International Journal of Qualitative Methods: ARCHIVE
Not a member yet
403 research outputs found
Sort by
Dissolving Dualisms: How Two Positivists Engaged With Non-Positivist Qualitative Methodology
No full textThis is the story of how a chemical engineer and a medical microbiologist overcame their positivist training and deeply held disciplinary attitudes to engage with non-positivist qualitative methodology. Through a series of facilitated reflections they explored what helped and hindered their transition from positivist to non-positivist inquiry. To move forward they needed to acknowledge the extent and nature of the transition they were making, find metaphors to dissolve troubling dualisms, and balance a desire to reach out to others with the need to manage the very real sense of vulnerability that came with embracing subjectivity. Their experiences suggest that pragmatism may be a useful bridging framework for the growing number of academics from the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines turning to qualitative methodologists for help to move beyond positivist research
Through the Viewfinder: Reflecting on the Collection and Analysis of Classroom Video Data
No full textThe possibilities inherent in the collection and use of video footage point to an important innovation for classroom research. Unfortunately, researchers often experience uncertainty about incorporating video into their methodological approach as it can present a potential minefield of operational, technical, and ethical issues that require consideration and negotiation. Nevertheless, with the increased emphasis on the use of digital technologies, the timing is right to engage in more in-depth discussions about the role of video data in education research. In contributing to this discussion, this article unpacks several issues connected to the use of video technology as a tool for data collection and analysis. This article focuses on addressing some of the barriers faced by education researchers such as making sampling decisions, maintaining research authenticity, and grappling with ethical issues that arise. In terms of the advantages for researchers, this article highlights the suitability of video technology for classroom-based research because it provides a permanent and detailed record, which can be analyzed from multiple perspectives. These issues are explained through the experiences of an education researcher, who used video as the main data source for documenting and examining the practices of two effective primary science teachers in Perth, Western Australia
Reconceptualizing the Member Check Interview
No full textThe member check has been heralded as an important component of validation in qualitative research. Traditionally, the member check has been used in order to assess the accuracy with which a researcher has represented a participant’s subjectivity. Some theorists, however, have argued that change, rather than representation, should be sought as a primary goal for qualitative research. The difference between using representation or change as a marker of validity has been described as a transactional/transformation divide. I argue that the member check can be utilised to span this divide in order to support a holistic view of validity. In particular, I assert that researchers should not expect participant subjectivities to remain static throughout the research process. Examples of the member check used in this manner are provided
Data Display in Qualitative Research
No full textVisual displays help in the presentation of inferences and conclusions and represent ways of organizing, summarizing, simplifying, or transforming data. Data displays such as matrices and networks are often utilized to enhance data analysis and are more commonly seen in quantitative than in qualitative studies. This study reviewed the data displays used by three prestigious qualitative research journals within a period of three years. The findings include the types of displays used in these qualitative journals, the frequency of use, and the purposes for using visual displays as opposed to presenting data in text
Group Meeting Dynamics in a Community-Based Participatory Research Photovoice Project with Exited Sex Trade Workers
No full textThis article is based on a secondary analysis of transcripts from a community-based participatory research (CBPR) project that sought to represent through photovoice the lived experience of five exited sex trade workers. The focus of the secondary thematic transcript analysis was to discern group processes and describe group dynamics of six two-hour group meetings. Creating and maintaining an environment of safety emerged as a primary theme. The group processes resembled mutual aid groups, which are characterized by people offering assistance to each other in an interpersonal forum that demands personal reflection. Group dynamics revealed that an important aspect of CBPR photovoice research is the collaborative creation of a safe place for showing photographs and storytelling
Recording the Personal: The Benefits in Maintaining Research Diaries for Documenting the Emotional and Practical Challenges of Fieldwork in Unfamiliar Settings
