Qualitative Research Methods: Collecting Evidence, Crafting Analysis, Communicating Impact

Cover
Title
About the website
Title - Full
Copyright Page
Contents
Detailed Contents
Preface: Is this book for me?
Chapter 1 Developing contextual research that matters
Overview and introduction
Three core qualitative concepts: self-reflexivity, context, and thick description
Self-reflexivity
Context
Thick description
How qualitative research is distinct from quantitative research
A phronetic approach: doing qualitative research that matters
Strengths of qualitative research
Qualitative research is useful in a variety of jobs, settings, and disciplinary foci
Exercise 1.1 Interviewing a friend, colleague, or classmate
Moving from ideas to sites, settings, and participants
Sources of research ideas
Exercise 1.2 Field/site/participant brainstorm
Consider This 1.1 Sources of research ideas
Compatibility, yield, suitability, and feasibility
Researcher’s Notepad 1.1 Negotiating challenges with rare or hidden populations
Tips and Tools 1.1 Factoring the ease of fieldwork
Moving toward a research question
Researcher’s Notepad 1.2 Published examples of research questions
Considering collaboration
Exercise 1.3 Published examples of research questions
Exercise 1.4 Three potential field sites and/or participant groups
In summary
Key Terms
Chapter 2 Entering the conversation of qualitative research
Inductive/emic, deductive/etic, and abductive/iterative approaches
The funnel metaphor
Sensitizing concepts
Exercise 2.1 A quick dip into the field
A complex focus on the whole
Naturalistic inquiry
Thick description
Bricolage
A sampling of theoretical approaches that commonly use qualitative methods
Symbolic interactionism
Consider This 2.1 How do I know myself?
Structuration theory
Consider This 2.2 Why am I standing in line?
Exercise 2.2 Action vs. structure
Sensemaking
Historical matters and current conversations in qualitative research
The early days
Ethically problematic research and the creation of the IRB
Recent history in academia and the private sector
Current conversations: ethics, post-qualitative research, big data
In summary
Exercise 2.3 Research problems and questions
Key Terms
Chapter 3 Paradigmatic reflections and qualitative research territories
Paradigms: positivist, interpretive, critical, postmodern
Positivist and post‐positivist paradigms
Interpretive paradigm
Exercise 3.1 Verstehen/understanding
Critical paradigm
Postmodern and other “post” paradigms
Consider This 3.1 Whose stylistic rules?
Paradigmatic complexities and intersections
Exercise 3.2 Assumptions of paradigmatic approaches
Key territories and approaches of qualitative research
Case study
Grounded theory
Ethnography and ethnography of communication
Phenomenology
Participatory action research
Narrative inquiry and autoethnography
Creative, performative, and arts‐based approaches
In summary
Key Terms
Chapter 4 Research design: Sampling, research proposals, ethics, and IRB
Planning the data collection: fieldwork, interviews, texts, and visuals
The value of fieldwork and “participant witnessing”
The value of interviews
Consider This 4.1 Yin and yang: taijitu
The value of textual analysis and cultural studies
The value of visual and arts‐based materials
Developing a sampling plan: who, what, where, how, and when
Random samples and representative samples
Convenience/opportunistic samples
Maximum variation samples
Snowball samples
Theoretical-construct samples
Typical, extreme, deviant, and critical incident samples
Tips and Tools 4.1 Sampling plans
How and when to choose your sample
Ethics and institutional review boards (IRB)
Research instruments, informed consent, and confidentiality
Different levels of ethical risk and IRB review
The quirks of IRB
Creating a research proposal
Tips and Tools 4.2 Research proposal components
Title, abstract, and key words
Introduction/rationale
Exercise 4.1 Conceptual cocktail party
Literature review/conceptual framework
Research questions/foci
Methodology and methods
Tips and Tools 4.3 What belongs in a qualitative methods section?
