- Approach of the Book
This book has been written with two groups of readers in mind: the novice and
the experienced researcher. First of all, it addresses the novice to qualitative
research, maybe even to social research in general. For this group, mostly undergraduate and graduate students, it is conceived as a basic introduction to the principles and practices of qualitative research, the theoretical and epistemological
background, and the most important methods. Second, the researcher in the field
may use this book as a sort of toolkit while facing the practical issues and problems in the day-to-day business of qualitative research. Qualitative research is establishing itself in many social sciences, in psychology, in nursing, and the like. As a
novice to the field or as an experienced researcher, you can use a great variety of
specific methods, each of which starts from different premises and pursues different aims. Each method in qualitative research is based on a specific understanding
of its object. However, qualitative methods should not be regarded independently
of the research process and the issue under study. They are specifically embedded
in the research process and are best understood and described using a processoriented perspective. Therefore, a presentation of the different steps in the process
of qualitative research is the central concern of the book. The most important
methods for collecting and interpreting data and for assessing and presenting
results are presented and located in the process-oriented framework. This should
give you an overview of the field of qualitative research, of concrete methodological alternatives, and of their claims, applications, and limits. This should enable you
to choose the most appropriate methodological strategy with respect to your
research question and issues.
The starting point in this book is that qualitative research, above all, works with
text. Methods for collecting information—interviews or observations—produce
data, which are transformed into texts by recording and transcription. Methods of
interpretation start from these texts. Different routes lead towards the texts at the
center of the research and away from them. Very briefly, the qualitative research
process can be represented as a path from theory to text and as another path from text
back to theory. The intersection of the two paths is the collection of verbal or visual
data and their interpretation in a specific research design.
Structure of the Book
The book has eight parts, which aim at unfolding the process of qualitative research
in its major stages.
Part 1 sets out the framework of doing qualitative research as discussed in Chapters 2
through 4:
GUIDE TO THIS BOOK 5
• Chapter 2 explores and answers the fundamental questions of qualitative research.
For this purpose, the current relevance of qualitative research is outlined against
the background of recent trends in society and in social sciences. Some essential
features of qualitative research in distinction from quantitative approaches are
presented. To allow you to see qualitative research and methods in their context,
a very brief overview of the history of qualitative research in the United States
and Europe is given.
• Chapter 3 develops the relation between qualitative and quantitative research.
Here, I take several points of reference for spelling out the possible links of qualitative and quantitative research. In the end, you will find some guiding questions for assessing the appropriateness of qualitative and quantitative research.
This chapter allows you to identify various approaches and then decide which
one is best for your research.
• Chapter 4 focuses on a different framework for qualitative research—research
ethics. The ethics of qualitative research deserves special attention, as you will
come much closer to privacy issues and the day-to-day life of your participants.
Reflection and sensitivity to privacy are essential before launching a qualitative
study. At the same time, general discussions about research ethics often miss the
special needs and problems of qualitative research. After reading this chapter, you
should know the importance of a code of ethics before beginning your research
as well as the need for ethics committees. Whether research is ethical or not
depends as much on practical decisions in the field.
After setting out the framework of qualitative research, I focus on the process of a
qualitative study. Part 2 takes you from theory to text:
• Chapter 5 introduces the use of the literature—theoretical, methodological, and
empirical—in a qualitative study. It addresses the use of and the finding of such
resources while doing your study and while writing about it.
• Chapter 6 addresses different theoretical positions underlying qualitative research.
Symbolic interactionism, ethnomethodology, and structuralist approaches are
discussed as paradigmatic approaches for their basic assumptions and recent
developments. From these discussions, the list of essential features of qualitative
research given in Chapter 2 is completed. In the end, I will address two theoretical debates, which are currently very strong in qualitative research. Feminism
and gender studies and the discussion about positivism and constructionism
inform a great deal of qualitative research, in how to understand the issues of
research, in how to conceive the research process, and in how to use qualitative
methods.
• Chapter 7 continues the discussions raised in Chapter 6, as well as outlining the
epistemological background of constructionist qualitative research using text as
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