D8-What You Have Learned

Creswell, J. W., & Poth, C. N. (2025). Qualita ve inquiry & research design: Choosing among five approaches (5th ed.). Sage Publica ons.

11 “TURNING THE STORY” AND CONCLUSION

How might the story be different if it were turned into a case study, a narra ve project, a phenomenology, a grounded theory study, or an ethnography? Would the final report of some approaches appear more similar than others and if so, in what ways? In this final chapter, we demonstrate how the “story becomes turned” across the five approaches to qualita ve inquiry discussed in this book. By “turning” we mean that the same problem is addressed by construc ng a study using each of the five approaches. Our illustra ve example represents how we would think about and structure a qualita ve study across the five approaches. In our experience, this chapter helps researchers choose among the five approaches by seeing the differences in the end results of a study. Throughout this book, we have developed understandings to help researchers be cognizant of their own posi oning, the procedures of qualita ve research, and the differences across five approaches of qualita ve inquiry: a case study, a narra ve project, a phenomenology, a grounded theory, and an ethnography. With increased interest in qualita ve research, it is important that studies being conducted go forward with rigor and a en on to the defining features (see Chapters 4, 5, and 6), theore cal frames and researcher worldviews (see Chapter 2), data procedures (see Chapters 7 and 8), wri ng structures (see Chapter 9), and quality standards (see Chapter 10) developed within approaches of inquiry. We recognize the approaches to qualita ve inquiry as many and inclusive of those beyond the scope of this book focused on five. The research procedures for some approaches are well documented within books and ar cles whereas for others only minimal guidance exists. A few writers classify the approaches, and some authors men on their favorites. Unques onably, qualita ve research cannot be characterized as of one type, a ested to by the mul vocal discourse surrounding qualita ve research today. Adding to this discourse are diverse perspec ves about philosophical, theore cal, and ideological stances. In this chapter, prior to offering some final guidance to conclude this book, we again sharpen the dis nc ons among the approaches of inquiry, but we depart from our side-by-side approach used in prior chapters. We focus the lens in a new direc on and “turn the story” of a case study—a campus response to a student gunman (Asmussen & Creswell, 1995)—into a narra ve study, a phenomenology, a grounded theory, and an ethnography.

TURNING THE STORY ACROSS THE FIVE APPROACHES Turning the story through different approaches of inquiry raises the issue of whether one should match a par cular problem to an approach to inquiry. Much emphasis is placed on this rela onship in social and human science research. We agree this needs to be done. But for the purposes of this book, our way around this issue is to pose a general problem—“How did the campus react?” in the illustra ve case study—and then construct scenarios that address this specific problem. For instance, the specific problem of studying a single individual’s reac on to the gun incident is different from the specific problem of how several students as a culture- sharing group reacted, but both scenarios are reac ons to the general issue of a campus response to the incident. The general problem that we address is that we know li le about how campuses respond to violence and even less about how different cons tuent groups on campus respond to a poten ally violent incident. Knowing this informa on would help us devise be er plans for reac ng to this type of problem as well as add to the literature on violence in educa onal se ngs. This was the central problem in the gunman case study that is presented next in its complete, original form (Asmussen & Creswell, 1995), and then we briefly review the major dimensions of this case study before we begin “turning the story” across the remaining four approaches to inquiry discussed in this book. The Original Story: “Campus Response to a Student Gunman” To be able to turn the story across the five approaches to inquiry we must have an original story as a star ng place. We note that the original story could be any of the approaches. For this chapter, we use the case study by Asmussen and Creswell (1995) but we could have begun with any of the approaches. To familiarize you with the original story, the complete, original form of Asmussen & Creswell (1995) precedes the discussion of how a case study can be turned into a narra ve study, a phenomenology, a grounded theory study, and an ethnography. Figure 11.1 appears a er the original story and its turnings with a summary of the story turning across the five approaches.

Figure 11.1 Turning the Story Across the Five Approaches With Case Study as the Original Study

