Unit 4 Qualitative Research

UNIT IV: RESEARCH APPROACHES AND DESIGNS
Prepared By: Mrs Bemina JA

Assistant Professor
ESIC College of Nursing
Kalaburagi
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH DESIGNS
 Definition
 Qualitative Research is collecting, analyzing, and
interpreting data by observing what people do and say.
 Qualitative research refers to the meanings, concepts,
definitions, characteristics, metaphors, symbols, and
descriptions of things.
 Qualitative research is subjective and uses very different
methods of collecting information, including individual,
indepth interviews and focus groups. The nature of this
type of research is exploratory and open-ended.
Importance of QRD:
 These methodologies contribute a great deal in nursing
studies.
 Good for examining feelings and motivations
 Allows for complexity and depth of issues
 Provides insights into the real life situations
 These enable researchers to study social and cultural
phenomena, so they also contribute to the social

sciences.
 It is an inductive approach for discover or
expanding knowledge.
Characteristics of QRD:
 Emerge as study advances
 Flexible & elastic
 Multiple strategies of data collection
 Holistic
 Intense researchers involvement
 Ongoing data analysis
 Naturalistic
 Researcher as key instrument
 Descriptive
 Interpretive
 Cyclic
 Focus on particular
 Attention to context
 Open enquiry
 Theoretical lens
Phases of QRD:
Orientation and Overview Phase:
 The researchers’ only presume the type of knowledge
that is expected to be obtained by conducting this

particular qualitative study.
Focused Exploration:
 The salient aspects of the phenomenon are more
focused in this phase, and then an in depth exploration

of the salient aspects of the phenomenon is carried out.
 CONFIRMATION AND CLOSURE:
 • Efforts are undertaken to establish that the findings
which are gathered are trust worthy.

 • The qualitative researchers confirm their finding
by analyzing and discussing with study participants

about the authenticity and correctness of their finding
and then finally this study is closed.
Types of Qualitative Research Design:
 Phenomenological research
 Ethnographic research
 Grounded theory
 Historical research
 Case study
 Action research
 Narrative analysis
Basic Interpretive Qualitative Study
 Can be used when an instructor is interested in how
students make meaning of a situation or phenomenon.
 It uses an inductive strategy, collecting data from
interviews, observations, or document analysis (e.g.,
students’ written work).
 Analysis is of patterns or common themes and the
outcome is a rich descriptive account that makes reference
to the literature that helped frame the study.
 Example: An interview of 45 women from varying
backgrounds and a comparison of the developmental
patterns discerned with earlier findings on male
development. They found women’s lives evolved through
periods of tumultuous, structure-building phases that
alternated with stable periods.
PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH
 Phenomenology is a movement in philosophy that has
been adopted by certain sociologist to raise an
understanding of the relationship between states of
individual consciousness and social life.
 The aim of the approach is to trace out precisely the lived

experiences of people & generate theories or models of
phenomena being studied.
 Focuses on the lived experience
 Interpreting and understanding human experience
 What people experience in regard to a phenomenon and
how they interpret (perceive) those experiences i.e.

meaning of stress, experience of bereavement, quality of
life in chronic illness
Phenomenology attempts to understand and describe
 Spatiality – lived space

 Corporeality – lived body
 Temporality – lived time
 Relationality – lived human relations
Characteristics:
 Phenomenology tends to justify knowledge with
reference to awareness of a substance itself.
 The primary sources of data collection are the real

life situations of the individuals being studied
 Phenomenology tends to oppose naturalism.

Types of Phenomenological Research:
 1. Realistic :
It focuses on gathering the universal abstract of various types of
information including human actions, motive and results.
 2. Constitutive :
This procedure entangles suspending acceptance of the pre given position of
conscious life as something that exists in the world and is carried out in order
to obtain an ultimate inter subjective grounding for the world and positive
sciences of it.
 3. Existential :
This is concerned with topics such as actions, conflicts, desires, oppression &
death.
 4. Hermeneutial :
It uses lived experiences as a tool for better understanding the social,
political or historical context in which those experiences occur. conducted
through empirical (collection of experiences) and reflective (analysis of
their meanings) activities
Steps of study process
 Bracketing the preliminary step in the philosophical movement of
phenomenology describing an act of suspending judgment about the
natural world to instead focus on analysis of experience.
 Identifying preconceived beliefs and opinions in attempts to view the
data without bias
 Intuiting means researcher is immersed in description of lived
experience.
 Researcher is open to alternative meanings
 Analyzing
 Categorizing and making sense of the meanings of the phenomenon
 Describing
 Researcher understands and defines the phenomenon
ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH
 Ethnography is a branch of human enquiry,
associated with the field of anthropology which
focuses on the culture of a group of people with an
effort to understand their world view.
 It is a method of conducting enquiry of a life process

