In general what are the two major differences between qualitative and quantitative research?
Qualitative: Researchers capture small amounts of data from a lot of people. And they minimize involvement to try to be as objective as possible.
Qualitative: Researchers maximize involvement to try to get as much rich data as possible. So a lot of data from a few people.
What is qualitative research?
Descriptive and in-depth data from a small sample trying to explore a construct or phenomenon. Less common in literature but becoming more prevalent. Includes interviews, surveys, and unstructured questions so participants can answer in the way that truly want to.
What are the 4 main aims of qualitative research?
Context: Understand the nuances and details of context and how that differentiates different outcomes.
Nuance: Trying to detect and include a more comprehensive variety of traits.
Experiences: Understand individual experiences and how that has shaped their life and worldview.
Why or how: what do you experience and why do you experience it? More looking at processes and shared experiences, what causes those experiences, whereas quantitative is looking at the cause and effect between variables and what that is.
Quantitative vs qualitative more in depth: (8 points for each)
Qualitative:
-Exploration and understanding, research driven by data and what’s found
-Broad focus
-Context bound
-Purposive and theoretical sampling (selecting based on the certain population you want to represent)
-In-depth data collection but for a small population (interviews and observation)
-Many types of analysis
-Descriptions of data
-Direct involvement of the researcher to get out as much detailed responses as possible
Quantitative:
-Causal expectations based on previous work but open to new ideas and outcomes because you can’t be influenced by preconceived notions
-Narrow focus but a lot of data for that one variable
-controlled sampling to ensure it is random and representative of whole population
-uses scales and close ended questionnaires (lose some nuance and restricts participant answers so the way the question is worded may influence results)
-statistical analyssis
-testable results
-aims to distance the researcher
-want to limit how context shapes research and restrict noise from other factors
-large sample size
What is epistemology?
The theory of knowledge looking at what counts as valid knowledge.
What is ontology?
Ontology is the very nature of being and reality and existence. Some believe there is only one reality and we all just view it differently, and some believe there is not objective reality.
What is reflexivity?
Critically considering values assumptions and choices throughout research to acknowledge biases.
What is an example of reflexivity?
A positionally statement. This indicates how you are a part of the community you are studying and how you are not, and how this could bias and influence you results. If you are an insider you can know more questions but will also be more biased.
What are the 4 factors of research quality for both quantitative and qualitative studies?
Quantitative:
Rigour - how well thought out and structured a study was.
Qualitative:
Trustworthiness - how well can we trust the findings based on the thoroughness of the research study.
Quantitative:
Reliability - If the same sale is used on the same people in the same context do you get the same output?
Qualitative:
Dependability - When the coding of the data is done, how similarly are the researchers interpreting the data? Will it produce the same results if each person were to analyze the same data? This is looking at inter-rater reliability.
Quantitative:
Validity - Is the study actually measuring what it intends to measure? So it should correlate strongly with measures related to the topic.
Qualitative:
Credibility - Are the informants the right people to talk to for the construct you are studying?
Quantitative:
Generalizability - sampling from a larger pop so should be able to be applied to the larger population.
Qualitative:
Transferability - How well data could be applied to other groups.
What are 5 examples of qualitative methods of research? Explain each one…
Narrative Inquiry: Hearing peoples stories and how they tell them, this will be a long study as you want to see how participants change over time. 1-3 participants
Grounded theory: This is hard because it requires a blank slate, and no preconceived beliefs or hopes about what the data will show. Instead, data and conversations will drive the development of the theory. This will be long and require you to dissociate from yourself (as the researcher).
Ethnography: You go into the environment and observe what is happening, usually pretty low impact by the researcher but if people think you are an authority figure judging them they might act differently. However they can only keep that up for a short time. These have to be longer so that bias wears off.
Thematic analysis: Applying codes to data and the based on organization assigning meaning to it to determine what that data is representing.
Discourse analysis: Looking into how language is used to construct social reality, shape beliefs, and influence social interactions. What type of words influence this? These will be shorter because you are not looking over time.
What is the snowballing sampling method?
This is when you collect some participants who are well suited and then they will know others from the community and can thus be used to invite those other people. This will create a biased sample which is fine for qualitative studies.
