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5 Five Different Qualitative Studies

We have always felt that the best way to learn how to write a qualitative study is to view a number of published qualitative journal articles and to look closely at the way they were composed. If an individual plans on undertaking, for example, a grounded theory study, we would suggest that he or she collect about 20 grounded theory published journal articles, study each one carefully, select the most complete one that advances all of the defining characteristics of grounded theory, and then model his or her own project after that one. This same process would hold true for an individual conducting any of the other approaches to qualitative inquiry, such as a narrative study, a phenomenology, an ethnography, or a case study. Short of this ideal, we want to get you started toward building this collection by suggesting an exemplar of each approach as discussed in this chapter.

Each of these five published studies represents one of the types of qualitative approaches being discussed in this book. They are found in Appendices B, C, D, E, and F. The best way to proceed, we believe, is to first read the entire article in the appendix and then return to our summary of the article to compare your understanding with ours. Next, read our analysis of how the article illustrates a good model of the approach to research and incorporates the defining characteristics we introduced in Chapter 4. At the conclusion of this chapter, we reflect on why one might choose one approach over another when conducting a qualitative study and we include further examples for you to read in the end of chapter check in.

The first study, by Chan (2010), as found in Appendix B, illustrates a good narrative study of a single Chinese immigrant student, Ai Mei Zhang, as she participates in a Canadian middle school and as she interacts with her family. The second article, a phenomenological study by Anderson and Spencer (2002), located in Appendix C, is a study about individuals who have experienced AIDS and the images and ways they think about their disease. The third article is a grounded theory study by Harley et al. (2009) as found in Appendix D. It presents a study of the behavioral process among African American women to integrate physical activity into their lifestyle. It incorporates, appropriately, a theoretical framework that explains the pathways linking these key factors in the process together. The fourth article is an ethnographic study by Mac an Ghaill and Haywood (2015), as presented in Appendix E, about the changing cultural condition of British born, working-class Pakistani and Bangladeshi young Muslim men during the late 2000s. The identity formulation of the young Muslim men as members of a broader social community was influenced by the local experiences of growing up in a rapidly changing Britain. The final article is a qualitative case study by Frelin (2015), as shown in Appendix F. It describes and suggests three themes (e.g., trusting relationships, human relationships, and the students’ self- images) related to the relational practices of a teacher who negotiates educational relationships with students who have a history of school failure. These exemplars were chosen for their usefulness as a model of the defining features for each approach discussed in Chapter 4 as well as for their disciplinary, geographical, and participant diversity.

Questions for Discussion What stories are told in the sample narrative study? What experience is examined in the sample phenomenological study? What theory emerges in the grounded theory study? What culture-sharing group is studied in the sample ethnographic study? What is the case being examined in the case study? How do the central features of the five approaches differ? How does a researcher choose among the five approaches for a particular study?

A Narrative Study (Chan, 2010; see Appendix B)

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Chan, E. (2010). Living in the space between participant and researcher as a narrative inquirer: Examining ethnic identity of Chinese Canadian students as conflicting stories to live by. The Journal of Educational Research, 103, 113–122. doi:10.1080/00220670903323792

This is the story of a Chinese immigrant student, Ai Mei Zhang, a seventh- and eighth-grade student at Bay Street School in Toronto, Canada. Ai Mei was chosen for study by the researcher because she could inform how ethnic identity is shaped by expectations from school and her teacher, her peers at school, and her home. Ai Mei told stories about specific incidents in her life, and the author based her narrative article on these stories as well as observations in her classroom. The researcher also conducted interviews with Ai Mei and other students, took extensive field notes, and sought active participation in Ai Mei’s school activities (e.g., Multicultural Night), a family dinner, and classroom conversations between Ai Mei and her classmates. The author’s overriding interest was in exploring the conflicting stories that emerged during this data collection.

The author introduced the study citing changing school demographics and the need for greater understanding of the lived experiences of immigrant and minority students’ daily transitions between home and school. The author identified Dewey’s (1938) philosophy of the interconnectedness between experience and education as the theoretical foundation for the study of a three-dimensional narrative inquiry space (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). In this study, the author followed procedures by Clandinin and colleagues (2006) for describing the interwoven lives of children and teachers.

