Research in stenden masters 2014

Research at Stenden Mastersincl. introduction to Qualitative Research

Sjoerd Gehrels

2014

Research cycle

Observations

Theory

Deduction Induction

Research cycle

Hypotheses

Theory

Deduction

Research cycle

Findings

Theory

Induction

Topic, Purpose, PS, RQ

Literature Review

Methodology

Data Analysis and Discussion

Conclusions and Recommendations

Structure of your thesis = steps in your research


Literature Review

Methodology


Conclusions Recommendations

Structure of your thesis = steps in your research, yet...


Literature Review

Methodology


Conclusions Recommendations

Structure of your thesis = steps in your research, yet... everything is connected with everything

Traditions

• Quantitative Research

–Emphasis on quantification (numbers) in the collection of data

• Qualitative Research

–Emphasis on words / stories in the collection of data

Quantitative ResearchTheory

Hypothesis

Data Collection

Data analysis

Hypothesis confirmed or rejected

Revision of Theory

Qualitative ResearchDevelop study background

General research question

Selection of site / subjects

Data Collection

Interpretation of data

Development of theoretical framework

Research

• What?

–Content of the research

• How?

–Method of the research

Proposal

Problem situation

Purpose

Literature review

Conceptual model

Research Objective

Problem statement / hypothese

General Research Strategy

Data collection Methods

Data Analysis methods

WHAT?

HOW?

Qualitative Research

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oa3ZQYzJwGY

Qualitative Research: variables – process - elements

Information Interpretation Integration

Variables: triple “I”

ReflectResearch Respect

Process: triple “R”

Subject ConstructObject

Elements: “OSC”

Qualitative Methods1. Get over the idea that research means counting.

2. The focus is on subjective experiences, or the meanings that people use.

3. Because meaning resides in language (people think with language), qualitative research largely involves studying text.

4. The best device for collecting and analyzing qualitative information is the human brain.

Qualitative Methods

5. Qualitative research is local, concrete.

6. Observations and findings depend on understanding contexts and the meanings held by the people in those contexts and the meanings of the things in those contexts.

7. Observations are typically of interactions in smaller groups or selectively defined settings.

8. Exploration is very often the motive, but not always. It can also be about explaining.

Qualitative Methods9. Qualitative research is typically inductive.

10.The research is reflexive—design is flexible and can change given the needs of the research or during the research process. E.g., Theoretical Sampling

11.The researcher must be reflexive as well—the brain tool must be calibrated, understood, active, paid attention to, controlled

Qualitative Methods

12. Qualitative research is very practical, logical, and critical of itself.

13. Researchers constantly ask, “Am I accurately depicting the social world given the ways I am collecting and analyzing my data?”

14. Good qualitative research is often the most rigorous, difficult research. Some people call it a ‘protestant method’.

DEDUCTIVE & INDUCTIVE REASONING

Elements of the Research Process

Deductive thinking (Quantitative)

THEORY

HYPOTHESIS

OBSERVATION

CONFIRMATION

Elements of the Research Process (Cont.)

Inductive thinking (Qualitative)

OBSERVATION

PATTERNS

HYPOTHESIS

THEORY

IDEALQUANTITATIVE QUALITATIVE

Research process is deductive.

Research process is inductive.

Measure objective facts. Document social reality, meaning is constructed.

Focus on variables. Focus on in-depth meaning.

Firewall between research process and researchers’values.

Values are present & explicit (empathy).

Cross-contextual. Contextual dependence.

Many cases. Few cases.

Statistical analysis Thematic analysis

Highly structured research process.

Loosely structured research process.

Separation from data Intimacy with data

Generalize to

population

Generalize to

properties and

contexts

IDEALQUANTITATIVE QUALITATIVE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oZAIUGFTOk

When should I use qualitative methods?

• When variables cannot be quantified

• When variables are best understood in their natural settings

• When studying intimate details of roles, processes, and groups

• When the paramount objective is “understanding”

Qualitative MethodsWhat skills do I need?

• Must have knowledge and skills about methodology, setting and nature of the issue.

• Must be familiar with own biases, assumptions, expectations, and values.

• Must be empathic, intelligent, energetic, and interested in listening

• Must be open to multiple realities.

• Must be prepared to produce detailed, comprehensive, and sometimes lengthy reports.

