ITECH5500

Professional Research and

Communication
Week 4

• Qualitative Research

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Federation University Australia acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the
lands and waters where our campuses, centres and field stations are located
and I pay my respects to Elders past, present and emerging. I extend this
respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and First Nations Peoples.

• Ballarat: Wadawurrung

• Berwick: Boon Wurrung and Wurundjeri

• Brisbane: Turrbal and Jagera

• Gippsland: Gunai Kurnai

• Nanya Station: Mutthi Mutthi and Barkindji

• Wimmera: Wotjobaluk, Jaadwa,

Jadawadjali, Wergaia and Jupagulk Stretch Reconciliation Action Plan artwork by Josh Muir and Shanaya Sheridan

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This week’s topics
• An overview of research paradigms and methodologies
• An introduction to qualitative research
• What is qualitative research?
• When to use it?
• Qualitative research methodologies

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Research paradigms and methodologies
• Our choice of research question will help determine the appropriate research
paradigm to be used
• A paradigm is:
• A way of thinking about the world
• A set of assumptions, concepts, values and practices shared by a
community (e.g. by researchers within a particular discipline area)
• The choice of paradigm will influence the design of the research methodology
• Broadly, there are two main paradigms:
• quantitative research
• qualitative research
• these can also be combined (mixed methods research)

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Research Philosophies
• The two paradigms arise from two different philosophical views regarding the
nature of knowledge (sometimes referred to as epistemologies)
• Positivism assumes that there is a single universal truth
• This truth can be established through careful, scientific observation of the
world
• The truth is independent of the observer – the observations can only be
interpreted in one way
• Associated with the quantitative research paradigm
• Interpretivism (or relativism) assumes that there are multiple truths
• All knowledge is interpreted by the observer
• Different observers may have different interpretations of the same
observations, and these are all valid
• Associated with the qualitative research paradigm

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Quantitative Research
• Based on the positivist philosophy (i.e. “there is a universal truth which we
can establish through observation)
• As indicated by the name, it is primarily concerned with gathering and
interpreting quantitative (numerical) data
• Research methods are based on carrying out observations and counting or
measuring various properties of the phenomenon being observed
• Might be based on observing actual phenomena
• Might be based on controlled experiments

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Quantitative Research
• Strongly associated with the use of the scientific method, and statistical
analysis of results (more on this in later weeks)
• There is often a hypothesis which is being tested to establish whether it is
true or false
• Often involves a large-number of measurements to support the use of
statistical methods
• Widely used in technical areas of IT research such as artificial intelligence and
machine learning, networking, image processing etc
• Areas where controlled experiments can be carried out, and observations
can be measured

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Examples of Quantitative Research Questions
• Machine learning: “Does a decision tree outperform an artificial neural
network in terms of accuracy and learning speed on the standard benchmark
datasets from the UCI repository?”
• Or alternatively “What are the characteristics of the datasets for which a
decision tree outperforms an artificial neural network in terms of accuracy
and learning speed?”
• Networking: “Is the energy consumption of mobile devices reduced when
using our proposed new protocol for ad hoc networks compared to the existing
IEEE standard protocol?”
• IT education: “Does using a visual programming language rather than a
textual language improve the mean examination score of first-year
programming students?”
• Image processing: “What is the mean reduction in file-size when using our
proposed image compression algorithm rather than standard JPEG
compression?”
• IT industry: “What % of the IT industry workforce in Australia are female?”

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Qualitative Research
• Based on the interpretivist/relativist philosophy (i.e the output will be the
researchers’ interpretation of a phenomenon, rather than an absolute truth)
• Based on textual rather than numeric data
• ‘textual’ here could mean actual text, or speech, video etc
• Primary concern is with understanding phenomena
• Why rather than what
• Research tends to be exploratory, with open research questions rather than
closed hypotheses
• May identify hypothesis to subsequently be tested by quantitative research

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Qualitative Research
• Success defined by finding something new, rather than confirming something
that was suspected
• Will often be a more in-depth look at fewer subjects
• Research co-constructs new knowledge with subjects
• Thus paradigm also known as constructivism
• Commonly used in information systems research – focused on human factors
which can be difficult to measure

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Examples of Qualitative Research Questions
• “What are the experiences of information technology undergraduates during
industry placements?”
• “How does being the experience of being griefed impact on the wellbeing of
players of online roleplaying games?”
• “What is regarded as best practice regarding change management within the
Australian IT industry?”

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Choosing a Research Methodology
• What sort of researcher are you?
e.g. Explorative, Descriptive or Explanatory? (Research Questions?)
• What assumptions about nature of existence do you (or your discipline)
hold? Ontology
e.g. Scientific rationalist or humanist interpretive
• What information counts as valid ? Epistemology
e.g. Positivist or Phenomenological
• What approach to theory are you taking?
e.g. Inductive or Deductive?

