International Journal of Qualitative Methods: ARCHIVE
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Symposium Conclusion - Issues of Validity: Behavioral Concepts, Their Derivation and Interpretation
No full textQualitative inquiry that commences with the concept, rather than the phenomenon itself, is subject to violating the tenet of induction, thus is exposed to particular threats of invalidity. In this symposium, using the examples of the concepts of uncertainty, trust, vulnerability and suffering, and interview and videotaped data, we discuss strategies to maintain the inductive thrust, and hence validity, during data analysis. The authors present the use of a skeletal framework and scaffold as techniques to “frame” the concept, while, at the same time, continuing to further develop the concept
Supercodes Reflected in Titles Battered Women Accord to Their Life Stories
No full textThe purpose of this article is to demonstrate a new method of analyzing life story interviews. According to this method, interviewees are asked to title their life story at the end of the main interview. These titles are analyzed as texts by the researcher, in order to identify the central storyline. Comparison of storylines enables us to define the supercode of the interviewee’s life stories. In this article, the author uses titles that battered women give to their life stories to demonstrate the process of analyzing titles, and discusses the advantages as well as the limitations of this method
Reading Qualitative Studies
No full textIn this article, the authors hope to shift the debate in the practice disciplines concerning quality in qualitative research from a preoccupation with epistemic criteria toward consideration of aesthetic and rhetorical concerns. They see epistemic criteria as inevitably including aesthetic and rhetorical concerns. The authors argue here for a reconceptualization of the research report as a literary technology that mediates between researcher/writer and reviewer/reader. The evaluation of these reports should thus be treated as occasions in which readers seek to make texts meaningful, rather than for the rigid application of standards and criteria. The authors draw from reader-response theories, literature on rhetoric and representation in science, and findings from an on-going methodological research project involving the appraisal of a set of qualitative studies
Moral Geography of Focus Groups with Participants Who Have Preexisting Relationships in the Workplace
No full textFocus group interviews have become increasingly popular in the past three decades, but ethical issues related to conducting focus groups with participants who have preexisting power relationships in workplaces has received scant attention in the methodological qualitative literature. In this paper the authors offer three propositions to strengthen the moral geographical space between researchers and participants: (a) prior to data collection: highlight the risks and benefits of the method and stress that confidentiality cannot be assured outside the group; (b) during data collection: document group dynamics and encourage participants to share insights after the session; and (c) ongoing: researchers to research and write about the dynamics of the moral space between researcher-participant
Adopting a Grounded Theory Approach to Cultural-Historical Research: Conflicting Methodologies or Complementary Methods?
No full textGrounded theory has long been regarded as a valuable way to conduct social and educational research. However, recent constructivist and postmodern insights are challenging long-standing assumptions, most notably by suggesting that grounded theory can be flexibly integrated with existing theories. This move hinges on repositioning grounded theory from a methodology with positivist underpinnings to an approach that can be used within different theoretical frameworks. In this article the author reviews this recent transformation of grounded theory, engages in the project of repositioning it as an approach by using cultural historical activity theory as a test case, and outlines several practical methods implied by the joint use of grounded theory as an approach and activity theory as a methodology. One implication is the adoption of a dialectic, as opposed to a constructivist or objectivist, stance toward grounded theory inquiry, a stance that helps move past the problem of emergence versus forcing
Exploring Types of Educational Action Research: Implications for Research Validity
No full textIn this paper the authors argue that there are three modes of educational action research: emancipatory, practical, and knowledge generating. Furthermore, they suggest that much of action research, although predicated on notions of emancipatory research, is often not primarily emancipatory in nature. There are considerable risks involved when action research fails to adequately justify its truth claims because of a dependence on validities that primarily assess the emancipatory features of the research. Consequently, the authors propose that the various modes of action research require emphasis on different validities that are dependent on the purposes of the research. In doing this, they offer a reconceptualization of Anderson and Herr’s (1999) influential approach to validity in action research
Developing Concepts in Caring Science Based on a Lifeworld Perspective
No full textConcept development is a significant form of inquiry to expand and develop the knowledge base in caring science. The authors’ aim in this article is to illuminate the possibility of working with concept development, based on a life world perspective, especially Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of language, wherein phenomenological, semiological, and pragmatic dimensions are included. The theoretical discussion shows that it is possible to create methodological principles for concept development based on epistemological foundations that are consistent with ontological assumptions in caring science
Advancing Women’s Social Justice Agendas: A Feminist Action Research Framework
No full textFeminist action research is a promising, though under-developed, research approach for advancing women’s health and social justice agendas. In this article the foundations, principles, dimensions, promises, and challenges of engaging in feminist action research are explored
Living Spaces for Talk with/in the Academy
No full textExploring to find the question is always already exploring to find the method. What’s (really) happening when we talk in academic spaces? What talk(s) belong in the Academy? Where does the ‘talk’ happen and how is it (in)visible? Based on ‘talk’ of reflective practice shared between two colleagues, this article examines issues of ethics, methodology and usefulness as they pertain to the terra (in)cognito of idea talk with/in the Academy. Through a dialogue about methods and method in which we emphasize permission to dwell, we hope to further inquiry into the role of talk with/in the Academy
A Phenomenological Research Design Illustrated
No full textThis article distills the core principles of a phenomenological research design and, by means of a specific study, illustrates the phenomenological methodology. After a brief overview of the developments of phenomenology, the research paradigm of the specific study follows. Thereafter the location of the data, the data-gathering the data-storage methods are explained. Unstructured in-depth phenomenological interviews supplemented by memoing, essays by participants, a focus group discussion and field notes were used. The data explicitation, by means of a simplified version of Hycner’s (1999) process, is further explained. The article finally contains commentary about the validity and truthfulness measures, as well as a synopsis of the findings of the study