Qualitative MethodsBefore collecting data, you have to determine what you want to

accomplish.

Tight versus Loose Design, ask yourself:– How much time do I have?– What resources are available?– What is the purpose of the study?– In what am I really interested?

More structure can prevent waste– If we already know about the context, it would be wasteful

to go exploring– If you have targeted topic, you can reduce data at the

collection stage and cut down on analysis time– Loose produces more data, more “surprise discoveries”

can be made

Qualitative Methods: Choose your unit of analysis.

Individuals– Certain experiences

– Experiences in particular settings

– Identities such as student with classroom, school….

Groups – Demographic groups

– Types of people such as practitioners, students …….

– Those in one setting versus another

– Organizations

Qualitative research quickly exhausts resources and time.

Limit the amount of data collected:

• It’s not the size that matters, it’s what you do with the data.

Be very clear about the research focus:

• Write down your foggy ideas and then get more specific.

• Concentrate on most important issues and not others.

• Start writing specific questions you want to answer.

• Now get even more specific…reduce

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnXdDAtNX3U

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

• Not measurements, but WORDS!

• Instead of asking how many times someone purchased an item, you ask "WHY...?“

• Typically the samples are small, and not "random“, but “purposive” or “theoretically driven”

Most frequent uses• Understanding issues:

–Why do people what they do?

–How do people what they do?

–How do people perceive a situation? and why?

• To explore, explain or theoretize a problem (maybe before engaging in a hypotheses testing study)

Strengths• Good for examining feelings and

motivations

• Allows for complexity and depth of issues

• Provides insights

Weaknesses• Can’t extrapolate (generalize) to the whole

population

• Volume of data

• Complexity of analysis

• Time-consuming nature of efforts required

Two principle designs

1. Pre-structured (starting with literature)

2. Grounded (starting with data)

Pre-structured (starting with literature)Search the literature:

identify relevant concepts

DList of conceptsissues from the literature and

conceptual model

Gather data by using

interviewing, focus groups, observation

or ?

Find the relevant

mentioning of the concepts/ issues in the

dataReduce & analyse the

findings

Discussion, conclusions &

recommendations

Grounded (starting with the data)

Search the literature: explain concepts

found in data

Gather data by using interviewing,

focus groups, observation or ?

Write memo’s!

Reduce & analyse the

findings

Discussion, conclusions &

recommendations

Continue data gathering and

literature explanations

Methods• Individual interviews

–Nonstructured

–Structured

• Group interviews

–Structured or unstructured

–Focus groups

• Observation

–Participant

–Non-participant

In-depth Interview: conversation on a given

topic between a respondent and an interviewer

• Used to obtain detailed insights and personal thoughts

• Flexible and unstructured, but usually with an interview guide

• Purpose: to probe informants’ motivations, feelings, beliefs

• Lasts about an hour

• Interviewer creates relaxed, open environment

• Wording of questions and order are determined by flow of

conversation

• Interview transcripts are analyzed for themes and connections between themes

Recommended reading:

Rubin, H.J. & Rubin, I.S. (2012). Qualitative Interviewing : The Art of Hearing Data. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications

Advantages

• Tendency to have a more free exchange

• Can probe potentially complex motivations and behavior

• Easier to attach a particular response to a respondent

Disadvantages

• Qualified interviewers are expensive

• Length and expense of interview often leads to small sample

• Subjectivity and “fuzziness”

Essential

• Good organisation: space, confidentiality, no distractions

• Recording on voice recorder

• Piloting the interview technique

• Transcribing or part-transcribing the interview

Depth Interviews: example

FOCUS GROUPS

Focus Groups

A loosely structured interview conducted by a trained moderator among a small number of informants simultaneously.