From a thematic analysis of these data, the author presented several conflicting stories: tensions in friendship because Ai Mei hid her home language at school because it was seen as a hindrance to accepted English, pressure to use the school Chinese language and to use her maternal language at home with her family, multiple conflicting influences of parental expectations for behavior and expectations from peers at school, and conflicts between family needs to help in the family business and teacher expectations to complete homework and prepare for tests and assignments. As a final element of the findings, the author reflected on her experiences in conducting the study, such as how the different events she participated in shaped her understanding, how opportunities arose to build trust, how her relationship with Ai Mei was negotiated, and how she developed a sense of advocacy for this young student. In the end, the study contributed to understanding the challenges of immigrant or minority students; the intersecting expectations of students, teachers, peers, and parents; and how the values of individuals in ethnic communities are shaped by these interactions. In a larger sense, this study informed the work of teachers and administrators working with diverse student populations, and serves as an example of a “life-based literary narrative” (Chan, 2010, p. 121).

This article presents well the defining features of a narrative study as introduced in Chapter 4 (Clandinin, 2013; Riessman, 2008):

The researcher collected stories from a single individual, a Chinese immigrant student, Ai Mei Zhang. The researcher made explicit the collaborative nature of how the stories were collected and the relationship that built over time between the researcher and the participant in the study. The researcher chose to focus on the experiences of this one individual and, more specifically, on the cultural identity of this student and how parents, peers, and teachers helped to shape this identity. The researcher discussed the place or the physical and social context of Bay Street School where most of the incidents occurred that were reported in the narrative. The researcher established an evidence base of information to explore this cultural identity through different forms of data such as personal observations, interviews, field notes, and attendance at events. The researcher used a thematic analysis of reporting “what happened” to this individual student, her parents, and her school. The researcher collected data over time from the fall of 2001 to June 2003, so there was ample opportunity to examine the unfolding events over time. The narrative, however, was not constructed to report a chronology of themes, and, in reading this account, it is difficult to determine whether one theme (e.g., hiding language in the new student orientation) occurred before or after another theme (e.g., mealtime conversation involving the school Mandarin language and the home Fujianese language). The researcher highlighted specific tensions that arose in each of the themes (e.g., the tension between using Mandarin and Fujianese at home). The overall narrative, however, did not convey a specific turning

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point or epiphany in the story line.

A Phenomenological Study (Anderson & Spencer, 2002; see Appendix C) Anderson, E. H., & Spencer, M. H. (2002). Cognitive representations of AIDS: A phenomenological study. Qualitative Health Research, 12, 1338–1352. doi:10.1177/1049732302238747

This study discusses the images or cognitive representations that AIDS patients held about their disease. The researchers explored this topic because understanding how individuals represented AIDS and their emotional response to it influenced their therapy, reduced high-risk behaviors, and enhanced their quality of life. Thus, the purpose of this study was “to explore patients’ experience and cognitive representations of AIDS within the context of phenomenology” (Anderson & Spencer, 2002, p. 1339).

The authors introduced the study by referring to the millions of individuals infected with HIV. They advanced a framework, the Self-Regulation Model of Illness Representations, which suggested that patients were active problem solvers whose behavior was a product of their cognitive and emotional responses to a health threat. Patients formed illness representations that shaped their understanding of their diseases. It was these illness representations (e.g., images) that the researchers needed to understand more thoroughly to help patients with their therapy, behaviors, and quality of life. The authors turned to the literature on patients’ experiences with AIDS. They reviewed the literature on qualitative research, noting that several phenomenological studies on such topics as coping and living with HIV had already been examined. However, how patients represented AIDS in images had not been studied.

