Methodologies
Action Research
What is it?
Action research is a methodology that combines 'action' and 'research' together. During a study the researcher is repeating the process of performing an action, reflecting on what has happened and using this information to plan their next action. This process of action research has a refining effect on action and the researcher gains understanding of what is going on (Dick, 1999)
Action Research Definitions:
systematic enquiry designed to yield practical results capable of improving a specific aspect of practice and made public to enable scrutiny and testing.
www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/research/glossary
Inquiry-based research conducted by teachers that follows a process of examining existing practices, implementing new practices, and evaluating the results, leading to an improvement cycle that benefits both students and teachers. Synonyms include practitioner research, teacher research, site-based research, and action science.
cs3.wnmu.edu/elearning/a404/support/a404b0_50100.html
A (usually cyclic) process by which change and understanding can be pursued at the one time, with action and critical reflection taking place in turn. The reflection is used to review the previous action and plan the next one. (Dick 1997)
Action Research is a three-step spiral process of (1) planning which involves reconnaissance; (2) taking actions; and (3) fact-finding about the results of the action. - Kurt Lewin (1947)
Action Research is the process by which practitioners attempt to study their problems scientifically in order to guide, correct, and evaluate their decisions and actions. -Stephen Corey (1953)
Action Research in education is study conducted by colleagues in a school setting of the results of their activities to improve instruction. - Carl Glickman (1992)
Action Research is a fancy way of saying let’s study what’s happening at our school and decide how to make it a better place. - Emily Calhoun (1994)
Example:
A teacher tries a new activity in the class to help students understand a concept they are being taught. After the class the teacher reflects on how well the activity helped the students' understanding of the topic. They then modify the activity for the next time they use it in a class to make it more effective.
Analytic Induction
What is it?
Analytic induction is a way of building explanations in qualitative analysis by constructing and testing a set of causal links between events, actions etc. in one case and the iterative extension of this to further cases.
"Analytic induction (AI) is a research logic used to collect data, develop analysis, and organize the presentation of research findings. Its formal objective is causal explanation, a specification of the individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for the emergence of some part of social life. AI calls for the progressive redefinition of the phenomenon to be explained (the explanandum) and of explanatory factors (the explanans), such that a perfect (sometimes called "universal") relationship is maintained. Initial cases are inspected to locate common factors and provisional explanations. As new cases are examined and initial hypotheses are contradicted, the explanation is reworked in one or both of two ways The definition of the explanandum may be redefined so that troublesome cases either become consistent with the explanans or are placed outside the scope of the inquiry; or the explanans may be revised so that all cases of the target phenomenon display the explanatory conditions. There is no methodological value in piling up confirming cases; the strategy is exclusively qualitative, seeking encounters with new varieties of data in order to force revisions that will make the analysis valid when applied to an increasingly diverse range of cases. The investigation continues until the researcher can no longer practically pursue negative cases."
from: Jack Katz (2001) "Analytic Induction," in Smelser and Baltes, (eds) International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences.
"Analytic induction is a method of data analysis described by Florian Znaniecki (1934) who named the method and systematized many of the associated ideas. However Znaniecki was careful to note that the essence of analytic induction has been used repeatedly throughout history (pp. 236-237), particularly by scientists in the physical sciences (he cites numerous examples from physics and biology). That essence involves " . . . inducing laws from a deep analysis of experimentally isolated instances" (p. 237).
Analytic induction can be contrasted with defining and using terms in advance of research (p. 240). Instead, definitions of terms are considered hypotheses that are to be tested (p. 241). Inductive, rather than deductive, reasoning is involved, allowing for modification of concepts and relationships between concepts occurs throughout the process of doing research, with the goal of most accurately representing the reality of the situation."
from: Ratcliff, Donald E. (n.d.) Analytic Induction as a Qualitative Research Method of Analysis
http://www.vanguard.edu/uploadedFiles/faculty/dratcliff/analytic.html
A decade and a half later Cressey (cited by Robinson, 1951) summarized Znaniecki’s rather complex and detailed description of analytic induction in the form of six steps. These are:
1) a phenomenon is defined in a tentative manner,
2) a hypothesis is developed about it,
3) a single instance is considered to determine if the hypothesis is confirmed,
4) if the hypothesis fails to be confirmed either the phenomenon is redefined or the hypothesis is revised so as to include the instance examined,
5) additional cases are examined and, if the new hypothesis is repeatedly confirmed, some degree of certainty about the hypothesis results, and
6) each negative case requires that the hypothesis be reformulated until there are no exceptions.
