Final Flashcards

(71 cards)

1
Q

Qualitative interviewing is

A
  • More likely to reflect natural conversation
  • Often in the form of participants narrating their personal experiences
  • Unstructured or semi-structured
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2
Q

What are qualitative interviews compared to structured interviews?

A
  • More open-minded
  • Going off on tangents is encouraged
  • Flexible
  • Greater interest in the interviewee’s concerns
  • Rich, detailed answers
  • Interviewee is often interviewed multiple times
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3
Q

What are unstructured interviews?

A

The researcher only briefly introduces topics

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4
Q

What are semi-structured interviews?

A

The researcher has a list of topics to be covered

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5
Q

Things to consider when preparing an interview guide

A
  • What is interesting about the topic?
  • Always be open to new issues that may arise
  • Establish loose order of questions
  • Use language that the participants can understand
  • No leading questions
  • Prompts to ensure sufficient personal information
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6
Q

Introduction questions

A

“When did your interest in X begin?”

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7
Q

Follow up questions

A

“What did you mean by that?”

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8
Q

Probing questions

A

“How so?”

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9
Q

Specifying, factual questions

A

“What did you do then?”

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10
Q

Direct, interviewee perceptions questions

A

“Do you find it difficult to keep smiling when serving customers?”

  • best kept until the end of the interview to avoid direction
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11
Q

Indirect, perceptions of others questions

A

“How do you feel about so and so?”

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12
Q

Structuring questions

A

“Now I would like to move on to another topic”

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13
Q

Silence

A

A pause will allow the interviewee to reflect and amplify their answer (but don’t pause for too long it’s awkward)

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14
Q

Interpreting questions

A

“Did you mean that..?”

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15
Q

What are focus groups?

A

An interview with 4+ people who can interact with each other as well as the interviewer

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16
Q

What are the advantages of focus groups?

A
  • Allow access to the meanings that develop during interaction with others rather than in isolation
  • May bring out a variety of perspectives
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17
Q

What do modulators/facilitators do?

A
  • Makes sure the discussion remains on topic without direction too much
  • Makes sure everyone participates
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18
Q

What about focus groups is naturalistic?

A
  • Bring out how individuals collectively make decisions and interpretations
  • Interviewees may show conformity or be argumentative
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19
Q

What is a good size for a focus group?

A

Depends on the topic and goals of research but 6 typically

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20
Q

How many focus groups are needed?

A
  • Usually 10-15

- Enough for theoretical saturation

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21
Q

What are natural focus groups?

A
  • People who already know each other

- Useful if the research is about social interaction

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22
Q

What are the disadvantages of natural focus groups?

A
  • Pre-existing styles of interaction or hierarchies may affect discussion
  • The group may have taken-for-granted assumptions are not challenged
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23
Q

Limitations of focus groups

A
  • Less control over discussion than in interviews
  • Too much data to analyze sometimes
  • Personality traits interfere
  • Difficulties with sensitive issues, social hierarchies and strongly opposed positions
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24
Q

