International Journal of Qualitative Methods: ARCHIVE
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403 research outputs found
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Through Thick and Thin: How Views of Identity Affect Listening for a Story in Portraiture
No full textThis article illustrates how different conceptions of narrative identity shape the ways that researchers listen for stories in the research approach of portraiture. To do so, we explore the methodological details of two portraiture studies, one on the integration of religious faith and learning among college professors and another on college student participation in hip-hop culture. In this exploration, we illustrate how psychosocial and storied resource perspectives of identity in each study shape the positioning of participant voices as resonant, dissonant, or excluded altogether. Overall, we look beyond issues of researcher reflexivity to elucidate one of the distinguishing features of portraiture and call for coherency between key constructs such as narrative identity and the different elements of qualitative research processes more generally
Systematic Data Integration—A Method for Combined Analyses of Field Notes and Interview Texts
No full textAccepted methods of analysis might be viewed as inadequate for analytical work on field notes and interview transcriptions when the aim is to analyze these as a complete body of material. The purpose of this article is to present a new method for systematic data integration in which the key component is the interweaving of observation data and interview data derived from sequences of interactive situations. The method has been developed in a study where groups of user representatives and professionals collaborated for some time on planning, implementing, and evaluating patient education programmes. The article briefly presents the study on which the method is based, after which the Systematic Data Integration method is introduced with examples from the study. The method entails analytical work on field notes and interview transcriptions, during which raw data and preliminary analysis results are integrated. It will be argued that interweaving the data clarifies the complementarity of the types of data and increases transparency for further theoretical analyses and interpretation. In addition, the interweaving contributes to ensuring quality in choosing quotations used to illustrate and emphasize the study’s findings.
An Analytic Glossary to Social Inquiry Using Institutional and Political Activist Ethnography
No full textThis analytic glossary, composed of 52 terms, is a practical reference and working tool for persons preparing to conduct theoretically informed qualitative social science research drawing from institutional and political activist ethnography. Researchers using these approaches examine social problems and move beyond interpretation by explicating how these problems are organized and what social and ruling relations coordinate them. Political activist ethnography emerges from, and extends, institutional ethnography by producing knowledge explicitly for activism and social movement organizing ends. The assemblage of vocabulary and ideas in this word list are new, and build on existing methodological resources. This glossary offers an extensive, analytic, and challenging inventory of language that brings together terms from these ethnographic approaches with shared ancestry. This compilation is designed to serve as an accessible “one-stop-shop” resource for persons using or contemplating using institutional and political activist ethnography in their research and/or activist projects
Reflections on Visual Field Research
No full textThis article describes ongoing visual field research by focusing on its self-reflective and auto-ethnographic components. Photographs and field notes are presented and personal encounters from the field are described. Recognizing the symbiotic order of the personal and political, the author details confrontations and emotions from ongoing efforts at recording visually
A Hunch Without a Sound: Co-Constructing Meanings of Nonverbal and Verbal Interactions in Video Data
No full textThis narrative account describes a collaborative qualitative video data analysis process between a bilingual Deaf female researcher and a bilingual Puerto Rican female researcher. Via three processing points, we examine our journeys to co-construct meanings from a single video data source which was part of a larger ethnographic study of an urban community change initiative. We highlight how our respective epistemologies informed the process of watching, analyzing, and interpreting nonverbal and verbal interactions from a video segment. The video watching process included a hunch and discovery of a critical incident. While engaging independently and collaboratively in analysis, we confirmed how the critical incident revealed concepts of access and participation. This article is distinctive in that it highlights Deaf epistemology and qualitative inquiry processes through video data analysis of nonverbal interactions. Our work contributes to the growing body of methodology literature emphasizing collaborative social practices for video data analysis
“Thanks for Using Me”: An Exploration of Exit Strategy in Qualitative Research
No full textThis article examines, through a synthesis of the literature and excerpts from a qualitative case study, the concept of exit strategy, specifically its relation to vulnerable populations (e.g., overweight adolescent boys) and potential impact on the researcher-participant relationship. The quality and duration of the researcher-participant relationship, along with rapport and trust building, are potential indicators for negotiated closure (i.e., exit strategy). Reframing this relationship as “participant-researcher” resituates vulnerable participants as foremost in such relationships. Given what is potentially at stake for participants in qualitative research, there is a moral and ethical imperative to enter into the dialogue of closure. Otherwise, participants may unwittingly serve as a means to an end, that is, as objects in the enterprise of qualitative research. Researchers, research supervisors, and human subject ethics committees are urged to establish protocols to guide how research relationships are ended within the context of qualitative methods, particularly with respect to vulnerable populations
Message Received: Virtual Ethnography in Online Message Boards
No full textAs the internet begins to encapsulate more people within online communities, it is important the social researcher have well-rounded ethnographic methodologies for observing these phenomena. This article seeks to contribute to the methodology by detailing and providing insights into three specific facets of virtual ethnography that need attention: space and time, identity and authenticity, and ethics. Because of the postmodern context that the internet is operating in/contributing to (space and time collapse, identity becomes more playful, ethics become more tenuous), understanding these aspects is crucial to the study online social groups. A second focus of this article is to apply these notions to the study of online message boards—a frequently used medium for online communication and a frequently overlooked one by methodologists
In-Depth Interviewing with Healthcare Corporate Elites: Strategies for Entry and Engagement
No full textInterviewing corporate elites has received limited attention in the methodological literature. Such elites are considered highly difficult to gain access to and, if involved, are believed to use their power asymmetry to dominate the interview. Understanding the context is considered essential to elite access, interview conduct, and interpretation of findings. The healthcare sector provides interesting challenges for in-depth elite interviewing, including historical norms regarding interview access, types, and duration. In this article, the authors report on the strategies used to gain access to and engage healthcare elites who participated in multiple personal interviews using the Seidman in-depth phenomenological interviewing method. Techniques for identifying and recruiting potential participants, scheduling and preparing for the interview, and establishing rapport are described. Concept mapping is presented as a way of fully engaging the elites in the tripartite interview process and facilitating trustworthiness. The lessons learned offer important strategies for those undertaking phenomenological research with elites
Understanding the Language, the Culture, and the Experience: Translation in Cross-Cultural Research
No full textAchieving conceptual equivalence between two languages is a challenge in cross-cultural, cross-language research, as the research is conducted in a language that is not the researcher’s or research team’s first language. Therefore, translation provides an additional challenge in cross-cultural research. The comprehension and interpretation of the meaning of data is central in cross-cultural qualitative analysis. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the translation process and explore some of the challenges, such as difficulties in finding a suitable translator, and the importance of communication between the researcher and the translator