A Case Study This qualita ve case study (Asmussen & Creswell, 1995), as our original study (see also Figure 11.1), presented a campus reac on to a gunman incident in which a student a empted to fire a gun at his classmates. In so doing, the report addressed ques ons rela ng to the case bounded by those on campus at the me of the gunman incident, the 2 weeks following the incident when the researchers began data collec on, and the 8-month period following the incident for comple ng the report. The authors based the composi on of this case study on the “substan ve case report” format of Lincoln and Guba (1985) and Stake (1995). These formats called for an explica on of the problem; a thorough descrip on of the context or se ng and the processes observed; a discussion of important themes; and, finally, “lessons to be learned” (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 362). A er introducing the case study with the problem of violence on college campuses, the authors turned to a detailed descrip on of the se ng and a chronology of events immediately following the incident and events during the following 2 weeks. Then they presented the important themes related to denial, fear, safety, retriggering, and campus planning. In a process of layering of themes, the authors combined the more specific themes into two overarching themes: an organiza onal theme and a psychological or social– psychological theme. Asmussen and Creswell (1995) gathered data through interviews with par cipants, observa ons, documents, and audiovisual materials. From the case emerges a proposed plan for campuses, and the case ends with an implied lesson for the specific Midwestern campus and a specific set of ques ons this campus or other campuses might use to design a plan for handling future campus terrorist incidents. Turning to specific research ques ons in this case, the authors asked the following ques ons: What happened? Who was involved in response to the incident? What themes of response emerged during an 8-month period? What theore cal constructs helped us understand the campus response, and what constructs developed that were unique to this case? Asmussen and Creswell (1995) entered the field 2 days a er the incident and did not use any a priori theore cal lens to guide our ques ons or the results. The narra ve first described the incident, analyzed it through levels of abstrac on, and provided some interpreta on by rela ng the context to larger theore cal frameworks. The authors validated the case analysis by using mul ple data sources for the themes and by checking the final account with select par cipants, or member checking. A Narra ve Study How might we have approached this same general problem (“how did the campus react” to the incident) as an interpre ve biographical study with a narra ve approach? Rather than iden fying responses from mul ple campus cons tuents, we would have focused on one individual (see Figure 11.1), such as the instructor of the class involved in the incident. We would have tenta vely tled the project, “Campus Confronta on: An Interpre ve Biography of

an African American Professor.” This instructor, like the gunman, was African American, and his response to such an incident might be situated within racial and cultural contexts. Hence, as an interpre ve biographer, we might have asked the following research ques on: What are the life experiences of the African American instructor of the class, and how do these experiences form and shape his reac on to the incident? This biographical approach would have relied on studying a single individual and situa ng this individual within his lived experiences. We would have examined life events or “epiphanies” culled from stories he told. Our approach would have been to “restory the stories” into an account of his experiences of the gunman that followed a chronology of events. We might have relied on the Clandinin and Connelly (2000) and Clandinin (2023) three-dimensional space model to organize the story into the personal, social, and interac onal components. Alterna vely, the story might have had a plot to e it together, such as the theore cal perspec ve as described by Daiute (2014). This plot might have spoken to cultural aspects highlighted by the instructor and how the par cular aspects played out both within the African American culture and other cultures. These perspec ves may have shaped how the instructor viewed and experienced the student gunman incident. We also might have composed this report by discussing our own situated beliefs followed by those of the instructor and the changes he brought about as a result of his experiences. For instance, did he con nue teaching? Did he share his experiences with others? Our narra ve story about this instructor would be expected to contain a detailed descrip on of the context to reveal the historical and interac onal features of the experience (Chase, 2018; Denzin, 2001). We also would have acknowledged that any interpreta on of the instructor’s reac on would be incomplete, unfinished, and a rendering from our own perspec ves and lived experiences as White researchers. A Phenomenology Rather than study a single individual as in a biography, we would have studied several individual students and examined a psychological concept in the tradi on of psychological phenomenology (Moustakas, 1994). Our working tle might have been, “The Meaning of Fear for Students Caught in a Near Tragedy on Campus.” Our assump on would have been that students expressed this concept of fear during the incident, immediately a er it, and several weeks later. To develop our understanding of the essence of their shared experience (see Figure 11.1), we might have posed the following ques ons: What fear did the students experience, and how did they experience it? What meanings did they ascribe to this experience? As a phenomenologist, we assume that human experience makes sense to those who live it and that human experience can be consciously expressed (Dukes, 1984). Thus, we would bring to the study a phenomenon to explore (fear) and a philosophical orienta on to use (we want to study the meaning of the students’ experiences). We would have engaged in extensive interviews with up to 10 students, and we would have analyzed the interviews using the steps described by Moustakas (1994). We would have begun with a descrip on of our own fears and experiences (epoché) to posi on ourselves, recognizing that we could not completely remove ourselves from the situa on. Then, a er reading through all the students’ statements, we would have located significant statements or quotes about their meanings of fear. These significant statements would then be clustered into broader themes. Our final step would have been to write a long paragraph providing a narra ve descrip on of what they experienced (textural

descrip on) and how they experienced it (structural descrip on) and combine these two descrip ons into a longer descrip on that conveys the essence of their experiences. This would be the endpoint for the discussion. Our phenomenology procedures would be expected to reflect prolonged engagement to permit an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon under study (Beck, 2020). A Grounded Theory Study If a theory needed to be developed (or modified) to explain the campus reac on to this incident, we would have used a grounded theory approach (see Figure 11.1). For example, we might have developed a theory around a process—the “surreal” experiences of several students immediately following the incident, experiences resul ng in ac ons and reac ons by students. The dra tle of our study might have been, “A Grounded Theory Explana on of the Surreal Experiences for Students in a Campus Gunman Incident.” We might have introduced the study with a specific quote about the surreal experiences:

Our research ques ons might have been as follows: What theory explains the phenomenon of the “surreal” experiences of the students immediately following the incident? What were these experiences? What caused them? What strategies did the students use to cope with them? What were the consequences of their strategies? What specific interac on issues and larger condi ons influenced their strategies? Consistent with a structured approach to grounded theory (Corbin & Strauss, 2015), we would not bring into the data collec on and analysis a specific theore cal orienta on other than to see how the students interact and respond to the incident. Instead, our intent would be to develop or generate a theory. In the results sec on of this study, we would have first iden fied the open coding categories that we found. Then, we would have described how we narrowed the study to a central category (e.g., the dream element of the process) and made that category the major feature of a theory of the process. This theory would have been presented as a visual model, and in the model we would have included causal condi ons that influenced the central category, intervening and context factors surrounding it, and specific strategies and consequences (axial coding) as a result of it occurring. We would have advanced theore cal proposi ons or hypotheses that explained the dream element of the surreal experiences of the students (selec ve coding). We would have validated our account by judging the thoroughness of the research process and whether the findings are empirically grounded, two factors men oned by Corbin and Strauss (1990, 2015). Our grounded theory procedures would be expected to include memoing as part of the process of theory development (Birks & Mills, 2023). An Ethnography In grounded theory, our focus was on genera ng a theory grounded in the data. In ethnography, we would turn the focus away from theory development to a descrip on and understanding of the workings of the campus community as a culture-sharing group (see Figure 11.1). To keep the study manageable, we might have begun by looking at how the incident, although

unpredictable, triggered quite predictable responses among members of the campus community. These community members might have responded according to their roles, and thus we could have looked at some recognized campus microcultures. Students cons tuted one such microculture, and they, in turn, comprised several further microcultures or subcultures. Because the students in this class were together for 16 weeks during the semester, they had enough me to develop some shared pa erns of behavior and could have been seen as a culture-sharing group. Alterna vely, we might have studied the en re campus community, comprising a constella on of groups each reac ng differently. Assuming that the en re campus comprised the culture-sharing group, the tle of the study might have been, “Ge ng Back to Normal: An Ethnography of a Campus Response to a Gunman Incident.” No ce how this tle immediately invites a contrary perspec ve into the study. We would have asked the following ques ons: How did this incident produce predictable role performance within affected groups? Using the en re campus as a cultural system or culture- sharing group, in what roles did the individuals and groups par cipate? One possibility would be that they wanted to get the campus back to normal a er the incident by engaging in predictable pa erns of behavior. Although no one an cipated the exact moment or nature of the incident itself, its occurrence set in mo on rather predictable role performances throughout the campus community. Administrators did not close the campus and start warning, “The sky is falling.” Campus police did not offer counseling sessions, although the Counseling Center did. However, the Counseling Center served the student popula on, not others (who were marginalized), such as the police or groundskeepers, who also felt unsafe on the campus. In short, predictable performances by campus cons tuencies followed in the wake of this incident. Indeed, campus administrators rou nely held a news conference following the incident. Also, predictably, police carried out their inves ga on, and students ul mately and reluctantly contacted their parents. The campus slowly returned to normal—an a empt to return to day- to-day business, to a steady state, or to homeostasis, as the systems thinkers say. In these predictable role behaviors, one saw culture at work. As we entered the field, we would seek to build rapport with the community par cipants, to not further marginalize them or disturb the environment more than necessary through our presence. It was a sensi ve me on campus with people who had nerves on edge. We would have explored the cultural themes of the “organiza on of diversity” and “maintenance” ac vi es of individuals and groups within the culture-sharing campus. Wallace (1970) defines the “organiza on of diversity” as “the actual diversity of habits, of mo ves, of personali es, of customs that do, in fact, coexist within the boundaries of any culturally organized society” (p. 23). Our data collec on would have consisted of observa ons over me of predictable ac vi es, behaviors, and roles in which people engaged that helped the campus return to normal. This data collec on would depend heavily on interviews and observa ons of the classroom where the incident occurred and newspaper accounts. Our ul mate narra ve of the culture-sharing campus would be consistent with Wolco ’s (1994) three parts: a detailed descrip on of the campus, an analysis of the cultural themes of “organiza onal diversity” and maintenance (possibly with taxonomies or comparisons; Spradley, 1979, 1980), and interpreta on. Our

