Bracketing is a method used in qualitative research to mitigate the potentially deleterious effects of preconceptions that may taint the research process. However, the processes through which bracketing takes place are poorly understood, in part as a result of a shift away from its phenomenological origins. The current article examines the historical and philosophical roots of bracketing, and analyzes the tensions that have arisen since the inception of bracketing in terms of its definition, who brackets, methods of bracketing, and its timing in the research process. We propose a conceptual framework to advance dialogue around bracketing and to enhance its implementation.
Informed decisions about sampling are critical to improving the quality of research synthesis. Even though several qualitative research synthesists have recommended purposeful sampling for synthesizing qualitative research, the published literature holds sparse discussion on how different strategies for purposeful sampling may be applied to a research synthesis. In primary research, Patton is frequently cited as an authority on the topic of purposeful sampling. In Patton's original texts that are referred to in this article, Patton does not make any suggestion of using purposeful sampling for research synthesis. This article makes a unique contribution to the literature by examining the adaptability of each of Patton's 16 purposeful sampling strategies to the process of qualitative research synthesis. It illuminates how different purposeful sampling strategies might be particularly suited to constructing multi‐perspectival, emancipatory, participatory and deconstructive interpretations of published research.
This article explores the use of private diaries in qualitative research about intimate everyday experiences. The article first reflects on existing diary-based research, then examines data from a small-scale UK study about the negotiation of condom use in heterosex to pose questions about the kinds of data made available when participants use private diaries as a prompt in qualitative interviews. The article discusses the use of private diaries as a way to explore ambivalent, everyday experiences and interrogates the role of diaries as a form of confessional or measurement of private life. It explores how combined researcher intimate diaries and field note journals can be used in reflexive qualitative sexualities research. The article finally examines the potential for diaries as a form of research intervention in participants' intimate lives.
This article describes using email as a kind of interview. In a sociological study of professional career transition into law, on several occasions in that study, interview participants suggested using emails rather than face-to-face interviews. This 'irregularity' set off reflection whether email interviews counted as 'proper' interviews. Discussing examples of email interviews clarifies differences from other uses of email in research, and assists exploration of advantages and disadvantages of email interviews as a qualitative research method. A preliminary framework is suggested for evaluation the suitability of email interviews. Present-day limitations point to continuing development in this area of social research. Current indications are that emergent media technologies such as email interviews, like other new media innovations, do not diminish older forms, but rather enrich the array of investigatory tools available for social research today.
In a recent article in Qualitative Research, Norman Denzin discussed a variety of threats to qualitative research posed by institutional and professional organizational actors who would elevate Randomized Control Trials and associated practices as the gold standard indexing the quality of all social research. Informed by his long established contributions to the constantly changing field of research methodology, Denzin brought passion, and a rich variety of arguments, to the debate. I argue that this also brought some lapses of rigour that require attention if qualitative methodologists are to put their best case against the narrow and intolerant vision offered by the proponents of gold standards.
Abstract: The present article presents the personal experience of the author with research methodologies.Some limits of the social scientific research are being analyzed, regarding two of the stages of research:theoretical framework and operationalization; this is the way in which the validity of the criteria and theconstruct validity came into discussion. At the same time, the character of sociological theories and theirutility in scientific research are under discussion. Reasons for which qualitative is chosen are listed despitethe constant disapproval of this method in Romanian sociology (and it's marginalization in Central – EastEurope). The advantages of qualitative research in socio-human sciences are presented (what is being researched,through what methods, with what results). The special case of using the focus-group at a large scaleis being analyzed (its use without following two of the major qualitative principals: theoretical samplingand theoretical saturation). The article advocates for the usage of qualitative and it is written in a personaland provocative style.Key words: sociological research methodology, qualitative research, quantitative research, validity. SANTRAUKAKODĖL AŠ PASIRINKAU KOKYBINIO TYRIMO BŪDĄ?Straipsnis parengtas remiantis asmenišku autorės, dirbančios tyrimo metodologijų srityje, patyrimu.Analizuojami sociologinio mokslinio tyrimo trūkumai, susiję su dviem tyrimo pakopomis: teorine struktūrair operacionalizacija. Viena vertus, svarbu kriterijų ir konstrukcijų pagrįstumas, kita vertus, sociologiniųteorijų taikymo moksliniams tyrimams patikimumas. Aptariamos kokybinio metodo pasirinkimo priežastysir aplinkybės, rodančios, kad šis metodas Rumunijoje ir Centrinėje Rytų Europoje yra marginalizuojamas.Svarstomi įvairūs kokybinio metodo privalumai, įskaitant plačios apimties focus-grupių pavyzdžius. Straipsnioautorė nevengia kokybinio tyrimo būdo apologijos provokacinio stiliaus.
This article seeks to present and exemplify to the qualitative researcher the term intertextuality as a concept and as a method that may offer a framework for the analysis and interpretation of short narratives or life stories. Intertextuality as a central concept in the study of culture is particularly suitable for qualitative research, central to which is the subjectivity of the narrator, the story, and the listener/researcher, as well as the relative and indeterminate dimension of knowledge. However, using intertextuality as an interpretative method in various types of texts mandates the researcher's awareness and abilities in areas that this article discusses. In light of the methodological objective of the article, we selected narratives that represent different types of intertextual linkage on different interpretative levels, on different levels of complexity, and on different levels of ideas. The intertextual reading to be demonstrated detects the combination of various types of cultural components in the narrative as a means of representing the world of the narrator; it takes into account a possible macro context in the narrator's story, its style and structure, the narrator's implicit personal interpretation, and the researcher-interpreter's option to reread the narrative.
This article reviews claims for methodological innovation in qualitative research. It comprises a review of 57 papers published between 2000–9 in which claims to innovation in qualitative methods have been made. These papers encompass creative methods, narrative methods, mixed methods, online/e-research methods, focus groups and software tools. The majority of claims of innovation are made for new methods or designs, with the remainder claiming adaptations or adoption of existing methodological innovations. However, the evidence provided of wholly new methodologies or designs was limited, and in several papers such claims turned out to relate either to adaptations to existing methods, or to the transfer and adaptation of methods from other disciplines, primarily from arts and humanities. We argue that over-claiming innovation in the sense of the development of a wholly new methodology or design has a number of important implications that are potentially detrimental to qualitative social science.
This article examines the function of documents as a data source in qualitative research and discusses document analysis procedure in the context of actual research experiences. Targeted to research novices, the article takes a nuts‐and‐bolts approach to document analysis. It describes the nature and forms of documents, outlines the advantages and limitations of document analysis, and offers specific examples of the use of documents in the research process. The application of document analysis to a grounded theory study is illustrated.
