Deductive Versus InductiveDeductive Reasoning

- Deductive reasoning happens when a researcher works from the more general information to the more specific. 

- Sometimes this is called the “top-down” approach because the researcher starts at the top with a very broad spectrum of information and they work their way down to a specific conclusion. 

- From there, he or she would narrow that down into more specific hypotheses that can be tested.

- The hypotheses are then narrowed down even further when observations are collected to test the hypotheses.

- This ultimately leads the researcher to be able to test the hypotheses with specific data, leading to a confirmation (or not) of the original theory and arriving at a conclusion.

Inductive Reasoning

• Inductive reasoning works the opposite way, moving from specific observations to broader generalizations and theories.

• This is sometimes called a “bottom up” approach. • The researcher begins with specific observations and

measures, begins to then detect patterns and regularities, formulate some tentative hypotheses to explore, and finally ends up developing some general conclusions or theories.

• While inductive reasoning is commonly used in science, it is not always logically valid because it is not always accurate to assume that a general principle is correct.

Actual Practice- By nature, inductive reasoning is more open-

ended and exploratory, especially during the

early stages. - Deductive reasoning is narrower and is

generally used to test or confirm hypotheses. - Most social research, however, involves both

inductive and deductive reasoning

throughout the research process.

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH DESIGNS

Comparison of qualitative & quantitative research

   Qualitative Quantitative

Definitions a systematic subjective approach used to describe life experiences and give them meaning

a formal, objective, systematic process for obtaining information about the world. A method used to describe, test relationships, and examine cause and effect relationships.

Goals To gain insight; explore the depth, richness, and complexity inherent in the phenomenon.

To test relationships, describe, examine cause and effect relations

Characteristics Soft science Focus: complex & broad Holistic Subjective Dialectic, inductive reasoning Basis of knowing: meaning &

discovery Develops theory Shared interpretation Communication & observation Basic element of analysis: words Individual interpretation Uniqueness

Hard science Focus: concise & narrow Reductionistic Objective Logistic, deductive reasoning Basis of knowing: cause & effect, relationships Tests theory Control Instruments Basic element of analysis: numbers Statistical analysis Generalization

Qualitative Approaches

Phenomenology

• The descriptive study of how individuals experience a phenomenon• To try to help us get at the world that exists prior to our conceptualizing it. • Termed the method a "human science" approach, in contrast with the dominantly

behavioral and analytically cognitive "natural science" approaches favored by academic psycholology.

• Here is the foundational question in phenomenology: What is the meaning, structure, and essence of the lived experience of this phenomenon by an individual or by many individuals?

• The researcher tries to gain access to individuals’ life-worlds, which is their world of experience; it is where consciousness exists.

• Conducting in-depth interviews is a common method for gaining access to individuals’ life- worlds.

• The researcher searches for the invariant structures of individuals’ experiences (also called the essences of their experience).

• Phenomenological researchers often search for commonalities across individuals (rather than only focusing on what is unique to a single individual). For example, what are the essences of peoples’ experience of the death of a loved one? Here is another example: What are the essences of peoples’ experiences of an uncaring nurse?

Definition

- A description of immediate experience.- An attempt to capture experience in process as lived, through

descriptive analysis. - For instance, assault victims may experience fear for months or

years after the assault, even when no apparent danger exists. o What does this fear mean? o Where does it come from? o How is it experienced? o The answers bring us closer to the phenomenon that is lived.

- A method of learning about another person by listening to their descriptions of what their subjective world is like for them, together with an attempt to understand this in their own terms as fully as possible, free of our preconceptions and interferences.

Purpose, goal - to describe experiences as they are lived• examines uniqueness of individual's lived situations• each person has own reality; reality is subjective

Research question development• What does existence of feeling or experience indicate

concerning the phenomenon to be explored• What are necessary & sufficient constituents of feeling or

experience?• What is the nature of the human being?

Approaches to phenomenology are:- INDIVIDUAL PHENOMENOLOGY: o Researchers use their own actual experiences and others'

factual and fictional written accounts and theories to develop a thematic description of a phenomenon.

o This involves INTROSPECTION: a method of inner observation which involves assuming an external viewpoint toward oneself, stating the facts about oneself as others might if they could observe what the introspector observes.

- EMPIRICAL PHENOMENOLOGY: o the researcher examines descriptions and thematizes after

collecting the descriptions.

• THEMATIZING is examining the central and subsidiary themes that recur in the report of the co-researcher.– Part of the method is to try to uncover the LAYERS OF

MEANING in phenomenology.– Seemingly irrelevant contents in the interviews which were

originally overlooked may be later seen as important clues to themes and feelings that were not initially perceived.

– This may include observed behaviors, and tensions and gaps in the interview that Giorgi has pointed out can indicate hidden meanings.

– When the group of respondents is large enough, a researcher may pay explicit attention to whether there are subgroups who cluster around certain themes and others that cluster around others.

