202501214233242351219 QASS Session 2.pdf
- 1. Qualitative analysis in social sciences Week 2: Different approaches to designing qualitative research
- 2. Overview of today’s session • Recap from last week • Underlying assumptions • Pragmatic approach • Exercise
- 3. Recap from last week • What is qualitative research? • What is the difference between qualitative data collection and qualitative analysis? • What types of research questions are best suited to a qualitative analysis?
- 4. Underlying assumptions of qualiatative research
- 5. Getting started • Qualitative research and the techniques we use are strongly embedded in: • Ontological and theoretical assumptions • Specific stances regarding epistemology and methodology
- 6. Ontology • Ontology = “the nature of social reality— claims about what exists, what it looks like, what units make it up and how these units interact with each other.” (Blaikie, 2007) • Components of ontology: • Presumptions about basic entities of the social world • Presumptions about the relationship among these entities • Understandings of cause and causation
- 7. Presumptions about basic entities of the social world • Two principled alternatives: • Materialism: most fundamental fact about our existence is the nature and organization of material forces • Idealism: emphasize the role of human/social consciousnesses in our existence and dominant forms of knowledge, ideas, and values
- 8. Relationship among entities • Two main alternatives: holism and particularism • Holism: behaviour of particular elements is shaped by the entire system • System is more than the sum of individual parts • Particularism: individual elements and their internal traits main determents of those interactions • System is the sum of interactions of individual parts
- 9. Epistemology • Epistemology: “a view and justification for what can be regarded as knowledge—what can be known, and what criteria such knowledge must satisfy in order to be called knowledge rather than belief.” (Blaikie, 1993) • Two main “schools”: • Positivism • Intepretivism
- 10. ‘Truth seekers’ vs ‘sense makers’ • Truth seekers: develop and test hypotheses and models that correspond to the main features of our society • What kinds of questions? • Sense makers: develop paradigms and theories that provide orientation through interpretations of our society • What kinds of questions?
- 13. Pragmatic approach to qualitative research
- 14. Don’t worry, be pragmatic • Social scientists have different research goals: the important part is translating them into research questions • Each research question likley has an epistemic approach that is most appropriaite for helping answer the question • Developing such a ‘pragmatic’ apporach thus includes three components: • Research goal expressed as precise question • Identifying the type of knowledge we want to obtain • The principles and procedures for acquring and evaluating that knowledge
- 15. Examples?
- 16. So, how do we get started? • Quick recap from Pfeifer & Dolan (2023) (*** great resource ***) • What are the main types of qualitative research questions? • Define the following: • Credibility • Transferability • Dependability • Confirmability
- 17. Observe, search, and read • Do lots of ‘desk research’ and reading about your area of interest • Find your ‘angle’…qualitative research should have the potential to fill a knowledge gap • After you identify a topic, try to find out as much info as possible…how?
- 18. Developing a research question • Why do you need a research question? • What if you aren’t sure about your research question?
- 19. Techniques for developing a research question • Four main approaches: • Theory-driven • Topic-driven • Topic and theory-driven • Puzzle-based
- 20. Decide on a research design • Think back to the first part of today’s lecture -> what kind of knowledge do you want to generate? • What is apporpriate depends on many factors: • Knowledge gap, research question, study design, and methods • What do I need to do to answer my RQ? • How will my data provide the rich insight I need? • To whom do I want to generalize my findings?
- 21. Collect and analyse data • Data can be collected in a variety of ways, including surveys, interviews, and focus groups, as well as audio and video recordings • To decide what methods to use for data collection, it is helpful to consider what you aim to learn -> back to the research question!
- 22. Interpret and write results
- 24. To summarize • Each research question is accompanied by its own epistemological principles and ontological assumptions…this will shape your analytical choices, data collection methods, etc. • Many different ways to develop research questions…do what works for you! • Research is not linear
- 25. Exercise
- 26. Fold in the cheese! • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCVKCUB5w50&ab_channel=St illWatchingNetflix
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