U2D1-68 - Follow instructions below to answer the questions regarding Identifying Qualitative Inquire Themes in Research

EXHIBIT 2.4 Contextual Sensitivity and Assessment

Premises

1. Context sensitivity and assessment affect choices about what methods are appropriate (Conner, Fitzpatrick, & Rog, 2012).

2. Attending to and understanding context sets the stage for studying context and takes it into account in interpreting findings.

3. How the inquirer is involved in a particular context will affect how the inquirer understands context. Researchers and evaluators “do not simply identify and respond to contextual factors, but by virtue of their actions are always constructing, relating to, engaging in, and taking part in some reconstruction of the context in which they operate” (Dahler-Larsen & Schwandt, 2012, p. 84).

4. Contexts are often complex dynamic systems. Static depictions of context as fixed will reduce the inquiry’s emergent design flexibility and misrepresent the meaning and effects of context when interpreting and presenting findings (Patton, 2012a).

5. Contextualism makes the first priority of an inquiry understanding perspectives, behaviors, relationships, processes, outcomes, and knowledge within the context or contexts studied.

Contextually Situating and Framing an Inquiry

• Purpose context: Why is the study being done? Who will judge its rigor and credibility? By what standards?

• Inquiry focus context: From what inquiry traditions, discipline, knowledge arena, interests, and issues are the inquiry questions derived? Within what larger context is the inquiry framed? To what extent are particular theoretical, philosophical, epistemological, or methodological contexts critical to understanding the inquiry?

• Location context: Where does the inquiry take place (e.g., physical location, organizational entity, virtual community; one site or multiple sites and levels), and how does location affect both inquiry methods and interpretation of findings?

• Broader context: This refers to sensitivity to organizational, social, cultural, historical, political, and demographic dynamics and trends (Rog, 2012, pp. 28–30).

• Relationship context: What is the relationship of the inquirer (researcher or evaluator) to the people studied? To what extent, if at all, are those studied involved as participants in the inquiry? What role does the inquirer play, for example, when undertaking participant observation?

• Other relevant contextual arenas: The contextual arenas in the graphic below are meant to be suggestive, not definitive. For example, a study involving a team of several researchers or evaluators might add a team context, or the funding of the inquiry may be such that a should be included. Part of the point of a contextual assessment is to identify and attend to those arenas of context that are important for a particular inquiry—and to be aware that the relative importance of contextual arenas may change over time as the inquirers’ engagement with and understanding of context unfolds and evolves and as the various contextual arenas are affected by broader contextual trends and dynamics.

Reflexivity Meets Voice

Reflexivity leads both to understanding one’s perspective and to owning that perspective. That ownership of perspective is where voice intersects reflexivity. The reflexive voice is the first-person active voice, “I.” Contrast that voice to the traditional third-person passive voice of academia epitomized by this educational evaluation abstract:

EXHIBIT 2.5 Reflexive Questions: Triangulated Inquiry

This study will delineate the major factors that affect school achievement. Instruments were selected to measure achievement based on validity and reliability criteria. Decisions were made about administering the tests in conjunction with administrators taking into account time and resource constraints. A regression model was constructed to test relationships between various background variables and demonstrated achievement. School records were reviewed and coded to ascertain student’s background characteristics. Data were obtained on 120 students from four classrooms. The extraction of significant predictor variables is the purpose of the final analysis. Interviews were conducted with teachers and principals to determine how test scores were used. The analysis concludes with the researcher’s interpretations. The researcher wishes to thank those who cooperated in this study.

This journal article abstract represents academic writing as I was taught to do it in graduate school. This writing style still predominates in scholarly journals and books. No human being is visible in this writing. The passive voice reigns. Instruments were selected; decisions were made; a model was constructed; records were reviewed and coded; data were obtained; predictor variables were extracted; and interviews were conducted. The warmth of thanks is extended by a role, the researcher: “The researcher wishes to thank those who cooperated.” The third person, passive voice communicates a message: This work is about procedures, not people. This academic style has historically been employed to project a sense of objectivity, control, and authority. The overall impression is mechanical, robot-like, distant, detached, systematic, and procedural. The research is the object of attention. Any real, live human being, subject to all the usual foibles of being human, is barely implied, generally disguised, hidden away, and kept in the background.