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Aspects of Research Methodology
Quantitative
Positivism

Theoretical aspect of methodology

Deductive

experiment survey

case
Secondary data study
Observation
Interviews
Questionnaires
grounded
theory

Practical aspects of methodology –

action research ethnography research strategy

Inductive

Qualitative Interpretivism

The Research Onion

Adapted from Saunders (2009)

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Quantitative Research Design

Design Element Description Example Technique(s)

Theoretical perspective The researcher's Positivist
philosophical,
epistemological, and
ontological premises
Methodology General logic and Survey
theoretical perspective Experimental
underlying the choice and etc...
use of particular methods
Method(s) Refers to the specific Sampling
techniques or procedures Measurement and scaling
used to gather the data etc...

15

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Qualitative Research Design

Design Element Description Example Technique(s)

Theoretical perspective The researcher's Interpretivism
philosophical,
epistemological, and
ontological premises
Methodology General logic and Ethnography
theoretical perspective Grounded theory
underlying the choice and Phenomenology
use of particular methods Phenomenography etc...
Method(s) Refers to the specific Interviews
techniques or procedures Observation
used to gather the data Focus groups
Case study
Narrative etc...
16

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 Differs from quantitative?
Quantitative Qualitative
Deductive Inductive
Objective Constructed, Observer involved
Focus on variable Focus on meaning
Many participants Fewer Participants
Statistical Analysis Thematic analysis
Highly structured More loosely structured
Generalizable Not necessarily generalisable
Specific Holistic
Differences in Research Design
Longitudinal Cross-sectional or longitudinal
Multi-method Single method

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 Qualitative vs Quantitative

Qualitative Quantitative

Theory Theory
Building Testing

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What is qualitative research?
• Can define either in terms of its aim, or its methods:
• Aims: Research interested in understanding the meaning people have
constructed, that is, how people make sense of their world and the
experiences they have in the world (Merriam, 2009)
• Methods: Research which uses qualitative (textual) rather than quantitative
(numerical) data

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What is qualitative research?
• Provides information about the “human” side of an issue – the behaviours,
beliefs, opinions, emotions, and relationships of individuals.
• Qualitative methods are also effective in identifying intangible factors, such as
social norms, socioeconomic status, gender roles, ethnicity, and religion
• Gaining a rich and complex understanding of a specific social context or
phenomenon typically takes precedence over eliciting data that can be
generalized to other geographical areas or populations
• Broadly speaking, qualitative approaches are most common in investigation of
the social and human aspects of technology, whereas quantitative approaches
are used for more technically-focused research

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Strengths of qualitative research
• Gives participants the opportunity to respond in their own words, rather than
forcing them to choose from fixed responses.
• Allows for flexibility in the investigation rather than assessing pre-defined
hypotheses
• The researcher can follow up on interesting points which arise in initial
responses
• “Qualitative methods facilitate study of issues in depth and detail and typically
produce a wealth of information about a much smaller number of people and
cases. This increases the depth of understanding of the cases and situations
studied” (Patton, 2002, p. 14)

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When to use qualitative research?
• When the issues being investigated are not easily or reliably measurable
• When the issues relate to human factors, social influences etc
• When the is little existing understanding of the topic area
• Initial qualitative studies may lead to later, more tightly focused quantitative
studies
• When it suits your skills as a researcher
• People-focused
• Good at communication (talking, and particularly listening)

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Qualitative Research Methodologies
• Thematic Analysis
• Grounded Theory
• Phenomenology
• Ethnography
• Narrative Analysis
• … and many more

• Share many common properties – there is significant overlap between these

methodologies
• Differ in terms of the source of information (the ‘texts’ studied), the
assumptions made about existing knowledge, and the way in which the data is
analysed
• We’ll look at the first two in details, then touch more briefly on the others to
point out differences

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Thematic Analysis
• Most common form of analysis in qualitative studies

• A data analysis method

• Used to categorise data in an attempt to find patterns with the aim of

identifying themes

• Data “coded” by applying labels

• Used with qualitative research methodologies such as grounded theory and

phenomenology

• Both inductive and deductive analysis used

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Thematic Analysis
• Codes
• Labels used to describe pieces of the data

• Themes
• Recurring patterns in the data
• Developed from the codes

• For example
• SECURITY – a code
• FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY – a theme

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Thematic Analysis
• 6 Phases

• Familiarisation with data

• Generating initial codes

• Searching for themes

• Reviewing themes

• Defining and naming themes

• Producing a final report

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1- Familiarisation with data

• Read and reread the data until comfortable with it

• Make use of a reflexivity journal

• Describe initial codes

• Have a start list of codes before reading interviews

• Have a detailed description of the codes

• Transcribe into written form

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Reflexivity Journal
• Qualitatitive research is constructivist

• Researcher involved in the construction of knowledge

• The researcher’s initial feelings and biases might influence results and
the researcher must be upfront about them

• A reflexive journal is a type of reflective journal

• Kept by the researcher to keep a record of his/her own perception of

how the research is going

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2- Generating initial codes
• An initial list of items of recurring patterns
• Called coding

• A cyclical process
• Not linear

• Need to go beyond surface meanings

• Data reduction or simplification

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3- Searching for Themes

• Analysis of potential codes

• How do codes combine to form themes?

