Thoughts About Qualitative Research

My experience with qualitative research is limited. But then, so is my experience with quantitative research. Despite my limited experience I find that quantitative research is easier to get my arms around. Capturing and coding data seem more straight-forward. Using quantitative data to identify patterns and to validate research questions seems very powerful to me. 

Having said that, I find that the research questions that interest me are mostly about the quality of instructional events. Evaluating the outcomes to determine whether training is effective is the kind of research that interests me most. Effectiveness could probably be measured in terms of the quality of the experience or in terms of a quantifiable scale. In either case, context drastically affects the outcome of the training, so a qualitative approach may provide a better picture of how effective a training event is.

The issues that concern me at this point concern the validity of qualitative research. How to design a research project such that the results can be objectively critiqued and consistently repeated. Maybe that isn’t really the point of qualitative research, though… objectivity and consistency seem like very positivist concepts. Would a true qualitative researcher claim that objectivity is not possible since it ignores individual influences and biases of the researcher as well as the reviewer? Can qualitative research be consistently repeatable if the results are so influenced by context that the conditions of the study couldn’t ever be truly repeated? To be honest, these questions seem to me to be more related to philosophy than research.

This semester, as I gain a better understanding of qualitative research, I’m going to try to avoid getting bogged down by philosophy and try to focus on practical application. For example, I understand that a study of training effectiveness falls in the realm of qualitative analysis, but in practice a researcher must define metrics by which some interpretation of “effective” is measured. Whether those metrics correspond to participant feedback or sensor data, a comparison of sorts must be made. 

I also think I tend to think about research problems as though the results are some sort of classification. Effective vs. ineffective, expert vs. novice. Good vs. bad. Numbers are great when classifying data. A qualitative approach seems to require a more nuanced approach, and that is where the context must be hiding. 

I still feel that, for me, a study of training effectiveness would benefit from a certain distance between researcher and participant. I think it would be very hard not to influence the results of a study if I, as a researcher, was ensconced in the participation of the training like Jane Goodall amidst a troop of chimpanzees. That level of researcher participation in a study seems more at home in sociology or anthropology. I guess I still feel like I, as a researcher, can still maintain my objectivity while recognizing my biases. Is that even possible? Whoops! There I go, slipping into philosophy again!

Perhaps I’m leaning toward adopting a centrist perspective. At this point in the semester (close to the beginning) I think I see greatest value in a hybrid research solution. I believe that quantitative methods can be used to capture and analyze data, which can then be used to interpret performance in a way that considers context and human relationships as well as quantifiable measures.

To be continued…