Lecture
Under the heading of qualitative research, several directions are grouped together. They have different foundations in the philosophy of science and, on the whole, pursue the goal of description. In this, the testing of hypotheses is not the starting point; it may conclude the study. It may be inductive in character.
The data are necessarily presented or coded in words – as texts.
The goal of qualitative research is the understanding of texts; the object of analysis is mainly texts or textually presented results of observation. Procedural means of working with texts: categorization, coding, clustering, and others.
In addition to observation, in other types of qualitative research the leading place is given to the stage of systematic descriptions, where two aspects are important:
the recording of experiences and meanings conveyed by means of texts;
strategies for controlling the interpretation of texts
Usually these qualitative studies are interdisciplinary.
A number of features of the subject matter and orientation of qualitative research:
Qualitative approaches form a qualitative paradigm, which is often contrasted with quantitative approaches, which is unwarranted (if only because quantitative data are the next stage in the representation of qualitative data).
The most important thing in qualitative research is adherence to the idiographic approach (the reconstruction of the object of cognition in all its uniqueness).
The analysis of the individual case, the analysis of documents, interviewing, techniques of qualitative psychodiagnostics, the development of observation schemes (where data are presented in qualitative units and categories) – these methods are used in psychology for the purpose of the qualitative reconstruction of unobservable basic processes.
Qualitative methods are focused on the role of the subject.
A number of strategies for constructing qualitative research:
1. Phenomenological research.
Techniques for collecting and analyzing data about the phenomenological composition of a person's experiences when perceiving various events, including his own inner world.
Techniques: the semi-structured interview, self-reports
2. The biographical method
The disclosure of a person's life history as a reconstruction based on documented facts of the biography.
3. Ethnographic research
Usually field-based, with the aim of describing the way of life, group relations, and identity of social communities. Often carried out with the help of participant field observation.
4. Grounded theory research
The construction of a theory to represent a phenomenon, its inductive construction; this strategy was proposed by the sociologists Glaser and Strauss. The material for its realization is textual descriptions.
5. Discourse analysis
The analysis of verbal communications between people from the standpoint of taking into account cultural, political, and other discourses.
Discourses are stable systems of meanings functioning to interpret events within particular communities.
Comments