Budget/timeline
Tips and Tools 4.4 What to include in a qualitative project budget
Projected outcomes
In summary
Key Terms
Chapter 5 Negotiating access and exploring the scene
Confessional tales that illustrate common challenges of access and consent
Riding my mentor’s coattails: Citywest 911 emergency call-takers
Becoming a full participant: the Radiant Sun cruise ship
Entering a closed organization: Women’s Minimum and Nouveau Jail
Accessing an elite interviewee population surrounding a delicate topic
Practical considerations of negotiating access
Do some homework before approaching the scene
Researcher’s Notepad 5.1 Contact information log
Please don’t reject me! Seeking research permission
Researcher’s Notepad 5.2 Sample access proposal: Emotion, culture, and organizational communication
Virtual “access” versus textual harvesting
Negotiating access for interviews
Abandoning the ego, engaging embodiment, embracing liminality
Exercise 5.1 Self-identity audit
Navigating those first research interactions
Researcher’s Notepad 5.3 Initial reactions speak volumes
Relationship building with participants
Seeking informed consent in the scene
Tips and Tools 5.1 Navigating the beginning of the qualitative research project
Exploratory methods
Briefing interviews and participant information table
Researcher’s Notepad 5.4 Participant information table
Member diaries
Maps and narrative tours
Exercise 5.2 Map and narrative tour
In summary
Key Terms
Chapter 6 Field roles, fieldnotes, and field focus
Field roles and standpoints
Complete participant
Play participant
Focused witness
Consider This 6.1 When playing is uncomfortable
Complete witness
Visual and virtual aspects of fieldwork
Writing fieldnotes: raw records, headnotes, and formal fieldnotes
Raw records and headnotes
Exercise 6.1 Taking raw records in the scene
Formal fieldnotes
Researcher’s Notepad 6.1 Fieldnote header
Qualities of good fieldnotes
Economy versus detail
Showing (and using dialogue) versus telling
Making the familiar strange and the strange familiar
Noticing the data as evidence
Analytic reflections
Consider This 6.2 Noticing the data as evidence
Fieldnote wrap-up
Tips and Tools 6.1 Fieldnote writing tips
Focusing the data and using heuristic devices
Exercise 6.2 Fieldnotes
Following, Forgetting, and Improvising
In summary
Key Terms
Chapter 7 Interview planning and design: Structuring, wording, and questioning
Self-reflexivity in interviews
Exercise 7.1 Self-reflexive interviewing
Interview structure, type, and stance
Level of structure in interviews
Interview types: ethnographic, informant, respondent, narrative, discursive
Interview stances: naïveté, collaborative, pedagogical, responsive, confrontational
Interview guide and question wording
Tips and Tools 7.1 Interview structure, types, and stances
Wording good questions
Exercise 7.2 Strategizing interviews
Researcher’s Notepad 7.1 Research questions versus interview questions
Interview questions: types, purposes, examples, and sequencing
Opening the interview
Tips and Tools 7.2 Interview question types
Generative questions
Directive questions
Closing the interview
Interview question wrap-up
Visual, embodied, and experiential approaches
Researcher’s Notepad 7.2 Mobile peripatetic interviews
How many interviews are “enough”?
In summary
Exercise 7.3 Interview schedule or guide
Key Terms
Chapter 8 Interview practice: Embodied, mediated, and focus-group approaches
Conducting face-to-face interviews
Interview logistics
Why good interviewing is so much more than asking questions
Technologically mediated approaches to interviewing
Strengths of mediated interviews
Disadvantages of mediated interviews
Tips and Tools 8.1 Mediated interviews: advantages and disadvantages
The focus-group interview
The value of focus groups
When to use focus groups
Planning focus groups
Facilitating the focus group
Tips and Tools 8.2 Logistics of formal focus groups
Overcoming common focus group and interviewing challenges
Exercise 8.2 Practicing focus groups
Researcher’s Notepad 8.1 Remedial–pedagogical interviews
Transcribing
Exercise 8.2 Role-playing interview challenges in a fishbowl
Tips and Tools 8.3 Common transcribing symbols
In summary
Key Terms
Chapter 9 Data analysis basics: A phronetic iterative approach
A phronetic iterative analysis approach
Organizing and preparing the data
Coding: what it is and how to start
Consider This 9.1 Motivating questions and coding domains
Analysis logistics: colors, cutting, or computers?
