QUALITATIVE

PSYCHOLOGY
 MYTHS ABOUT QUALITATIVE
RESEARCH
•Just a set of specific methods such as case studies, interviews etc.

• Qualitative research is done by researchers who are poor in statistics

• Only concerned with aspects of self

• Anything that uses the word ‘subjective’ becomes qualitative inquiry

• Used only in the backdrop & against quantitative research

• Is fictional work and is not scientific

Qualitative psychology attempts to uncover people’s grasp of their world.
Social nature of the construction of the world guide our thought & action.
We try to discover ‘taken for granted’ meanings through which we grasp our world.
A concentration on human experience as central topic of psychology we focus on
interpretation & construction.
Ex: experimental psychology was initially defined as science of experience.
Psychology would complement understanding of external world by developing scientific
understanding of the ‘inner world’ & this inner realm will be approached experimentally &
quantitatively.
Gustav Fechner aimed to discover the laws relating the physical nature of an external
physical stimuli to the internal experience.
Wundt focused on laboratory investigation using trained & systematic self-observation.
Brentano viewed conscious experience as a process & experiencing was an act. The focus
was on ‘intentionality’ which is intrinsic relatedness to consciousness to the object.
William James described consciousness as an ongoing process having its own themes
within which the current foci of attention get their meaning.
He focused on self as an object (self concept) & self who is aware of that self concept.
James made considerable contribution to the kind of thinking that lies behind qualitative
psychology by his description of the field of though and analysis of the notion of the self.
The ‘subjective world’ of the research participant must be understood in its own terms.
Behaviourism & Cognitivism rejected the role of experience and led to historical shift in
psychology.
Watson demanded replacement of self observation to study of behavior.
Consciousness was simple not amenable to the objective analysis. In search of objective &
observable causes, meaning that a situation has for people disappeared as topic of research.
They were not able to recognise fully the social constructions of human reality.
QUANTITATIVE METHODS MIXED METHODS QUALITATIVE METHODS

PRE DETERMINED METHODS BOTH PREDETERMINED & EMERGING METHODS

EMERGING

INSTRUMENTS BASED BOTH OPEN & CLOSED ENDED OPEN ENDED

QUESTIONS QUESTIONS

PERFORMANCE DATA, ATTITUDE MULTIPLE FORMS OF DRAWING INTERVIEW DATA, OBSERVATION

DATA, OBSERVATIONAL DATA ON ALL POSSIBILITIES DATA, DOCUMENT DATA &
AUDIOVISUAL DATA

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS STATISTICAL & TEXT ANALYSIS TEXT & IMAGES

