Ian Townsend ©Used with permission
At the basic level, data collection for quantitative social research methods is typified by such things as mailed (or handed) out questionnaires and telephone polls of reasonably large random, or representative, samples of people.
This and/or already existing bodies of statistical information can then be analysed to find patterns and trends reflected in the broader community. For example, the Australian Bureau of Statistics uses around 30,000 households to produce its unemployment figures (Bessant and Watts 1999:77).
Of course, quantitative analysts may narrow their surveys to a particular socio/economic category, age group or gender etc. depending on the nature of the research question. However, it is generally considered that the larger the surveyed sample then the more accurate the social picture formed.
Surveys with simple close-ended questions have the advantage of gathering a great amount of information in a relatively short space of time, which can be collected in or converted to numerical data, promptly processed and then analysed. Conversely, the more open-ended the questions the slower the response times and the greater the difficulty of data processing and analysis.
For simple descriptive questions, that aim to discover what is happening, basic questionnaires may work quite well but finding out why it happened requires more sophisticated quantitative analysis. Notwithstanding, this is still unlikely to reveal the complexity of the social realities within the sample (Bessant and Watts 1999:78-81).
Many of the orthodox foundations of the social sciences are heavily influenced by the natural sciences, as handed down from the Enlightenment. Within this paradigm scientists seek to
understand nature by isolating phenomena, observing them, and formulating mathematical laws to describe patterns...In experimental research, quantitative research designs are used to determine aggregate differences between groups or classes of subjects. Emphasis is placed on precise measurement and controlling for extraneous sources of error...Unfortunately, these efforts at experimental control are often impractical in social science research with human subjects (Rudestam and Newton 1992:24-25).
Good social science is a balancing act between rigorous controls that produce statistically significant data and the search for meaning. With the re-evaluation of research epistemologies and the advent of various new research strategies, the pendulum has been pushed towards the latter. Many of the underlying assumptions of modernism, and the inflexible commitments to logical positivism and absolute objectivity, have been criticised in recent decades. In the face of post-positivist and post-modernist perspectives the firm lines between object and subject are blurring.
Although the so-called 'hard sciences' have not escaped this critique, such an adjustment is especially helpful in the social sciences where the analyst is studying people and is him/herself a human research instrument with various subjective biases to account for (Zald 1992:43; Rudestam and Newton 1992:28ff, 41; Bessant and Watts 1999:59ff.).
The countervailing trend promotes 'studies that allow researchers to be more spontaneous and flexible in exploring phenomena in their natural environment' (Rudestam and Newton 1992:29). Such approaches that may be termed hermeneutic, experiential and dialectical etc. come under the general heading of qualitative research where the data is collected in word form, as opposed to numbers, and analysed by being reduced to themes or categories. This is especially helpful when trying to discover how individuals and groups interpret their particular sociocultural situations. Qualitative approaches are by nature more holistic, because they tend to work with wholes as much as possible, whereas quantitative approaches select measurable particulars.
Qualitative research aims to follow a more logically inductive approach that
begins with specific observations and moves toward the development of general patterns that emerge from the cases under study. The researcher does not impose much of an organizing structure or make assumptions about the interrelationships among the data prior to making observations. This is, of course, quite different from the hypothetico-deductive approach to experimental designs that prescribe specification of variables and hypotheses prior to data collection (Rudestam and Newton 1992:32).
Ethnography is the archetypical qualitative methodology, and qualitative methods are very much at home in the ethnographic arena of cultural anthropology and the field study traditions of sociology. They have also found their way into educational and psychological research.
One of the main differences within the domain of qualitative research itself concerns the question of how much interpretation of data should be undertaken.
Additionally, it is possible to combine both quantitative and qualitative methodologies to gather and interpret data. For example, "One might use qualitative data to illustrate or clarify quantitatively derived findings; or, one could quantify demographic findings. Or, use some form of quantitative data to partially validate one's qualitative analysis (Strauss and Corbin 1990:18-19)."
However, some situations may be more naturally suited to one approach or another. For instance, qualitative methods are most appropriate when seeking to 'uncover the nature of persons' experiences with a phenomenon, like illness, religious conversion, or addiction' (Strauss and Corbin 1990:19).
James Spradley's two textbboks have long been standard texts. Despite being a little dated (they were written before postmodernism), they are still part of the battery of standard texts.
Spradley concentrates on 'the ethnographic interview, not because this is the best source of data, but because it is one indispensable technique for doing ethnography' (1979:228). Based on an ethnoscience approach, Spradley has designed what he calls the 'Developmental Research Sequence Method' (D.R.S. Method).
He systematically takes the student through a series of steps, containing various tasks, which enable the ethnographer to carry out original research in a particular cultural scene. Thus, the basic skills for interviewing informants are learnt during the problem-solving process, which culminates with the writing of a cultural description.
