Week 1 Dq 1and 2

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n of the study and in the analysis of the study, the researcher would be specifically examining the nature of power relations.

Critical research has its roots in several traditions and, as currently practiced, encompasses a variety of approaches. Early influences include Marx's analysis of socioeconomic conditions and class structures, Habermas's notions of emancipatory knowledge, and Freire's transformative and emancipatory education. Kincheloe and McLaren (2000) center critical research in critical hermeneutics: “In its critical theory-driven context, the purpose of hermeneutical analysis is to develop a form of cultural criticism revealing power dynamics within social and cultural texts” (p. 286).

Critical research has become a broad term that covers a number of orientations to research, all of which seek to not just understand what is going on, but also to critique the way things are in the hopes of bringing about a more just society. Critical research can be combined with other qualitative methodologies. Charmaz (2011), for example, suggests combining a critical stance toward social justice with the analytical tools of grounded theory. As another methodological combination, critical ethnography attempts to interpret the culture but also to expose cultural systems that oppress and marginalize certain groups of people (Madison, 2012). In critical autoethnography a researcher uses data to analyze how structures of power inherent in culture inform some aspect of her or his own story. Wright (2008), for example, analyzed how her working class roots along with her gender and “intellectual obsession” relate to how she became a researcher and an academic.

As noted earlier, critical qualitative research studies can be informed by critical theory, feminist theory, critical race theory, queer theory, or poststructural/postmodern/postcolonial theory. Critical theory tends to focus on the analysis of social class; critical race theory highlights race; feminist frames tend to focus on gender; queer theory on sexual orientation; postcolonial studies analyze colonial relations. Postmodern/poststructural frames analyze how all forms of power influence research—in Foucault's (1980) sense that power is “capillary,” or everywhere—at the same time that such theoretical perspectives tend to question categories and fixed notions of truth or knowledge.

Indeed, power dynamics are at the heart of critical research although, as implied earlier, typically researchers often have a specific interest about particular structural power relations—such as gender in feminist studies, or race in critical race studies—or in the intersections of social structures, such as that of race and gender in studies informed by Black feminist thought (Hill Collins, 2008). Questions are asked about who has power, how it's negotiated, what structures in society reinforce the current distribution of power, and so on. Critical perspectives generally assume that people unconsciously accept things the way they are, and in so doing, reinforce the status quo. Others may act in seemingly self- destructive or counterproductive ways in resisting the status quo. In critical studies, the assumption is that power in combination with hegemonic social structures results in the marginalization and oppression of those without power. Critical research seeks to make these dynamics visible so that people can challenge power relations.

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Critical research focuses less on individuals than on context. Critical educational research, for example, queries the context in which learning takes place, including the larger systems of society, the culture, and institutions that shape educational practice, and the structural and historical conditions framing practice. Questions are asked regarding whose interests are being served by the way the educational system is organized, who really has access to particular programs, who has the power to make changes, and what outcomes are produced by the way in which education is structured. Thus critical qualitative research raises questions about how power relations advance the interests of one group while oppressing those of other groups, and about the nature of truth and the construction of knowledge.

A delightful and now classic example of critical research is Burbules's (1986) analysis of the children's book Tootle. This is a good example of applying a critical lens to a text. Burbules reveals how the seemingly innocent story of a baby locomotive learning to be an adult locomotive can be read as a parable of schooling, work, and adulthood—and how the oppressive structures of class and gender are reinforced in our society. Three more recent examples of critical qualitative research are by Davidson (2006), English (2005), and Robertson, Bravo, and Chaney (2014). Using a critical and queer theoretical lens, Davidson (2006) presents a case study of a bisexual Latino male; English's (2005) study of women working internationally for social justice employed postcolonial theory, which examines those who are marginalized due to race, gender, and ethnic group as a result of colonization. Robertson, Bravo, and Chaney (2014) examine Latino/Latina students' experiences of racism at a predominantly White university from a critical race theory perspective, and how they found counter spaces to navigate this predominantly White milieu. There are numerous critical research studies, and entire journals are specifically devoted to publishing critical forms of social research.

