Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies Commons^™

Our New Children: The Surrogate Role Of Companion Animals In Women's Lives, Wendy G. Turner

The Qualitative Report

As the rate of pet ownership increases, companion animals are fulfilling a variety of roles in the lives of their humans. This article provides insight on the role that companion animals play in the lives of women. The women in this study showed stronger attachments to those animals that either preceded the birth of their children, or followed the children leaving home. This finding has potential implications for services provided to women by various helping professions.

Doing Research In Political Science: An Introduction To Comparative Methods And Statistics, By Paul Pennings, Hans Keman And Jan Kleinnijenhuis., Kenneth Benoit

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Telling Transitions At The Table: Re-Served Seats Of Higher Learning?, Dorothy Lander

The Qualitative Report

This paper traces the transitions of first year students and other adults of the university as they partake in an intergenerational shared inquiry at a common table. My transformative research invites students, faculty, and staff to attend to (eat) and transform (digest) the moral and political encounters in successive becomings from their speaking positions at a common table. This dialogical partaking of words disrupts the market discourse of student as consumer and re-stories the university as a service organization where all organizational actors are consuming and being consumed. Eating together and telling transitions dissolve boundaries between service and knowledge, between …

Elementary Teachers' Commitment Declines: Antecedents, Processes, And Outcomes, Christine Joffres, Margaret Haughey

The Qualitative Report

This qualitative study examines the organizational, social, and personal factors that may influence elementary teachers' declining commitments. Our findings suggest that when the teachers under study felt unsuccessful, that is, when they experienced low feelings of efficacy and low feelings of community, teachers' commitments' shifted or declined. However, the impact of negative teaching experiences on commitments is far from uniform. Rather the teachers' commitments declined as a function of the teachers' understandings of their perceived failures.

Using A Story-Building Approach To Research Comprehensive Community Initiatives, Lori Messinger

The Qualitative Report

This article is the story of the author's experiences as a researcher-storyteller. She delineates the process used to "build a story" of the planning and development of a rural comprehensive community initiative. In a critically reflective look at this approach to community research, the author describes how she selected the research topic, defined the purposes of the research, selected the methods used in data collection and analysis, and approached the construction process of building the story through literary elements such as plot, scene, and voice. The strengths and pitfalls of this approach and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Sorrow Into Joy: A Phenomenological Study Of Adult Women Survivors Of Child Sexual Abuse, Eldine M. Webster

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to learn how six mid-life women who had been sexually abused as children perceived the way in which that early experience had impacted their life to date. Using a phenomenological qualitative life-history approach, each participant was interviewed for a period of from one to three hours. Content analysis of the interviews and member-checking with participants who volunteered to do so resulted in eight major themes emerging from the data: memories, family, career, addictions, depression, boundaries and embodiment, counseling, and synchronicity. The last theme, synchronicity, very closely related to the concept of spirituality and a …

Simulation Methodologies For Political Scientists, Kenneth Benoit

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In this brief article I identify and characterize the variety of simulation methodologies relevant to political science research. Having identified them, I then recount a light-hearted tale of one successful application of a computer simulation to a real world problem of enormous significance. Extending the discussion to other examples, I discuss some of the main issues and benefits in simulation models for political science. Finally, I identify some software tools and additional resources for those who would like to learn more about using simulation methods for their own work.

Exploring The Creative Voice In An Academic Context, Laura Brearley

The Qualitative Report

Who we are changes what we write about and how we write. Simply stated, if the academy is to change, if our views of reality are to be more inclusive, then we need to take a broader view of authorial voices… Tierney and Lincoln, 1997 This paper challenges the traditional paradigm of densely referenced text and the use of a passive, 'neutral' researcher's voice. It draws on current doctoral research that is using creative modes of data representation to examine managers' experiences of transition in organisational life. Within this research, ten managers from an educational institution are being tracked through …

Editorial Introduction, Christina Cruz, Melissa Freeman, Rebecca Rogers

The Qualitative Report

No abstract provided.