by studying individuals, artifacts or documents in
their natural setting
Focuses on the culture of a group of people
 CULTURAL BEHAVIOUR (what they do)
 CULTURAL ARTIFACTS (what they make and use)
 CULTURAL SPEECH (what they say)
 Every human group evolves a culture that guides members’

view of the world and cultural values
 Researcher learns from the culture versus studying the culture
 Can be viewed from macro ethnography (broad) or micro

ethnography (narrow) focus
Perspective
EMIC PERSPECTIVE
 The way the members of the culture envision their
world, insiders’ view

ETIC PERSPECTIVE
 The outsider's interpretation of the experiences of that
culture
 Ethnographers attempt to gain an emic perspective
Characteristics:
 Ethnographers learn about cultural groups.
 In which they are interested through the extensive field
work.
 It is a Labour intensive and time consuming endeavor.
 A certain level of intimacy with cultural group
members is required to study culture.
 Researchers use themselves as instruments in these
ethnography studies, where they spend time with group
members to collect data through informal interactions
and observations rather than using a formal tool for
data collection.
USES
 Ethnography is a means for gaining access to the
health beliefs and practices of a culture.
 In a practice profession such as nursing,
 improved understanding of the meaning of clients'
behavior
 will enhance nursing judgments and
 improve nursing care.
SOURCE OF DATA COLLECTION
 Collect data through
 Observation
 In-depth interviews
 Records and
 Charts
 Photographs
 Diaries
 Usually 25 to 50 informants
GROUNDED THEORY
 The term Grounded Theory means that the theory

developed from the research is ‘Grounded’ or has its
roots in the data from which it was derived.
 Study's the social processes and social structures
 Assesses the manner in which people make sense of

social interactions and the interpretations they attach to
social symbols
 Purpose
 Is to generate explanations of phenomena that are
grounded in reality
 Uses the data to provide an explanation of events as
they occur in reality
 i.e. study process used by mothers to cope with the

stress of managing multiple responsibilities
 In this researcher is not seeking to describe the
phenomenon under investigation but rather to
develop a theory about dominant process in the
social scene under investigations.
 Identifying the phenomenon
 The researchers are interested in social processes

from the perspective of human interactions.
Structuring of the study:
 Research question can be statement or a broad question that
permits in depth explanation of the phenomenon.
 Sample selection involves choosing participants who are

experiencing the circumstance and selecting events and incidents
related to the social process under investigation.
 Data are collected through interviews through skilled observations

of individual interacting in SOCIAL SITUATIONS.
 Data’s are compared for similarities and differences are arranged

into categories.
 The categories are expanded and developed or collapsed into another.

Types:
 Substantive Theory: It is grounded in data on a
specific substantive area such as postpartum
depression.
 Formal Theory: Substantive Theory serves as a spring

board for developing a higher more abstract level of
theory from a complicated substantive grounded theory
study regarding a particular phenomenon.
Collect data through
 In-depth conversations
 Observation
 Existing documents
 Usually 25 to 50 informants
HISTORICAL RESEARCH DESIGN
 Historical research is undertaken to answer
questions concerning causes, effects or trends
relating to past events that may shed light on present
behavior or practices.
Characteristics:
 • It involves the careful study and analysis of data
about past events.
 • The purpose is to gain a clearer understanding of
the impact of the past or present and future events

related to the life process.
 • It typically relies on available data
 • The results of historical research studies contribute to
a clearer understanding of past, present or future

events as they relate to nursing, health care & the
life process.
Steps:
 • Data collection
 • Criticism of data: comprehensive review of gathered
materials
 • Presentation of the facts: After evaluating the
authenticity and accuracy of historical data, the

researcher must bring the material together to analyze it
& to test the research hypothesis.
CASE STUDY
 • They are in-depth examination of people, places or
institutions.
 • In Nursing, case study methodology is used since a
long time for in-depth study of a single patient or a

group of patients,
 to generate knowledge to solve nursing problems of
patients suffering with specific disease conditions.