Attending to Positionality and Reflexivity in Critical Research So far we have emphasized the fact that it is the theoretical framework and the analysis of societal power relations that makes a study critical. But there are also methodological issues, particularly related to the role of the researcher in conducting studies, that are theoretically grounded in any critical perspective analyzing power relations that need to be considered in critical qualitative studies (Steinberg & Cannella, 2012). A basic assumption of critical theory, feminist theory, dis/ability theory, critical race theory, queer theory, and postcolonial/poststructural/postmodern theory is that the world is informed by structured power relations based on race, gender, class, sexual orientation, dis/ability, or religion. In essence, the assumption is that power relations are everywhere, including in the research study itself. While all forms of qualitative research address issues such as building rapport with participants in qualitative data collection, in critical research more attention is given to an examination of power relations in the research act itself.

We made the point earlier that, aside from critical action research studies, in other types of critical research studies researchers generally do not necessarily intend to make change happen during the study itself. However, there is a certain assumption in most critical forms of research that change is happening all the time, and when participants are asked questions in interviews or in other forms of data collection about their experiences related to gender, race, class, or sexual orientation, the very act of talking about issues changes their consciousness about these things and hence invites change (Kemmis et al., 2014).

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Thus change is accepted as a given in critical forms of qualitative research; however, except in the case of critical action research studies (and at times in critical ethnography), the point isn't really to study how people or groups change in the research process. Rather, it's to analyze issues relating to power relations in participants' lives. Of course, most critical researchers hope that the participants or others will do something and engage in action as a result of the study. But most critical researchers also recognize and attempt to grapple with power relations within the study while they are doing it (Koro-Ljungberg, 2012).

Discussions of critical research tend to highlight three major interrelated issues in considering the relationship the researcher has with participants: insider/outsider issues; positionality issues; and, as a result of both of these intersecting factors, the importance of researcher reflexivity. Lincoln (2010, citing Fine, 1994) refers to the work on these issues collectively as “working the hyphen” and explains that “working the hyphen refers to studying the Self-Other conjunction” (p. 5)—in essence, the researcher-participant relationship and how one affects the other in the research process. To some extent we have talked about insider/outsider issues in our earlier discussion of action research. But critical researchers of all types need to grapple with these issues, to consider how whether or not one is an insider or outsider affects the research process. For example, if one is doing a study as an academic university researcher of how high school teachers try to attend to power relations in classrooms, and one has never been a high school teacher, then one does the research as a complete outsider. If one has been a high school teacher in the past but now teaches at a university, one may have a mix of insider and outsider status in the view of the participants. These insider/outsider status issues can affect whether one has access to participants, as well as to the kinds of stories they will tell the researcher.

An extension of this notion of insider/outsider status is the issue of researchers' positionality—their race, gender, social class background, and sexual orientation— particularly with respect to the study purposes. For example, doing a research study about gay men might be easier if one is a gay man; getting access and developing trust with participants is often more natural if relevant aspects of one's positionality are similar to those under study. Vicars (2012) highlights this in his study of gay men's childhood and adolescent reading practices that related to their identity development. He conducted the research as a gay man, and he writes that “without insider access, it would have proved difficult to find gay men in education that would have been willing and prepared to talk openly about their experiences” (p. 468). This is not to say that researchers' positionality needs to always match that of the participants. And as Johnson-Bailey (2004) explains, in her experience of doing a critical narrative study with Black women returning to higher education, there are always ways one's positionality does not match participants'; she was an insider with her participants in regard to race and gender, but with some participants she was an outsider in relation to social class and color. The point is that participants in studies of marginalized groups (by race, gender, class, sexual orientation) are often suspicious of those who are members of the dominant culture doing research on people of oppressed groups. They often worry about what the researcher's agenda is and how they will be portrayed as participants. The point of critical research is generally to do research with people, not on people.