Why Urban Parents Resist Involvement In Their Children’S Elementary Education, Peter Mcdermott, Julia J. Rothenburg

The Qualitative Report

We examined the perceptions of teachers and parents about family involvement in urban schools. The study generated from several others that we have been conducting about teaching in high poverty, urban schools. Using focus groups, our purpose was to learn how we could better prepare teachers for urban schools. The data revealed that teachers are frustrated with a lack of parental involvement in literacy activities at home and at school. Parents, however, expressed distrust toward the local elementary school because they felt the faculty has been biased against African American and Latino children and their families. Consequently, the parents said …

Imposters In The Sacred Grove: Working Class Women In The Academe, Melanie L. Long, Gaye Ranck Jenkins, Susan Bracken

The Qualitative Report

The authors of this paper take a critical approach within ethnographic narrative to explore issues of power, class and agency in their experiences as working class women in the academe. After first revealing their working class roots through personal narratives, they employ Clance's Impostor Phenomenon to explore and discuss their experiences as working-class women within the Scared Grove of the academe. Results seem to indicate a dichotomy between their working class values and the expectations of university academics. Results also reveal that men faculty are their current allies, indicating that, for these three working class women in the academe, class …

Case Study Of Classroom Practice: A Quiet Form Of Research, Janice Showler

The Qualitative Report

This paper documents the use of ethnographic research methods as a heuristic for inquiry and teaching. More specifically, it focuses on reflection as situated at the heart of teacher-research, including research conducted by prospective English language arts teachers. In a retrospective analysis of her student's case studies in literacy at an urban site, a teacher researcher explores whether and how her students come to "know their knowledge." She explores students' construction of knowledge and theories of practice, how these develop over time and what impact they may have on teaching and learning. These constructions inform not only her students' practice …

Multilayered Representation In Research, Kathryn Delawter, Adrienne Sosin, Julie Mabey

The Qualitative Report

This paper describes a multi-layered qualitative action research study presented at the Twelfth Annual Conference on Ethnographic and Qualitative Research. "The Aesthetics of Ethnography: A Moving Triangle," was an interactive installation that demonstrated the aesthetics of ethnography for education. Participants were invited to share their own constructions of meaning when engaged in activities related to multicultural calendar artifacts. The research methodology of this study is collective reflection, developed by the researchers in the process of interpreting teacher education student's multicultural calendar artifacts as texts. The article highlights one of the multicultural calendar artifacts displayed in the installation, through hyperlinks to …

Childcare And Experiential Knowledge: Expanding Definitions Of Childcare, Lori L. Mcneil

Dissertations

Childcare is traditionally defined as care for children while their parents/guardians are in the workforce or attending school. While technically accurate, it is argued that traditional definitions of childcare are partial and consequently do not fully describe childcare based on an experiential dimension. Thus, this research project sought to augment normative definitions of childcare by including the voices of children in childcare, parents using childcare and those caregivers providing childcare.

Several theoretical frameworks were used for this research. First, standpoint theory (Harding, 1987) was presented in order to inform an alternative perspective of childcare based on “experiential” rather than “expert” …

Perceptions Of Police Abusive Behavior: Factors Influencing Citizens' Attitudes Toward The Police Use Of Excessive Force, Debra P. Laville-Wilson

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

This study analyzed several factors to determine their influence on the public's perceptions of the police use of excessive force or police brutality. Conflict theory and cognitive consistency theory were used to conceptualize the perceptions of police brutality. Based on these theories, five hypotheses were predicted. Secondary data from a 1995 National Opinion Survey of Crime and Justice were re-analyzed. The data provide 1,005 respondents for the analyses. Analyses were performed at the bivariate and multivariate level.