Their design involved the study of 58 men and women with a diagnosis of AIDS. To study these individuals, the authors used phenomenology and the procedures advanced by Colaizzi (1978), which were later modified by Moustakas (1994). For over 18 months, they conducted interviews with these 58 patients and asked them the following: “What is your experience with AIDS? Do you have a mental image of HIV/AIDS, or how would you describe HIV/AIDS? What feeling comes to mind? What meaning does it have in your life?” (Anderson & Spencer, 2002, pp. 1341–1342). They also asked patients to draw pictures of their disease. Although only 8 of the 58 drew pictures, the authors integrated these pictures into the data analysis. The phenomenological components of this data analysis included the following:

Reading through the written transcripts several times to obtain an overall feeling for them Identifying significant phrases or sentences that pertained directly to the experience Formulating meanings and clustering them into themes common to all of the participants’ transcripts Integrating the results into an in-depth, exhaustive description of the phenomenon Validating the findings with the participants, and including participants’ remarks in the final description

This analysis led to 11 major themes based on 175 significant statements. “Dreaded bodily destruction” and “devouring life” illustrated two of the themes. The results section of this study reported each of the 11 themes and provided ample quotes and perspectives to illustrate the multiple perspectives on each theme.

The study ended with a discussion in which the authors described the essence (i.e., the exhaustive description) of the patients’ experiences and the coping strategies (i.e., the contexts or conditions surrounding the experience) patients used to regulate mood and disease. Finally, the authors compared their 11 themes with results reported by other authors in the literature, and they discussed the implications for nursing and questions for future research.

This study illustrated several aspects of a phenomenological study mentioned earlier in Chapter 4 by Moustakas (1994) and van Manen (1990, 2014):

A phenomenon—the “cognitive representations or images” of AIDS by patients—was examined in the study.

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Rigorous data collection with a group of individuals through 58 interviews and incorporation of patients’ drawings were used. The authors only briefly mentioned the philosophical ideas behind phenomenology. They referred to bracketing their personal experiences and their need to explore lived experiences rather than to obtain theoretical explanations. The researchers talked about bracketing in the study. Specifically, they stated that the interviewer was a health care provider for and a researcher of persons with HIV/AIDS; thus, it was necessary for the interviewer to acknowledge and attempt to bracket those experiences. The data collection consisted of 58 interviews conducted over 18 months at three sites dedicated to persons with HIV/AIDS, a hospital-based clinic, a long-term care facility, and a residence. The use of systematic data analysis procedures of significant statements, meanings, themes, and a description of the essence of the phenomenon followed the procedures recommended by Moustakas (1994). The inclusion of tables illustrating the significant statements, meanings, and theme clusters showed how the authors worked from the raw data to the exhaustive description of the essence of the study in the final discussion section. The study ended by describing the essence of the experience for the 58 patients and the context in which they experienced AIDS (e.g., coping mechanisms).

A Grounded Theory Study (Harley et al., 2009; see Appendix D) Harley, A. E., Buckworth, J., Katz, M. L., Willis, S. K., Odoms-Young, A., & Heaney, C. A. (2009). Developing long-term physical activity participation: A grounded theory study with African American women. Health Education & Behavior, 36(1), 97–112. doi:10.1177/1090198107306434

This grounded theory study sought to develop a theory of the behavioral process of African American women that explains the pathways linking key factors together in the integration of physical activity into their lifestyles. It was premised on the problem that physical activity is of concern for particular subgroups, such as African American women who remain particularly sedentary. To this end, the researchers chose grounded theory because of the lack of knowledge regarding the specific factors and relationships that compose the process of physical activity behavioral evolution. The authors studied 15 women who met the criterion sampling of being between 25 and 45 years of age, completing at least some college or technical school beyond high school, and holding a commitment to physical activity. Participants were recruited through two local African American sorority alumni associations, and initial data were collected through face-to-face in-depth interviews guided by Spradley (1979). The data collection and preliminary analysis procedures can be considered as undertaken simultaneously as the researchers refined the interview questions that “were not eliciting the intended information and to reflect the categories and concepts that required further development” (p. 100). The purpose for the follow-up focus groups was to disseminate preliminary findings and gather feedback to inform refinement of the framework.