STATISTICAL INTERPRETATION ACROSS DATABASE INTERPRETATION OF THEMES &

INTERPRETATION PATTERNS
Purpose of the study decide which method will be used
Fundamental research, theory building, exploration
Usually a precursor to quantitative methods
Makes up for gaps in quantitative data
 ASSUMPTIONS OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
1.Qualitative researchers are concerned primarily with process, rather than outcomes or
products.
2.Qualitative researchers are interested in meaning: how people make sense of their lives,
experiences, and their structures of the world.
3.The qualitative researcher is the primary instrument for data collection and analysis. Data
are mediated through this human instrument, rather than through inventories,
questionnaires, or machines.
4.Qualitative research involves fieldwork. The researcher physically goes to the people,
setting, site, or institution to observe or record behavior in its natural setting.
5.Qualitative research is descriptive in that the researcher is interested in process, meaning,
and understanding gained through words or pictures.
6.The process of qualitative research is inductive in that the researcher builds abstractions,
concepts, hypotheses, and theories from details.
ARGUMENTS SUPPORTING QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
•Human behavior is significantly influenced by the setting in which it occurs; thus one must
study that behavior in situations. The physical setting (e.g., schedules, space, pay, and
rewards) and the internalized notions of norms, traditions, roles, and values are crucial
contextual variables. Research must be conducted in the setting where all the contextual
variables are operating.
•Past researchers have not been able to derive meaning from experimental research.
•The research techniques themselves, in experimental research, [can]…affect the findings.
The lab, the questionnaire, and so on, [can]…become artifacts. Subjects [can
become]…either suspicious and wary, or they [can become]…aware of what the researchers
want and try to please them. Additionally, subjects sometimes do not know their feelings,
interactions, and behaviors, so they cannot articulate them to respond to a questionnaire.
•One cannot understand human behavior without understanding the framework within which
subjects interpret their thoughts, feelings, and actions. Researchers need to understand the
framework. In fact, the “objective ” scientist, by coding and standardizing, may destroy
valuable data while imposing her world on the subjects.
•Field study research can explore the processes and meanings of events
 Quantitative Mode Qualitative mode
Assumptions Assumptions
•Social facts have an objective reality •Reality is socially constructed
•Primacy of method •Primacy of subject matter
•Variables can be identified and relationships •Variables are complex, interwoven, and difficult to
measured measure
•Etic (outside’s point of view) •Emic (insider’s point of view)
Purpose Purpose
•Generalizability •Contextualization
•Prediction •Interpretation
•Causal explanations •Understanding actors’ perspectives
Approach Approach
•Begins with hypotheses and theories •Ends with hypotheses and grounded theory
•Manipulation and control •Emergence and portrayal
•Uses formal instruments •Researcher as instrument
•Experimentation •Naturalistic
•Deductive •Inductive
•Component analysis •Searches for patterns
•Seeks consensus, the norm •Seeks pluralism, complexity
•Reduces data to numerical indices •Makes minor use of numerical indices
•Abstract language in write-up •Descriptive write-up
Researcher Role Researcher Role
•Detachment and impartiality •Personal involvement and partiality
•Objective portrayal •Empathic understanding
ETIC & EMIC APPROACH
Emic approach (insider view) seeks to describe another culture in terms of the categories, concepts
& perceptions of the people being studied. Culture-specific, emphasizes the uniqueness of cultures
Etic approach (outsider view) anthropologists use their own categories and concepts to describe the
culture under analysis. Comparison of psychological theories across cultures, universal behavior
IDIOGRAPHIC & NOMOTHETIC APPROACH
Nomothetic (Nomo means law) attempts to generalize, uses objective knowledge. Based on
numerical data or data can be categorized.
Idiographic (Idios means own or private) focuses on recognition of uniqueness, Uses subjective
experience. Based on the study of the uniqueness of individuals.
3 IMPORTANT QUESTIONS UNIQUE TO EACH PARADIGM
•ONTOLOGICAL (how do researchers conceptualise what they study)
•What is the nature of reality & what can be known about it? ‘How things really are’ & ‘how things really
work’?

•EPISTIMOLOGICAL (how do researchers know what they study)

•What is the nature of relationship b/w the knower & the known?
•What can be known?

•METHODOLOGICAL (how do researchers select their tools)

•How can inquirer go about finding out whatever can be known?

•What rules & procedures would help us understand reality?

