Topic 2 & Topic 3
Purposes and processes of the four types of qualitative research
| Objective 2: Differentiate the purpose of the four types of qualitative research. |
| What are the purposes of the four types of qualitative research? |
| Objective 3: Examine the research processes used in phenomenological, grounded theory, ethnographic, and historical research. |
| What is the research process involved in the four types of qualitative research? |
Phenomenological studies examine human experiences through the descriptions that are provided by the people involved. These experiences are called “lived experiences.” The goal of phenomenological research is to describe the meaning that these experiences hold for each subject.
Two examples of questions posed in a phenomenological perspective include:
- What is the human experience of having an autologous bone marrow transplant? This would be posed to a subject by asking, “What was it like to have an autologous bone marrow transplant?”
- What is the lived experience of being employed but medically uninsured? This would be posed to a subject by saying, “Please describe for me, as thoroughly as you can, what it is like to be working without medical insurance.”
The philosophical orientation of phenomenology holds that:
- The person is integral with environment
- The world is shaped by the self and also shapes the self
- The person is a self within a body (embodied).
In phenomenological research the process involves:
- Identifying the phenomenon, the experience.
- Asking what is the meaning of one’s lived experience.
- Acknowledging that the only reliable source of information is the person. Therefore, the:
- Person must interpret the action or experience for the researcher.
- Researcher must interpret the explanation provided by the person.
Grounded Theory research means the theory is grounded in the data and emerges from the data. Grounded Theory began with the discipline of Sociology and was developed by two sociologists—Glaser and Strauss in the late 1960’s.
The Grounded Theory approach asks questions that address basic social processes.
Two examples of questions posed within the perspective of Grounded Theory include:
- How do women’s health nurse practitioners identify and intervene with patients who are victims of domestic violence?
- What are the coping patterns of parents with a chronically ill child?
In Grounded Theory, all steps of the research process occur simultaneously.
Data are collected and analyzed using the constant comparative process. This results in a theory that is grounded in the data that explains the phenomenon under study. Grounded Theory is an iterative process, and data are collected until theoretical saturation
occurs. Theoretical saturation means that duplicate themes are identified, and no new themes are discovered.
Ethnographic research was developed in the discipline of anthropology. Ethnographic studies have the goal of understanding a phenomenon from the person’s view of their world. This is called the emic, or insider’s view, not the etic, outsider’s view. In ethnographic research the researcher enters the world of study participants and conducts participant observation.
The philosophical orientation of ethnographic research seeks to understand culture and different ways of living. Leininger (1970) notes that ethnographic research examines all the accumulated ways a group of people solves problems and identifies the ideals that a group of people holds as desirable.
Two examples of questions asked from the perspective of ethnographic research are:
- What are the health perceptions, concerns, and coping strategies of Asian and Pacific Islander American elders?
- What does comforting mean in Hispanic families?
If you are interested in learning more about ethnographic research you can visit the following site: http://www.csun.edu/~hcchs006/gang.html
In the 1970’s and 1980’s Teresa Christy talked about the need for historical research in nursing although not as many nurses do this type of research. Here at the School of Nursing, Dr. Janna Dieckmann has conducted research that examined the evolution of care for the chronically ill in Philadelphia. A former researcher from UNC at Chapel Hill, now at Rutgers (Newark), Dr. Keith Wailoo, is conducting fascinating research by looking at how chronic illness is a creation of advanced technology. He provides examples such as diabetes as a chronic disease with the discovery of exogenous insulin administration and also chronic renal failure patients living for many years with the help of technological advancements in dialysis.
Historical research seeks to identify, locate, evaluate, and synthesize data from the past then to relate past happenings to the present and the future.
An example of a research question from the historical perspective is: What role did nurses play in the development of intensive care units?
The philosophical orientation of historical research is based on tenets such as:
- History is an estimate of the past from the standpoint of the present.
- History is a search for wisdom; one can learn from the past.
Sources of data for historical research include documents (all types of printed material) and historical artifacts (types of equipment used by nurses). The sources of data include primary and secondary sources. As in quantitative research, primary sources are more reliable. Primary sources consist of first-hand information or direct evidence. Some examples of primary sources include diaries, oral histories, eyewitness reports, pictorial sources, and physical evidence. For example, to examine the practices of midwives in the 40’s, sources of data could include diaries, field notes of nurse midwives of the period, and accounts by women who had been cared for by nurse midwives (eyewitness). Secondary sources consist of second-hand information with examples such as books or book chapters.
The validity and reliability of the data used for historical research is judged using the criterion of external criticism in which one judges the authenticity of data source. This is a validity issue and is questioning whether the data source is what it seems to be. The other criterion is internal criticism, which evaluates the reliability of information and its accuracy. One mechanism for judging reliability of the data is to have two independent sources verify the data. Another mechanism is to ascertain that the interpretation of a word is consistent with that particular period of time.