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While all qualitative researchers would argue that it is important to tend to researcher reflexivity, critical researchers in particular emphasize this because of the power relations inherent in the research act itself. In their recent study of the role of reflexivity in social work researchers, Probst and Berenson (2014) note: “Reflexivity is generally understood as awareness of the influence the researcher has on what is being studied and, simultaneously, of how the research process affects the researcher. It is both a state of mind and a set of actions” (p. 814). This implies that qualitative research is a dialectical process that affects and changes both the participants and the researcher, at least to some extent. In the critical sense of qualitative research—and if one is serious about challenging power relations both in the world and in the research process itself—it is incumbent upon the critical researcher to be reflexive: to consider issues such as positionality and insider/outsider stances in research and to try to own their effects in the process in so far as this is possible. A word of caution is in order here, though, in finding balance in the write-up: as Pillow (2003) observes, one can go overboard in discussing these issues, so that it appears that the study is more about the researcher than the participants and the findings of the study. Nevertheless, this issue of researcher reflexivity in critical research and how the researcher deals with it in a report is part of what also contributes to making critical research studies critical.

Arts Based Research Qualitative research is fundamentally about examining how people make meaning. Most typically, researchers have analyzed what people say (in interviews or in written documents) and what people do by observing them and writing down field notes. Hence most qualitative researchers analyze data that are words. But people do not make meaning or express it only through words; they also do so by art, in visual art, in symbol, in theater based art, and through photography, music, dance, story, or poetry. Since the advent of the new millennium, there has been much more of an emphasis on how creative expression can be a part of qualitative research efforts in what has come to be referred to as arts based research (ABR). Barone and Eisner (2012) discuss the limitations of using narrative words alone, and note that “arts based research is the effort to extend beyond the limiting constraints of discursive communication in order to express meanings that would otherwise be ineffable” (p. 1).

Researchers can make use of arts based practices at different phases of the research study or at all phases. As Leavy (2015) explains, “ABR practices are a set of methodological tools used by qualitative researchers across the disciplines during all phases of social research, including data collection, analysis, interpretation, and representation” (pp. 2–3). The point of incorporating art into research is partly in recognition of the fact that people make meaning and express it in different ways. However, as artists and many teachers know, people also often make meaning in new and even deeper ways when asked to express something through symbol, photography, visual art, music, metaphor, dance, poetry, or other forms of creative expression (Bailey & Van Harken, 2014). Artists know this and regularly do so in their creative process. But people who do not see themselves as artists or “good” at art can also make deeper meaning through arts based forms of expression—perhaps because doing so taps into a different part of the brain (Zeki, 2000). In any case, a researcher can engage in arts based research and not identify as an artist; one can also incorporate arts based activities into aspects of

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a research project with people who do not identify as artists. Researchers do so because its use generally invites deeper meaning making, and meaning making is the focus of qualitative research.

There are debates about whether or not arts based research is a unique form of research (Barone & Eisner, 2012; Leavy, 2015). Some argue it is not, in and of itself; one can make use of arts based approaches in a myriad of ways in basic interpretive studies, ethnographies, narrative studies, grounded theory approaches, case studies, or critical or action forms of research. Nevertheless, others argue that arts based research has its own methodology and extends the paradigm of qualitative research. To some extent the poles of the argument hinge on (1) whether the purpose of the arts based approach is as a data collection and/or presentation method, or (2) whether the whole purpose of the research is really to study artists and/or the artistic process. Hence, for the sake of simplicity, we break our discussion of arts based approaches down into these two primary areas.

Use of the Arts in Data Collection and Research Presentation Many researchers make use of arts based approaches more as part of their data collection methods, to a lesser or greater extent, and sometimes in the presentation of the findings to clarify a point. In these instances the studies' purposes are not really about the art or the image; the images in this sense are more typically used as an elicitation device during interviews. In speaking about the use of photos in research, Harper (2002) explains that photo elicitation is “the simple idea of inserting a photograph into a research interview” (p. 13); he goes on to note that any visual image—such as cartoons, paintings, symbols, graphic images or objects—can be inserted into an interview. Participants are invited to talk about the image during the interview to see how they make meaning of it. If it is a researcher-generated image, the images are typically used to elicit meaning about particular types of experiences. For example, Matteucci (2013) used photos of the flamenco music and dance experience with tourists who had gone to the southern part of Spain specifically to engage in flamenco music and dance classes. He chose the photos himself for two primary reasons: he was interested in exploring particular aspects of tourists' perceptions and experiences of flamenco music and dance as depicted in these photos, and participants were in this region for only a brief time, so taking their own photos would have been time-prohibitive.

