RESEARCH 101 - QUALITATIVE METHODS WITH DANYA KEENE
DANYA KEENE'S PRESENTATION ON QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS
Summary
Qualitative Methods:
- How does a policy that is implemented affect an outcome
- Determining a causal relationship through quantitative models that measure impacts
- Quantitative methods cannot capture everything - Call for Mixed-Methods for policy analysis
- Type of research depends on the question
EXAMPLES:
- How effective is a program at reducing smoking rates?
- Look at the rates before and after the program
- Compare to a control group
- What are the barriers to quitting smoking?
- Cannot directly ask what barriers are to smoking - they might fully understand why
- Cannot try to list out possible barriers - might miss some and not gain full understanding
- --> Need to use qualitative methods
- What was the program like? What was your experience with (some part of the program)? What was is like the last time you tried to quit?
- We need people's stories to fully understand
- How does moving from a high poverty to a low poverty neighborhood affect education attainment?
- Quantitative - compare test scores
- Would not show how students' experiences have changed - do they experience more racism? Depression?
- Qualitative - ask students about their experiences
- Quantitative - compare test scores
- The effects of moving from high to low poverty differed for boys and girls
- Interview boys and girls individually to find out how their stories differ
- What are qualitative methods?
- Interviews
- Focus groups
- Characteristics of qualitative methods -
- INDEDUCTIVE not deductive
- Steps:
- Start with broad question
- Do some observations and look for patterns
- Create some hypotheses based on patterns
- Test hypotheses (deductive)
- Come up with a theory
- Reality is that researchers begin with hypotheses in the back of their minds --> Don't let these hunches affect your research
- Steps:
- ITERATIVE not sequential
- Don't do a bunch of interviews at the beginning and then analyze results after that
- DO a few interviews, possibly change questions as a result
- Not as concerned with how many people tell a similar story
- Samples are not often representative
- More concerned with capturing a RANGE of experiences
- Relishes complexity - don't try to isolate a single variable
- Holistic approach
- Want to understand nuances and context
- Social constructivist perspective not positivist
- There is no one truth
- INDEDUCTIVE not deductive
- What are qualitative methods good for?
- Exploring areas we don't know much about
- Understand participants' experiences and attitudes
- Generate comprehensive descriptions
- Understand processes and mechanisms
- Why did it work/not work?
- Mixed methods - combine qualitative and quantitative
- Qualitative methods answers: what is it like? what does it mean?
- Quantitative methods answer: to what degree? How common?
- Getting data when Centers are unable to collect their own:
- e.g. Transcripts from court hearings, committee hearings for legislation
- Difficult to use qualitative data that someone else created
- Talk to one or two people to inform what is observed in quantitative data
- e.g. Do a focus group, a couple phone interviews
- e.g. Analysis of newspaper articles
- Common mistakes in qualitative research
- Phrase a question too narrowly and not allow for discovery - forcing people to conform to preconceived ideas
- Trying to do too much