Contrast that academic voice with my explanation of how I analyzed a 10-day coming-of-age experience with my son in the Grand Canyon. Here’s an excerpt in which I describe the analytical process.

I’m not sure when the notion first took hold of me that articulating alternative coming of age paradigms might help elucidate our Canyon experience. Before formally conceptualizing contrasting paradigm dimensions, I experienced them as conflicting feelings that emanated from my struggle to sort out what I wanted my son’s initiation to be, while also grappling with defining my role in the process. I suppose the idea of alternative paradigms first emerged the second night as I paced the narrow beach where White Creek intersects Shinumo and pondered the Great Unconformity [a geologic reference] as metaphor for the gap between tribal approaches to initiation and coming of

age for contemporary youth. In the weeks and months after our Canyon experience, far from languishing in the throes of retox as I expected, the idea of contrasting paradigms stayed with me, as did the Canyon experience. I started listing themes and matching them with incidents and turning points along the way. The sequence of incidents became this book and the contrasting themes became the basis for this closing chapter, a way for me to figure out how what started out as an initiation become a humanist coming of age celebration. (Patton, 1999, p. 332)

The traditional academic voice (third-person passive) may still be used because students haven’t been offered and/or don’t know that there’s an alternative. One reviewer of an earlier draft of this section responded that the academic style

is employed by people who learned it or think they learned it and have not read the American Psychological Association style manual, which clearly says not to be mysterious. They may be thoughtlessly following bad models, not deliberately trying to portray objectivity, control, and authority.

The contrast between the traditional academic voice and the personal voice of qualitative analysis recalls philosopher and theologian Martin Buber’s influential distinction between “I–It” and “I–Thou” relationships. An “I–It” relationship regards other human beings from a distance, from a superior vantage point of authority, as objects or subjects, as things in the environment to be examined and placed in abstract cause–effect chains. An “I–Thou” perspective, in contrast, acknowledges the humanity of both self and others and implies relationship, mutuality, and genuine dialogue.

The perspective that the researcher brings to a qualitative inquiry is part of the context for the findings. You as a human being are the instrument of qualitative methods. You as a real, live person make observations, take field notes, ask interview questions, and interpret responses. Self-awareness, then, can be an asset in both fieldwork and analysis. Developing appropriate self-awareness can be a form of “sharpening the instrument” (Brown, 1996, p. 42). The methods section of a qualitative study reports on the researcher’s training, preparation, fieldwork procedures, and analytical processes. This is both the strength and the weakness of qualitative methods, the strength in that a well-trained, experienced, and astute observer adds value and credibility to the inquiry while an ill-prepared, inexperienced, and imperceptive observer casts doubt on what is reported. Judgments about the significance of findings are thus inevitably connected to the researcher’s credibility, competence, thoroughness, and integrity. Those judgments, precisely because they are acknowledged as inevitably personal and perspective dependent to some extent, invite response and dialogue rather than just acceptance or rejection.

Writing in the first person, active voice communicates the inquirer’s self-aware role in the inquiry: “I started listing themes and matching them with incidents and turning points along the way.” Not the passive:

Themes were listed and matched to incidents and turning points along the way. Judith Brown (1996) captured the importance of the first-person voice in the title of her book The I in Science: Training to Utilize Subjectivity in Research. By subjectivity, she means “the domain of experiential self-knowledge” (p. 1). Voice reveals and communicates that domain.

Voice Is More Than Grammar

The issue is not just first-person active versus third-person passive voice. A credible, authoritative, authentic, and trustworthy voice engages the reader through rich description, thoughtful sequencing, appropriate use of quotes, and contextual clarity, so that the reader joins the inquirer in the search for meaning. And there are choices of voice: the didactic voice of the teacher; the searching, logical voice of the sleuth; the narrator voice of the storyteller; the personal voice of the autoethnographer; the doubting voice of the skeptic; the intimacy of the insider’s voice; the detachment of the outsider’s voice; the searching voice of uncertainty; and the excited voice of discovery, to offer but a few examples. Just as point of view and voice have become focal points of writing engaging fiction, so too must qualitative writers learn about, take into account, and communicate perspective and voice. Balancing critical and creative analyses, description and interpretation, or direct quotation and synopsis also involves issues of perspective, audience, purpose, and voice. No rules or formula can tell a qualitative analyst precisely what balance is right or which voice to use, only that finding both balance and voice is part of the work and challenge of qualitative inquiry. This is what Lewis (2001) has acknowledged as “the difficulty of trying to situate the I in narrative research” (p. 109).