More often, researchers use participant-gathered or participant-created photos or visual images as an elicitation device in data gathering, which we discuss further in Chapter Seven. If the participant simply found an image or object and brought it to the interview, the researcher might ask not only what it means but also how it was chosen; if the participant created it, the researcher might ask what the creative experience was like. For example, Lachal et al. (2012) conducted a study with obese adolescents to examine the role of food in family relationships. They gave these adolescents a disposable camera with the directions to take a photo of the family table following a meal before the table was cleared; they were told no one was to be in the pictures. They interviewed the adolescents about how meals unfolded in their family and the nature of family relationships around food; the picture was used as an elicitation device.

In these uses of arts based approaches as data collection, the studies are about the subject itself and typically not primarily about the images per se. Matteucci's (2013) study was about tourists' experiences of taking flamenco music and dance classes; Lachal et

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al.'s (2012) study was to examine the role of food in family relationships. The use of images was only an elicitation device to see how participants make meaning of their experience.

In some studies that make use of arts based approaches, the role of the art or image making takes on a more central role. This is often the case in action research studies when participants are asked to create some sort of drawing, collage, or symbol to express something. Stuckey (2009) and her participants, in her action research study about the role of creative expression in making further meaning of diabetes, together decided to first create an image in one session and then take photographs in another. They also discussed the image-making and the photo-gathering experience in the sessions themselves. These sessions were not only about how they made meaning of diabetes; they were also about how the role of creative expression facilitated the meaning-making process (Stuckey & Tisdell, 2010). In the final interviews participants were invited to create an art piece to depict their whole experience. In this case, the study was about their further meaning-making of diabetes through engaging in the creative process. The study was still more about how they made meaning of their diabetes, but the role of creative expression did take center stage.

Qualitative researchers employ arts based approaches to research not only in the data collection methods but also in the presentation of the findings. Lodico, Spaulding, and Voegtle (2010), for example, discuss a program evaluation study of a youth summer camp academic enrichment program; the researchers had some of the youth create photographs of what their experience was like and used the photos as a way of presenting some of the major findings of the study, but the study was more about the evaluation of the youth summer camp program.

Of course, arts based inquiry is more than just using or creating images; it often involves the more creative use of words, such as in the use of poetry or in creating a performance out of participants' words. Ward (2011), for example, conducted a narrative study of four students with disabilities. She described how she used poetic writing from the students' narratives in “bringing the message forward” (p. 355) to solve the research dilemmas she ran into along the way. In her conclusion she writes that the effect of using poetry “foregrounded the students' stories, enabling focus on the meaning and threads of their experiences and creating coherent storylines, verisimilitude, and evocative text to engage the reader in reflection and deeper understanding.”

Researchers sometimes use participants' words or work to create some sort of performance to engage with the larger public about the findings of the study. Davis (2014) for example, created an ethnodrama of young adults' stories of transitioning from high school to adult basic education in GED programs, which was performed as readers' theater to create discussion about the life experiences of such young adults in these educational programs. An even more dramatic example of arts based research as presentation is in “how Eve Ensler transformed her interviews with victims of sexual violence into a play, The Vagina Monologues, that has been performed in hundreds of locations” (Lodico, Spaulding, & Voegtle, 2010, p. 201).

There are many other examples of how researchers have drawn on the arts to more creatively present the findings of their study to different audiences, rather than strictly presenting themes of findings in an academic journal. This is where, to some extent, some

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arts based approaches are often critical in their orientation, in that the findings are meant to effect change in people by raising consciousness about the issues under study. Those who draw on the findings of a study to engage with poetic license in this way (Barone & Eisner, 2012) have found that their approach raised some issues. Some were concerned about the trustworthiness of findings, or the ethics of doing so; hence most who discuss arts based approaches to research specifically address such questions (Barone & Eisner, 2012; Leavy, 2015). Further, researchers who present findings in this manner generally have their participants' permission to do so, or specifically work with their participants to engage in such a production. In addition, when findings are presented as poetry or even creative prose, in either a research article or writing for a more general audience, the author-researchers are generally transparent about what they are doing in trying to take a more creative approach that will appeal to a more general audience.

