Types of Qualitative Research

Designs

Dr. Salma
 Qualitative Research Designs

• • Phenomenological Studies
• • Ethnographic Studies
• • Grounded Theory Studies
• • Historical Studies
• • Case Studies
• • Narrative approach
• Phenomenological Studies
• Researchers investigate a phenomenon or event
by describing and interpreting participants’ lived
experiences.
• Phenomenological studies is used to understand the
essence of experiences of persons about a
phenomena.
• Ethnography aims at describing and interpreting a
cultural and social group
• Grounded theory approach is adopted to develop a
theory grounded in data from the field..
• Case study is used to develop an in-depth analysis of
a single case or multiple cases.
• Narrative Research; study of experiences “as
expressed in lived and told stories of individuals” All
these methods adopt qualitative techniques of data
collection such as interviews, observation, study of
documents, relevant records, etc and incorporate
 Phenomenological Studies
• Phenomenological Inquiry is used to understand the essence of
experiences of persons about a phenomena
• Phenomenological studies examine human experiences through
the descriptions provided by the people involved. These
experiences are called lived experiences.
• The goal of phenomenological studies is to describe the meaning
that experiences hold for each subject. This type of research is used
to study areas in which there is little knowledge.
• In phenomenological research, respondents are asked to describe
their experiences as they perceive them. They may write about
their experiences, but information is generally obtained through
interviews.
• To understand the lived experience from the vantage point of the
subject, the researcher must take into account her or his own
• The researcher must first identify what she or he
expects to discover and then deliberately put
aside these ideas; this process is called
bracketing. Only when the researcher puts aside
her or his own ideas about the phenomenon is it
possible to see the experience from the eyes of
the person who has lived the experience.
• Bracketing is the process in which qualitative
researchers put aside their own feelings and
beliefs about the phenomena under consideration
to keep from biasing their observations.)
• Phenomenological research would ask a
question such as, “What is it like for a mother
to live with a teenage child who is dying of
cancer?” The researcher might perceive that
she, herself, would feel very hopeless and
frightened. These feelings would need to be
identified and then put aside to listen to what
the mother is saying about how she is living
through this experience.
• It is possible that this mother has discovered an
important reason for living, whereas previously
she had not felt needed anymore by her
teenage child.
 Analysis of data
• Analysis of data from these types of studies
requires that the researcher “dwell with the
subjects’ descriptions in quiet contemplation”
(p. 5). The researcher then tries to uncover
the meaning of the lived experience for each
subject. Themes and patterns are sought in
the data.
• Data collection and data analysis occur
simultaneously.
• Phenomenological research methods are very
different from the methods used in quantitative
research. Mariano (1990) asserted that
phenomenology could be difficult to understand,
particularly if a person has had a limited
background in philosophy.
• Although phenomenological research has
sometimes been viewed as so-called soft science,
Streubert and Carpenter (2002) contended that
this research method is rigorous, critical, and
systematic.
• They called for the beginning researcher to seek a
mentor who has experience in phenomenological
research.
 Ethnographic Studies
• Researchers immerse themselves in groups or
organizations to understand their cultures.
• Ethnographic studies involve the collection
and analysis of data about cultural groups.
Agar (1986) described ethnography as
“encountering alien worlds and making sense
of them” (p. 12). He further stated that
ethnographers try to show how actions in one
world make sense from the point of view of
another world. Cameron
• (1990) wrote that ethnography means
“learning from people” (p. 5).
• According to Leininger (1985), ethnography
can be defined as “the systematic process of
observing, detailing, describing, documenting,
and analyzing the life ways or particular
patterns of a culture (or subculture) in order
to grasp the life ways or patterns of the people
in their familiar environment” (p. 35).
• In ethnographic research, the researcher
frequently lives with the people and becomes
a part of their culture.
• Ethnographers interview people who are most
knowledgeable about the culture.
• These people are called key informants. Data are
generally collected through participant
observation and interviews.
• As discussed under phenomenological studies,
researcher bracket, or make explicit, their own
personal biases and beliefs, set them aside, and
then try to understand the daily lives of
individuals as they live them
• Data collection and analysis occur
simultaneously. As understanding of the data
occurs, new questions emerge. The end
purpose of ethnography is the development of
cultural theories.
• Ethnography has been the principal method
used by anthropologists to study people all
over the world.
• Ethnographers study how people live and
how they communicate with each other
 Grounded Theory Studies
• Grounded theory approach is adopted to
develop a theory grounded in data from the
field
• Grounded theory is a qualitative research
approach developed by two sociologists, Glaser
and Strauss (1967).
• Grounded theory studies are studies in which
data are collected and analyzed and then a
theory is developed that is grounded in the
data.
• The grounded theory method uses both an
inductive and a deductive approach to theory
development. According to Field and Morse
(1985), “constructs and concepts are
grounded in the data and hypotheses are
tested as they arise from the research” .
• Steps of Grounded Theory Study
 Steps of Grounded Theory Study
• i) In the context of a particular situation, the
researcher makes several visits to the field, makes
in-depth observations and conducts interviews.
The data collection process continues till the
researcher comprehends the totality in a situation.
However, the major focus remains on in-depth
interviews.
• ii) With the help of data available, the researcher
makes categories of information. A unit of
information composed of events, happenings, and
instances is presented in the form of one category.
• iii) Often it happens that during the data
collection process the researcher analyses the
data and gradually categories are formed on
specific instances or happenings. Hence the data
collection process and data analysis are integrated
on many occasions.
• iv) After data analysis, the researcher may like to
be back to the field to gather more information,
analyse the data and so forth. Hence, this zigzag
process continues till a saturated state is
identified for arriving at a theoretical framework.
v) Towards the end of the study, the researcher
presents an elaborate theoretical framework to
understand the complexity of an event.
 Case Study
• Case study is used to develop an in-depth analysis
of a single case or multiple cases. Main features
Case study as a method of research focuses on
indepth study of a unit or case in totality.
• The case may be an individual, programme, an
event, an institution, an activity, etc.
• The case study method was originally used in
medicine to examine the patient's previous
development, his health and physical state from
the beginning and many other factors in the past,
besides making a careful study of the patient's
• The investigation of a case is of exploratory nature.
• It involves detailed, in-depth data collection
employing multiple sources of information
concerning all pertinent aspects of a case
• It is also interpreted that a case may be a unique
and bounded system. This means the case under
investigation is bound by time and place.
• In Qualitative Research The uniqueness of a case
refers to the typical characteristics of a case, such
as a quality institution or an ashram school, a
particular programme or course of study, or
university or an innovation etc.
• The researcher tries to explore in detail about what
events occur, and how they occur.
• Multiple sources include observations,
interviews, audio-visual materials, documents,
records, etc. A case is to be studied in a given
context, i.e., study of a case is conducted
within its setting. The setting may be a
physical setting, social, historical or economic
setting, etc
• As a whole, the case study helps a researcher
to understand the complexities of an event or
events with contextuality and develops insight
about with the nature and process dimensions
of the events studied.
 Example
• "A study of distance education in an Indian
university". This study's focus is an
identification and description of different
underlying factors. Contributing towards
success of distance education programme of
all university as a whole.
• Management of Medical Colleges -A case
study'.
• Steps of Case Study
• Case study is conducted by adopting the following steps:
• i) First, the researcher identifies the uniqueness of the case to be
studied or a number of cases to be studied. Whether a normal case is
to be studied or an unusual and typical case is to be studied is decided
at this stage. I
• i) Keeping in view different contexts and perspectives of the problem,
the researcher delimits what is to be studied within the scope of
investigation.
• ii) ' Once the dimensions of a unit are identified for investigation, the
researcher locates different mechanisms of gathering different
varieties of evidences from different sources. After identification of the
case and content, the present status of the case is determined through
direct observation or record. Here the researcher goes far beyond
casual observation or superficial description. For example, to make a
case study of a delinquent child, the first thing the researcher has to
do is to survey the present status of the child by making an
assessment of his physique, cognitive and non-cognitive factors. The
mechanisms to be chosen may be observation, interviews, document
surveys, audiovisual recordings, projective and non -projective tests,
• IV. Data gathered through multiple sources are subject to
qualitative analysis. It can be a holistic analysis of the entire
case or analysis of a specific aspect of a case
• V) Data analysis involves descriptive procedures. The themes
or issues are identified. Interpretations are made about the
case in its given contexts. It also involves narration of events
chronologically and giving an account of events in totality.
The detailed perspectives of significant events concerning a
case are highlighted through such narrations.
• vi) In case of study of number of cases the analysis is done in
two phases. First is analysis of data concerning the themes
of each case separately i.e., within-case analysis which
follows the first is doing a thematic analysis across the case.
This is called cross-case analysis.
• vii) In the final step the researcher reports about the
experiences and findings of the case.
 NARRATIVE RESEARCH