from: Ratcliff, Donald E. (n.d.) Analytic Induction as a Qualitative Research Method of Analysis
http://www.vanguard.edu/uploadedFiles/faculty/dratcliff/analytic.html
Example:
An example using Znaniecki's approach. For example (alluding to a study by Becker, 1953, that applied AI), field research might have disclosed:
- a set of 14 males who are marijuana users, all of whom were taught to enjoy the drug;
- a set of 3 females who use marijuana though they never were taught to enjoy it;
- a set of 6 males who were taught how to enjoy marijuana, but who do not use it;
- and implicitly it is understood that other people never were taught to enjoy marijuana and do not use it.
From this information one might conclude that for males like the ones who were studied, using marijuana implies being taught to enjoy the drug.
References
Znaniecki, F. (1934). The method of sociology. New York: Farrar & Rinehart.
Becker, Howard S. 1953 “Becoming a Marihuana User.” American Journal of Sociology 59:235-243.
Ratcliff, Donald E. (n.d.) Analytic Induction as a Qualitative Research Method of Analysis
http://www.vanguard.edu/uploadedFiles/faculty/dratcliff/analytic.html
Jack Katz (2001) "Analytic Induction," in Smelser and Baltes, (eds) International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. (PDF, 26 KB)
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/katz/pubs/Analytic_Induction.pdf
Biographical research
What is it?
An approach to research which elicits and analyses a person’s biography or life history - an extended, written account or narrative of a person's life. Such a biography usually has a structure and is expressed in key themes often with an epiphany or turning point. Typically, the epiphany is the point in the person’s life when they think things changed and they became a different person – the person they are now. The narrative is usually chronological. Can be contrasted with a life history which is usually given at an interview. However, this distinction is not always maintained and the terms now tend to be used interchangeably.
Example:
Comparative analysis
What is it?
Analysis where data from different settings or groups at the same point in time or from the same settings or groups over a period of time are analysed to identify similarities and differences. A good way to undertake these comparisons is using tables or matrices. (See Matrix Analysis/Logical Analysis)
A procedure very much like this called constant comparison, is a central part of grounded theory. In constant comparison, newly gathered data are continually compared with previously collected data and its coding in order to refine the development of theoretical categories. The purpose is to test emerging ideas that might take the research in new and fruitful directions.
Example:
Further reading
Conversation analysis
What is it?
The study of naturally occurring talk-in-interaction in order to discover how we produce an orderly social world. CA provides an account of the machinery in operation within talk by a fine-grained analysis of talk. It does not refer to context or motive unless they are explicitly deployed in the talk itself. Conversation analysis has developed a highly sophisticated form of transcription notation (q.v.) to support its fine-grained analysis.
Example:
Constructionism
What is it?
This approach looks at the systems people create to interpret the world around them and their experiences. It can also be refeferred to as social constructionism. The epistemological view that the phenomena of the social and cultural world and their meanings are not objective but are created in human social interaction, that is, they are socially constructed. The approach often, though not exclusively, draws on idealist philosophy. Some writers distinguish Social Constructivism as a more radical version of social constructionism, but often the terms are used interchangeably.
Example:
Further reading
Discourse Analysis
What is it?
A study of the way versions or the world, society, events and psyche are produced in the use of language and discourse. The Foucauldian version is concerned with the construction of subjects within various forms of knowledge/power. Semiotics, deconstruction and narrative analysis are forms of discourse analysis.
Example:
Ethnography
What is it?
A multi-method qualitative (participant observation, interviewing, discourse analyses of natural language, and personal documents) approach that studies people in their "...naturally occuring settings or 'fields' by means of methods which capture their social meanings and ordinary activities, involving the researcher particpating directly in the setting..." (Brewer, 2000:10).
Example:
Ethnomethodology
What is it?