Arts Based Research about Artists and Artistic Processes In most of the examples just provided, the purpose of the research was to explore how participants make meaning of a particular phenomenon or experience, not about the art itself. But there are qualitative research projects that are specifically intended to study artists or the processes of creating and/or presenting some form of art.

These studies take various forms. Some studies focus more on artists and their art as a form of knowledge creation or education. Zorrilla (2012), for example, studied how the art and practice of German-born Uruguayan conceptual artist Luis Camnitzer functioned as a form of public pedagogy. From the time Camnitzer was a child and escaped the Nazi regime with his family, he has lived his life in a constant state of exile from oppressive regimes. He uses his art to raise consciousness about oppression. Zorrilla's specific purpose was to examine both how Camnitzer thought about his role as someone engaged in a form of public pedagogy, as well as how his art functions as a form of education. She carried out her study by conducting interviews with Camnitzer and with art curators who had shown his work, as well as by analyzing Camnitzer's writings and his art. Zorrilla's specific point was to examine the artist and the artistic process.

Leavy (2015), in her book about arts based approaches, specifically discusses situations in which the researchers engage the arts for the purposes of producing art or for examining how art contributes to the knowledge construction process. She has separate chapters on qualitative approaches in creating visual arts, dance, and movement; music; drama and performance studies; poetry; and fictional and autobiographical writing in narrative studies. One good example of using drama and poetry is Hanley and View's (2014) critical race theory study using interviews with African American, Latino/Latina, and Native Americans to create poetry and drama that challenges the dominant narrative on race and culture. Their purpose was explicitly to create a performance using participants' words to engage communities about issues related to race and ethnic identity and the role of creativity in the creation of counter-narrative.

Many arts based research studies about artists and/or the artistic process are written as autoethnographies in which the researcher is examining aspects of her or his cultural identity through engagement in one or more of the arts. Quite a provocative example is Manovski's (2014) use of multiple art forms including poetry, visual art, and especially music to examine intersecting aspects of her identity around race, gender, sexuality, and national origin.

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Many arts based research projects are partly about how participants produce new knowledge through the engagement of arts in their process of doing it; hence they are often PAR projects. An interesting recent example is Tyler's (in press) study of an organizational development project with a faith-driven and community-based nonprofit organization group, My Brother's Keeper (also known as MBK), in inner-city Baltimore, which provides various services to the community at large. Her purpose was to integrate storytelling and the creation of a mosaic, a landscape of integrated images created by and with the community, as a form of presentational knowing, to see how these activities affected the organization's strategic visioning and planning processes. She first gathered together 30 participants from the community. She asked them to imagine it was ten years from now and the larger community was thriving, partly due to MBK's role. She then asked them to tell a story, in pairs, about what had contributed to the success. From there she asked them to come up with an image, which they shared with the larger group. Eventually, over the course of time, from these images the community chose those that were the most salient, drew them, and then laid them out in a sequence that made sense to serve as sort of a vision to the community. Then they created a mosaic from the drawings. Tyler describes the process and the impact on the organization; the key factor was participants' buy-in and ownership of the project. Evidence for this was the fact that they installed the mosaic at the entrance of the agency's dining room, so every day their visioning is imprinted and reinscribed in time and space, and in the hearts, minds, and spirits of those who use the space (see Figure 3.1). As Tyler observes, doing such projects is exciting, it makes use of multiple ways of knowing, and the reward is great; but such projects also require time and patience and the invitation of the community. Indeed, there are numerous interesting examples of such approaches for which the creation of art and its impacts was central to the purpose of the qualitative or action research study.

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Figure 3.1 My Brother's Keeper Mosaic. Source: Tyler (in press). Reprinted with permission.

