International Journal of Qualitative Methods: ARCHIVE
Not a member yet
403 research outputs found
Sort by
Examining the Nexus Between Grounded Theory and Symbolic Interactionism
No full textGrounded theory is inherently symbolic interactionist; however, not all grounded theory researchers appreciate its importance or benefit from its influence. Elsewhere, we have written about the intrinsic relationship between grounded theory and symbolic interactionism, highlighting the silent, fundamental contribution of symbolic interactionism to the methodology. At the same time, there are significant insights to be had by bringing a conscious awareness of the philosophy of symbolic interactionism to grounded theory research. In this article we discuss the symbolic interactionist concepts of mind, self, and society, and their applicability in grounded theorizing. Our purpose is to highlight foundational concepts of symbolic interactionism and their centrality in the processes of conducting grounded theory research
Shifting Positionalities: A Critical Discussion of a Duoethnographic Inquiry of a Personal Curriculum of Post/Colonialism
No full textThis article first presents a study of two educational researchers’ history and curriculum of colonialism. Using a process of duoethnography, we engage in dialogic and collaborative personal ethnographies in which we contrast and analyze critical educational incidents and products (e.g., a high school report card, old personal photos, and current teaching lesson plans at the high school and college levels). We focus this process on the ideological scripts framing and informing our educational histories, as students and then as teachers, in order to unpack some of the cultural underpinnings of our views of teaching language arts for equity and diversity. Furthermore, in the article we critique the duoethnographic process, analyzing and discussing issues surrounding representation, trustworthiness, and self-reflexivity
Translating Faith: Field Narratives as a Means of Dialogue in Collaborative Ethnographic Research
No full textThis article presents research from a collaborative ethnography in four faith settings in London, UK. In particular, we show how a group of researchers from diverse cultures teach and learn from each other through the use of field narratives. After outlining a sociocultural approach to learning and discussing how faith situates itself within this frame, we show ways in which field narratives provide a bridge between the past, present, and future of cultural events and practices and allow a polyphonic gaze by different researchers describing the same setting. We show how researchers learn to reflect upon their own research site, compare it with those of others, and, ultimately, become more aware of their own. This process is iterative and dialogic, which enriches not only the knowledge of the researchers themselves but also provides a mosaic of different interpretations to a wider interested audience
Interviewing by Telephone: Specific Considerations, Opportunities, and Challenges
No full textThe use of telephones as a medium for conducting interviews is becoming an increasingly popular data collection method. Despite both the frequency of use of this data collection method and the many advantages conferred to researchers, this method is often considered suspect within the academic community. In methodological discussions of interviewing, the use of the telephone is frequently ignored. The purpose of this article is to explicate the key differences between interviewing by telephone and interviewing in person and highlight three specific challenges to interviewing over the telephone—the sample, the tools, and the medium. This article considers specifically how recent research in management and communications on distanced leadership provides insight into the tradeoffs associated with interviewing through this medium. This data collection medium has clear and distinct advantages, such as providing researchers with flexibility and access that is unavailable through traditional methods, and many of the challenges of telephone interviewing may simply be the result of a natural trade off that exists with respect to all research methods. In order to safeguard against some of the inherent weaknesses of this method, this article provides several lessons that can better inform those researchers who wish to engage in telephone interviews
Computer-Assisted, Self-Interviewing (CASI) Compared to Face-to-Face Interviewing (FTFI) with Open-Ended, Non-Sensitive Questions
No full textThis article reports results from research on cultural models, and assesses the effects of computers on data quality by comparing open-ended questions asked in two formats—face-to-face interviewing (FTFI) and computer-assisted, self-interviewing (CASI). We expected that for our non-sensitive topic, FTFI would generate fuller and richer accounts because the interviewer could facilitate the interview process. Although the interviewer indeed facilitated these interviews, which resulted in more words in less time, the number of underlying themes found within the texts for each interview mode was the same, thus resulting in the same models of national culture and innovation being built for each mode. Our results, although based on an imperfect research design, suggest that CASI can be beneficial when using open-ended questions because CASI is easy to administer, capable of reaching more efficiently a large sample, and able to avoid the need to transcribe the recorded responses
Developing the Therapeutic Use of Self in the Health Care Professional Through Autoethnography: Working With the Borderline Personality Disorder Population
