Qualitative Research: Five Approaches

Qualitative Research: Five Approaches

By

Aysha Siddiqui

Walden University

Narrative Research

Definition: Narrative Research is a study that focuses on the lives and experiences of individuals, collects data from stories of persons (Creswell, 2013).  According to Lieblich (1998) ‘people are story tellers’ and their experiences, thoughts, personalities can give researchers an insight into many ideas. Freud also used the case studies of men and women in psychotherapy to understand their personalities. Like any other research method, narrative research has been met with criticism too. Some researchers argue that one limitation this method has is the threat to validity: people may not narrate and tell the story as they have experienced it (Polkinghorne, 2007). Creswell (2013) describes four types of narrative research:

• A biographical study: Form of narrative study in which the researcher writes and records the experiences of another person’s life.
• Autoethnogrpahy: is the record of individuals’ layers of experience when they are part of a study.
• A life history: gives portrayal of an individual’s life whole life with narrative study being about a personal experience or multiple experiences.
• An oral history: consists of records of personal reflections of events, their experience with the event from one or many individuals.

Research problem, Narrative Research: Is there a high risk of suicide among patients with arthritis in old age?

Arthritis among people who are older is in substantial numbers, but not very high.  Timonen et al., highlight that suicidal rate among females who suffer from Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) should be taken into serious account. Choice of the narrative research is suitable for this study because this is a unique experience and the focus being on the suicide risk makes it an experience that may require an insight on the lives of specific individuals. How suicide risk is high, what causes it in patients with RA can demand a chronological system of recording data. This is possible with Narrative research.

Phenomenological Research

Phenomenological research is focused on understand the ‘essence of the experience’, as written by Creswell (2013). It describes the experience of a phenomenon that some or many individuals have lived and have shared. Smith (2007) writes that phenomenological research is concerned with understanding how participants make sense of the world around them in a social or personal manner.  The data is collected through statements, descriptions and observations (Creswell, 2013). The phenomenological research method, some researchers argue  has the challenge of cost, duration and the practical aspect of finding, collecting data may be high as is considered to be in any qualitative method (Caelli, 2001).

            Research Problem, Phenomenological Research: Do homeschooled kids feel socially challenged when they enter college life?

            Homeschooled kids are considered to less socially active due to lack of exposure to social interactions in a traditional public school manner ( Lebeda, 2007). On the flip side of the same situation, Cogan (2010) reports that homeschooled kids are shown to soccer higher on ACT, SAT and other achievement tests. This leads to attaining admissions in high achieving Universities in the country. This has left a gap in the research conducted on the phenomenon that homeschooled kids maybe gaining out of the flexibility they have being homeschooled, but they maybe losing the social awareness of the real world. This a phenomenon that can be studied by understanding the lives and experiences of individuals who actually have been homeschooled and then moved on to Universities for higher education.

Phenomenological research is most suitable for this research problem because this is an experience that has been lived by homeschooled individuals (Creswell, 2013). This study will record the experience of participants that are a group with one common experience among them of being homeschooled and university education. Lester (1999) explains that phenomenological research understand a problem as is lived by a group of people and are effective in understand from the point of view of the individuals. Homeschooling is a unique experience that can only be understood from the experience of those who have done it.

Grounded Theory Research

Grounded Theory research is defined as a study that intends to move beyond description and ‘to generate or discover a theory’ for a process or an action (Creswell, 2013). The method usually involves interviews with 20-60 individuals and data is analyzed through coding, axial coding and selective coding (Creswell, 2013). Glaser et al., write that grounded theory is a way to derive theory from data which is a major task in the field of sociology in today’s world. Grounded Theory can also obviate theories that are still dubious or are in working capacity.  Some researchers have stated grounded theory is the method that doesn’t bind itself to long standing assumptions and reaches for unbroken grounds with new modes (Suddaby, 2006).

Research Problem, Grounded Theory: Is Nursing a more suitable career for women or men are equally capable to handle it?

Chiovitti & Piran (2003) suggest that use of grounded theory research in fields of nursing and management helps researcher achieve the rigor that they require for a study on these topics. Associating nursing with women has been the trend and maybe the tradition in some cultures, so conducting a study that aims to understand the gender bias with a career is breaking new ground. Anthony (2004) reports that gender bias and discrimination in nursing education has been observed since years: to overcome this it’s important to understand the history of male contributors to nursing.