In addition to finding voice, the critical and creative writing involved in qualitative analysis and synthesis challenges the inquirer to own your voice and perspective. Here, we owe much to classic feminist theory for highlighting and deepening our understanding of the intricate and implicate relationships between language, voice, and consciousness (e.g., England, 1994; Gilligan, 1982; Minnich, 2004). We are challenged by postmodern critiques of knowledge to be clear about and own our authorship of whatever we propound, be self-reflective, acknowledge biases and limitations, and honor multiple perspectives (Mabry, 1997), while “accepting incredulity and doubt as modal postmodern responses to all attempts to explain ourselves to ourselves” (Schwandt, 1997b, p. 102). From struggles to locate and acknowledge the inevitably political and moral nature of evaluative judgments, we are challenged to connect voice and perspective to praxis—acting in the world with an appreciation for and recognition of how those actions inherently express social, political, and moral values (Schwandt, 1989, 2000)—and to personalize evaluation (Kushner, 2000), by not only owning our own perspective but also taking seriously the responsibility to communicate authentically the perspectives of those we encounter during our inquiry. These represent some of the more prominent contextual forces that have elevated the importance of owning voice and perspective in qualitative analysis.

The practical side of owning your voice and perspective comes in reporting findings. Qualitative analysis doesn’t have the equivalent of a statistical significance test. Determining substantive significance requires judgment, which makes it personal. It can take considerable self-awareness and confidence to report thus: I coded these 40 interviews; these are the themes I found; here is what I think they mean; and here is the process I undertook to arrive at those meanings. The latter statement calls for, even demands, a sense of one’s own perspective, analytical process, and voice.

MODULE

8 Integrating the 12 Strategic Qualitative Principles in Practice:Chapter Summary and Conclusion

This chapter has presented and discussed 12 qualitative principles as strategic ideals:

1. Make real-world observations through naturalistic inquiry. 2. Stay open, responsive, and flexible through emergent designs. 3. Focus on information-rich cases through purposeful sampling. 4. Describe what you observe in detail, and illuminate people’s verbatim perspectives and meanings

through rich, in-depth qualitative data. 5. Deepen your understanding through direct personal experience with and engagement in what you are

studying. 6. Balance your critical and creative sides, your cognitive and affective processes, through a stance of

empathetic neutrality. 7. Cultivate sensitivity to dynamic processes and systems. 8. Appreciate and do justice to each person, organization, community, or situation you study through

attention to the particular: a unique case orientation. 9. Generate insight and understanding through bottoms-up inductive analysis. 10. Broaden your analysis and interpretation through contextual sensitivity. 11. Integrate data through a holistic perspective. 12. Communicate authenticity and trustworthiness through reflexivity: Own your voice and perspective.

Exhibit 2.1, at the beginning of this chapter (pp. 46–47), introduced and summarized these 12 strategic principles. Exhibit 2.6 depicts them graphically.

EXHIBIT 2.6 Twelve Core Strategies of Qualitative Inquiry: Interdependent and Interactive

This graphic aims to show the 12 core strategies as interrelated, interdependent, and interacting rather than as isolated, disconnected dimensions.

From Strategic Ideals to Practical Choices

However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. —Sir Winston Churchill (1874–1965)

The 12 qualitative principles are strategic ideals, not absolute and universal characteristics of qualitative inquiry. They provide a direction and framework for developing specific designs and concrete data collection tactics. Ideally, a pure qualitative inquiry strategy includes all of these themes and dimensions. For example, in an ideal naturalistic inquiry, the approach is highly emergent and inductive. In practice, however, the fieldwork moves from “discovery mode” to “verification mode” (Guba, 1978). As fieldwork begins, the inquirer is open to whatever emerges from the data, a discovery or inductive approach. Then, as the inquiry reveals patterns and major dimensions of interest, the investigator will begin to focus on verifying and elucidating what appears to be emerging—a more deductive approach to data collection and analysis. In essence, what is discovered may be verified by going back to the world under study and examining the extent to which the emergent analysis fits the phenomenon. Glaser and Strauss (1967), in their classic framing of grounded theory, described what it means for results to fit and work.