Through asking specific questions Spradley endeavours to discover as many folk terms as possible through the interview process. Certain cover terms are then identified as lead categories and the characteristics of these terms, and other included terms which have semantic relationships to the cover terms, are identified as sub-categories. Although Spradley's method is highly structured, he does not seek to simply create or discover the structural reality of a social situation. He aims to move beyond this to uncover the psychological reality of his informants' own world (Spradley 1979:175, 221).
These techniques are aimed at the 'larger goals of ethnography-the wholistic, emic description of a way of life...that will communicate to outsiders the full context and meaning of a culture' (Spradley 1979:232). However, to make his book more focussed and user-friendly, Spradley intentionally limits its scope and does not recommend attempts at full-scale ethnographies based on this approach alone. Another self-imposed limitation is that Spradley does not examine the integration of data from multiple informants.
I focus on working with a single informant in order to show how one can learn ethnographic interviewing and analysis skills...In order to make generalizations about a culture, the ethnographer will need additional informants as well as data from other sources (Spradley 1979:233).
Hence, a single ethnographer could make a partial description of some selected cultural aspects from repeated interviews with one informant, over an extended period of time. On the other hand, a team of ethnographers interviewing one or more informants each, on multiple occasions, could draw a more complete picture.
Grounded theory was the second qualitative social science methodology considered, primarily as outlined by Bob Dick (2000[online]). Primary data is mostly collected through observation, conversation and interview and the relevant literature, which is accessed along the way, is treated as secondary data. Theory becomes emergent from this process and the field is entered for this purpose rather than to test a particular pre-existing hypothesis.
What most differentiates grounded theory from much other research is that it is explicitly emergent ... It sets out to find what theory accounts for the research situation as it is...The aim...is to discover the theory implicit in the data. This distinction between "emergence and forcing," as Glaser frames it, is fundamental to understanding the methodology (Dick 2000[online]).
The key issues are noted after each bout of data collection and data is constantly compared. When theory begins to emerge, data is then compared to theory. The results of this comparison are then written down as 'coding.' The aim here is to identify categories and their properties/sub-categories. Certain theoretical propositions begin to occur to the researcher, e.g. links between categories, or the idea of a core category. 'As the categories and properties emerge, they and their links to the core category provide the theory' (Dick 2000).
During this process, the researcher writes notes to himself about what is happening and this step is called 'memoing.' During the assignment the data, codes and memos continue to accumulate, and different properties are sought after ('purposive sampling') which increases the diversity of the sample. Then, as your core category and its linked categories saturate, you no longer add to them or their properties. This is a sign that it is time to move to sorting. You group your memos, like with like, and sequence them in whatever order will make your theory clearest (Dick 2000).
Thus, the order of the sorted memos provides the skeleton and some of the content for the researcher's thesis or dissertation. This can be summarised graphically by the following diagram.
| data | note-taking | coding | memoing | sorting | writing |
Dick (2000) points out that grounded theory finds its own sources of rigour because it is responsive to the situation in which the research is done and 'is a continuing search for evidence that disconfirms the emerging theory.' Therefore, because it is driven by the data rather than the preconceived canons of orthodoxy, the final shape of the theory is more likely to fit the social situation under investigation.
'Theory,' then, is the rising and concluding conceptual framework, with variable levels of abstraction from case to case, that the researcher applies to explain the particular phenomena in the research situation. This is arrived at inductively rather than beginning with abstract, a priori, formulas and attempting to move towards supporting proofs. However, Strauss and Corbin point out that
while coding we are constantly moving between inductive and deductive thinking. That is, we deductively propose statements of relationships or suggest possible properties and their dimensions when working with data, then actually attempt to verify what we have deduced against data as we compare incident with incident (1990:111).
This interplay between proposition and data is, they claim, what makes the theory grounded.
Haig (1995[online]) defends the practitioners of grounded theory that have been accused of naïve 'Baconian' inductivism. He points out that, 'the researcher does not approach reality as a tabula rasa.' Rather, he/she must have a perspective in order to 'see relevant data and abstract significant categories from [it].' Hence, to obtain emergent diverse categories the researcher must 'hold all potentially relevant facts and theories in the background for some time.'
Although grounded theory is a move away from the testing of 'great man' sociological theories, it should not be thought of as an escape from linear research methodologies such as hypothetico-deductivism. It changes the order:
'The widespread belief that scientific method has a natural beginning, whether it be with observations, theories, or problems' is a misconception. 'It is more realistic to hold that research begins wherever it is appropriate to enter its reasoning complex' (Haig 1995).
Haig himself proposes a modification of grounded theory drawn from Charles Peirce's work on scientific logic and method termed 'abductive explanatory inferentialism' (AEI). As the reliability of data forms the basis for claiming that phenomena exist, Haig calls for grounded theorists to more reliably establish phenomena in multiple-determined ways before they begin to generate theory. However, while reliability is the basis for justifying claims about phenomena, judgments about explanatory coherence are the appropriate grounds for theory acceptance (Haig 1995; cf. Kinach 1995[online]).
Subsequently, theory is then appraised by what philosophers call 'inference to the best explanation.' Thus, although Haig puts 'constructivist excesses aside,' he supports 'the idea that scientific realism is the working scientist's "natural attitude"' (Haig 1995).