Research tradition established by Harold Garfinkel and others, that emphasises the methods and procedures employed by people when they define and interpret everyday life through talk and interaction. It is the study of commonsense knowledge, its creation and use in natural settings. It involves the systematic study of the ways in which people produce orderly social interaction on a routine, everyday basis and use social interaction to make sense of their situation and create their 'reality'. Ethnomethodology rejects social structural accounts of social order and is keen to show how such 'fictions' are maintained and deployed in everyday life.
Example:
Field Research
What is it?
Field research is when a researcher goes to observe an everyday event in the environment where it occurs (Bailey, 1996). Also see ethnography.
Example:
Frame analysis
What is it?
The concept of frames originates in the work of Goffman (1974) and has parallel origins in psychiatry (Bateson, 1972) and psychology (Piaget, 1954; Minsky, 1975). In cognitive psychology the concept of scheme has similar functions (Kelley, 1972; Hastie, 1981; Marcus & Zajonc, 1985). In addition, other psychologists have used terms like script, scenario or package to denote interpretive schemes used to make sense of one's environment.
Frame analysis tries to explain social phenomena in terms of the everyday use of schemes or frames. These are symbolic-interpretive constructs which people use to make their social reality meaningful. Such frames or constructs include beliefs, images or symbols shared by people in their society. The number of such frames available to people to make sense of their environment is limited by the particular society they live in.
According to framing theory, people tend to order their experiences by relating them to already known patterns. What they see and perceive are recognised by reference to a pre-existing cognitive structure. The tendency to refer to stable and recurring patterns in order to recognise new stimuli has been confirmed by psychological studies. Heider (1958) suggests that people perceive reality and form expectations with respect to it by linking temporary attitudes with pre-existing stable patterns of behaviour. Thus, diverse elements are linked to an already known and persistent background which becomes a point of reference for the individual.
There is a wide range of approaches that have been subsumed under the heading of frame analysis. These are reviewed in Benford and Snow (2000), D'Angelo (2002) and Scheufele (1999).
Example:
Framework analysis
What is it?
Developed by researchers at the UK National Centre for Social Research the approach develops a hierarchical thematic framework that is used to classify and organise data according to key themes, concepts and emergent categories. The framework identifies a series of main themes subdivided by a succession of related subtopics. Once judged to be comprehensive each main theme is charted by completing a matrix or table where each case has its own row and columns represent the subtopics. Cells contain relevant summaries from the data set. These charts are used to examine the data for patterns and connections.
Example:
Grounded theory
What is it?
An inductive form of qualitative research, introduced by Glaser and Strauss, where data collection and analysis are conducted together. Constant comparison and theoretical sampling are used to support the systematic discovery of theory from the data. Thus theories remain grounded in the observations rather than generated in the abstract. Sampling of cases, settings or respondents is guided by the need to test the limits of developing explanations which are constantly grounded in the data being analysed.
Grounded theory is an approach that develops the theory from the data collected. Rather than applying a theory to the data. This can be a popular approach for people exploring a new area of research. The theory developed from the data can then be tested by further research.
Strauss and Corbin (1990) suggest there are 3 stages in analysis in grounded theory: open coding, axial coding and selective coding. During open coding the researcher reads the text and asks questions to identify codes that are theoretical or analytical. What is going on behind what the person interviewed says rather than just coding literally what is said.
Constant comparison
This involves various methods of constant comparison. Previously coded text also needs to be checked to see if the new codes created are relevant. Constant comparison is a central part of grounded theory. Newly gathered data are continually compared with previously collected data and their coding in order to refine the development of theoretical categories. The purpose is to test emerging ideas that might take the research in new and fruitful directions.
Coding Line-by-line
Another approach used in grounded theory is line-by-line coding. Which literally means coding each line of an interview. This approach is intended to keep the researcher close to the data while forcing them to be analytical. This means the researcher is really having to think about what the person being interviewed is saying and hopefully stop their analysis being influenced by their preconceived ideas or just accepting the point of view the interviewee.
The next step is to check the codes against the text again and see how they can be improved. The codes are also linked with each other and with more general codes.
The next step after this initial line-by-line coding is to refine the actual codes and to link code together in a meaningful way according their importance. So there may be main code with sub-codes relating to that topic.
Example:
Hermeneutics
What is it?