By “fit,” we mean that the categories must be readily (not forcibly) applicable to and indicated by the data under study; by “work,” we mean that they must be meaningfully relevant to and be able to explain the behavior under study. (p. 3)

Discovery and verification mean moving back and forth between induction and deduction, between data gathering and data interpretation, and between experience and reflection on experience.

In program evaluation in particular, the evaluator may, through feedback of initial findings to program participants and staff, begin to influence the program quite directly and intentionally (given the job of helping improve the program), thus moving away from a purely naturalistic approach. As evaluative feedback is used to improve the program, the evaluator may then move back into a more naturalistic stance to observe how the feedback-induced changes in the program unfold.

In the same vein, the attempt to understand a program or treatment as a whole does not mean that the evaluator never becomes involved in component analysis or in looking at particular variables, dimensions, and parts of the phenomenon under study. Rather, it means that the qualitative inquirer consciously works back and forth between parts and wholes, aiming to understand specific variables and dimensions while also capturing the complex, interwoven constellations of variables in a sorting-out and then putting-back-together process. While staying true to a strategy that emphasizes the importance of a holistic picture of the program, the qualitative evaluator recognizes that certain periods of fieldwork may focus on component, variable, and less-than-the-whole kinds of analysis.

The practice and practicalities of fieldwork also mean that the strategic mandate to “get close” to the people and setting under study is neither absolute nor fixed. The degree of closeness to and involvement with the people falls along a continuum. The personal styles and capabilities of evaluators will permit and necessitate variance along these dimensions. Variations in types of programs and evaluation purposes will affect the extent to which an evaluator can or ought to get close to the program staff and participants. Moreover, closeness is likely to vary over the course of an evaluation. At times, the evaluator may become totally immersed in the program experience. These periods of immersion may be followed by times of withdrawal and distance (for personal as well as methodological reasons), to be followed still later by new experiences of immersion in and direct experience with the program.

Nor is it necessary to be a qualitative methods purist. Qualitative data can be collected and used in conjunction with quantitative data. Today’s evaluators must be sophisticated about matching research methods to the nuances of particular questions and the idiosyncrasies of specific stakeholder interests. Such an evaluator needs a large repertoire of research methods and techniques to use on a variety of problems. Thus, an evaluator may be called on to use any and all of the social science research methods, including analyses of quantitative data from a program’s management information system, questionnaires administered to participants, secondary data available in the community that reveals contextual trends, cost–benefit and cost- effectiveness analyses, standardized tests, experimental designs, unobtrusive measures, participant observation, and in-depth interviewing. The evaluation researcher works with the intended users of the findings to design an evaluation that includes any and all data that will help shed light on important evaluation questions, given the constraints of resources and time. Such an evaluator is committed to research designs that are relevant, meaningful, understandable, and able to produce useful results that are valid, reliable, and believable. On many occasions, a variety of data collection techniques and design approaches may be used together. Multiple methods and diverse kinds of data can contribute to methodological rigor. The ideal in evaluation designs is methodological appropriateness, design flexibility, and situational responsiveness in the service of utility (Patton, 2012a), not absolute allegiance to some ideal standard of methodological orthodoxy and purity.

A Sufi story about the wise fool Mulla Nasrudin illustrates the importance of understanding the connections between strategic ideals and practical tactics in real-world situations. Real-world situations seldom resemble the theoretical ideals taught in the classroom.

Ideal Conditions for Qualitative Inquiry: A Cautionary Tale

In his youth, Nasrudin received training in a small monastery noted for its excellence in the teaching of martial arts. Nasrudin became highly skilled in self-defense, and after two years of training, both his peers and his teachers recognized his superior abilities.

Each day, it was the responsibility of one of the students to go to the village market to beg for alms and food. It happened that a small band of three thieves moved into the area. They observed how the monastery obtained food daily and began hiding along the path the students had to take back to the monastery. As a

student returned, laden with food and alms, the thieves would attack. After three days of such losses, the monastery’s few supplies were exhausted. It was Nasrudin’s turn to go to the village market. His elders and peers were confident that Nasrudin’s martial arts skills were more than sufficient to overcome the small band of thieves.

