using a language of variables, then quantitative research holds most of the answers.
6.2.4 Misleading assumptions about qualitative
research
How do we describe a qualitative research design? Interview studies which are based on a relatively small number of cases and use open- ended questions are usually treated as examples of qualitative research. However, as we have already learned, the presence or absence of numbers and rigid structures is insufficient to distinguish between qualitative and quantitative research. Much more important is how you define your research problem using a particular model of reality. Many interview studies seek to find out how a particular group of people perceive things. By assuming that interviews can give a direct access to ‘experience’ (providing the research design is
reliable), such qualitative researchers depend upon a naturalist model of research.
Here are some actual student examples of naturalistic ways of framing a research problem using qualitative interviews. –STUDENT EXAMPLES– How residents in a community of elderly people feel about their life. [Tippi, Information Studies and Sociology, Finland] How do different actors experience the implementation of labour standards in the construction industry in Chennai, India? [Annika, Sociology and Human Geography, Norway] Responses of patients who consult unqualified Western medical practitioners. [Sachin, Community Medicine, Sri Lanka] These kinds of research problems exemplify a style of qualitative interviews which aims to ‘get inside the heads’ of particular groups of people and to tell things from their ‘point of view’. Yet, as we saw in Chapter 4, how far is it appropriate to think that people attach a single meaning to their experiences? May there not be multiple meanings of a situation (e.g. living in a community home) or of an activity (e.g. consulting an unqualified medical practitioner) represented by what people say to the researcher, to each other, to carers and so on (Gubrium, 1997)?
This raises the important methodological issue of whether interview responses are to be treated as giving direct access to ‘experience’ and ‘feelings’ or as actively constructed ‘narratives’ involving activities which themselves demand analysis (Holstein and Gubrium, 1995). Both positions are entirely legitimate but the
position you take will need to be justified and explained.
TIP
Always think through whether qualitative interviews are appropriate to your research problem. For instance, if you are collecting facts or perceptions, would a quantitative survey make more sense?
Now let us review examples of students who use qualitative interviews to address research problems based on a constructionist model. –STUDENT EXAMPLES– How family members construct stories about their grief and recovery processes after the death of their baby. [Katarin, Psychiatry, Finland] How versions of postgraduate life are discursively constructed and sustained by postgraduates in interviews about doing their PhDs. [Steven, Social Sciences, UK] How drug-users and dealers present themselves in order to manage identity and keep self- respect during the interviews. [Sveinung, Sociology, Norway]
In these three examples, notice the use of words like ‘construct’ and ‘manage’ in the definition of the research problem. This shows how constructionist researchers want to examine the active
‘work’ that interviewees do in producing their answers. This is very different from positivist projects which simply seek accurate reports of experiences or feelings which are taken to lie inside people’s heads.
We have seen two strikingly different ways of conceptualizing your research problem which lead to contrasting ways of looking at interview data. It is worth adding that neither approach is without its own problems. Our naturalist examples may de- emphasize the multiple meanings that people attach to what they do. A constructionist way of defining a research topic overcomes that problem but lays itself open to the criticism of losing sight of important substantive issues. For instance, critics might suggest that our three studies gain theoretical sophistication at the risk of downplaying ‘real’ problems like ‘grief’ or drug use. So constructionist researchers face a real challenge in translating their findings back to social problems.
–Link–
Sage Publications has a very useful methodology site at www.methodspace.com. This includes a blog on interview research with responses to a short piece that I wrote on this topic. Go to: asksage.typepad.com/methods/
A final observation is in order. How you formulate the topic of a qualitative interview study is not just a matter of the research model you employ. You also have to ask questions that are answerable by your data. Sometimes this is merely a matter of narrowing down your topic. On other occasions, students may be tempted to use interviews to answer the wrong kind of questions.
A little while ago, I was advising some PhD students at a university in Tanzania. A politics student was interested in what
seemed to be an important social issue: how water and sanitation policy had been influenced by the decentralization of Tanzanian local government since 2000. He proposed to find answers by interviewing key stakeholders.
–Go To Exercise 6.2–
As we learn from our quantitative colleagues, it is difficult to find out what happened in the past by asking present-day respondents. This is not because they may lie but simply because we all view the past through the lens of the present. Hence this kind of retrospective study is likely to offer inaccurate information. Now can you see possible solutions? I suggested that the student could meet this difficulty in one of two ways: reformulate his research problem as a study of contemporary stakeholder views stick with the original research problem and use different, contemporary data (for instance, contrasting newspaper reports today with those in 2000).
6.2.5 Institutional constraints
There is great variation in the structures and facilities offered by different departments and university graduate committees. However, four problems stand out in the experience of the students I meet:The variable competence and interest of supervisors. Sometimes students may be allocated to supervisors
with little experience of qualitative research (see Section 23.2). A failure to provide hands-on training in qualitative methods or to encourage research students to work cooperatively with each other. An over-rigid and unrealistic version of the timing of different stages of the research process: for instance, the assumption that in year one you review the literature, in year two you collect data and in year three you write your thesis. A requirement that research students cannot proceed without a research proposal couched in terms much more appropriate to quantitative research (e.g. hypotheses, variables etc.). This fails to take account of the emergent character of many qualitative research topics (see Punch, 2006: 37; Cryer, 1996: 44).
6.2.6 Over-ambitious research designs
In drafting your first research proposal, it is tempting to select a very broad topic. By including every aspect of a problem that you can think of, you hope to show the breadth of your knowledge and to impress potential supervisors.
Unfortunately, this ‘kitchen sink’ approach is a recipe for disaster. Unless you have the resources for a big team of researchers, depth rather than breadth is what characterizes a good research proposal. If you define your topic very widely, you will usually be unable to say anything at great depth about it.
TIP
As I tell my students, your aim should be to say ‘a lot about a little (problem)’. This means avoiding the temptation to say ‘a little about a lot’. Indeed, the latter path can be something of a ‘cop-out’. Precisely because the topic is so wide-ranging, one can flit from one aspect to another without being forced to refine and test each piece of analysis.