The study of meaning or of meaningful things and actions such as those found in literature and culture. Hermeneutics is associated with qualitative social research in general, and with phenomenology in particular.
Example:
Further reading
Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA)
What is it?
This approach involves trying to understand the experiences an individual has in life, how they made sense of them and what meanings those experiences hold (Smith, 2004).
Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) is a relatively recent qualitative approach developed specifically within psychology. It is now being used widely by researchers in health, clinical and social psychology, particularly in the UK. It is also being picked up by psychologists in other countries and by researchers in other health disciplines.
IPA is concerned with trying to understand lived experience and with how participants themselves make sense of their experiences. Therefore it is concerned with the meanings which those experiences hold for the participants. IPA is phenomenological in that it wishes to explore an individual’s personal perception or account of an event or state as opposed to attempting to produce an objective record of the event or state itself. At the same time, while trying to get close to the participant's personal world, IPA considers that one cannot do this directly or completely. Access is dependant on the researcher’s own conceptions which are required to make sense of that other personal world through a process of interpretative activity. IPA is also a strongly idiographic approach concerned with detailed analysis of the case either as and end in itself or before moving to similarly detailed analyses of other cases.
Consonant with its theoretical commitment, IPA employs qualitative methodology. Thus far, most IPA work has been conducted using semi-structured interviews which enable the participant to provide a fuller, richer account than would be possible with a standard quantitative instrument and allow the researcher considerable flexibility in probing interesting areas which emerge. Interviews are taped and transcribed verbatim and then subjected to detailed qualitative analysis - attempting to elicit key themes in the participant’s talk. However, there is no reason why other qualitative data collection methods cannot be used, e.g. diaries or personal accounts.
One important theoretical touchstone for IPA is phenomenology, which originated with Husserl's attempts to construct a philosophical science of consciousness. A second important theoretical current for IPA is hermeneutics- the theory of interpretation. A third significant influence is symbolic-interactionism (q.v.) which emerged in the 1930’s as an explicit rejection of the positivist paradigm beginning to take hold in the social sciences. For symbolic-interactionism, the meanings which individuals ascribe to events are of central concern, but those meanings are only obtained through a process of social engagement and a process of interpretation.
Example:
Life history
What is it?
An interview form in which the focus is the life story of the participant. Such interviews tend to be structured around the chronology of the life course, but are otherwise relatively open-ended.
Example:
Life-World Analysis
What is it?
Example:
Further reading
Matrix Analysis/Logical Analysis
What is it?
An outline of generalized causation, logical reasoning process, based on the categorisation and organisation of qualitative data. Often based on comparisons across cases or within cases but across time.
Can use flow charts, diagrams, etc. to pictorially represent these causes and proceses, as well as written descriptions. Most commonly use tables and matrices to layout the available data and to facilitate comparison and the construction of hypotheses.
Miles and Huberman gives hundreds of varieties in their huge book Qualitative Data Analysis, 2nd ed.
Example:
Further reading
Memory work
What is it?
The memory work approach involves the researcher being the participant. The researcher creates the data from their own memories and then analyses it themselves. The method is used by the researcher to follow the process of the construction of their individuals selves in a set social environment (Willig, 2001:125).
Example:
Mixed Methods
What is it?
Example:
Narrative analysis
What is it?
Narrative analysis is a form of discourse analysis that seeks to study the textual devices at work in the constructions of process or sequence within a text.
In a narrative research the respondent gives a detailed account of themselves and is encouraged to tell their story rather than answer a predetermined list of questions. This method is more successful when people are discussing a life changing event.
Analysis of the narrative tells the researcher about the person's understanding of the meaning ofevents in their lives.
Example:
Objective hermeneutics
What is it?
A method of interpreting textual data, whereby different interpretations (Lesarten) are developed in a team of researchers who mutually criticise their Lesarten. The analysis of the textual data in a strict sequential manner allows for the exclusion and modification of interpretations. Thus the different Lesarten are regarded as preliminary hypotheses that in principle can be falsified by further empirical material. The method provides an explicit, rule-governed procedure, but it is time-consuming and thus only feasible with small amounts of text.
The central step to analysis is the sequential fine analysis which includes interpretations of interactions on nine levels.
- Explain the meaning of the context immediately preceding an interaction.