- DIALOGICAL PHENOMENOLOGY:o involves interview of the co-researcher,

and involving the co-researcher in thematizing during the interview.

o The researcher may explicitly pay attention to and refer to observations of the co-researcher's behavior as well as to the co-researcher's descriptions of experience.

• HERMANEUTIC PHENOMENOLOGY– Hermeneutic phenomenology is concerned with understanding texts. – In this approach the researcher aims to create rich and deep account of a

phenomenon through intuition, while focusing on uncovering rather than accuracy, and amplification with avoidance of prior knowledge.

– In using this approach we accept the difficulty of bracketing. – To overcome this difficulty we acknowledge our implicit assumptions and

attempt to make them explicit. – In addition, we accept the notion that there may be many possible perspectives

on a phenomenon, like when we turn a prism, one part becomes hidden and another part opens.

– The only guidelines are the recommendation for a dynamic interplay among research activities: • commitment to an abiding concern, • oriented stance toward the question, • investigating the experience as it is lived, • describing the phenomenon through writing and rewriting,

• consideration of parts and whole.

Method 

- Says that we need to continually examine and reexamine our biases and presuppositions. - The attitude is, "I want to understand your world through your eyes and your experiences so far as possible, and

together we can probe your experiences fully and understand them.- In this sharing of experiences, in this dialogue, is the "betweenness" we're looking at in phenomenology. - It is based on the fact that the experience of others is somehow accessible to us. We can enter into it, into an

intimate dialogue. - A theme that runs through it is that of interconnectedness.- Don't test hypotheses- Don't use a theoretical model to determine the question. - "PRIMACY OF THE LIFE-WORLD" means that our approach to understanding is "pre-theoretical." (Yes, in a

sense of course this is a contradiction because we are describing a theory. But the theory includes methods to minimize its impact on the nature of the data obtained.)

- Try to come as close as you can to understanding the experiences being lived by the participants as they do.- There is no claim that phenomenological results are predictive or replicable. - Several studies that probe the same phenomenon may discover similar meanings, each described from a unique

perspective. These perspectives may also lead to the discovery of new and different meanings.- No clearly defined steps to avoid limiting creativity of researcher- Sampling & data collection- Seek persons who understand study & are willing to express inner feelings & experiences- Describe experiences of phenomenon- Write experiences of phenomenon- Direct observation- Audio or videotape

• Points to ponder • DESCRIBE, DESCRIBE, DESCRIBE is a key part of the phenomenological orientation. • The people in question tell their own story, in their own terms. • So "fidelity to the phenomenon as it is lived" means apprehending and understanding it

in the lived context of the person living through the situation.

• BRACKETING is suspending or setting aside our biases, everyday understandings, theories, beliefs, habitual modes of thought, and judgments.

• Data analysis • Classify & rank data• Sense of wholeness• Examine experiences beyond human awareness/ or cannot be communicated • Outcomes • Findings described from subject's point-of-view• Researcher identifies themes• Structural explanation of findings is developed

Grounded theoryIntroduction

- The phrase "grounded theory" refers to theory that is developed inductively from a mass data.

- If done well, this means that the resulting theory at least fits one dataset perfectly. - Grounded theory takes a case rather than variable perspective, although the distinction is

nearly impossible to draw. - This means in part that the researcher takes different cases to be a whole, in which the

variables interact as a unit to produce certain outcomes. - Part and parcel of the case-orientation is a comparative orientation. - Cases similar on many variables but with different outcomes are compared to see where the

key causal differences may lie. - Similarly, cases that have the same outcome are examined to see which conditions they all

have in common, thereby revealing necessary causes.- Although not part of the grounded theory rhetoric, it is apparent that grounded theorists are

concerned with or largely influenced by emic understandings of the world: they use categories drawn from respondents themselves and tend to focus on making implicit belief systems explicit.

Purpose - theory development• Used in discovering what problems exist in a social scene &how persons handle them• Involves formulation, testing, & redevelopment of propositions until a theory is developed

Method - steps occur simultaneously; a constant comparative process • The basic idea of the grounded theory approach is to read (and re-read) a textual database

(such as a corpus of field notes) and "discover" or label variables (called categories, concepts and properties) and their interrelationships.

• The ability to perceive variables and relationships is termed "theoretical sensitivity" and is affected by a number of things including one's reading of the literature and one's use of techniques designed to enhance sensitivity.

• Of course, the data do not have to be literally textual -- they could be observations of behavior, such as interactions and events in a restaurant.

• Often they are in the form of field notes, which are like diary entries.• Open coding is the part of the analysis concerned with identifying, naming, categorizing and

describing phenomena found in the text. • Essentially, each line, sentence, paragraph etc. is read in search of the answer to the repeated

question "what is this about? What is being referenced here?"• It is important to have fairly abstract categories in addition to very concrete ones, as the

abstract ones help to generate general theory.• Data collection - interview, observation, record review, or combination

Analysis • Concept formation• Concept development - reduction; selective sampling of literature; selective sampling of

subjects; emergence of core concepts• Concept modification & integration Helping tools• Memos are short documents that one writes to oneself as one proceeds through the

analysis of a corpus of data. • We have already been introduced to two kinds of memos, the field not and the code note. • Equally important is the theoretical note. • A theoretical note is anything from a post-it that notes how something in the text or codes

relates to the literature, to a 5-page paper developing the theoretical implications of something.