Ethnographic Research

Ethnographic research focuses on ‘describing and interpreting a culture- sharing group’ and understanding the group through observation, interviews (Creswell, 2013). Data analysis is conducted through description of the group themes, and how the group works. Some researchers argue that ethnographic research due to its sporadic and hap hazard nature is highly challenged in validity and reliability like other qualitative researchers (LeCompte & Goetz, 1982). Still, ethnographic research opens avenues for researchers like none other and gives an ability to conduct open ended research. LeCompte, Schensul (2010) report that ethnography is a systematic approach to learning about social and cultural life of communities, institutions in a scientific manner. They further add that this approach uses rigorous ways to avoid bias and collect data in a systematic manner about unique cultures, groups.  

            Research Problem, Ethnographic Research: Is there family influence in the choices of television shows by adolescents?

            Lull (1990) conducted a study on how people make choices about what television shows to watch and used the ethnographic approach with direct observation, in depth interviewing.  The research problem that aims to understand the television choices among adolescents is most suitable to use ethnographic approach as family influence can be cultural (Morley, 2005). Television viewing is affected by parenting, family culture and dynamics in a family. All these factors are then influenced by culture, so this research problem can be studied using an ethnographic approach.

Case Study Research

Case study research focuses on developing description of a particular case or number of related cases (Creswell, 2013) and analyzes data by cases and description of cross cases. Some researchers believe that case study approach is similar to the hypothesis-testing approach (Eisenhardt, 1989). Flyvbjerg (2006) reports that case study approaches are usually misunderstood in five ways: theoretical over practical knowledge, a single study is not enough to understand a concept, case study is most effective for hypothesis, case studies contain bias and cannot be specified. The study further adds that social sciences can benefit from substantial, properly executed case studies.

            Research Problem, Case Study Research: Do information technology experts enjoy the nature of their work?

            Benbasat et al.(1987) report that case study is most suitable for a study that is on a topic which is in it’s formative, early stages and they give the example of case study research for information technology studies. Information technology has seen a lot of boom recently, however, it is still exclusive to people who are trained to be experts in it. Professionals from other fields like healthcare, medicine or art are unable to relate to this field. Hence, a case study approach to get description of their experience from information technology experts is justified for this research problem.       

References

Anthony, A. S. (2004). Gender bias and discrimination in nursing education: can we change it? Nurse Educator, 29(3), 121-125.

Benbasat, I., Goldstein, D. K., & Mead, M. (1987). The case research strategy in studies of information systems. MIS quarterly, 369-386.

Caelli, K. (2001). Engaging with phenomenology: is it more of a challenge than it needs to be? Qualitative Health Research, 11(2), 273-281.

Chiovitti, R. F., & Piran, N. (2003). Rigour and grounded theory research.Journal of advanced nursing, 44(4), 427-435.

Cogan, M. F. (2010). Exploring Academic Outcomes of Homeschooled Students. Journal of College Admission, 208, 18-25.

Creswell, J. W. (2013). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches. Sage publications.

Eisenhardt, K. M. (1989). Building theories from case study research. Academy of management review, 14(4), 532-550.

Flyvbjerg, B. (2006). Five misunderstandings about case-study research.Qualitative inquiry, 12(2), 219-245.

Lebeda, S. (2007). Homeschooling: Depriving children of social development. J. Contemp. Legal Issues, 16, 99.

LeCompte, M. D., & Schensul, J. J. (2010). Designing and conducting ethnographic research (Vol. 1). Rowman Altamira.

LeCompte, M. D., & Goetz, J. P. (1982). Problems of reliability and validity in ethnographic research. Review of educational research, 52(1), 31-60.

Lester, S. (1999). An introduction to phenomenological research. Stan Lester Developments, 1-4.

Lieblich, A. (1998). Narrative research: Reading, analysis, and interpretation(Vol. 47). Sage.

Lull, J. (1990). Inside family viewing: ethnographic research on television's audiences. Routledge.

Morley, D. (2005). Family television: Cultural power and domestic leisure. Routledge.

Polkinghorne, D. E. (2007). Validity issues in narrative research. Qualitative inquiry, 13(4), 471-486.

Suddaby, R. (2006). From the editors: What grounded theory is not. Academy of management journal, 49(4), 633-642.