The data were analyzed using the Strauss and Corbin (1998) approach to grounded theory consisting of coding, concept development, constant comparisons between the data and the emerging concepts, and the formulation of a theoretical model. The authors then presented the theoretical model as a figure, and this model consisted of three phases in the behavioral process of integrating physical activity into lifestyle: an initiation phase, a transition phase, and an integration phase. The researchers advanced categories within each of these phases and also specified the context (i.e., African American social and cultural contexts) and the conditions influencing the physical activity integration. The authors then took one of the conditions, the planning practices for physical activity, and elaborated on these possibilities in a figure of the taxonomy of planning methods. This elaboration enabled the researchers to draw specific results for practice, such as the ideal number of physical activity sessions per week, and the maximum number of sessions per week. In conclusion, this grounded theory study advanced important lessons for future efforts at program design for physical activity for African American women.

This study met many of the defining features of a grounded theory study as discussed earlier in Chapter 4 by Charmaz (2014) and Corbin and Strauss (2015):

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Its central focus was to understand a behavior process, and the theoretical model advanced three major phases in this process. A theory emerged to suggest the framework of physical activity evolution for the African American women in the study. The researchers did not specifically mention memoing or writing down their ideas as they interviewed the women and analyzed the data. Their form of data collection and analysis was consistent with many grounded theory studies: the simultaneous collection and analysis of face-to-face interview data was followed by focus groups for validation and refinement purposes. The researchers engaged in a structured approach to grounded theory of coding categories and developing a theoretical model that included context and conditions and used qualitative software. The authors mentioned few details of analytical and integration strategies informing the framework development (e.g., of open, axial, and selective coding and memoing). The researchers provided a detailed description of the phases of the theoretical model and compared their model with existing theoretical models in the literature.

An Ethnographic Study (Mac an Ghaill & Haywood, 2015; see Appendix E) Mac an Ghaill, M., & Haywood, C. (2015). British-born Pakistani and Bangladeshi young men: Exploring unstable concepts of Muslim, Islamophobia and racialization. Critical Sociology, 41, 97–114. doi:10.1177/0896920513518947

This ethnography study described the changing cultural conditions of a group of British born, working-class Pakistani and Bangladeshi young men over 3 years. The study involved Birmingham, England–born young men residing in an area representing the highest number of self-identified Muslims for a local authority in the United Kingdom. The authors focused on the group’s cultural reductive representations of Islam, the Muslim community and being a young Muslim man within the “urgent need to critically interrogate the assumed social separateness, cultural fixity and boundedness of religious, ethnic and national categories of difference that they [the group under study] claim are imputed to them” (p. 98). The participants were young men who were not only friends but also part of a broader social community described as attending the same youth and community organizations and colleges, sharing the same employers, and participating together in leisure activities. The study explored the group of 25 young men’s “geographically-specific local experiences of growing up in a rapidly changing Britain” (p. 99). The researchers described how access to the group was enabled by an established reputation for social commitment to the area and by previous work with families in the local community.

Ethnographic data collection methods provided insights into the young men’s growing up, family, schooling, social life, and local community through the use of in-depth group and life history interviews over a 3-year period. Further understandings were gleaned from observations, informal conversations, and interviews with parents and community representatives through snowballing sampling. Braun and Clarke’s (2006) thematic analysis guided the data analysis of each of the methods. From the integration of data sources, the authors described group members’ generational-specific experiences in relation to the racialization of their ethnicities and changes in terms of how they negotiated the meanings attached to being Muslim. The authors ended with a broad level of abstraction beyond the themes to suggest how the group made sense of the range of social and cultural exclusions they experienced during a time of rapid change within their city. In short, the authors identified a complex situation related to the group of Bangladeshi and Pakistani young men in terms of how they interacted and experienced ethnicity and demarcation of religion and cultural belonging. The authors cautioned readers to carefully consider ways to understand the young men’s own participation and the influence of local contexts and broader social and economic processes in identity formation.