• In contrast to the other approaches, narrative can be a

research method or an area of study in and of itself.
Creswell focuses has defines it as a study of
experiences “as expressed in lived and told stories of
individuals” . This approach emerged out of a literary,
storytelling tradition and has been used in many social
science disciplines.
• Narrative researchers collect stories, documents, and
group conversations about the lived and told
experiences of one or two individuals.
• They record the stories using interview, observation,
documents and images and then report the
experiences and chronologically order the meaning of
 Types of narrative

• Biographical study, writing and recording the

experiences of another person’s life.
• Auto-ethnography, in which the writing and
recording is done by the subject of the study
(e.g., in a journal).
• Life history, portraying one person’s entire life.
• Oral history, reflections of events, their causes
and effects.
• In this case, narrative research methodology
doesn’t follow a rigid process but is described as
informal gathering of data.
• Two interesting concepts unique to narrative
research:
• 1) Restorying is the process of gathering stories,
analyzing them for key elements, then rewriting
(restorying) to position them within a
chronological sequence.
• 2) Creswell describes a collaboration that occurs
between participants and researchers during the
collection of stories in which both gain valuable life
insight as a result of the process.
• Narrative research involves collecting
extensive information from participants; this is
its primary challenge. But ethical issues
surrounding the stories may present weightier
difficulties, such as questions of the story’s
ownership, how to handle varied impressions
of its veracity, and managing conflicting
information.