REFERENTE CONCEPTUAL

In “qualitative research,” Denzin and Lincoln (2003) emphasise its interpretive nature and would include the interpretivist paradigms and methods; they explain that qualitative research is a field of inquiry in its own right, which crosses over many different disciplines, fields and subject matters.

Gorman et al. (1997) describe qualitative research as a process of enquiry that gathers data from the context in which events happen, so that the process can be determined from deducting information given in-depth by participants of a particular event.

Some researchers search to attain a better understanding of behaviour, rather than explain or predict it. This is especially true when an area of research is in the early stages. In this kind of research it is important for researchers to try, wherever possible, to understand the perspective of the people they are studying. They must temporarily forget about their own biased attitudes and ideals, because otherwise there will be a distortion in the data collection. The people being studied will almost certainly not have the same perspectives on everything (Marshall, 1997). This work can be described as an exercise in knowledge transfer and exchange to render what exists within a body of qualitative studies that are evidence-based into a comprehensible product (Thoren et al.), thus making it more relevant and applicable for information practice.

Qualitative research is an interpretive approach that looks to investigate subjects in their natural environment. This type of research also explores attitudes, behaviour and experiences through interviews and / or focus groups. It seeks to attain an in- depth opinion from participants as to their attitudes, behaviour and experiences, which are important, as fewer people take part in the research; however, the contact with these people usually lasts much longer.

Therefore, qualitative research is conducted ‘in the field’. The researcher must work closely with respondents. Hence, those individuals involved with the qualitative researcher are likely to be considered as partners or fellow research participants, involved in the investigation of a research question. Generally, qualitative researchers tend to agree that seeing patterns in research is the best way to validate conclusions determined from qualitative research. Further concerns about verification relate to research bias and reliability (Whitman etc. 2004).

Qualitative researchers can become so engrossed in their research situations and with research participants that research bias can become an issue. For example, in an interview question the respondent may be asked a leading question. However, some researchers may consider this flexibility to be beneficial, allowing relevant data to be collected. As Reason and Kvale (1996) suggest that it is far more important to be deeply interesting than accurately boring. In the end, emphasis should be placed on the research method in order to counteract the potential introduction of bias.

In qualitative research, data is collected within its natural setting with the researcher as the data collection instrument. Therefore, it tends to follow an inductive process as it begins with observation of particular instances, and seeks to establish generalisations (Hyde, 2000). This is in contrast to quantitative research as it is deductive and starts with generalisations, and seeks to see if these generalisations are relevant to particular instances (Hyde, 2000).

Qualitative data is subjective, which indicates that it could be hard to classify or score. Examples of qualitative data include issues such as perceptions of pain, feelings about work, and attitudes toward school. Usually this data is gathered from interviews, or observations.

Generally speaking “qualitative” research means social research in which the researcher relies on text data rather than numerical data, analyses those data in their textual form rather than converting them to numbers for analysis, aims to understand the meaning of human action and asks open questions about phenomena as they occur in context rather than setting out to prove or disprove predetermined hypotheses (Stacy and Miles, 2007). It can be seen increasingly in business and management research a growth in the use of qualitative methodologies and data collection methods. This often results in large volumes of textual material being analysed and interpreted. Text data may include field notes from participant observations, transcription from semi-structure interviews, diaries and stories or narratives.

Qualitative research can provide “new insights and guidance into a process by exploring and developing plausible explanation for phenomena” (Evans, 2002, p.290-293). More importantly, qualitative research contributes to our knowledge and understanding of occupation. For example, such investigations can help us understand the meaning and experience of occupational engagement, the process of enabling occupational engagement, the impact of occupation-based interventions, and the lived experiences of individuals and groups (Hammell, 2001; Whiteford, 2005).

The Greek philosopher Heroclitus (16th century) explains that in a river you cannot step in the same water twice. This is because between the first and the second step the person and the river changes. Therefore, there is value in all research as, no matter how specialised and how similar it is to the last piece of work, the data will never be the same.

The study of DIY musicology is not a straightforward area of research. The people in local music scenes work with a freedom that is unlike most other industries. Therefore, in order to get a satisfactory insight into the mind of the DIY artist, it is necessary to talk to people in person. This will contribute towards the richness of data, which comes from using a multi-methods technique. In fact, the main methodology employed will be different types of qualitative research.