No full textThrough an analysis of personal research diaries maintained during a prolonged period spent working in Palestine, this article analyses the importance of maintaining research diaries when on fieldwork. The evidence produced stems from a content analysis of fieldwork diaries kept while researching commemorative events in the West Bank, Palestine, during a period of global uncertainty and at a time of much change in the region. In espousing the benefits of the fieldwork diary it is shown that diaries assume a more important role than acting as a mere logging device; they have the capacity to allow for personal reflection and to help with the development of strategic responses to the inevitable challenges one would expect to face when working far from the relative comfort of home. The research diary as a cathartic tool for researchers to record fears and shortcomings in their work is discussed and personal insights into some of the challenges this researcher faced when engaged in ethnographic work in Ramallah, Palestine are provided. In summarising the benefits of maintaining research diaries, the author, lamenting the lack of transparency in the literature to date on the practicalities of fieldwork, calls for more open and honest reflection on the challenges associated with conducting fieldwork, particularly that which takes place in volatile or unstable regions
A Delicate Balancing Act: Negotiating with Gatekeepers for Ethical Research When Researching Minority Communities
No full textResearch and processes of knowledge production are often based on racialised and imperialistic frameworks that have led to either the exclusion or the pathologisation of minority groups. Researchers address issues of exclusion by adopting recruitment strategies that involve negotiating with gatekeepers to ensure the inclusion of minority or marginalised groups. This often involves in-depth scrutiny of gatekeepers and requires the researchers to negotiate deals and to make personal disclosures. However, there remains relatively little discussion on the pragmatic ethical issues facing researchers in the field as a result of these interactions. This article suggests that interactions with gatekeepers present ethical issues that can be effectively addressed and managed by researchers through the exercise of phronesis. Phronesis allows researchers to make critical ethical decisions based on the specific characteristics of the research sites and subjects, not least of which are those issues that emerge as a consequence of researcher positionality. Such decisions are not necessarily identified or accommodated through bureaucratic processes which govern research ethics. We advance the notion of research ethics as an ongoing process that requires researcher skills and engagement, rather than a one-off bureaucratic exercise
Reflections on the Use of Grounded Theory to Uncover Patterns of Exclusion in an Online Discussion Forum at an Institution of Higher Education
No full textThis article reports on an example of grounded theory methodology used in a case study to describe power inequalities among participants in an online forum at a higher education institution in South Africa. Critical poststructuralist theory informs the study as it investigates how hegemony influences the strategic interaction of participants. An interpretive analysis through coding procedures uncovered elements of intensified exclusion, inequality, and oppression. This took place within a virtual space which is theoretically idealized as an equalizer and promoter of freedom of speech. The process involved in the eliciting of voices and in the analysing and interpreting of subjective accounts is described to give an account of disillusioned experiences with a potentially liberating form of technology. The article contributes to qualitative methodology in applying the generic paradigmatic conditions within grounded theory and illustrates both the interrelatedness and the cyclic nature of the conditions within the specific paradigms of participants
Location and Unlocation: Examining Gender and Telephony through Autoethnographic Textual and Visual Methods
No full textStudies on gender and telephony tend to be quantitative and depict the purposes for which women and men use mobile telephones and landlines. Qualitative studies on the topic predominantly rely on face-to-face interviews to examine how telephone use genders space. We suggest these traditional methods of data collection leave unexamined the emotional and social relationships that emerge and are enabled by telephone use, which at times reconfigure and gender social spaces. In this article we present a collaborative autoethnographic inquiry based on our own telephone lives. We introduce a reflexive visual and textual methodological design, specifically diary notes, memory work, and photography, developed from our lives as researcher and researched. We examine an important theme in our findings, the physical placement of the telephone and the phone holder’s awareness of the physicality of the telephone, which illustrates the importance of our methodological choices. We show how the placement of the phone by the users both genders space and creates emotional spaces
Interviewing Ghanaian Educational Elites: Strategies for Access, Commitment, and Engagement
No full textA review of the research methodology literature suggests that owing to the difficulty of gaining access to and obtaining commitments from elites, social scientists less frequently use them as research respondents, opting instead to investigate those over whom power is exercised. This article provides insights into some intricacies of elite interviewing. It recounts the experience of a novice researcher in his quest to gain access to and interview elite individuals within the Ghanaian educational system for his PhD thesis. In the process, the article sheds light on strategies and techniques (related to interviewee identification, scheduling, and researcher preparation for the interview, as well as rapport establishment with potential interviewees) that are helpful as toolkits in ensuring that elite interview processes are not unduly derailed. The article argues that the strategies discussed are useful for circumventing formalised and “public relations” responses, which elites tend to communicate with the press and public