Haig appears to advocate the best of what the quantitative and the qualitative approaches to science can muster, which is commendable. However, the reporting of all phenomena is representative, and it seems that the way ahead for the analysis of some particular social realities requires the combination of both the objective and the subjective, i.e. an amalgam of both science and art.
Narrative analysis is a third option for analysing data gathered from interviews. Riessman (1993:1) says, As realist assumptions from natural science methods prove limiting for understanding social life, a group of leading U.S. scholars from various disciplines are turning to narrative as the organizing principle of human action."
The aim with this approach is to examine how respondents make sense of events and actions in their lives, through the self-imposed order of their own stories. For the narrative analyst, it is not simply the content of these stories but the sub-genres and structures, and the linguistic and cultural resources that the narrator draws on, which are important. Questions about how the listener is persuaded of the informant's authenticity and why the story was told in a particular way also play a key role in this methodology.
Whereas experts in grounded theory and ethnographic interviewing can enter the field armed with little more than pad and pen, searching for key words and folk terms, narrative analysts are heavily reliant upon audio tape recordings, precise transcriptions and judicious paraphrasing.
Narratologists draw on some of the insights from textual analysis, e.g. semiotics and hermeneutics, and are influenced by the post-positivist trends of current literary criticism. A lack of objectivity is, of course, 'deeply distrusted in mainstream social science, which values context-free laws and generalized explanations' (Riessman 1993:5). However, it is the subjective nature of personal narratives (their perspective-ladenness and meaning-creativeness) that is of great value to qualitative researchers like Riessman; and it is the rigorous attention to transcribed details and a unique systematic approach that makes her particular method scientific.
Riessman (1993:8) says, 'Investigators do not have direct access to another's experience. We deal with ambiguous representations of it-talk, text, interaction, and interpretation.' Therefore, to make sense of narrative reality, she identifies a minimum of five levels (or kinds) of representation in the research process, with porous boundaries between them:
Attending | Telling | Transcribing | Analysing | Reading
These insights call into question the 'objectivity' of many areas of social scientific work but whether one accepts ultimate relativism or not, 'awareness of levels of representation presses us to be more conscious, reflective, and cautious about the claims we make' (Riessman 1993:16).
There is no single binding theory of narrative analysis or scholarly consensus about the precise definition of what constitutes narrative. While some look for a chronological sequence of events, others are happy to find consequential sequencing (causality) with or without an ordered timeline. The beginning and end of some narrative units may be quite clear in conversation but not all are. Hence, the analyst must look carefully for the entry and exit cues (Riessman 1993:16-18).
Individuals relate their experiences through diverse narrative genres, which are recognised through the presence of certain conventions. A story, for example, would have a protagonist, inciting conditions and some sort of climax; a kind of classic conflict and resolution pattern. Other types of genres are: 1) habitual narratives where events repeat with no obvious peak; 2) hypothetical narratives where stories are completely made up; and 3) topical or thematic narratives that centre on particular motifs and ideas (Riessman 1993:18).
There are various ways of analysing narrative structures also. For example, dramatism is one method of analysing language, i.e. discovering the framework of act, scene, agent, agency and purpose in people's conversation. Other investigators look for the following six elements:
an abstract (summary of the substance of the narrative), orientation (time, place, situation, participants), complicating action (sequence of events), evaluation (significance and meaning of the action, attitude of the narrator), resolution (what finally happened), and coda (returns the perspective to the present) (Riessman 1993:18-19).
Such structures are the building blocks that storytellers use to interpret the meaning of events in their primary experiences. Another approach is to recognise changes in pitch and pace etc., to identify groups of lines that can then be categorised as poetic units, stanzas and strophes that are used to organise speech.
Riessman (1993:19) says, 'tellers pour their ordinary lives' into archetypal plots like tragedy, comedy, romance and satire etc. They indicate the terms of interpretation through such forms and by changes in volume, tempo, elongated vowels and other devices. Likewise, narrators give structural clues through evaluative clauses as to how they wish to be understood and what their point is. These and a myriad of other meaning making mechanisms are embedded in oral narratives for analysts to discover.
Bessant, J. and Watts, R. 1999. Sociology Australia. St. Leonards: Allen and Unwin.
Dick, B. 2000. Grounded theory: a thumbnail sketch. Online www.scu.edu.au/schools/ gcm/ar/arp/grounded.html Southern Cross University. Internet accessed 13/3/02.
Haig, B. D. 1995. Grounded theory as scientific method. www.ed.uiuc.edu/EPS/PES-yearbook/95_docs/haig.html University of Canterbury. Internet accessed 18/3/02.
Kinach, B.M. 1995. Grounded theory as scientific method: Haig-inspired reflections on educational research methodology. www.ed.uiuc.edu/EPS/PES-yearbook/95_docs/kinach.html Vanderbilt University. Internet accessed 18/3/02.
Malcolm, I.G. 2001. Aboriginal English genres in Perth. Mt. Lawley: Edith Cowan University.
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