Focus Group Characteristics• 8 - 12 members

• homogeneous in terms of demographics and socioeconomic factors but heterogeneous views

• experience related to issue being discussed

• 1 1/2 –2 hour session

• qualified moderator

• conversation may be video and/or audiotaped OR notes may be taken

Key Issues• Focus groups are small numbers, not

random, not statistically valid

• Focus groups are a lot of work

• Can get insights from focus groups that can’t get in other ways

• Know their limits

• Beware of power relations

Skills Moderator

• Observation

• Interpersonal

• Communication

• Interpretive

OBSERVATIONAL RESEARCHWatching what people do

• The information must be observable

Helpful conditions:

– the behavior is repetitive and of short duration

Approaches to observational research

• Natural Versus Contrived Situations

• Open Versus Disguised Observation

• Structured Versus Unstructured

• Human Versus Machine Observers

Main Observational Research Methods

• Direct Observation

• Contrived Observation

–Mystery Shopper

• Physical Trace Measures

–“Garbology”

• Ethnographic Research

Sampling• Plan Data Collection

• Define sampling boundaries:– Space– Time– Social position– Context

• Try not to record that which is not in your sampling parameters

Sampling in Qualitative Research

•Purposive•Snowballing•Theoretical

Sampling in Qualitative Research

• Make choices that narrow or delimit research focus and activities to a level that – A researcher’s brain can handle– Can be done in a reasonable amount of time– Is within a reasonable budget

• Seek exposure to topic-related information

• Focus only on information directly useful for the research

– Samples should be small, not large

• Sampling decisions are made throughout data collection, not necessarily all in advance

Qualitative Data Analysis:Grounded Theory Example

OVERVIEW OF QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS•

Data Collection

Data display

Data reduction Conclusions:

drawing / verifying

(Miles & Huberman, 1994)

School of Graduate Studies

Qualitative analysis as a spiral

• Data analysis– An attempt to summarize/reduce collected data.

• Data Interpretation– Attempt to find meaning

• Analysis not left until the end

• To avoid collecting data that are not important the researcher must ask:– How am I going to make sense of this data?

• And:– Why do the participants act as they do?

– What does this focus mean?

– What else do I want to know?

– What new ideas have emerged?

– Is this new information?

Data Analysis Strategies

• Identifying themes

–Begin with big picture and list “themes” that emerge.

• Events that keep repeating themselves

• Coding qualitative data

–Reduce data to a manageable form

–Often done by writing notes on note cards and sorting into themes.

• Predetermined categories vs. emerging categories

Data Analysis: Grounded Theory

• Theory is derived from the data: systematically gathered and analysed

• Iterative process

– repetitive interplay between data collection and analysis / theory building

• Variations in grounded theory

– Glaser & Strauss: original creators (1967) but separated afterwards

– Corbin, Clarke, Charmaz, Birks, Hennink et.al.

– Example: Gehrels using primarily Charmaz’sConstructivist GT

Grounded Theory

• Verbatim transcripts

• Coding

• Categories

• Concepts or Themes

• Theoretical sampling

• Memo-ing

• Theoretical saturation

• Constant comparison (between concepts /themes)

• Creating explanation and, if possible, “small or medium” theory or ‘moderate enlightenment’

Analysis process of grounded theory

(Saldana, 2009)

Considerations in developing codes• Of what general category is this item of data an

instance?

• What does this item of data represent?

• What is this item of data about?

• Of what topic is this item of data an instance?

• What question about a topic does this item of data suggest?

• What sort of answer to a question about a topic does this item of data imply?

• What is happening here?

• What are people doing?

• What do people say they are doing?

• What kind of event is going on?

Analysis process of grounded theory (2)

Transcript Code text Code label

Transcript

(text)

Interpretation

/

Analysis

Concept

labeling

Transcript Interpretation Concept

JO: Ik zeg altijd: “succesvol ben je op het moment dat je afrekent”. CE

is succesvol. FO, dat weet ik niet of die succesvol is.b

SG: Wil je mijn mening ook horen daarin of niet?

JO has a definition of success in

which he refers to the moment of

finishing the business. He assumes

CE to have been successful but is not

sure about FO.