Manual approaches
Researcher’s Notepad 9.1 Manual coding visual displays: Artistic canvas and tabletop categories
Computer-aided approaches with everyday software
Primary-cycle coding, coding question start list, and first-level descriptive codes
Focusing the analysis and creating a codebook
Researcher’s Notepad 9.2 Codebook excerpt
Consider This 9.2 Focusing the data analysis
Secondary-cycle coding: second-level analytic and axial/hierarchical codes
Exercise 9.1 Grouping together codes via axial and hierarchical coding
Synthesizing activities: memos, negative cases, and analytic outlines
Researcher’s Notepad 9.3 Analytic memos
Researcher’s Notepad 9.4 Loose analysis outline
Following, Forgetting, and Improvising
In summary
Exercise 9.2 Iterative analysis basics
Key Terms
Chapter 10 Advanced data analysis: The art and magic of interpretation
Advanced logistical tools for data analysis
Visual data displays
Researcher’s Notepad 10.1 Matrix display
Tips and Tools 10.1 Flowchart depicting iterative analysis process
Computer-aided qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS)
Exemplars and vignettes
Developing typologies
Dramatistic strategy and narrative analysis
Tips and Tools 10.2 Questions to inspire narrative analysis (adapted from Harter, 2013)
Metaphor analysis
Explanation and causality
Discourse tracing
Researcher’s Notepad 10.2 Micro, meso, macro sources
A post-qualitative analysis: deconstructionism and arts-based research
Following, Forgetting, and Improvising
In summary
Exercise 10.1 Advanced data analysis/interpretation
Key Terms
Chapter 11 Qualitative quality: Creating a credible, ethical, significant study
Moving beyond objectivity, reliability, and formal generalizability
Eight “big tent” criteria for high quality qualitative research
Tips and Tools 11.1 Eight “big tent” criteria for excellent qualitative research
Worthy topic
Rich rigor
Sincerity
Exercise 11.1 Gauging worth and rigor
Self-reflexivity
Transparency
Researcher’s Notepa 11.1 Sincerity word cloud
Credibility
Thick description
Crystallization or triangulation (NOT both at the same time)
Multivocality
Tips and Tools 11.2 Intercoder reliability
Member reflections (NOT member “checks”)
Resonance
Transferability and naturalistic generalization
Aesthetic merit
Significant contribution
Exercise 11.2 Articulating and gauging significance
Ethical research practice
Procedural ethics
Situational ethics
Consider This 11.1 Situational and relational ethics
Meaningful coherence
Following, Forgetting, and Improvising
Consider This 11.2 The ten lies of ethnography
In summary
Key Terms
Chapter 12 Theorizing and writing: Explaining, synthesizing, and crafting a tale
Theorizing, brainstorming, explaining
Exercise 12.1 Words push back on us: a creative analytic exercise
Exercise 12.2 Theorizing via bracketing, abduction, metaphor, and explaining
Types of tales: realist, impressionistic/poetic, confessional/autoethnographic
The realist tale
Creative, impressionist, and literary tales
The confessional tale
Researcher’s Notepad 12.1 Poetic inquiry
Archaeology of a “traditional” qualitative essay
Researcher’s Notepad 12.2 Dialogue as a powerful literary tactic
Exercise 12.3 Accidental rewrites
Writing the framing material: title, abstract, key words
Writing the introduction, the literature review, and the conceptual framework
Writing the research methodology and method(s)
Findings and analysis: choosing an organizational approach
Researcher’s Notepad 12.3 Methods data display
Themes/topics
Chronology/life-story
Convergence/braided narrative
Puzzle explication strategy
Separated text
Layered/messy texts
Exercise 12.4 Which writing strategy?
Conclusions, implications, limitations, and future research
Following, Forgetting, and Improvising
In summary
Key Terms
Chapter 13 Drafting, polishing, and publishing
Writing as a method of inquiry
How to write and format qualitative research
Choosing the research materials
Rich, luminous, and thick representations
Structuring the data in sections, paragraphs, and sentences
Exercise 13.1 Writing from different perspectives and verb tenses
Formatting qualitative work
Visual representations and art
Researcher’s Notepad 13.1 Visual representation
Setting yourself up for success by considering the audience first
Exercise 13.2 Article format model
Submitting, revising, and resubmitting for journal publication
Tips and Tools 13.1 National or international journals that have published qualitative communication research (an incomplete list):
Rise and grind: overcoming common writing and submission challenges
How to write a lot
Addressing common challenges in qualitative writing
Following, Forgetting, and Improvising
In summary
Key Terms
Chapter 14 Qualitative methodology matters: Exiting and communicating impact
Navigating exit and research disengagement
Give notice and say goodbye
Exits can be emotional
Don’t spoil the scene
Give back
Researcher’s Notepad 14.1 Thank you note
Ethically delivering the findings
Public scholarship: crafting representations that move beyond the scholarly essay
Following, Forgetting, and Improvising
Public scholarship
Staged performances
Researcher’s Notepad 14.2 Staged performance with impact
Films
White papers and translated essays
Tips and Tools 14.1 White papers
Grant applications and reports
Consulting and private sector ethnography
Media relations
Exercise 14.1 Six-word stories
Web presence
Warning: doing research that matters can be terrifying
Overcoming lingering obstacles to public scholarship
Exercise 14.2 Making an impact via public scholarship
Following, Forgetting, and Improvising
In summary
Key Terms
Appendix A
Researcher’s Notepad Fieldnote
Appendix B
Researcher’s Notepad Focus group guide
Appendix C
Researcher’s Notepad Interview/focus group excerpts with different levels of transcription detail
References
Index
EULA