Focus groups as a feminist method

A
  • Less artificial
  • Studies the individual in a social context
  • Less control by participants
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25
Advantages of interviewing over ethnography
- Sometimes issues are not observable - Can reconstruct past events and future plans - Less intrusive - Longitudinal research is easier - Greater breadth of topics can be covered - Addresses specific issues
26
What does Chilisa suggest in Decolonizing the Interview Method
- Alternative interview strategies that reflect postcolonial indigenous worldviews - Researchers should use indigenous knowledge to guide the research - The researched should have access to the research
27
What does Chilisa say about the current interview method?
- There are power imbalances between the interviewer and interviewee - The vocabulary and analysis is informed by Western academia - It ignores the postcolonial value system
28
What is happening in Islam's "Research as an Act of Betrayal"?
- The ethical issue of exposing a group she is falsely representative of (insider vs outsider) - To academia she is the voice of Bangladeshi immigrants, to Bangladeshi immigrants, she is not - Should she expose the Bangladeshi immigrants for their bigotries or not?
29
What is the goal of ethnography?
Describe life in the community from the point of view of the participants
30
How to gain access to the field in closed settings
- Contacts - Gatekeepers - Sponsors - Offer something in return
31
What are key informants
- Participants that are knowledgeable and cooperative
32
What are the drawbacks of key informants?
- Researcher may ignore other group members | - May not be representative of the group as a whole
33
Complete participation
- Covert - Researcher adopts a secret role - Gets closest to participants but risks "going native" or disliking the participants which may skew data
34
Participant-as-observer
- Researcher adopts a role in the group - Participants are aware of the researcher - Risk of reactivity
35
Observer-as-participant
- Researcher observes from the edge of the group - Risk of reactivity - Risk of misinterpretation of the activity
36
Complete observer
- Researcher does not engage with participants at all - No risk of reactivity - Researcher has limited information for understanding the actions of the participants
37
Should researchers be active or passive?
Depends. Sometimes an active role is necessary in order to maintain credibility in the minds of the people studied But that can be dangerous and unethical in some cases
38
What is feminist ethnography?
Study of the lives and activities of women as a marginalized subgroup in society
39
What are the criticisms of feminist ethnography?
The researcher can leave whenever they wish but the subjects cannot, social inequalities
40
What is institutional ethnography?
- Study of the daily practices in institutions and how those reveal power inequalities in organizations - How does institutional discourse relate to everyday life? - Which groups aren't represented
41
Rules about field notes
- Write them down, however fast, asap - Write full field notes by the end of the day - Recordings also work, but be sure to allow time for transcription
42
Steps to analytic induction
- A general research question is devised - Some data are collected - A hypothesis is proposed - Researcher continues to gather data or alter hypothesis until no contradictory cases are found
43
Steps to grounded theory
- Systematically gather data - Analysis throughout the research process - Coding - Theoretical saturation
44
Substantive theories in grounded theory
Observed patterns are related to each other and a theory is developed to explain the connections in that setting
45
Formal theories in grounded theory
Formulated at a higher level, requires data collection in different settings and to be applicable to many settings
46
Criticisms of grounded theory
- Difference between concepts and categories is vague - Observation and data collection may not be as "theory neutral" as claimed - May not result in theory (especially formal) - Coding may result in fragmentation, loss of narrative flow
47
Considerations for coding
- Code and transcribe asap - Read through the data before considering any interpretation - Read again and make notes - Don't be concerned with having too many codes - Review codes to consider associations
48
Criticisms of general coding
- Risk of losing context | - Fragmentation of data
49
Criticisms of computer software
- Quantifies coded text, negates qualitative - Fragments textual data - Too closely related to grounded theory, loses flexibility
50
Advantages of computer software
- Proposes new way of looking at data | - Improves transparency, researchers can be explicit about how they analyzed the data
51
Narrative analysis
- Researching the stories people tell to understand their lives - Focus on context, events, and the interpretation people have of them
52
What are the 4 models of narrative analysis?
1) Thematic 2) Structural 3) Interactional 4) Performance
53
Criticisms of narrative analysis
- Over relies on the story - Stories may be accepted at face value - Taking a broader stance may help the researcher to understand
54
Ethnographic content analysis
- The researcher is constantly revising the themes/categories as the data are examined - Emphasizes the context the documents are generated in
55
What is conversation analysis (CA)?
- Examines the structure of talk | - Examines how social order is created
56
What are the basic characteristics of conversation?
- Turn-taking - Adjacent pairs - Preference organization
57
What are 2 aspects of content analysis?
Semiotics and hermeneutics
58
What is discourse analysis (DA)?
- Examines how a view of the world is produced through discourse - Covers communication methods other than talking - How the relationships of power are reproduced in discourse
59
What is the methodological stance on DA
- Anti-realist: no objective waiting to be found - Toward a constructionist orientation - Priority to the accounts by actual participants - Recognizes that different accounts are possible - Action-oriented
60
DA strategies
1) Attention to specific detail | 2) Attention to rhetorical detail
61
What is critical DA?
Exposes the political nature of the examined texts, considers the issues of power hierarchies, structural inequalities, and historical political struggles
62
What is the methodological stance on critical DA?
Discourse is not purely the use of language, ut viewed through links to social structures
63
Advantages of content analysis
- Allows for longitudal analysis - Is an unobtrusive method - Flexible - Overcomes barriers to researcher access
64
Disadvantages of content analysis
- Limitations due to the reliability of texts analyzed - Usually some inter/intra-coder unreliability - Potential for invalid conjuncture, especially in discussions of latent meanings - Difficult to answer "why" - Emphasis on the time may make it atheoretical in nature
65
What is the decolonization of action research?
- Research designed to increase the voice and participation of the colonized Other - Requires indigenation and decolonization of the basic models of research
66
What are the 2 types of action research that Chilisa calls for?
1) Participant as co-researcher | 2) Participatory transformative research
67
What is participant as co-researcher?
Questions: - How is the research question produced? - Do the questions energize the researched to engage in a dialogue about their material world - Are the methods and theories suitable for the researched?
68
What is participatory transformative research?
- Purposeful active engagement and political action by both the researcher and the researched - Both work from the premise that research is not neutral and ideology determines the methodology of searching for knowledge and defining what can be known
69
Conscientization
- Important in political activism of the researched, as it helps the learner to move toward a new awareness of relations of power, myths, and oppression
70
What are the politically engaged methods of PAR?
1) An activist researcher 2) Geopolitical power relations 3) Reflexivity 4) Change and transformation
71
What does PAR aim to do?
- Demystify the research process so that it does not remain solely in the hands of researchers (notions of "expert") - Lead to healing and representation of the researched