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4- Reviewing themes
• Search for data that supports or refutes proposed theory

• Search themes for coherent patterns

• Revise themes

• New themes develop

• Some existing themes collapse

• Two levels for refining themes

• Level 1

• Level 2

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4- Reviewing themes – Level 1
• Use when themes are problematic

• If they don’t seem to work

• If they don’t seem to form coherent patterns

• If there is no significant overlap between themes

• If themes are problematic they need to be reworked. You might find that new
themes emerge

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4- Reviewing themes – Level 2
• Use when themes appear to work – to be coherent
• Consider the validity of individual themes
• Cross check the data to ensure it accurately represents the themes
• New themes may emerge
• If the mapping of themes appears to work move to phase 5
• Otherwise return to the data and continue review
• Iterative process- revising themes and revisiting data until convinced
that the thematic map and data match

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5– Defining and naming themes

• Gives the themes meaning

• Enables reader to gain understanding of the themes

• To consider the themes within the whole picture

• Enables the identification of sub-themes

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6– Producing the report
• Decide on themes relevant to the research question

• Provide a “thick description” of results

• In other words, explain the themes in a meaningful context

• Needs to justify your analysis to the reader

• Will they find your analysis valid?
• Will they find that your themes are relevant to the data?

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Advantages & Disadvantages
• Flexibility – multiple theories can be applied

• Well suited to large data sets

• Allows researchers to expand range of study past individual experience

• Great for multiple researchers

• Interpretation of themes supported by data

• Allows categories to emerge from data

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Disadvantages
• Flexibility makes it difficult to concentrate on particular aspects of the data

• Discovery and verification of themes and codes mesh together

• Limited interpretive power

• Difficult to maintain sense of continuity of data in individual accounts

• Does not allow researchers to make claims about language usage.

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Two great youtube videos
• An 11 minute video which shows an explicit example of how codes are
identified, themes developed and an analysis written
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68fEOQ5dDeM

• Further, make time to also look at this 17 minute video which gives a general
idea of how to code data from a health perspective
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opp5tH4uD-w

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Methodology/Method?
• The terms have become very conflicted. For example, terms like
“action research”, “phenomenology” and “thematic analysis”
are labelled as a methodologies or methods depending upon
which resource you look at.
• A methodology is the overarching framework in which research
is conducted.
• Methods are tools/techniques specific to answering a particular
research question
• The following reference is a good guide to differentiating
between the terms
http://simplyeducate.me/2015/02/15/what-is-the-difference-between-
method-and-methodology/

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Sources of Qualitative Data
• Data sources can be:
• primary (gathered by the researcher themselves), or
• secondary (using data previously gathered for other purposes than this research
project)
• Existing texts (e.g. literature, company reports, newspaper articles, blog
posts etc)
• Open-ended questions on surveys
• Interviews (face-to-face, by phone, online audio or video, via email etc)
• The choice of medium may impact on the results
• Focus-groups
• Similar to interviews but with multiple participants
• Allows for new concepts to emerge during group discussion
• Case studies
• Participant observation

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Designing a Qualitative Research Project
• Identify the topics and research questions to be explored
• Identify potential sources of data
• What is available as secondary data?
• What approaches to generating primary data are most suitable for your
questions?
• If doing surveys, interviews etc decide on who will be included and why;
how will they be recruited; what questions will be asked
• Choose a methodology for analysing the data.
• This choice must be justified – why is it appropriate for the type of
questions and data which you are working with?

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Tools for Qualitative Research
• Qualitative research can generate large amounts of data, in a variety of
formats; text, images, audio, video etc
• These need to be stored in a way which makes them easy to locate and
search
• We also need to be able to mark up these documents with codes and themes
as we carry out our analysis
• We will want to be able to search by codes, extract relevant sections of text
etc
• Traditionally this might have been done by physically marking up printed
copies of the texts
• These days many tools exist for supporting qualitative research
• e.g. Nvivo, Quirkos, etc
• The choice of tool may be based on how well it matches your chosen
analysis methodology
• Federation University has licenses for Nvivo for research staff and students

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Summary of Week 4
• Overview of research paradigms and methodologies
• Overview of qualitative research
• Characteristics, strengths and suitability
• Research methodologies
• Data sources and tools

• Next week:
Quantitative research methodologies

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