At the end of the day, Nasrudin returned ragged, beaten, and empty-handed. Everyone was amazed. Nasrudin was immediately brought before the Master. “Nasrudin,” he asked, “how is it that with all your skill in our ancient arts of defense, you were overcome?”

“But I did not use the ancient arts,” replied Nasrudin.

All present were dumfounded. An explanation was demanded.

“All of our competitions are preceded by great and courteous ceremony,” Nasrudin explained.

We have learned that the opening prayers, the ceremonial cleansing, the bow to the East—these are essential to the ancient ways. The ruffians seemed not to understand the necessity for these things. I didn’t find the situation ideal enough to use the methods you have taught us, Master.

On more than one occasion, researchers or evaluators have told me of their belief in the potential utility of qualitative methods, but they tell me, “I just haven’t found the ideal situation in which to use them.”

Ideal situations are rare, but we will consider throughout this book the questions and conditions in which qualitative strategies and methods offer advantages. In Chapter 4, I will present a range and variety of situations and inquiry problems that particularly lend themselves to qualitative inquiry. Chapter 5 will then discuss in more detail some of the methodological trade-offs involved in adapting the strategic ideals of qualitative methods to the practical realities of conducting research and evaluation in the field. Chapters devoted to observation, interviewing, analysis, and enhancing the quality and credibility of qualitative studies follow the design chapter. To lay the groundwork for in-depth review of applications and methods, the next chapter examines alternative theoretical frameworks that are closely associated with and used to guide qualitative inquiry.

A Case Study Exemplar That Demonstrates the Application and Integration of the 12 Strategic Qualitative Principles of Inquiry I close this chapter with a case example that shows how all 12 strategies were applied in one major qualitative inquiry, a case study of Henrietta Lacks. It is the story of how her cancer cells, taken without her knowledge or permission, transformed medical research (Skloot, 2010). It’s an extraordinary exemplar of an in-depth qualitative inquiry that took 10 years of fieldwork, involved more than 1,000 hours of interviews, and included reviews of hundreds of documents. And, by the way, all that work resulted in a best-selling book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

Now, let me admit that not many qualitative studies become best-selling books, but some do (e.g., Collins, 2001a; Gladwell, 2008; Sacks, 1985, 2012), and this one merits special attention because of its extraordinarily important subject matter and its rigorous application of the full range of qualitative strategies. So I urge you to study Exhibit 2.7 carefully and then, if you haven’t already done so, read the book. It’s an inspiration about what careful, diligent, and dedicated fieldwork can yield.

EXHIBIT 2.7 Case Example Applying the 12 Strategic Themes of Qualitative Inquiry: Research into the Immortal Cells of Henrietta Lacks

Henrietta Lacks was a poor African American tobacco farmer who grew up in the South. In 1951, dying of cervical cancer, cells from her tumor were taken for research, without her knowledge or permission, by an oncologist at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, where she was being treated. Because of the unique

characteristics of those cells, they could be cultured, sustained, reproduced, and distributed to other researchers—the first tissue cells discovered with these extraordinary characteristics. The cells were dubbed HeLa cells, the nomenclature created by the first two letters of her first and last names. They were also dubbed “immortal” in that they continue to this day to be cultured in labs around the world, reproduced in the trillions, distributed commercially, and used globally in medical research. Research using the HeLa cells has contributed to developing the polio vaccine, breakthroughs in cancer treatments, and the discovery of drugs to treat HIV/AIDS, to mention but three of a large number of significant breakthroughs. Yet, although HeLa cells became well-known and greatly prized by medical researchers around the world, no one knew about the woman whose cells had become so critical to medical research.

In 1988, Rebecca Skloot learned about HeLa cells as a student and became curious about their origins. She subsequently undertook an in-depth qualitative inquiry into the story of Henrietta Lacks. Her inquiry illustrates and illuminates the 12 strategic themes presented in this chapter. Examining the themes through Skloot’s research will hopefully bring them to life, demonstrate their importance and relevance, and serve as a dramatic summary of this chapter. The results of Skloot’s extensive qualitative inquiry were published as The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which became a best-selling book (Skloot, 2010).