Mac an Ghaill and Haywood’s ethnography nicely illustrates both core elements of an ethnographic study as mentioned in Chapter 4 (Fetterman, 2010; Wolcott, 2010) and aspects of a critical ethnography (Madison, 2011)

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as they call for further studies of marginalized groups (e.g., Goffman, 2014):

This ethnography was the study of a culture-sharing group and its members’ changing cultural condition as British-born, working-class Pakistani and Bangladeshi young men. This group had been intact for some time as a community. The authors described the group in terms of its 25 members’ ideas of their generational-specific experiences. By looking for patterns in this group, the study provided an alternative representational space for critically exploring “debates about the racialization of religion, the central role that religion plays in the process of racialization, and Islamophobia as a contemporary form of the racialization of Muslims” (p. 110). Consistent with critical ethnography, the author used a combination of materialist and postcolonial theoretical frameworks and young men’s accounts to explain the groups’ changing cultural condition. The authors positioned themselves by describing their involvement in the broader social community and their role as participant observers of the group for 3 years. The author also engaged in fieldwork by conducting in-depth group and life history interviews with the young men. Further understandings were gleaned from observations, informal conversations, and interviews with parents and community representatives from snowball sampling. From the participant (emic) data and the researcher’s field notes (etic data), a cultural interpretation was formed into thematic analysis. The group was described first in relation to the racialization of their ethnicities and changes in terms of how they negotiated the meanings attached to being Muslim. The description concluded with a broad level of abstraction beyond the themes to suggest how the group made sense of the range of social and cultural exclusions they experienced during a time of rapid change within their city. Unlike other critical approaches, the study did not end with a call for social transformation. Instead, it called for further efforts to validate the findings such as member checking with group members. This is because the cultural interpretation constructed by the group members was primarily intended for themselves. We leave this study with a complex view of how the group of Bangladeshi and Pakistani young men interacted and experienced ethnicity, religion, and cultural belonging as dynamic.

A Case Study (Frelin, 2015; see Appendix F) Frelin, A. (2015). Relational underpinnings and professionality—A case study of a teacher’s practices involving students with experiences of school failure. School Psychology International, 36, 589–604. doi:10.1177/0143034315607412

This qualitative case study described the practices of a teacher who negotiates educational relationships with students who have a history of school failure. The author provided a rationale for the use of a case study to “illustrate the complexities of building and sustaining educational relationships with upper secondary students who have experienced school failure” (p. 590). The author situated the need for the study within literature related to relational professionality and, more specifically, the influence of positive teacher–student relationships and challenges associated for students experiencing school failure. The case study procedures were guided by Stake (1995) and began with a detailed description of the relatively unstructured interviews and contextual observation of 11 teachers, preliminary data analysis and selection of “Gunilla,” a secondary schoolteacher working in the Swedish “Introduction Programme.” She was identified using purposeful sampling because of her ability to form positive relationships with students as well as having extensive teaching experiences of students who have not been accepted in the national upper secondary school program. The author described how the interviews were “focused on eliciting stories of practice and practical arguments whereas the observations served to highlight the context in which the teacher worked and to elicit new questions” (p. 593). The data analysis was guided by means of a cross-case analysis and constant comparisons (Charmaz, 2006); the qualitative software program, ATLAS.ti, aided the analysis.

Following a description of the teacher’s context for instruction, the results from the data analysis described Gunilla’s negotiations of relationships with students organized into three themes: trusting relationships, humane relationships, and the students’ own self-images. The case assertion related to the importance of connecting to

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students with experiences of school failure and the study conclusions advanced practical implications for school psychologists to support teachers in negotiating these student–teacher relationships.

