Lecture 1 - Getting Started
- Testing commercials is a very common form of qualitative research
- Asking audience what they think about the commercial and their attitude
towards it
- What you need to become a qualitative researcher (chapter 1)
- Interest in process and meaning
- Interested in what people think
- Critical approach to life and knowledge
- Asking how and why people answered a certain question in the way
they did
- Eyes and ears
- Observation is important
- Reflexivity
- Reflecting on your role as a qualitative researcher
- Good interactional skills
- Because you constantly work with people, you have to know how to
act in order to make them comfortable
- What is Qualitative research (table 1.1, p4)
- Using words as data
- Not numbers, you evaluate experiences
- Meanings
- Interpretation is key
- Rich data
- Detailed answers are more important than a big sample
- Theory generating
, - Do not develop hypothesis before gathering data (opposite process
from quantitative)
- Big and Small Q
- We use the small Q in qualitative research
Big Q Small Q
Paradigm Techniques
perspective Mixed method
- Beecause communication science is so interdisciplinary, we usually use the
small Q process.
- Persuasive and entertainment communication are the fields that use QR the
most
- 10 fundamentals of QR (chapter 2)
- QR is about meaning, not numbers
- Try to understand each participant’s way of thinking
- QR doesn’t provide a single answer
- When you give a good argumentation, your answer can be explained
- Each researcher can provide a different analysis of the data
- We use our own backgrounds
- You have freedom on how you use data
- It can be vague, but it increases creativity
- QR teats context as important
- Everything is produced in a specific context
- People living in different contexts will have a different perspective of a
product
- Same with the researchers analysing the data
- QR can be experiential or critical
- Experiential
- The most used in communication science
- Focuses on each individual’s experience
- It is about understanding people
- Critical
- Not often used in communication science
, - Do not use the words people are saying, but try to see what is
behind people’s perspective on a product
- Evaluate underlying reasons to why someone gave a
certain answer
- Even more vague than the experiential
- QR is underpinned by ontological assumptions
- QR is mostly based on the critical realism school of thought
- We can’t be completely relativist because we have a shared
reality, but we have different perspective on that reality
- Relativism neglects that shared reality we live in
- QR is underpinned by epistemological assumptions
- QR is mostly based on contextualism
- The result depends on who is conducting and answering the
research
- Knowledge is constantly evolving and the context is important
in understanding how we see the knowledge we have
- QR involves qualitative methodology
- Different levels that you can see how QR is carried out
- Paradigm
- A broad perspective on how we think on perspective
and knowledge
- Methodology
- Guidelines on collecting and analysing data
- Theoretical framework that guides you
- Methods/ Techniques
- It is the way you actually collect your data
- QR uses all sorts of data
- Photos, movies, interviews, texts, etc., everything can be used as data
- Important question: when is the data relevant to the research?
- Rich data: why people answered like this
- It has to be related to the research question
- QR involves ‘thinking qualitatively’
- Listening is more important than talking
- Try to understand meaning
- Testing commercials is a very common form of qualitative research
- Asking audience what they think about the commercial and their attitude
towards it
- What you need to become a qualitative researcher (chapter 1)
- Interest in process and meaning
- Interested in what people think
- Critical approach to life and knowledge
- Asking how and why people answered a certain question in the way
they did
- Eyes and ears
- Observation is important
- Reflexivity
- Reflecting on your role as a qualitative researcher
- Good interactional skills
- Because you constantly work with people, you have to know how to
act in order to make them comfortable
- What is Qualitative research (table 1.1, p4)
- Using words as data
- Not numbers, you evaluate experiences
- Meanings
- Interpretation is key
- Rich data
- Detailed answers are more important than a big sample
- Theory generating
, - Do not develop hypothesis before gathering data (opposite process
from quantitative)
- Big and Small Q
- We use the small Q in qualitative research
Big Q Small Q
Paradigm Techniques
perspective Mixed method
- Beecause communication science is so interdisciplinary, we usually use the
small Q process.
- Persuasive and entertainment communication are the fields that use QR the
most
- 10 fundamentals of QR (chapter 2)
- QR is about meaning, not numbers
- Try to understand each participant’s way of thinking
- QR doesn’t provide a single answer
- When you give a good argumentation, your answer can be explained
- Each researcher can provide a different analysis of the data
- We use our own backgrounds
- You have freedom on how you use data
- It can be vague, but it increases creativity
- QR teats context as important
- Everything is produced in a specific context
- People living in different contexts will have a different perspective of a
product
- Same with the researchers analysing the data
- QR can be experiential or critical
- Experiential
- The most used in communication science
- Focuses on each individual’s experience
- It is about understanding people
- Critical
- Not often used in communication science
, - Do not use the words people are saying, but try to see what is
behind people’s perspective on a product
- Evaluate underlying reasons to why someone gave a
certain answer
- Even more vague than the experiential
- QR is underpinned by ontological assumptions
- QR is mostly based on the critical realism school of thought
- We can’t be completely relativist because we have a shared
reality, but we have different perspective on that reality
- Relativism neglects that shared reality we live in
- QR is underpinned by epistemological assumptions
- QR is mostly based on contextualism
- The result depends on who is conducting and answering the
research
- Knowledge is constantly evolving and the context is important
in understanding how we see the knowledge we have
- QR involves qualitative methodology
- Different levels that you can see how QR is carried out
- Paradigm
- A broad perspective on how we think on perspective
and knowledge
- Methodology
- Guidelines on collecting and analysing data
- Theoretical framework that guides you
- Methods/ Techniques
- It is the way you actually collect your data
- QR uses all sorts of data
- Photos, movies, interviews, texts, etc., everything can be used as data
- Important question: when is the data relevant to the research?
- Rich data: why people answered like this
- It has to be related to the research question
- QR involves ‘thinking qualitatively’
- Listening is more important than talking
- Try to understand meaning