• The final theory and report is typically the integration of several theoretical memos. • Writing theoretical memos allows you to think theoretically without the pressure of

working on "the" paper. Outcomes - theory supported by examples from data

Ethnography

• Ethnographic field research involves the study of cultures, organizations, and society, by observing groups and people as they go about their everyday lives i.e., the discovery and description of the culture of a group of people

• Meant to capture the "social meanings and ordinary activities" of people (informants) in "naturally occurring settings" that are commonly referred to as "the field."

• The goal is to collect data in such a way that the researcher imposes a minimal amount of their own bias on the data.

• Ethnographers do this by going out and “getting close” to the participants for prolonged periods of time in their natural setting.

• Usually, you do go in with intention, a research question, and a focus. • However, dependent upon your paradigm, you may or may not share your research with your

subjects and you may never use your work for anything other than academic pursuits.• Here is the foundational question in ethnography: What are the cultural characteristics of this

group of people or of this cultural scene?• Culture is the system of shared beliefs, values, practices, language, norms, rituals, and

material things that group members use to understand their world.• One can study micro cultures (e.g., such as the culture in a classroom) as well as macro

cultures (e.g., such as the United States of America culture).

There are two additional or specialized types of ethnography.• Ethnology (the comparative study of cultural groups).• Ethnohistory (the study of the cultural past of a group of people).

– An ethnohistory is often done in the early stages of a standard ethnography in order to get a sense of the group’s cultural history.

Here are some more concepts that are commonly used by ethnographers:• Ethnocentrism (i.e., judging others based on your cultural standards). You must avoid

this problem if you are to be a successful ethnographer!• Emic perspective (i.e., the insider’s perspective) and emic terms (i.e., specialized words

used by people in a group).• Etic perspective (i.e., the external, social scientific view) and etic terms (i.e., outsider’s

words or specialized words used by social scientists).• Going native (i.e., identifying so completely with the group being studied that you are

unable to be objective).• Holism (i.e., the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts; it involves

describing the group as a whole unit, in addition to its parts and their interrelationships).

Purpose - to describe a culture's characteristics Method • Researchers creating ethnographies often attempt to be "reflexive." • Reflexivity refers to the researcher's aim "to explore the ways in which [the] researcher's

involvement with a particular study influences, acts upon and informs such research". • Despite these attempts of reflexivity, no researcher can be totally unbiased, which has

provided a basis to criticize ethnography.• Identify culture, variables for study, & review literature• Data collection - gain entrance to culture; immerse self in culture; acquire informants; gather

data through direct observation & interaction with subjects Analysis - describe characteristics of culture Outcomes - description of culture• Ethnography is appropriate for providing deep background information for the formation of

long term strategic policy (ex. reproductive rights for mentally disabled persons). • Not necessarily appropriate for immediate action. It can be great for developing or

evaluating systems or services due its emphasis on the user.

Case study • The detailed account and analysis of one or more cases).• Here is the foundational question in case study research: What are the

characteristics of this single case or of these comparison cases?• A case is a bounded system (e.g., a person, a group, an activity, a process).• Because the roots of case study are interdisciplinary, many different

concepts and theories can be used to describe and explain the case.

Robert Stake classifies case study research into three types:• Intrinsic case study (where the interest is only in understanding the

particulars of the case).• Instrumental case study (where the interest is in understanding something

more general than the case).• Collective case study (where interest is in studying and comparing multiple

cases in a single research study).

Purpose - describe in-depth the experience of one person, family, group, community, or institution Method • Direct observation and interaction with subject• Multiple methods of data collection are often used in case study

research (e.g., interviews, observation, documents, questionnaires).• The case study final report should provide a rich (i.e., vivid and

detailed) and holistic (i.e., describes the whole and its parts) description of the case and its context.

Analysis - synthesis of experience Outcomes - in-depth description of the experience

Remember!!! Data collection• Interview with audiotape & videotape• Direct, non-participant observation• Participant observation• Field notes, journals, logs Reliability & validity - rigor• Use of researcher's personality• Involvement with subject's experience• Live with data collection until no new information appears Bracketing• Researcher suspends what is known about the phenomenon• Keeping an open context• Set aside own preconceptions

Intuiting• Process of actually looking at phenomenon• Focus all awareness & energy on topic• Absolute concentration & complete absorption in phenomenon• Can use > 1 researcher & compare interpretation and analysis of

data Data analysis• Living with data• Cluster & categorize data• Examine concepts & themes• Define relationships between/among concepts