This study met many of the defining features of a case study as discussed earlier in Chapter 4 by Stake (1995), Yin (2014), and Flyvbjerg (2006):

The case issue for the study was identified as one teachers’ practices of negotiating relationships with students who have a history of school failure. The case described in this study was a bounded system, delimited by the participant (Gunilla), by time (limited to data collection), and by place (situated at an institution offering the Swedish Introduction Programme). The intent was to report an instrumental case study. Thus, the focus was on exploring the issue of relational practices of a teacher to illustrate the complexity of negotiating educational relationships with students who have a history of school failure. The data collection involved the use of interviews and observations to provide a detailed in-depth understanding of teacher practices. This is one area where the author could have drawn on more extensive, multiple sources of information. Few details were provided about the data analysis other than it was guided by a constant comparison method (Charmaz, 2006). The case context description reflected considerable effort as well as the presentation of the three themes. The authors presented some evidence of a chronology (i.e., establishing and then sustaining) to describe the negotiations of relationships with students. The study concluded with the presentation of a cross-case assertion about the importance of connecting to students with experiences of school failure and advanced practical implications for school psychologists to support teachers in negotiating these student–teacher relationships. However, since this study presented a single case (Gunilla, the teacher) rather than multiple cases, an actual cross-case analysis of several teachers was not presented by the author.

Differences Among the Approaches A useful perspective to begin the process of differentiating among the five approaches is to assess the central purpose or focus of each approach. As shown in Figure 5.1, the focus of a narrative is on the life of an individual, and the focus of a phenomenology is on a concept or phenomenon and the essence of the lived experiences of persons about that phenomenon. In grounded theory, the aim is to develop a theory, whereas in ethnography, it is to describe a culture-sharing group. In a case study, a specific case is examined, often with the intent of examining an issue with the case illustrating the complexity of the issue. Turning to the five studies, the foci of the approaches to qualitative research become more evident.

Figure 5.1 Differentiating Approaches by Foci

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Central Features of Each Approach The story of Ai Mei Zhang, the Chinese immigrant student in a Canadian middle school, is a case in point—one decides to write a narrative when a single individual needs to be studied as the research focus, and that individual can illustrate with experiences the issue of being an immigrant student and the conflicting concerns that she faced (Chan, 2010). Furthermore, the researcher needs to make a case for the need to study this particular individual—someone who illustrates a problem, someone who has had a distinguished career, someone in the national spotlight, or someone who lives an ordinary life (Clandinin, 2013). The process of data collection and analysis involves gathering material about the person, such as from conversations or observations to stories of individual experiences.

The phenomenological study, on the other hand, focuses not on the life of an individual but rather on understanding the lived experiences of individuals around a phenomenon, such as how individuals represent their illnesses (Anderson & Spencer, 2002). Furthermore, individuals are selected who have experienced the phenomenon, and they are asked to provide data, often through interviews (van Manen, 2014). The researcher takes these data and, through several steps of reducing the data, ultimately develops a description of the experiences about the phenomenon that all individuals have in common—the essence of the lived experience.

Whereas the phenomenological project focuses on the meaning of people’s experience toward a phenomenon, researchers in grounded theory have a different objective—to generate a substantive theory, such as the theory about how African American women integrate physical activity into their lifestyles (Harley et al., 2009). Thus, grounded theorists undertake research to develop theory about a process or action. The data collection method involves primarily interviewing and the collecting and analyzing processes are considered to be undertaken simultaneously and iteratively. Researchers use systematic procedures for analyzing and developing this theory, procedures such as generating categories of data, relating the categories in a theoretical model, and specifying the context and conditions under which the theory operated (Corbin & Strauss, 2015). The theory is then presented as a discussion or model generating an overall tone of a grounded theory study as one of rigor and scientific credibility.

An ethnographic design is chosen when one wants to study the behaviors of a culture-sharing group, such as the British-born, working-class Pakistani and Bangladeshi young Muslim men (Mac an Ghaill & Haywood, 2015). In an ethnography, the researcher studies an intact culture-sharing group that has been interacting long enough to have shared or regular patterns of language and behavior (Fetterman, 2010). A detailed description of the culture-sharing group is essential at the beginning, and then the author may turn to identifying patterns of the group around some cultural concept such as acculturation, politics, or economy and the like. The ethnography ends with summary statements about how the group functions and works in everyday life. In this way, a reader

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understands a group that may be unfamiliar, such as the young Muslim men that Mac an Ghaill and Haywood (2015) studied.