Successful

JO: Als je die kwijt zou willen, dan wil ik dat well horen. Er zijn er

maar een paar die ooit succesvol zijn geweest. GF is natuurlijk een

fantastisch restaurateur, verschrikkelijk mooie tent, en in die tijd

draaiden ze daar acht miljoen gulden omzet. Naar verhouding was

dat de top van de top in onze branche. Alleen hij hield er geen gulden

aan over. Op het moment dat die piep ging, moesten zijn broers

allemaal gaan kijken hoe ze de tent uiteindelijk iets succesvoller

konden maken, om het te kunnen verkopen. Dat is altijd het gevaar in

onze branche van wie is nou succesvol en wat is succesvol voor de

ondernemer zelf? Kijk, als ik in mijn leven harder had gewerkt, dus

een wezenlijk onderdeel was geweest van de keuken- of de

bedieningbrigade, dan had ik al dat geld wat ik daar nu aan uitgeef

kunnen besparen. Dan was ik nu waarschijnlijk helemaal klaar

geweest. Maar omdat ik van nature lui ben en omdat ik veel moet

nadenken, laat ik anderen datgene doen waar ik geen zin in heb. Dat

betekent dat ik een redelijk gezellig privé leven heb, dat kun je ook

als succesvol bestempelen. Alleen dan weet ik natuurlijk niet hoe het

straks gaat als ik denk ik heb er geen zin meer in. Dus succesvol is

altijd heel moeilijk te omschrijven. Wat voor de één een succes is als

hij een fiets koopt, is voor de ander een zwarte rolls royce.

Contemplation about another

SSUSCRO (one of the narratives at

the beginning of the thesis) who he

thinks was a good hospitality

professional but not good in

business.

The entrepreneur considers that he

would have had the opportunity to

make more money if he would have

taken more operational

responsibility but he chose

deliberately not to do so.

JO describes himself as naturally

lazy and therefore choosing not be

fully operationally involved. By

doing so he created a different life

style and quality of life. He is not

sure what successful means in this

context.

Successful

Critical

Financial

Entrepreneu

rship

Personality

Financial

Entrepreneu

rship

Personality

Successful

Relativism

Quality of

life

你觉得西方学生上课的时候会讲一些和课堂不相干的问题。

Western peer talks about irrelevant topics in class and teachers would participate. But Chinese students cannot do the same. Teachers would stop our topic.

Culture difference made the communication hard.

Western speak non-related things in class

Culture difference madecommunication hard.

对，有时候我还感觉如果是他们上课说这些，老师就跟着他们聊，能说好多，但是如果我们说了相同的话，老师就直接说你这个和课没有关系。也不是特别直接，但是意思就是这样。可能是因为我们不会聊，没有人家论点、论据那么充足。

可能还是culture的问题。咱们

说的方式不同，很直接的拉出来一个东西来说。

对对。我不太能说的一个原因还有班里好多同学都是学语言出来的，或是文科，我是理科，我就跟他们理解问题不一样。


•Visualize the categorizing labels

•Create a “messy” conceptual map using the labels


•Try to identify categories within the conceptual map


• Further explore the literature and engage in further interviewing (theoretical sampling)

• Raise the categories to themes/ concepts

Memos

• Notes written by researchers to themselves

• Help to generate concepts and categories:

reminder of what terms mean

encourage reflective thinking about emerging ideas

crystallize ideas and keep researcher on track

Memo SSUSCRO Social Construct

An awareness starts to emerge while coding that the SSUSCRO is not

just a person but more a ‘construct’ that consists of a number of

elements. In my definition the SSUSCRO construct at the heart has

the individual of the person that is the entrepreneur who can be

defined in terms of personality and value system. Furthermore there

is an interaction between the profession, managing the culinary

restaurant, and the person. Then other influential elements of the

construct are the issues/happenings (passive), and the activities

(active) that influence the SSUSCRO. This research, being nested in

the epistemology of social constructionism, tries to define the

SSUSCRO Social Construct in order to describe how this construct

can influence hospitality management education.

Memo Nature or Nurture

In the literature there is a discussion about ‘nature’ or ‘nurture’ as

influence in the shaping of entrepreneurs. It will be important to

engage in conversation about the topic with the SSUSCROs that I will

be interviewing further on in my research journey.

Then later, I added to the memo:

In a recent documentary on television it was interesting to see the

search of former World Champion 110m hurdles, Colin Jackson who

wanted to find out if his ability to run fast could more be attached to

‘nature’ or ‘nurture’. As it turned out to be the ‘nature’ element was

heavily over estimated by many people. So it was not the fact that he

had the muscular system of a Caribbean/Jamaican person but more

the consequent process of nurture by himself and people around him

in the conditions where he was living that made him so successful as

an athlete.

Analysis process of grounded theory (6)• Develop the final conclusions

and possibly grounded theory

• Describe and explain the grounded theory and all its components

• Re-visit the original research questions and objectives

• Formulate recommendations

Education

Research in stenden masters 2014