No full textFrequently stigmatized, misdiagnosed, improperly treated, and discounted is the suffering of the patient with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), and it can be a serious, agonizing, tenacious, and draining mental illness. Present-day research illustrates that patients with BPD are in fact the largest consumers of mental health services, utilizing every treatment genre more frequently and in greater quantities than any other mental health taxonomy. They experience more complex and destructive symptoms, more perpetual misery and encumbrance, an unpredictable usage of outpatient services, and extensive treatment modalities and psychiatric admissions. A review of current literature reveals this consistent notion: the attitudes of health care professionals toward patients diagnosed with this elaborate disorder tend to be disparaging. The aim of this article is to critically analyze the prospect that autoethnography (or narrative research) is a strategic, useful tool for mental health professionals to improve empathy and identification with patients suffering with BPD. As a qualitative research method, autoethnography is advantageous for creating connections between care provider and patient. It can deepen their mutual and divergent experiences while generating empirical knowledge from the professional’s narrative reflection and through the therapeutic use of self with the patient
Qualitative Research in the Digital Era: Obstacles and Opportunities
No full textAlthough the many sites and opportunities available to researchers through the development and proliferation of the Internet are well known, little attention has been paid to what digital technologies and the world’s developing digital infrastructure can offer qualitative researchers for the actual process of doing research. This article discusses opportunities that now exist that we have experimented with and implemented in our own research, such as viral sampling strategies, wireless interviewing, and voice recognition transcription, as well as impediments we have encountered that stand in their way. Included in the latter are research ethics boards who often lack expertise in issues that arise in computer-assisted research, hardware/software costs and technological expertise for researchers, and university administrations who have not embraced infrastructure for qualitative research to the same extent they have supported quantitative research. The article closes with a look at the implications of emerging issues, such as the trend to cloud computing, the proliferation of mobile devices, and the maturation of voice recognition software
Ethnonursing: A Qualitative Research Method for Studying Culturally Competent Care Across Disciplines
No full textNurse anthropologist, Madeleine Leininger, developed the culture care theory and ethnonursing research method to help researchers study transcultural human care phenomena and discover the knowledge nurses need to provide care in an increasingly multicultural world. The authors propose that the ethnonursing method can be useful for research that addresses providing care in other disciplines, including education, administration, physical, occupational, and speech therapy, social work, pharmacy, medicine, and other disciplines in which research findings have implications for human care and health. The authors discuss the culture care theory and describe the ethnonursing research method’s enablers, data analysis phases, and qualitative evaluation criteria. The theory is presented as a guide for using research findings to design culturally competent and congruent care to promote well-being among diverse people, groups, communities, and institutions. Resources include a reference list of key source publications, a discussion of exemplar studies, and samples of a theory-based, open-ended interview guide and data coding system
Participatory Action Research, Mental Health Service User Research, and the Hearing (our) Voices Projects
No full textIn this article I discuss participatory action research as a framework for enabling people diagnosed with mental health problems to carry out research and in doing so to promote health equity, citizenship, and social justice for people with a mental health diagnosis. The participatory approach to research aims to involve ordinary community members in generating practical knowledge about issues and problems of concern to them and through this promoting personal and social change. The article traces the development of participatory action research and describes its application in the mental health service user research movement. The Hearing (our) Voices projects, participatory research projects carried out in Calgary, Alberta by a group of people diagnosed with schizophrenia, are described to illustrate this approach to mental health research. Participation in research to promote health equity is about inclusion and about how marginalized people can claim full and equal citizenship as participants in and contributors to society
Exploring the Emotional Experience of Same-sex Parents by Mixing Creatively Multiple Qualitative Methods
No full textSpecial Issues Submission: Equity
In this paper I address some of the main challenges and benefits of doing qualitative research with a specific type of \u27informal caregivers\u27, i.e. those who have been thus far excluded from the conceptual category of “normal” caregivers and from normal research on informal care: same-sex parents. The research presented in this paper is an example of a qualitative, inclusive approach to studying the felt and lived experience of 33 same-sex parents. It draws on a wider study on 80 informal caregivers, who were different in terms of gender, type of care, marital status, and sexual orientation. Its aim was to offer a more inclusive interpretation and a more reliable discourse on family care and parenthood. The research objective was to gain insights into the emotional mechanisms through which the dynamics of inclusion or exclusion are interactionally and situationally constructed and/or challenged while doing care. In this paper I illustrate the mix of creative, qualitative methods I employed to explore the experiences of a group of same-sex parents living in Philadelphia (USA)