- Paraphrase the meaning of an interaction according to the verbatim text of the accompanying talk.
- Spell out the interacting persons’ intentions.
- Identify the objective motives of the interaction and of its objective consequences.
- Make clear the function of the interaction for the distribution of interactional roles.
- Characterize the linguistic features of the interaction.
- Explore the interpreted interaction for constant communicative figures.
- Spell out the general relations.
- Independently test the general hypotheses which were formulated at the preceding level on the basis of interaction sequences from further cases.
References
Oevermann, U, Allert, T, Konau, E and Krambeck, J (1979) 'Die Methodologie einer "objectiven Hermeneutik" und ihre allgemeine forschungslogische Bedeuting in den Sozialwissenshchaften', in H-G Söffner (ed) Interpretive Verfahren in den Sozial- und Textwissenschaften. Suttgart: Metzler, pp. 352-434.
Reichertz, J. (2004) 'Objective Hermeneutics and Hermeneutic Sociology of Knowledge', in U. Flick, E. v. Kardorff and I. Steinke (eds), A Companion to Qualitative Research. London: Sage. pp. 290-295.
Gartz, D. (ed) (1994) Die Welt als Text. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Titscher, S., Meyer, M., Wodak, R. and Vetter, E. (2002) Methods of Text and Discourse Analysis. London: Sage.
Example:
“Sahle has used this procedure to study the interactions of social workers with their clients. Additionally, she interviewed the social workers. She presents four case studies. In each case, the author has extensively interpreted the opening sequence of the interactions in order to elaborate the ‘structure formula’ for the interaction, which is then tested against a passage which was randomly sampled from the further text. She derives hypotheses about the professional self-concept of the social workers from the analyses and tests them in the interviews. In a very short comparison, Sahle relates the case studies to each other and finally discusses her results with the social worker that were involved.” Flick, U. (1998) An Introduction to Qualitative Research. London: Sage. P. 206.
Further reading
Phenomenography
What is it?
Phenomenography has primarily been a tool for educational research, its roots are Swedish (University of Gothenburg), and it has developed a strong following in Britain and Australia. The subject investigates the differing ways in which people experience, perceive, apprehend, understand, and conceptualise various phenomena, and this has been seen as critical for the development of learners' understanding of the central phenomena, concepts and principles, and hence for their mastery of the domain.
An approach to phenomenography was developed by Ference Marton and his research students over the last 25 years, producing a huge amount of empirical investigation about people's conceptions of phenomena in the world around us.
Phenomenography is a qualitative research method, the history of which goes back only to the mid to late 1970s. It should not be confused with phenomenolgy. Phenomenology is the study of what people perceive in the world; phenomenography is the study of the way people conceive of the world. A good reference, to get started, is an article by Marton:
Marton, F. (1981) Phenomenography - describing conceptions of the world around us. Instructional Science, 10, 177-200.
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Phenomenology
What is it?
A research methodology which has its roots in philosophy and which focuses on the lived experience of individuals. The tradition is critical of claims that external causal processes operate to generate social reality. The social world is seen as a social construction, and an achievement of people. Closely associated with Constructionism and opposed to Realism and Positivism
This approach is based on philosophy and it studies conscious awareness of the world as experienced from the subjective or first person point of view.
Example:
QCA - Qualitative Comparative Analysis
What is it?
A systematic analysis of the various configurations of cases, including ordinal variables called ‘fuzzy sets’. Data can be interpreted qualitatively while causality between the variables can be examinied.
Example:
Symbolic interactionism
What is it?
A body of theory that emphasizes the organization of everyday social life around events and actions that act as symbols to which actors orient themselves. Interactionists frequently study this through observation of face-to-face interaction.
Example:
Further reading
Template analysis
What is it?
This approach involves developing a 'template' of themes emerged from the data and organising them into a meaningful way. These themes are identified by looking a small section of the data. This template is then used to analyse the whole data set. This approach involves looking at a small section of the data set and identifying the themes that are emerging from the data. These themes are then organised in a meaningful way forming a 'template'. The template is then used to analyse the whole data set. During analysis the template will be modified as new themes may emerge while other themes may be disregarded altogether. This process continues until a final template is defined and the whole data set has been coded using it (King, 2004).
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