the analytic phases of research, although both data collection and analysis inform and shape each other and are conducted in tandem. The analytic strategies are inherently comparative and interactive; this method guides researchers to make systematic comparisons and to engage the data and emerging theory actively throughout the research process.

The significance of Glaser and Strauss’s book must be placed in its historical context. Despite long-standing qualitative traditions largely at the University of Chicago and the impressive contributions of its faculty and students, qualitative research had waned by the early 1960s as sociologists and other social scientists increasingly turned to sophisticated quantitative methods. At that time, survey research was gaining dominance in sociology.

Not only did Glaser and Strauss put forth a powerful rhetorical statement about the place and promise of qualitative research, but also they provided a set of flexible strategies that guided the analysis of qualitative data. They presented the first detailed, systematic attempt to codify qualitative analysis—and, simultaneously, to develop middle-range theories through subjecting data to rigorous analytic scrutiny. Since 1967, Glaser and Strauss’s message inspired both students and seasoned researchers to pursue inductive qualitative research.

Adele Clarke (2005) also adopts constructivist principles and combines them with postmodernism in her revision of grounded theory, called situational analysis. Bryant, Charmaz, and Clarke advocate adopting key grounded theory strategies devoid of their positivistic underpinnings that include the discovery of an external reality, an objective social scientist, quest for explanation and prediction, and erasure of how the conditions of the research process, including the researcher’s experiences and subjectivities affect the research process.

Instead, constructivism takes a relativistic view and emphasizes: (a) the social conditions of the research situation; (b) the researcher’s perspectives, positions, and practices; (c) the researcher’s participation in the construction of data; and (d) the social construction of research acts, as well as participants’ worlds. Constructivism retains the central foci of action, process, and meaning in earlier versions, but favors theoretical understanding over explanatory generalizations.

Constructivists attend to locating their analyses in the specific historical, social, and interactional conditions of their production, rather than constructing concepts abstracted and separated from their origins. In short, constructivists seek abstract understanding of empirical phenomena as situated knowledge. 

Document Analysis

Document Analysis

The standard approach to the analysis of documents focuses primarily on what is contained within them. In this frame, documents are viewed as conduits of communication between, say, a writer and a reader—conduits that contain meaningful messages. Such messages are usually in the form of writing but can engage other formats such as maps, architectural plans, films, and photographs.

Every document enters into human activity in a dual relation. First, documents enter the social field as receptacles (of instructions, obligations, contracts, wishes, reports, etc.). Second, they enter the field as agents in their own right, and as agents documents have effects long after their human creators are dead and buried (e.g., wills, testaments). In addition, documents as agents are always open to manipulation by others—as allies, as resources for further action, as opponents to be destroyed or suppressed. (We should not forget that people burn, ban, censor, and forge documents as well as read and write them.)

Perhaps the best intellectual starting point for a qualitative researcher is in the work of Michel Foucault (1926–1984).

The production of documents, such as statistical and other reports on crime, health, poverty, and the environment, has figured as an object of study in numerous areas of social science research. The standard research stance is to use such reports as a resource for further study—as, say, a source of data on crime or health.

what is important is a study of the manner in which people use written (and nonwritten) traces to facilitate or manage features of social organization— whether they be transitory episodes of interaction or the ongoing functioning of a hospital, a business, or a school. For example, in the field of medical sociology, there have been numerous studies directed at showing the ways in which patient identities and diagnoses are often shored up through the use of written traces in medical “charts” and patient files.

Data Analysis

Data Analysis

Data analysis is an integral part of qualitative research and constitutes an essential stepping-stone toward both gathering data and linking one’s findings with higher order concepts. There are many variants of qualitative research involving many forms of data analysis, including interview transcripts, field notes, conversational analysis, and visual data, whether photographs, film, or observations of internet occurrences (for the purpose of brevity, this entry calls all of these forms of data text).

First, the gathering of data and the analysis of those data are iterative processes. In its ideal form, early data analysis provides sufficient insight to shape the gathering of further data.

Researchers who conduct interviews may use early analysis to revise interview guides or to focus future interviews. Some field-workers do not settle on a research question until they have spent some time in the field and have observed and begun to analyze what is of theoretical interest in a particular social setting.

Both during and after collecting data, researchers engage in memoing. Memoing occurs when researchers take note of personal, conceptual, or theoretical ideas or reflections that come to mind as they collect and analyze the data. Early memoing may occur while researchers are writing up field notes or transcribing interviews.

Some researchers find it useful to embed memos into their actual field notes or interview transcripts, whereas others find it more profitable to set up the memos separately. No doubt there are researchers who combine the two methods. Some researchers use memos themselves as material for coding, as described next.

Any analysis of data involves some form of coding. Coding reflects both the personal analytic habits of researchers and the general principles that flow from particular qualitative research methodologies and theoretical perspectives. In its most stringent form, the analysis of data can entail line-by-line coding of text whereby researchers capture every empirical and conceptual occurrence in each line.

Qualitative researchers arrive at a more profound analysis of the data when they engage in writing up the data as soon as possible. These short or lengthy writing bouts often yield insights that were not readily apparent even after the coding had been completed. Indeed, researchers may find that they need to go back to the data to recode for concepts that became apparent during the initial writing up of the data.

All data analysis must move toward developing concepts or relating to already existing concepts. This final stage of data analysis is analogous to having a conversation with the literature of the discipline or what was found in other social settings.

More recently, researchers have seen the introduction of software, such as Ethnograph and NVivo, developed for the express purpose of managing and coding qualitative data. These programs, however, remain controversial and have influenced, and continue to influence, data analysis in unforeseen ways.