Getting Started: What is Qualitative Research and Why do it?

9/12/2020

WHAT TO POST: Bhattacharya offers an brief introduction to qualitative research in the first reading of your semester. In your very brief first post, how do you understand what qualitative research is and, connected to your first assignment, how does your partner profile fit into her definition of research? In what ways does this assignment and her definition feel at odds with one another? Post you 200-250 word answer here by midnight on Monday, 14 September 2020.

HOW TO POST
Click on either the "comments" button at the top right of this post or the bottom left. Either one. Fill out the name and email portions of the dialogue box when prompted to do so, and then post your 200-250 words I that space. Click "submit" and you are done.

You can "reply" to a specific post from your colleague by clicking on "reply" rather than "comments." Don't worry if you accidentally post something in not exactly the right place.

4 Comments

Sam Isom

9/14/2020 10:54:47 am

Qualitative research, based on my understanding of Bhattacharya's definition, takes human experiences and culture into account to find the most realistic outcome to the question(s) posed. It relies on more than data and statistics. With that basis, our first project is all about human experiences, thus aligning it with what the textbook has to say about research. Where I see it less so matching is the analytical aspect; it'd be almost uncomfortable to really "analyze" a stranger based on what information they've given to write their profile with. This profile project is research in the sense we are collecting information and putting it to use to answer the question "Who is ___?"

Derek Krysko

9/15/2020 11:10:47 am

Hello,
I am posting this a day late because my textbook just arrived today on Tuesday, so I apologize for that. To start, my understanding of qualitative research is that it is more concerned with opinions or experiences rather than raw numerical facts or data. To me, qualitative observations require context in order to derive the most accurate meaning and to create more insight into a specific area. Our profile project connects to Bhattacharya's views on qualitative research because what we are analyzing is essentially someone's culture or values, and the answers we find can help us to discern why those values are important.We are interested in learning about the opinions or experiences of another classmate so that we can hope to understand their reality and their truth in relation to our own. I think however that along those same lines, this assignment conflicts with her definition because we can't know for certain that the information we gather is connected to any particular value or belief a person has. Essentially, it can be difficult to determine based on a few surface level questions who this person really is, and why they are that person. I do find it interesting to look at this project using the objectivist lens, because in a sense the information we gather will be true of the subject regardless of who asks the questions. I think the complications arise when we bring constructivism into the equation, because it feels odd to be assigning meaning to a person's values that we may know nothing about.

Sasha Rockwell

9/16/2020 06:21:04 am

We can understand what qualitative research is by figuring out that qualitative measures the quality of something, instead of say like, quantitative, which measures statistics, numbers, data, etc. So qualitative research is research done qualitatively, on values, opinions, etc. The partner profile fits into the definition of research because for the project, we're required to collect information from a person, and that information is qualitative. We're then going to use that information to put together results/conclusions based on the information we got.The reading and the project feel at odds with each other because according to Kakali qualitative research is about analyzing, and to me that doesn't feel like the right word for the kind of research we're doing on each other. There is certain information that we can't find out from this kind of research, and that's what Kakali says is values or beliefs that a person holds. So it entirely depends on the research questions being asked, if that information is needed.

Amanda Guindon

9/22/2020 02:39:30 pm

Research on a broad scale, as described in the textbook, includes 4 different elements: methods, methodology, theoretical perspective, and epistemology. Method refers to how data is collected in research while methodology is the design of the study and the plan for execution of the study. Theoretical perspective is how we try to understand our studies like organizing thoughts, assumptions, beliefs. Finally, epistemology is what we know about our world. Qualitative research, or at least my understanding of it, is taking research collected about human experience and understanding the meaning behind those experiences. This would differ from quantitative research in that quantitative deals with finding patterns related to research and making accurate predictions from that data.
Our first project demonstrates part of qualitative research on a very small scale. We were to interview our assigned partner (with the questions provided), and summarize our findings in a short paragraph about this specific person. By having the answers to the questions, which were focused both on the person’s experiences like how many siblings they had, how long they had left in school, and what their major was/what they want to do with it, and combined it with the person’s more personalized experiences such as who would they have play them in a movie, or what they would do if they won the lottery. This allowed us to develop an understanding of the person, however it would feel sort of odd drawing conclusions about the person based on this type of information we were gathering of their personal experiences.

Getting Started: What is Qualitative Research and Why do it?

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