ONTOLOGY
What is reality?
How can we know reality? How can we get to know what happened?
These two questions relate to ontology & epistemology
Ontology: Philosophical & social
Philosophical ontology: being & state of being (are you & I real?), whether there is reality
out there?
Psychology deals with social reality.
Is social reality independent on us or is social reality dependent on us?
ONTOLOGY
Objectivism/Realism: It is out there: social phenomena exist as a social facts.
Naturalism
Constructivist: it is created: it is not out there. It is dependent on social actors. There
is no single reality out there. There are multiple realities which is created by people.
Pragmatist: social phenomena are there only in so far they work. Social phenomena
are dependent on interactional accomplishments.
We researchers are part of the social world we study and we should never forget that.
We also co-constructing the reality.
 EPISTIMOLOGY
Epistemology is a branch of philosophy concerned with the theory of knowledge. It
attempts to provide answers to the question, ‘How, and what, can we know?’ This involves
thinking about the nature of knowledge itself, about its scope and about the validity and
reliability of claims to knowledge.
What is knowledge and how do we gain knowledge?
How do we understand & measure reality.
Research methods provide ways of approaching, and hopefully answering, our research
questions. Research methods can be described as ‘the way to the goal’ (Kvale 1996a: 278).
However, first we need to identify our goal and be able to justify our choice. We need to be
clear about the objectives of our research and we need to have a sense of what kinds of
things it is possible for us to find out. What is our epistemological position?
Positivist or Interpretivist?
POSITIVISM
One epistemological position is positivism. Positivism suggests that there is a straight
forward relationship between the world (objects, events, phenomena) and our perception,
and understanding, of it.
Positivists believe that it is possible to describe what is ‘out there’ and to get it right. Such a
position is also referred to as the ‘correspondence theory of truth’ because it suggests that
phenomena directly determine our perception of them and that there is, therefore, a direct
correspondence between things and their representation.
Kirk and Miller’s (1986: 14) definition of positivism emphasizes positivism’s assumption
that ‘the external world itself determines absolutely the one and only correct view that can be
taken of it, independent of the process or circumstances of viewing’.
A positivist epistemology implies that the goal of research is to produce objective
knowledge; that is, understanding that is impartial and unbiased, based on a view from ‘the
outside’, without personal involvement or vested interests on the part of the researcher
EMPIRICISM
Empiricism is closely related to positivism. It is based on the assumption that our knowledge
of the world must be derived from ‘the facts of experience’.
In other words, sense perception provides the basis for knowledge acquisition, which
proceeds through the systematic collection and classification of observations. These include
experiments.
According to this view, simple observations are combined to give rise to more complex
ideas, and theory follows from observations. That is to say, theory is constructed to make
sense of the data collected through observation.
It is generally accepted that sense perception does not provide direct and uncontaminated
access to ‘the facts’.
The modern-day empiricists would argue that knowledge acquisition depends on the
collection and analysis of data. They do not believe that purely theoretical work can move us
closer to the truth, and they propose that all knowledge claims must be grounded in data.
At this point, it is important to differentiate between the terms ‘empiricist’ and ‘empirical’.
While ‘empiricist’ refers to the attitude that all knowledge claims must be grounded in data,
‘empirical’ is a descriptive term referring to research involving the collection and analysis of
data.
Hypothetico-deductivism
A number of serious practical as well as logical limitations of positivism and empiricism led
to the development of alternative theories of knowledge.
Karl Popper’s critique of inductivism and subsequent formulation of
hypothetico-deductivism constitutes the most influential alternative. It now forms the basis
of mainstream experimental psychology.
Popper proposed that instead of induction and verification, scientific research ought to rely
upon deduction and falsification. Popper’s hypothetico-deductive method does just that.
Here, theories are tested by deriving hypotheses from them that can then be tested in
practice, by experiment or observation.
The aim of the research is to put a theory’s claims to the test to either reject the theory or
retain it for the time being. Thus, rather than looking for evidence that confirms a theory’s
claims, hypothetico-deductivism works by looking for disconfirmmation, or falsification. In
this way, we can find out which claims are not true and, by a process of elimination of
claims, we move closer to the truth.
INTERPRETIVIST EPISTIMOLOGY/ANTIPOSITIVISM/INTERPRETIVE SOCIOLOGY
“Social reality has a specific meaning and relevance structure for the beings living, acting, and
thinking within it” (Schutz 1962: 59)
People are not atoms, they interpret world out there and derive different meanings from same
action.
1. Focus is on meaning of social action.
2. Weber’s Verstehen (understanding the purpose and meaning that individuals attach to their
own actions)
3. The actor’s perspective: the subjective reality. Interpretivist tries to see the world from the
eyes of the researcher or research participant.
Social reality has a specific meaning and relevance structure for the beings living, acting, and
thinking within it.
Foundational philosophies of qualitative research
1. Hermeneutics: It comes from Plato, who says that every messenger, messengers such as the god
Hermes, every messenger has to interpret the message in order to convey a message. So, hermeneutics
is about interpreting messages, and conveying messages.
2. Phenomenology: Phenomenology started out in the early 20s and century, late 19th century. And it
started mainly in German language countries among professors working at universities, philosophers
working at universities.
Phenomenology tries to get the pure meaning of phenomenon and they say, it can only be understood
subjectively and intuitively and then grasp in its essence. So it tries to grasp the pure meaning of a
phenomenon in its essence intuitively and subjectively.
Central idea is to grasp pure meaning in its essence subjectively and there's a second aspect and this
second aspect is that phenomenologists study the conscious experience.
Three different methods of interpretation in phenomenology
1. Pure description of lived experience
2. Interpretation of kind of experience by relating it to relevant context
3. Analyse the form of experience
Pragmatism
Started in the United States at the end of the 19th century and central figures in
pragmatism are Charles Sanders Pierce, William James and John Dewey, and later
George Herbert Meade.
Central Idea: researchers try to focus on practical issues. All aspects of social that have
practical relevance.
How do we use logic in order to do empirical science and they've focused a lot on what is
called a fallibalist view of science.
 Research with Subjects (Quantitative) Research with Informants (Qualitative)

