5 types of Qualitative Research

The five types of qualitative research shall be as follows:

1. Ethnographic Research - focuses on describing and interpreting a culture-sharing group.

2. Case Study - focuses on developing an in-depth description and analysis of a single case or
multiple cases.
3. Phenomenology Research - focuses on understanding the essence of experience.
4. Grounded Theory - focuses on developing a theory grounded in data from the field
5. Narrative Research - focuses on exploring the life of an individual.

The five qualitative approach provides similar data collection processes, including interviews,
documents, and observation. However, the differences are the intensity or value of how each data
collection is done.

Ethnographic Research

A qualitative method that studies social interactions, behaviors and perceptions of that occurs in
human communities (Reeves, Kuper, & Hodges, 2008), thus the focus of an ethnographical research is
putting emphasis on the relationship of an individual within a cultural context and the entire cultural
group. It mainly focuses in the description account of culture and social life. As Hammersley, Atkinson
and Fetterman state that ethnographic research takes a cultural lens to the study of people’s lives within
their communities. Ethnographic research provides the ability to discover, convey a vivid detail, and
representation of participants’ attitudes and manners by exploring cultural themes. Research deepens
the study of a culture-sharing group which seeks to understand culture’s aspects.

There are many types of ethnography, such as realist ethnography, genre ethnography, rapid
ethnography. This methodology requires fieldwork and prolonged immersion by the researcher. For
example: Anthropologist researchers should live among the inhabitants/participants for a longer time
period which may take months to years of study to understand culture norms that these participants
shared.

Methods of ethnographic research shall be as follows:

1. Open interviews
 2. Site documentation
3. Audio-visual materials such as recordings and photographs.

Such methodology employs participant observation, in which the researcher is immersed in the
everyday lives of the people. Researcher observes and interviews the people. Other than participant
observation, ethnographic research relies on other data collection techniques such as: casual or in-depth
interviews, life histories, documentary data, triangulation and through fieldwork experiences.

When do we use ethnography?

Ethnography is primarily used in the following:

• Finding meaning of cultural aspects and views.

• To understand the reasons on why certain participant uses a certain manners, practices and
behavior.

• To examine social interactions.

• To identify and reveal new insights into social phenomenon.

• To study different organization’s behaviors.

CASE STUDY

A case study is a qualitative methodology that provides intensive and systematic study of an
individual, group, organization or event in a real-life natural setting. The researcher conducts case study
through examining in-depth data relating to several variables for deeper understanding of a single or
multiple events, programs, activities, problems or individual(s). Such research is reliably termed as a
flexible form of qualitative because of its in-depth investigation of complex issue because of its
systematic approach that usually narrows down a wide field of investigation and consolidates it into one
topic.

It’s a type of qualitative research that provides comprehensive study of a social unit of society,
which may be a person, family group, institution, community or event.

Similar from other qualitative research method, case study’s sources of information can be from
direct observation, participation observation, interviews, audio-visual material, documents (e.g.
Personal documents, diaries, memories, autobiographies, letters etc of the researcher), reports and
physical artifacts.

Case Study – Advantage

First, it provides a significant data that would not typically be obtained by other research
designs. Data gathering is usually better, richer and of greater depth because of the intensive study.

Second, scientific experiments can be conducted and because of it, case studies can help
researchers transform or develop new ideas and create hypotheses which can be used for other testing.
Case study usually stimulate new research.

Third, multiple case studies provide comprehensive exploration of research questions and
theory development.

Case Study - Characteristics

1. The number of units to be studied is small.

2. It studies a social unit deeply and thoroughly.
3. It covers broad cycle of time.
4. It has continuity in nature.

Case Study – Stages of Data Collection

The techniques and processes of a case study method are given as following:

➢ Researches should have a choice of a case or selection of a problem.

➢ Researchers should provide description of the events.
➢ Researchers must know what’s the factor influencing their study.
➢ Researchers must process their gathered data and consolidate.
➢ Researchers should provide data recording.
PHENOMENOLOGICAL

Phenomenological research is a qualitative research method that define how a participant(s)

experiences a phenomenon and the collecting of natural data from experiences of individual’s
perspective. Such research provides researcher to explore the perceptions, perspectives,
understandings, and feelings of participant(s) who has experienced or lived the phenomenon or
situation of interest.

Pure phenomenological research seeks essentially to describe rather than explain, and to start from a
perspective free from hypotheses or preconceptions (Husserl 1970).

A variety of methods can be used in phenomenology research which shall be as follows:

- Interviews

- Conversations

- Participant observation

- Action research

- Focus meetings and analysis of personal texts

PHENOMENOLOGICAL - Advantages

- Such approach provides a rich and complete description of human experiences and meanings

- By emerging, it provides new issues and ideas

- Collects natural data rather than artificial

- Because of such research structure, phenomenological approach can contribute to the

development of new theories

PHENOMENOLOGICAL - Stages
1. Researchers should choose phenomenon and selects appropriate models, frameworks, or
theories to guide data collection

2. Researchers should interview participants and research participant’s experiences.

 3. Researchers should fully describe in a written from that experiences gathered from participants.
A description is written that fully describes the experience.

4. Researchers shall reduce themes based from the descriptions of the participants’ experiences
(possibly including researcher).

5. Researchers should reduce themes to a statement that summarizes the essential meaning

6. Researchers should return to participants to check for the analysis validity.

Note:

Phenomenology is useful when: researcher wants to understand human experience; the goal is to
understand a universal meaning of an experience and; the reduction of context specific information to a
more general understanding of the phenomenon is desired.