Summary In this chapter we explored newer forms of qualitative research or research with a strong qualitative component. We began by discussing mixed methods research, which makes use of both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Then we discussed various kinds of action research studies, pointing out that most often such studies make use of only qualitative methods, but that they can occasionally incorporate quantitative components. Third, we discussed critical research studies, which are intended to examine and hopefully challenge power relations, and ended the chapter by considering arts based approaches to qualitative research, pointing out that there can be overlap among some of these types of research. For example, arts based approaches can be incorporated into action research, critical research, or other types of studies.

These types of designs have contributed to expanding the qualitative paradigm of research. They have become increasingly more common in the last two decades; many dissertation studies now make use of mixed methods, action research, and arts based research, or are designed specifically as critical research studies intended to challenge power relations. There are also now specific journals devoted to one or more of these research designs that make use of qualitative research methods, which indicates how

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common such designs are becoming in further expanding the influence of the qualitative paradigm.

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CHAPTER FOUR

DESIGNING YOUR STUDY AND SELECTING A SAMPLE Rarely would anyone starting out on a trip just walk out the door with no thought of where to go or how to get there. The same is true when beginning a research study. You need some idea of what you want to know and a plan for carrying it out. This map, or research design, is “a logical plan for getting from here to there, where here may be defined as the initial set of questions to be answered, and there is some set of conclusions (answers) about these questions” (Yin, 2014, p. 28, emphasis in original).

This chapter begins with how you select a topic for a research study, followed by how to focus this topic and shape it into a research problem. The research problem reflects your theoretical framework. We explain what a theoretical framework is and what the role of a literature review is in establishing this framework and forming the problem statement. Although defining the research problem, identifying the theoretical framework, and reviewing the literature are explained in sequence here, in reality they are very much interactive processes, as we hope to make clear. Once the research problem is defined, your next task is to select the sample to be studied—a process also covered in this chapter.

Selecting a Topic How do you select a topic for a qualitative research study? The first place to look is your daily life—your work, family, friends, community. What are you curious about? What is happening or has occurred at work that puzzles you? Why are things the way they are?

What happens when something changes at work, in your family, in your neighborhood? Look around. What is interesting to you that you do not quite understand? For example, you might observe that all your efforts to include certain students in classroom discussions have failed. You might wonder about any number of factors related to this situation. Is there something about these students that makes them reluctant to participate? Is it the methods you use to try to include them? Is there something about the classroom atmosphere? Your feelings about these students? Thus out of personal, practical experience can come research questions. Following are several examples of how our daily lives can generate a topic for research:

Paul, a hospice counselor, wondered how the grieving experience of older adults could also be a significant learning experience, one that is transformative (Moon, 2011).

Amelia had been working in adult basic education. She became fascinated with the stories and experiences of how young adults who had left high school transition into adult education programs (Davis, 2014).

Alfred had been teaching writing and composition at a community college. He was interested in how to teach in a way that would engage students and help them both

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learn to write and feel as if they were making change in the world and in their lives (Siha, 2014).

Robin had worked as a museum educator. She observed that some docents were quite good at their jobs. She wondered how volunteer docents, often with a minimum of training, became experts (Grenier, 2009).

In applied fields of practice such as education, management, social work, health professions, and so on, the vast majority of research topics come from one's personal interest in the field and from the work setting itself. A research topic can also come from other sources. Current social and political issues offer numerous possibilities. For example, one might become interested in the learning and practices of health care providers in light of the changes in health care and the pressures of evidence based medicine (Timmermans & Oh, 2010). Out of their concern and interest in these issues, Armstrong and Ogden (2006) conducted a qualitative study of how practicing physicians deal with such changes and how these changes altered their behavior. Another example from social and political discourse is related to the 2008 financial crisis and the increased public discussion of the limited financial literacy of many adults. This increased public discussion prompted Tisdell, Taylor, and Sprow Forté (2013) to conduct a study to examine the teaching beliefs of financial literacy educators and how they attempt to educate about financial matters in working class communities.