ACTION RESEARCH
 • It is a form of applied research that tries to empower
people through a process that constructs and uses
knowledge.
 • It tries to find out practical solutions to problems
existing in the frame work of an organization.

Narrative analysis
 This involves the use of stories or life narratives, first

person accounts of experiences.
 These stories are used as data, taking the perspective
of the storyteller, as opposed to the larger society, with

the goal of extracting meaning from the text.
 The most common types of narrative analysis are
psychological, biographical, and discourse analysis.

 The former involves analyzing the story in terms of
internal thoughts and motivations and the latter

analyzes the written text or spoken words for its
component parts or patterns.
 Biographical analysis takes the individual’s society
and factors like gender and class into account.
 Example: Oral narratives were collected from three

social studies teachers’ lectures, conversations with
students, and student interactions over a 14 month
period.
 These narratives were coded and analyzed and used to

argue that storytelling or the use of oral history was
well received by students and provided richer data than
more traditional teaching methods.
Data Collection Methods of QRD:
 Interview
 Observation
 Story telling
 Socio drama
 Drawing & Painting
 Plays & Skits
 Other creative ways to explore lives.

Importance:
 To solve a problem by enriching a field of application of
a discipline
 To collaborate with several disciplines for solving the

problem
 To study individual cases without the objectives
 To try to say how things can be changed
 To report in common language.

Advantages or Strengths of Qualitative Research
 1. It adopts a naturalistic approach to its subject matter.
 2. Promotes a full understanding of human
behavior/personality traits in their natural setting.
 3. It is instrumental for positive societal changes.
 4. It engenders respect for people’s individuality.
 5. It’s a way of understanding & interpreting social
interactions.
 6. Increases researcher’s interests in the study.
 7. Offers multiple ways of acquiring and examining
knowledge about something.
Disadvantages or Weaknesses of Qualitative Research
 1. It involves a lot of researcher’s subjectivity in data

analysis.
 2. It’s hard to know the validity/reliability of the data.
 3. Its open-ended questions yield “data overload” that
requires long-time analysis.

 4. Its time-consuming.
 5. It involves several process, which results greatly
depend on the researcher’s views or interpretations.

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UNIT IV: RESEARCH APPROACHES AND DESIGNS

Prepared By: Mrs Bemina JA

phenomena, so they also contribute to the social

that is expected to be obtained by conducting this

focused in this phase, and then an in depth exploration

which are gathered are trust worthy.

by analyzing and discussing with study participants

 The aim of the approach is to trace out precisely the lived

how they interpret (perceive) those experiences i.e.

 Spatiality – lived space

 The primary sources of data collection are the real

 Phenomenology tends to oppose naturalism.

 It is a method of conducting enquiry of a life process

 Every human group evolves a culture that guides members’

 Researcher learns from the culture versus studying the culture

 Can be viewed from macro ethnography (broad) or micro

world, insiders’ view

 The term Grounded Theory means that the theory

 Study's the social processes and social structures

 Assesses the manner in which people make sense of

they occur in reality

 i.e. study process used by mothers to cope with the

 Identifying the phenomenon

 The researchers are interested in social processes

 Sample selection involves choosing participants who are

 Data are collected through interviews through skilled observations

 Data’s are compared for similarities and differences are arranged

 The categories are expanded and developed or collapsed into another.

 Formal Theory: Substantive Theory serves as a spring

the impact of the past or present and future events

a clearer understanding of past, present or future

authenticity and accuracy of historical data, the

long time for in-depth study of a single patient or a

patients suffering with specific disease conditions.

existing in the frame work of an organization.

 This involves the use of stories or life narratives, first

of the storyteller, as opposed to the larger society, with

psychological, biographical, and discourse analysis.

internal thoughts and motivations and the latter

 Example: Oral narratives were collected from three

 These narratives were coded and analyzed and used to

 Drawing & Painting

 Plays & Skits

 Other creative ways to explore lives.

 To collaborate with several disciplines for solving the

 To study individual cases without the objectives

 To try to say how things can be changed

 To report in common language.

 1. It involves a lot of researcher’s subjectivity in data

requires long-time analysis.

depend on the researcher’s views or interpretations.

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