Grounded Theory

Grounded theory was introduced by Glaser & Strauss in 1967. It’s a research method concerned
with the generation of theory, (Glaser and Strauss, 1967) which is ‘grounded’ in data that has been
systematically collected and analyzed (Strauss and Corbin 1994). Grounded theory investigates the
actualities in the real world and analyses the data with no preconceived ideas or hypothesis (Glaser &
Strauss, 1967).

Such research is defined as the systematic process of generating new theory by the collection and
analyzing of qualitative data gathered from social research.

Data collection methods for grounded theory, which shall be as follows:

1) Interviewing participants with open-ended questions

2) Participant Observation (fieldwork) and/or focus groups

3) Study of Artifacts and Texts

Types of grounded theory designs:

1) Open Coding: properties and dimensionalized properties

 2) Axial Coding: researcher selects one open coding category and places it at the center as the
Central Phenomenon and then relates all other categories to it.

3) Selective Coding: writing a theory based on the interrelationship of the categories from axial
coding

GROUNDED THEORY - How to conduct a study

• Researcher shall decide if grounded theory design is the best research to address the research
problem.

• Researcher shall identify a process to study.

• Researcher shall seek approval and access.

• Research shall conduct theoretical sampling.

• Researcher shall code the data (by open coding and axial coding).

• Researcher shall use selective coding and develop the theory.

• Researcher shall validate the theory generated.

• Researcher shall write a grounded theory research report.

Narrative Research

Narrative research is the systematical gathering, analyzing, and representing of people’s stories
about a certain theme and the study of the way humans experience the world. Such research describes
the lives of individuals, the collection of individuals’ stories of their experiences, and a discussion or
interpretation of the meaning of those experiences.

Clandinin and Connely (2000, p. 20) define narrative research as “a way of understanding
experience” involving “collaboration between researcher and participants, over time, in a place or series
of places, and in social interaction with milieus”. Also, Polkinghorne (1995, p. 1) describes narrative
research as a kind of inquiry which “gathers events and happenings as its data and uses narrative
analytic procedures to produce explanatory stories”. Pinnegar and Daynes, (2007, p. 5) states that a
narrative research embraces both the method and phenomena of study. As supplemented by Pinnegar
and Daynes, we can say that narrative research is both a phenomenon and a method where people tell
their stories and researchers tend to explain such experiences by collecting stories and writing of
them(participant(s)). The research gives researcher the access to understand personal experiences of
the participant(s) which shall lead to organizing of new experiences and knowledge by constructing
knowledge and making it more interesting.

What do we gain from narrative research?

We find multiple forms, accounts of identity reconstruction and construction and evidence of
social discourses from specific cultural standpoints. Narrative research helps us organize data about how
people have interpreted events about values, beliefs and experiences from current to future.

Narrative Research - Process

➢ Researcher shall identify the purpose of the study and identify the phenomenon being explored.
➢ Research shall then select an individual in order to learn about the phenomenon.
➢ Researcher shall conduct initial narrative research questions.
➢ Researcher shall describe the data collection methods with attention to active interviewing.
➢ Researcher shall describe appropriate strategies for the analysis and interpretation of data.
➢ Researcher shall then cooperate with the participant to construct the narrative and to validate
the story’s accuracy.
➢ Researcher shall complete the writing of the narrative account.

Narrative Research - Types

1) Autobiographies - The biography of a person narrated by himself or herself.

2) Biographies - A detailed description of a person's life.
3) Life Writing - Is the recording of memories, and experiences, whether one's own or another's.
4) Personal Accounts - An account for use by an individual for that person's own needs. It’s a
relative term to differentiate them from those accounts for business or corporate use.
5) Personal Narratives - form of writing in which the writer relates one event, incident, or
experience from his/her life.
6) Narrative Interviews - Is an approach to eliciting people's accounts, or stories, of their
experiences.
7) Personal Documents - Any document that contain information about a specific person,
8) Living Document - A document that is continually edited and updated.
9) Life Stories and Histories - A record or narrative description of past events.
 10) Ethnohistories - Study of cultures and indigenous peoples' customs by examining historical
records as well as other sources of information on their lives and history.
11) Ethnobiographies - Study of people and cultures.
12) Autoethnographies - In which an author uses self-reflection and writing to explore anecdotal
and personal experience and connect this autobiographical story to wider cultural, political, and
social meanings and understandings.
13) Ethnopsychologies - The psychology of races and peoples.
14) Person-centered Ethnographies - An approach within psychological anthropology that draws on
techniques and theories from psychiatry and psychoanalysis to understand how individuals
relate to and interact with their sociocultural context.
15) Collective Memories - Refers to the shared pool of memories, knowledge and information of a
social group that is significantly associated with the group's identity.

Narrative Research - Six data collection techniques

1) Restorying - A method for collecting data from participants by requesting them to share their
experiences.
2) Oral history - A method for collecting data from participants by requesting them to share their
experiences.
3) Memorabilia Photos, personal objects, newspaper articles, artifacts, etc. - Such memorabilia can
be used by the researcher to produce details about the participant’s life.
4) Story telling - Telling stories should become a normative part of the data collection process. The
use of stories can provide researchers with many opportunities to add to their understanding of
the participant’s experiences.
5) Letter writing - Fetching the researcher and participant in a dialogue which shall provide
valuable insights.
6) Autobiographical and biographical writing - Engaging the participants in writing about their
insights of their experiences

Other narrative data sources: Documents such as lesson plans, newsletters, etc.; Teaching portfolios
and; Personal philosophies.
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