Findings from the bivariate analysis show that Blacks were three (3) times more likely than Whites to perceive the police use of excessive …

The Effects Of Role-Taking And Embarrassability On Undergraduate Drinking: Some Unanticipated Findings, Lizabeth A. Crawford, Katherine B. Novak

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

This paper focuses on the relationship between role-taking, affect, and alcohol use among college undergraduates. Role-taking is the process through which people anticipate the perspectives—expectations, evaluations, and behaviors—of others (Mead, 1934). Reflexive role-taking (i.e.,viewing oneself through the eyes of others) was significantly related to four distinct types of embarrassment. However, in opposition to our hypotheses, embarrassment resulting from becoming the center of others’ attentions was the only form of embarrassability significantly related to undergraduate drinking. Moreover, it was those students least susceptible to this type of embarrassment who were the most likely to be drinkers. While role-taking, in general, was …

Focus Groups In Ethnography Of Communication: Expanding Topics Of Inquiry Beyond Participant Observation, Elizabeth A. Suter

The Qualitative Report

Historically, ethnography of communication has viewed participant observation as the central and necessary methodological point of departure for any ethnographic endeavor. However, as this article illustrates, this becomes problematic when particular topics of inquiry do not provide ample opportunities for observation. After struggles to participant observe conversations on women's marital naming practices, I was able to research this topic and produce participant observation-like understandings after I incorporated focus groups into my methods. Based upon these experiences and study, this article urges ethnography of communication scholars to step outside their traditional methodological practices, when necessary, and integrate the focus group method …

Feminist Content Analysis And Representative Characters, Patricia Leavy

The Qualitative Report

This paper details textual, visual and audio-visual content analysis from both a general and feminist perspective. It provides a backstage look at how I took an abstract idea of analyzing the larger socio-cultural-political American 1990s/2000 context through a representative fictional character, Ally McBeal, and created a manageable project outline for how to achieve my research goals using content analysis in multiple way

The Devil In The Detail: An Account Of Self-Harm, Bogusia Temple, Jennifer Harris

The Qualitative Report

In this article we discuss self-harm data from an A & E (Emergency Room) Department in an English hospital. In order to be able to examine the relationship between data collection, analysis and findings we focus on the processes we used as researchers in constructing the dataset. Doing this, we argue, is as important as just analysing findings since this process in part constructs the findings. Moreover, how people's actions are defined may impact on the way they are treated.

The Unanticipated In Qualitative Inquiry, Sally St.George, Dan Wulff

The Qualitative Report

This article tells the story of some unanticipated (and highly beneficial) events and learnings that developed from a student's efforts to ethnographically study her own therapeutic work.

Reconstructing The World Of The Anorectic Outpatient: Procedures For Enhancing Trustworthiness And Credibility, Steven R. Thomsen, J. Kelley Mccoy, Marleen Williams

The Qualitative Report

Conducting in-depth interviews with clinical populations often poses a number of problems for qualitative researchers. Because of the skewed perception of themselves and the world around them, and because of their propensity to distort and deny the pathology of their illness, anorexic women are an example of one such group that can create possible problems for researchers, particularly those concerned with the trustworthiness and credibility of their analysis. How should qualitative researchers approach this population? How can a credible reconstruction of reality be produced? This paper explores and discusses the procedures utilized by the authors during an 18-month project in …

Critical Examinations Of The Known And The Unknown In Social Science: Where Do We Go From Here?, Cynthia Wallat, Carolyn L. Piazza

The Qualitative Report

If the use of social science assumptions and beliefs is what helped set fields of professional practice on the quest for recognition in the academy, what does the recent outpouring of publications on the limits of science reveal about sociocultural research prospects at the dawn of the 21st century? The last few years alone have witnessed the publication of special journal issues on the "scientific wars" of the nineties, year long professional association debates on "the known and unknown," and new books and online data sources proclaiming "the end of social science." Cumulatively, research and commentary on the limits of …

Constructivist Instructional Design: Creating A Multimedia Package For Teaching Critical Qualitative Research, Brandie Colón, Kay Ann Taylor, Jerry Willis