interpreta on would be couched not in terms of a dispassionate, objec ve report of the facts, but rather within our own experiences of not feeling safe in a soup kitchen for the homeless (Miller et al., 1998) and our own personal life experiences of having grown up in “safe” small Midwestern towns. For an ending to the study, we might have used the “canoe into the sunset” approach (H. F. Wolco , personal communica on, November 15, 1996) or the more methodologically oriented ending of checking our account with par cipants. Here is the canoe into the sunset approach:

Here is the more methodological ending:

We would expect that our descrip on of ethnographic fieldwork would include details about our work with people as “ethnographers do not work in a vacuum” (Fe erman, 2019, p. 141). CONCLUSION: SEVEN KEY TAKEAWAYS We now reflect on how we have addressed our “compelling” ques on raised at the outset of this book at the qualita ve research workshop at Vail, Colorado: How does the approach to inquiry shape the design of a study? When designing a qualita ve study, we recommend that the author design the study within one of the approaches of qualita ve inquiry. We find dis nc ons as well as overlap among the five approaches, but designing a study a uned to procedures found within one of the approaches suggested in this book will enhance the sophis ca on of the project and convey a level of methodological exper se for readers of qualita ve research. This means that components of the design process (e.g., interpre ve framework, research purpose and ques ons, data collec on, data analysis, report wri ng, valida on evidence) will reflect the procedures of the selected approach and will be composed with the encoding and features of that approach. This is not to rigidly suggest that one cannot mix approaches and employ, for example, a grounded theory analysis procedure within a case study design. “Purity” is not our aim. But in this book, we suggest that the reader sort out the approaches first before combining them and see each one as a rigorous procedure in its own right. We offer seven key takeaways from this book in the sec ons that follow. Study Focus

One of the most pronounced ways to differen ate among the five approaches is to examine the focus of the study. As discussed in Chapter 4, a theory differs from the explora on of a phenomenon or concept, from an in-depth case, and from the crea on of an individual or group portrait. Please examine again Table 4.1, which establishes differences among the five approaches, especially in terms of foci. However, this is not as clear-cut as it appears. A single case study of an individual can be approached either as a narra ve study or as a case study. A cultural system may be explored as an ethnography, whereas a smaller “bounded” system, such as an event, a program, or an ac vity, may be studied as a case study. Both are systems, and the problem arises when one undertakes a micro-ethnography, which might be approached either as a case study or as an ethnography. However, when one seeks to study cultural behavior, language, or ar facts, then the study of a system might be undertaken as an ethnography. When researchers can clearly ar culate their study focus, it can greatly help them choose among the many approaches to qualita ve inquiry. Interpre ve Orienta on An interpre ve orienta on flows throughout qualita ve research. As discussed in Chapter 2, we cannot step aside and be “objec ve” about what we see and write. Our words flow from our own personal experiences, culture, history, and backgrounds. When we engage in fieldwork to collect data, we need to approach the task with care for the par cipants and sites and to be reflexive about our role, our “posi oning” and how it shapes what we see, hear, and write. Ul mately, our wri ng represents an interpreta on of events, people, and ac vi es. While we might share our interpreta ons and they may ul mately be influenced by others, it begins with our interpreta on. We must recognize that par cipants, readers, and other individuals reading our accounts will have their own interpreta ons. Within this perspec ve, our wri ng can only be seen as a discourse, one with tenta ve conclusions, and one that will be constantly changing and evolving. Qualita ve research truly has an interpreta on element that flows throughout the process of research. When researchers engage in reflexive prac ce, they can greatly benefit from opportuni es to reflect upon and make explicit the experien al and theore cal influences on their designs. Language Use The approach to inquiry shapes the language of the research design procedures in a study, especially the terms used in the introduc on to a study, the data collec on, and the analysis phases of design. The embedded “Chapter Key Terms” in Chapter 4 can be par cularly helpful for introducing some of the unique terms across the five approaches. We also incorporated these terms into Chapter 6, as we discussed the wording of purpose statements and research ques ons for different approaches to qualita ve research. Our language theme con nued in Chapter 9 as we talked about encoding the text within an approach to research. The glossary presents a useful list and defini ons of terms within each tradi on that researchers might incorporate into the language of their studies. When

