The Qualitative Research Method

My final blog looks back to the one of the earliest discussions on the different approaches to qualitative research methods and reflects on what the approaches mean to the broader methodology of qualitative research. Glesne reviewed several different approaches in qualitative methods, including among other things, case studies, ethnography, and grounded theory. Although the different approaches are ostensibly tied together by a higher-order paradigm, my proposition after the past months is that there is a noticeable fissure among qualitative researchers far more pronounced than in the quantitative methodology. Because quantitative researchers are united under the clear doctrine of the scientific method, there is no confusion about how to approach research in the assumptions or interpretations made. Although postpositivist acknowledge that a complete separation between researcher and research is only a regulatory ideal and cannot feasibly be accomplished, this ideal is consistent among researchers. However, I perceive qualitative research methods to be a fragmented as the topics it studies. I see no continuity in the values or beliefs of the method apart from some distally accepted notions of subjectivity and constructivism that do not permeate research. Indeed, I found myself identifying with the perspective of grounded theory researchers and see a lot of conceptual overlap between our ideals. However, I see fundamental disagreement between my values with that of an autoethnographer on account of the subjectivity. So, should we try to package qualitative research as a “thing” in itself or is it a vapor methodology that exists on the cover of textbooks and in the minds of interpretivists.

I admit that my knowledge of qualitative research is cursory at best, but I fail to find the single thread that holds qualitative research methods together. Even in this class, I found the pile sort, free list, and rank order activity to be entirely fruitful because it closely aligns with the theory construction paradigm to which I have grown accustomed. I even understand the necessity of interviews and focus groups, but I fail to see how all of these approaches are housed under a broader label of qualitative methods. I see distinct departures in qualitative methods on important values, such as generalizability, thematic construction, and theoretical abstractions between traditional ethnographers and grounded theorists. I fear the qualitative method loses some traction in society because of what has been termed the jingle-jangle fallacy. That is, different concepts have been described using the same word, and the same concepts have been conceptualized using the different words. In the case of research methods, qualitative design is used to capture all non-quantitative research no matter how different its approach. I think there warrants further discussion on whether the term qualitative has any intrinsic meaning or if it is a moniker used to represent everything and, at the same time, nothing. I have become growingly fond of qualitative designs over the last months, trying to imagine myself engaging in research using one of the submethods of qualitative research, but I would like greater precision in the use of qualitative methods if I am to talk to a quantitative colleague about a project on which I am presently working.