Starter For Ten's Net34 Blog

A useful article that describes what qualitative research is, and gives examples of the four types, and how it is used in Information Sytems. There are lots of references to the different types of studies.

URL: http://www.qual.auckland.ac.nz/

Editor: Michael D. Myers

Summary notes from the site:

Qualitative research involves the use of qualitative data, such as interviews, documents, and participant observation data, to understand and explain social phenomena.

"The motivation for doing qualitative research, as opposed to quantitative research, comes from the observation that, if there is one thing which distinguishes humans from the natural world, it is our ability to talk!"

Triangulation - when both methods are combined in the one study

Quantitative research methods were originally developed in the natural sciences to study natural phenomena.
Examples:

• survey methods
• laboratory experiments
• formal methods (e.g. econometrics)
• numerical methods such as mathematical modeling

• observation and participant observation (fieldwork)
• interviews and questionnaires
• documents and texts
• researcher's impressions and reactions

Qualititive research

• is designed to help researchers understand people and the social and cultural contexts within which they live.
• may or may not be interpretive, depending upon the underlying philosophical assumptions of the researcher
• can be positivist, interpretive, or critical

Positivist Research
- Assumes that reality is objectively given and can be described by measurable properties which are independent of the observer (researcher) and his or her instruments.

- generally attempt to test theory, in an attempt to increase the predictive understanding of phenomena.

Interpretive Research
- Researchers start out with the assumption that access to reality (given or socially constructed) is only through social constructions such as language, consciousness and shared meanings.

- does not predefine dependent and independent variables, but focuses on the full complexity of human sense making as the situation emerges (Kaplan and Maxwell, 1994).

Critical Research
- assumes that social reality is historically constituted and that it is produced and reproduced by people; although people can consciously act to change their social and economic circumstances, critical researchers recognize that their ability to do so is constrained by various forms of social, cultural and political domination.

- main task of critical research is seen as being one of social critique, whereby the restrictive and alienating conditions of the status quo are brought to light.

- focuses on the oppositions, conflicts and contradictions in contemporary society, and seeks to be emancipatory i.e. it should help to eliminate the causes of alienation and domination.

Qualitative Research Systems

Action research aims to contribute both to the practical concerns of people in an immediate problematic situation and to the goals of social science by joint collaboration within a mutually acceptable ethical framework (Rapoport, 1970, p. 499).

Case study research - empirical inquiry that:
investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident (Yin 2002).

Ethnographic research comes from the discipline of social and cultural anthropology. Ethnographers immerse themselves in the lives of the people they study (Lewis 1985, p. 380) and seek to place the phenomena studied in their social and cultural context.

Grounded theory is a research method that seeks to develop theory that is grounded in data systematically gathered and analyzed. The major difference between grounded theory and other methods is its specific approach to theory development - grounded theory suggests that there should be a continuous interplay between data collection and analysis.

In anthropology and sociology it is a common practice to distinguish between primary and secondary sources of data. Primary sources are those data which are unpublished and which the researcher has gathered from the people or organization directly. Secondary sources refers to any materials (books, articles etc.) which have been previously published.

Modes of Analysis

Hermeneutics

The basic question in hermeneutics is: what is the meaning of this text? (Radnitzky 1970, p. 20). Taylor says that:
"Interpretation, in the sense relevant to hermeneutics, is an attempt to make clear, to make sense of an object of study. This object must, therefore, be a text, or a text-analogue, which in some way is confused, incomplete, cloudy, seemingly contradictory - in one way or another, unclear. The interpretation aims to bring to light an underlying coherence or sense" (Taylor 1976, p. 153).

Semiotics - concerned with the signs and symbols in language, "discourse analysis" is a form of this.

Narrative and Metaphor - Narrative is defined by the Concise Oxford English Dictionary as a "tale, story, recital of facts, especially story told in the first person." There are many kinds of narrative, from oral narrative through to historical narrative. Metaphor is the application of a name or descriptive term or phrase to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable (e.g. a window in Windows 95).

Writing up analysis - Myers recommends some books on writing up analysis as "good writing is important".

References - Myers provides a list of references & resources relating to Qualitative research in IS.