Finally, a case study is chosen to study a case with clear boundaries, such as the relational practices of a teacher who negotiates educational relationships with students who have a history of school failure (Frelin, 2015). In this type of instrumental case study, the researcher explores an issue, and a detailed understanding emerges from examining a case or several cases. It is important, too, for the researcher to have contextual material available to describe the setting for the case and draw upon multiple sources of information about the case to provide an in- depth picture of it. Central to writing a case study, the researcher describes the case in detail, and mentions several issues or focuses on a single issue that emerged when examining the case (Stake, 1995). Explanations that can be learned from studying this case or cases end a case study report.

Selecting Your Approach Based now on a more thorough understanding of the five approaches, how do you choose one approach over the other? We recommend that you start with the outcome—what the approach is attempting to accomplish (e.g., the study of an individual, the examination of the meaning of experiences toward a phenomenon, the generation of a theory, the description and interpretation of a culture-sharing group, the in-depth study of a single case). In addition, other factors need also to be considered:

The audience question: What approach is frequently used by gatekeepers in your field (e.g., committee members, advisors, editorial boards of journals)? The background question: What training do you have in the inquiry approach (e.g., courses completed, books read)? Or what resources are accessible to guide you in your work (e.g., committee members, books, workshops)? The scholarly literature question: What is needed most as contributing to the scholarly literature in your field (e.g., a study of an individual, an exploration of the meaning of a concept, a theory, a portrait of a culture-sharing group, an in-depth case study)? The personal approach question: Are you more comfortable with a more structured approach to research or with a storytelling approach (e.g., narrative research, ethnography)? Or are you more comfortable with a firmer, more well-defined approach to research or with a flexible approach (e.g., grounded theory, case study, phenomenology)?

Chapter Check-In

1. What defining features of one of the five approaches can you use to begin designing your qualitative study? Answer the following questions that apply to the approach you are considering.

For a narrative study: What individual do you plan to study? And do you have access to information about this individual’s life experiences? For a phenomenology: What is the phenomenon of interest that you plan to study? And do you have access to people who have experienced it? For a grounded theory: What social science concept, action, or process do you plan to explore as the basis for your theory? Can you interview individuals who have experienced the process? For an ethnography: What cultural group of people do you plan to study? Has the culture-sharing group been together long enough for patterns of behavior, language, and beliefs to form? For a case study: What is the case you plan to examine? Will the case be described because it is a unique case, or will the case be used to illustrate (and illuminate) an issue or a problem?

2. Do you understand the key differences among the five approaches? Read qualitative journal articles that adopt different approaches across diverse fields, such as the narrative studies of Geiger (1986) and Nelson (1990), phenomenologies of Edwards (2006) and Padilla (2003), grounded theory studies of Brimhall and Engblom-Deglmann (2011) and Creswell and Brown (1992), ethnographies of Haenfler (2004) and Rhoads (1995), and case studies of Brickhouse and Bodner (1992) and Asmussen and Creswell (1995). Determine the defining features of the approach being used by the author(s), and discuss why the author(s) may have used the approach.

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Asmussen, K. J., & Creswell, J. W. (1995). Campus response to a student gunman. Journal of Higher Education, 66(5), 575–591. doi:10.2307/2943937

Brickhouse, N., & Bodner, G. M. (1992). The beginning science teacher: Classroom narratives of convictions and constraints. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 29, 471–485.

Brimhall, A. C., & Engblom-Deglmann, M. L. (2011). Starting over: A tentative theory exploring the effects of past relationships on postbereavement remarried couples. Family Process, 50(1), 47–62. doi:10.1111/j.1545- 5300.2010.01345.x

Creswell, J. W., & Brown, M. L. (1992). How chairpersons enhance faculty research: A grounded theory study. Review of Higher Education, 16(1), 41–62. Retrieved from https://www.press.jhu.edu/journals/review_of_higher_education

Edwards, L. V. (2006). Perceived social support and HIV/AIDS medication adherence among African American women. Qualitative Health Research, 16, 679–691. doi:10.1177/1049732305281597

Geiger, S. N. G. (1986). Women’s life histories: Method and content. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 11, 334–351. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3174056

Haenfler, R. (2004). Rethinking subcultural resistance: Core values of the straight edge movement. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 33, 406–436. doi:10.1177/0891241603259809

Nelson, L. W. (1990). Code-switching in the oral life narratives of African-American women: Challenges to linguistic hegemony. The Journal of Education, 172(3), 142–155.