researchers are familiar with the language associated with different approaches, it can be easier to convey meanings to others. Par cipant Samples The approach to research includes iden fying the par cipants who are studied, and as discussed in Chapter 7, describing sampling and recruitment strategies as well as data collec on procedures that are appropriate for the par cipants and their communi es. A study may consist of one or two individuals (i.e., narra ve study), groups of people (i.e., phenomenology, grounded theory), or an en re culture (i.e., ethnography). A case study might fit into all three of these categories as one explores a single individual, an event, or a large social se ng. In Chapter 7, we also highlighted how the approaches vary in the extent of data collec on, from the use of mainly single sources of informa on (i.e., narra ve interviews, grounded theory interviews, phenomenological interviews) to those that involve mul ple sources of informa on (i.e., ethnographies consis ng of observa ons, interviews, and documents; case studies incorpora ng interviews, observa ons, documents, archival material, and audiovisual and social media). Although these forms of data collec on are not fixed, we see a general pa ern that differen ates the approaches. Analysis Strategies The dis nc ons among the approaches are most pronounced in the data analysis phase, as discussed in Chapter 8. Data analysis ranges from unstructured to structured approaches. Among the less structured approaches, we include ethnographies (with the excep on of Spradley, 1979, 1980) and narra ves (e.g., as suggested by Clandinin, 2023; Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) and interpre ve forms advanced by Denzin (1989). The more structured approaches consist of grounded theory with a systema c procedure and phenomenology (see Colaizzi’s 1978 approach and those of Dukes, 1984, and Moustakas, 1994) and case studies (Stake, 1995; G. Thomas, 2021, Yin, 2017). These procedures provide direc on for the overall structure of the data analysis in the qualita ve report. The approach also shapes the amount of rela ve weight given to descrip on in the analysis of the data. In ethnographies, case studies, and biographies, researchers employ substan al descrip on; in phenomenologies, inves gators use less descrip on; and in grounded theory, researchers seem not to use it at all, choosing to move directly into analysis of the data. We also point to the poten al of computers and qualita ve data analysis so ware for facilita ng the ease and efficiency of data analysis and representa ons. Report Wri ng The approach to inquiry shapes the final wri en product as well as the embedded rhetorical structures used in the narra ve. This explains why qualita ve studies look so different and are composed so differently across the five approaches to inquiry, as discussed in Chapter 9. We see the wri ng structures (both overall and embedded) are highly related to data analysis procedures.

We are reminded again about the interrelatedness among different components of the research process. Take, for example, the presence of the researcher. Although reflexivity flows into all qualita ve projects, the presence of the researcher is lessened in the more “objec ve” accounts provided in grounded theory. Alterna vely, the researcher is center stage in ethnographies and possibly in case studies where “interpreta on” plays a major role. Research Quality The criteria for assessing the quality of a study differ among the approaches, as discussed in Chapter 10. Although some overlap exists in the procedures for valida on, the criteria for assessing the study quality of qualita ve research relate to the defining features for each approach to inquiry. The features of a “good” qualita ve study ini ally introduced in Chapter 3 can be seen in the quality criteria specific to qualita ve research.

SUMMARY In this final chapter, we demonstrate how an original study of a case study of a campus gunman by Asmussen and Creswell (1995) is turned first into a narra ve study focused on the lived experience of an individual. Then the story is turned into a phenomenology focused on studying several individual students genera ng an understanding of the essence of the phenomenon experienced by the group. Next, the story becomes a grounded theory study focused on developing a theory explaining the surreal experiences of several students. Finally, the story becomes an ethnography focused on describing and understanding the workings of the campus community as a culture-sharing group. To conclude, we refer to specific book chapters in the descrip on of our final guidance in the form of seven takeaways for qualita ve researchers to a end to in their study design: study focus, interpre ve orienta on, language use, par cipant samples, analysis strategies, report wri ng, and research quality. Descrip ons of Images and Figures In the center lies, “Case Study* What happened during the ‘bounded’ case? Select case to focus on.” On the right most with the help of an arrow directed towards right side “Select essence to focus on” leads to “Phenomenology What is the ‘essence’ of a group’s experience?” On the le with the help of an arrow directed towards the le side, “Select group to focus on” leads to “Ethnography: What are the shared ‘pa erns of culture’ of a group.” On the top with the help of an arrow directed towards the upward side, “Select individual(s) to focus on” leads to “Narra ve Study: What was the ‘lived experience’ of an individual?”

On the down with the help of an arrow directed towards the downward side, “Select process, eventor interac on to focus on” leads to “Grounded Theory Study: What ‘theory’ explains par cipants’ experience?”