The Qualitative Report

Instructors for quantitative research courses often find that there are many different types of support material for those courses. That is not the case with qualitative courses. Very little support material is available for qualitative research courses. In this paper we describe the creation of one multimedia package that focuses on one type of qualitative research - critical ethnographic techniques. The package was created to help graduate students learn to use five critical ethnographic techniques: meaning fields, validity reconstruction, role analysis, power analysis, and horizon analysis. We used a constructivist instructional design model, R2D2, to guide our development work. It …

Getting In Trouble: The Meaning Of School For "Problem" Students, Darryl A. Pifer

The Qualitative Report

Three students attending an alternative school were selected because they had been labeled by their previous school and teachers as "problem students." A series of interviews was completed with each individual with the purpose of exploring the meaning of school for each. Each participant indicated an acceptance of the notion that education is important, but each also felt negatively about school. Good and bad things about school were discussed as well as good and bad experiences. The participants also discussed how they perceived the actions and expectations of others. The unfairness they each experienced in school was discussed as well …

How To Write Qualitative Research? -- A Book Review, Yuliang Liu

The Qualitative Report

No abstract provided.

A Comparison Of African American Elderly Women Abstainers And Light To Moderate Consumers Of Alcohol, Treva L. Bostic

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the differences that may exist between two identified groups of older African American women: (1) light to moderate consumers of alcohol, and (2) abstainers from alcohol. Within these two groups are four subgroups of women that were studied: (1) abstainers with high social support, (2) abstainers with low social support, (3) light to moderate consumers of alcohol with high social support, and (4) light to moderate consumers of alcohol with low social support.

Through a contact-and-referral technique, a purposive sample of 97 African American women who were 65 years and over living …

Creativity Within Qualitative Research On Families: New Ideas For Old Methods, Sharon A. Deacon

The Qualitative Report

Qualitative researchers are continually searching for research methods that engage their participants in the data collection process. When researching living, dynamic systems such as families, researchers need to find methods that can encapsulate the multi-dimensionality of the human experience. The purpose of this paper is to acquaint researchers with some creative and active methods they can use to not only involve their participants in the research process, but also to more fully learn about and experience the perceptions, feelings, and life events of their participants. The methods discussed include sculpting, photography and videography, art and drawing, role playing, writing exercises, …

Preparing Teachers For Urban Settings: Changing Teacher Education By Changing Ourselves, Colleen Willard-Holt

The Qualitative Report

This article describes the personal and professional changes experienced by a teacher education faculty who embarked on a joint project relating to urban education. The faculty members committed to write book chapters applying their areas of expertise to the challenge of preparing teachers for urban schools. Using qualitative methodology, this research examined the faculty members' discoveries, thoughts, doubts, and reflections at three points during the project. Results showed an evolving perspective on urban education focusing upon understanding the lived experiences of the children in order to provide meaningful education for them. This study may provide insight and encouragement for other …

A Comparative Discussion Of The Notion Of 'Validity' In Qualitative And Quantitative Research, Glyn Winter

The Qualitative Report

The issues surrounding the use and nature of the term 'validity' in qualitative research are controversial and many. In this paper, the author attempts to establish that 'validity' is not a single, fixed or universal concept, but rather a contingent construct, inescapably grounded in the processes and intentions of particular research methodologies and projects. The first section of this work deals with the problems faced in defining 'validity' in both quantitative and qualitative research methods and will briefly review other authors' attempts to categorise it. The work will then proceed to distinguish and compare the claims to 'validity' made by …

Researching Psychotherapy, The Importance Of The Client's View: A Methodological Challenge, Neil Scott Gordon

The Qualitative Report

This paper argues that research approaches which are aimed at developing our understanding of psychotherapy which fail to address the client's interpretation of events will only provide a limited picture of its true nature. The discussion explores the philosophical underpinnings of research in this area through analysing contemporary debates and controversies. The difficulties of defining the term "psychotherapy" are acknowledged while highlighting the centrality of the concept of relationship in current definitions. The question "What is psychotherapy?" is further addressed by offering a brief overview of the theoretical assumptions which influence some current approaches to clinical work. Attention is also …