Conclusion: Evaluating the Box This chapter, like all chapters in this book, closes with a Halcolm story in the form of a graphic comic. The cartoon story illustrates the importance of how one looks at things. This chapter has presented 12 qualitative lenses through which one can view, study, and inquire into the world—including something as simple as a box.

APPLICATION EXERCISES

1. Naturalistic inquiry study: You are a purposeful sample of one (n = 1). Undertake a naturalistic inquiry study of a week in your life. At the beginning of the week, plan what you will do during the week. Then, (a) document what you did that unfolded as planned and (b) document what happened that wasn’t planned or expected. What emerged in the natural course of living and working and interacting with people that captures and provides insights into you and your life? As an illustration of emergent design flexibility, what interactions and/or events occurred during the week that would provide opportunities for interviews with people you encountered whom you would not have anticipated being key informants at the start of the week. For example, an old friend called, and you got together. That friend would now be a potential key informant to be interviewed to get insight into your week. Likewise, an event or problem that you experienced that was unanticipated could become a mini case study of how your life unfolds. Describing that unanticipated event or problem in some depth would be an example of emergent design flexibility.

2. Qualitative data: Pick a topic that interests you, and search the web for qualitative studies on that topic. For example, let’s say that you’re interested in how college students perceive “hooking up.” A web search of “hooking up qualitative study” at the time of this writing yielded several interesting examples, including the following:

• “Hooking Up and Sexual Risk Taking Among College Students: A Health Belief Model Perspective” Hooking up with friends, strangers, and acquaintances is a popular way for college students to experience sexual intimacy without investing in relationships. Because hooking up often occurs in situations in which prophylactics against sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are not available or in which students’ judgment is impaired, it can involve risky behaviors that compromise student health. . . . Based on semistructured interviews with 71 college students about their hooking-up experiences . . . , results demonstrate why students’ assessments of their own and their peers’ susceptibility to STIs are often misinformed. (Downing-Matibag & Geisinger, 2009, p. 1)

• “A Plan to Reboot Dating”: This article cites a qualitative study by “the feminist sociologist” Lisa Wade of Occidental College, who interviewed 44 of her freshman students (33 of them women) and reported that most of them were “overwhelmingly disappointed with the sex they were having in hook ups. This was true of both men and women, but was felt more intensely by women” (Smith, 2012).

• “Hooking Up”: An ecological psychology perspective on the sexual behaviors of women and the potential effects on sexually transmitted infections. Four females were interviewed, having been recruited through networking and word-of-mouth strategies at the Boston University undergraduate main campus (Power, 2012).

Through your Internet search, identify three qualitative studies on your topic of interest. What kinds of qualitative data were collected? What kind of purposeful sample was studied? What was the core finding of each study? To what extent and in what ways do the three studies provide consistent findings that illuminate your topic of interest? To what extent are the three studies quite different windows into your topic of interest? What do these studies tell you about the possibilities for qualitative inquiry on your topic of interest?

3. Contextual sensitivity: Describe an event or experience in your life without context. Now, add at least two layers of context: (1) the local context within which the event or experience occurred and (2) the larger societal/cultural context. What difference does adding context make to understanding the event or experience?

4. On page 81 is a cartoon titled “The Box.” Using the format in Exhibit 2.7 (pp. 78–80 ), describe how you would address the 12 strategic principles if you were to study the box qualitatively. (1) How would you engage in naturalistic inquiry of the box? (2) What would constitute emergent design flexibility in studying the box? (3) How would you select a purposeful sample? (4) What qualitative data would you collect? (5) What personal experience and engagement would be part of your inquiry? (6) How would empathic neutrality come into play? (7) How would you adopt a dynamic systems perspective? (8) What would constitute unique case orientation? (9) How would you engage in inductive analysis and creative synthesis? How would you be (10) holistic and (11) contextually sensitive? (12) How would you convey your own voice, perspective, and reflexivity?

5. Exhibit 2.6 (p. 75) depicts the 12 core strategies of qualitative inquiry as interdependent and interactive. What’s the message in that graphic? Express the graphic—and its implications for qualitative inquiry—in words. Tell what the graphic means and why it’s important.