1. What do I know about a problem that will allow me 1. What do my informants know about their culture
to formulate and test a hypothesis? that I can discover?

2. What concepts can I use to test this hypothesis? 2. What concepts do my informants use to classify
their experiences?

3. How can I operationally define these concepts? 3. How do my informants define these concepts?

4. What scientific theory can explain the data? 4. What folk theory do my informants use to explain
their experience?

5. How can I interpret the results and report them in 5. How can I translate the cultural knowledge of my
the language of my colleagues? informants into a cultural description my colleagues
will understand?
Axioms About Positivist Paradigm Naturalist Paradigm
(Quantitative) (Qualitative)

The nature of reality Reality is single, tangible, and Realities are multiple, constructed,
fragmentable. and holistic.

The relationship of knower to the Knower and known are Knower and known are interactive,
known independent, a dualism. inseparable.

The possibility of generalization Time- and context-free Only time- and context-bound
generalizations (nomothetic working hypotheses (idiographic
statements) are possible. statements) are possible.

The possibility of causal linkages There are real causes, temporally All entities are in a state of mutual
precedent to or simultaneous with simultaneous shaping, so that it is
their effects. impossible to distinguish causes
from effects.

The role of values Inquiry is value-free. Inquiry is value-bound.

Application of natural science methods to social sciences research
1. Empiricist: all knowledge we gain, we gain through senses. Everything should be
observable & measurable
2. Deductivist: theory testing, hypothesis testing (neo positivist)
3. Inductivist: theory building (logical positivism)
4. Objectivity: value free researcher, establish objective view of world
5. Scientific versus normative statements
 Positivism Empiricism

Definition Positivism is a philosophical theory Empiricism is a theory that states the

that states the only authentic origin of all knowledge is sense
knowledge is scientific knowledge. experience

Knowledge Knowledge can be verified through Experience is the origin of

scientific methods and knowledge
mathematical/logical proof.

Prominent figures Auguste Comte & Emile Durkheim John Locke, George Berkeley, John
Stuart Mill & David Hume
 A DEBATE

QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

• Logical Positivism • Interpretive/Phenomenological

• Natural science world view • Naturalistic world view
• Hypo-deductive • Inductive
• Particularistic • Holistic
• Objective/ Outsider centered • Subjective/ Insider centered
• Outcome oriented • Process oriented
• Attempt to control variables • Relative lack of control
• Goal: find facts & causes • Goal: understand actor’s view
• Static reality • Dynamic reality
• Verification oriented • Discovery oriented
• Confirmatory • Exploratory
• Inquiry is value free/neutral • Inquiry is value bound