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Rhoads, R. A. (1995). Whales tales, dog piles, and beer goggles: An ethnographic case study of fraternity life. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 26, 306–323. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3195675

Summary

This chapter examined five different short articles to illustrate good models for writing a narrative study, a phenomenology, a grounded theory study, an ethnography, and a case study. These articles reflect many of the defining characteristics of each approach and should enable readers to see differences in composing and writing varieties of qualitative studies. Choose a narrative study to examine the life experiences of a single individual when material is available and accessible and the individual is willing (assuming that he or she is living) to share stories. Choose a phenomenology to examine a phenomenon and the meaning it holds for individuals. Be prepared to interview the individuals, ground the study in philosophical tenets of phenomenology, follow set procedures, and end with the essence of the meaning. Choose a grounded theory study to generate or develop a theory. Gather information through interviews (primarily), and use systematic procedures of data gathering and analysis built on procedures such as open, axial, and selective coding. Although the final report will be scientific, it can still address sensitive and emotional issues. Choose an ethnography to study the behavior of a culture-sharing group (or individual). Be prepared to observe and interview, and develop a description of the group and explore themes that emerge from studying human behaviors. Choose a case study to examine a case, bounded in time or place, and look for contextual material about the setting of the case. Gather extensive material from multiple sources of information to provide an in-depth picture of the case.

These are important distinctions among the five approaches to qualitative inquiry. By studying each approach in detail, we can learn more about how to proceed and how to narrow our choice of which approach to use. In the next chapter, we will see how to incorporate each of the five approaches into a scholarly introduction in a qualitative project.

Further Readings

Several readings extend this brief overview and comparison of articles for each of the five approaches. Here we continue to expand the list of books about each approach (see also Chapters 1 and 4). The list should not be considered exhaustive, and readers are encouraged to seek out additional readings in the end-of-book reference list.

Clandinin, D. J., Huber, J., Huber, M., Murphy, M. S., Murray Orr, A., Pearce, M., & Steeves, P. (2006). Composing diverse identities: Narrative inquiries into the interwoven lives of children and teachers. New York, NY: Routledge.

4/20/2018 Bookshelf Online: Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches

https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781506330228/cfi/6/34!/4/2/4/2@0:0 11/11

Through this book, the authors illustrate the usefulness of narrative research for capturing the complex interactions among children, families, teachers, and administrators within the school environment. This should be required reading for anyone engaging in narrative research with children.

Colaizzi, P. F. (1978). Psychological research as the phenomenologist views it. In R. Valle & M. King (Eds.), Existential phenomenological alternatives for psychology (pp. 48–71). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

This key resource introduces existential phenomenology as a philosophical and methodological approach within the field of psychology. Within this chapter, Paul Colaizzi advances procedures for conducting phenomenological analysis that remain relevant to this day.

Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2013). Strategies of qualitative inquiry. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln take a new approach in this accessible version of a handbook on qualitative research. In particular, we find the case study chapter by Flyvberg to be helpful in delineating case study research from the other approaches.

Goffman, A. (2014). On the run: Fugitive life in an American city (fieldwork encounters and discoveries). Chicago IL: Chicago University Press.

Alice Goffman contributes an ethnography study of a group of young Black men in a poor community in West Philadelphia over 6 years. She also introduces a number of ethical issues that are worthy of further exploration for those engaging in ethnographic research.

Spradley, J. P. (1979). The ethnographic interview. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

This book by James Spradley has enduring influence for how to conduct open-ended interviews useful across qualitative approaches. In addition to suggestions about how to phrases research questions he offers the reader useful guidance for comparing data during analyses.