A topic might come from the literature, especially previous research or theory in an area. Something you read in your association newsletter, a paper you write for a course assignment, or even leisure reading may be the source of a question that can evolve into a research study. Completed research studies are a good source because nearly every research study has a section with suggestions for future research, many of which could be approached qualitatively. Theory might also suggest topics. Much of the theoretical literature in adult education, for example, states that adults are self-directed and therefore prefer to participate in planning, implementing, and evaluating their own learning. However, data-based studies of adult learners have revealed that some do not want—or know how—to take control of their own learning. Since these two notions are inconsistent, a problem arises. Is self-direction a precondition of adult learning, or is it one of the goals of an adult learning activity? What differentiates self-directed learners from those who are not? What about the context of learning that may or may not promote self-direction? Is self-directed learning—as opposed to, say, collaborative learning—desirable?

Although not as common in qualitative research as it is in quantitative research, a research problem can be derived from a theory by questioning whether a particular theory can be sustained in practice. Even architects of grounded theory (see Chapter Two) concede that qualitative research can be used to elaborate and modify existing theory by the rigorous “matching of theory against data” (Strauss & Corbin, 1994, p. 273). For example, Wenger's (1998) theory of communities of practice posits that learning is a social activity in which we collectively make meaning as we mutually engage in some activity. Further, that learning changes who we are, our identity. To explore Wenger's theory, you could select a community of practice to study, as did Allen (2013) in his ethnographic case study of how social media mediates the boundary between a workplace-based community of practice and the external professional community of Microsoft SharePoint.

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So research topics most often come from observing and asking questions about your everyday activities. They can also come from social and political issues, from the literature on a topic, or from theory. These areas of course intersect; for example, there are always social and political issues embedded in one's work setting. So, too, you are likely to encounter theories in reading the literature in your field. A crucial factor in deciding what topic you would like to research is to be genuinely curious and interested in finding the answers to your questions. This interest, even passion, will carry you through the process more than any other single factor. Once you have a topic, the next step is to shape it into a research problem.

The Research Problem It would be a fruitless undertaking to embark on a research journey without first identifying a research problem. Most people understand what it means to have a “problem.” A problem in the conventional sense is a matter involving doubt, uncertainty, or difficulty. A person with a problem usually seeks a solution, some clarification, or a decision. So, too, with a research problem. For Dewey (1933), a problem is anything that “perplexes and challenges the mind so that it makes belief…uncertain” (p. 13).

The first task, then, in conducting a qualitative study is to raise a question about something that perplexes and challenges the mind. It has often been said that research is more art than science. In comparing qualitative research to the art form of dance, Janesick (1994) says of this important first step, “All dances make a statement and begin with the question, What do I want to say in this dance? In much the same way, the qualitative researcher begins with a similar question: What do I want to know in this study? This is a critical beginning point. Regardless of point of view, and quite often because of our point of view, we construct and frame a question for inquiry” (p. 210).

The thing you are curious about, then, forms the core of the research problem, or the problem statement. It reflects your particular theoretical framework; more precisely, it represents a gap in the knowledge base. As Kilbourn (2006) points out:

Statements such as “I want to explore…” and “This study will examine…” do not tell a reader what the problem of the study is; rather, they say what the study will do, and although what the study will do is equally critical, a reader first wants to know the problem that will be the focus of the research. (p. 538)

In crafting the research problem, you move from general interest, curiosity, or doubt about a situation to a specific statement of the research problem. In effect, you have to translate your general curiosity into a problem that can be addressed through research.

The structure of a problem statement, which essentially lays out the logic of the study, can be compared to a funnel shape—broad at the top and narrow at the bottom. At the “top” you identify the general area of interest. Is it students who are the first in their family to attend college? Dealing with diversity in the workplace? Math anxiety? Online learning? You acquaint the reader with what this topic is all about; you introduce key concepts, what has already been studied with regard to this topic, and why it is an important topic; that is, why anyone should care about it.

Moving along, you then narrow the topic, directing the reader toward the specific question you have. At this juncture you also point out the lack of information—the knowledge gap—

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with regard to this particular aspect of the topic. Perhaps nothing in the literature addresses your question, or there may be some research but, for reasons you make clear, it is inadequate or flawed in some important way. You have just led your reader down the funnel to the point where the necessity for the study is obvious. What needs to be done becomes the precise purpose of your study. You typically point ou