Introduction to Advance Qualitative Methods

© 2022 Breaking Binaries Research. All rights reserved.
Introduction to
Advanced Qualitative Methods
Katrina Pritchard & Helen Williams
breakingbinariesresearch.wordpress.com
@ProfKPritchar
d
@HelenCWilliams
k.l.pritchard@swansea.ac.uk helen.c.williams@swansea.ac.uk

Welcome
About advanced qualitative methods
Visual methods taster session (incl Q&A)
Material methods taster session (incl Q&A)
Wrap up & Q&A
SESSION
PLAN

About us
&
About our work
We are not covering Thematic Analysis
as Braun and Clarke have this covered!
Welcome

the pull
Ever-
notions of the
neoliberal self
Sustainability,
ethics and
inclusivity
Digitalization
and our
multimodal
Complex and
diverse grand
challenges
‘Permacrisis’
(covid, cost of
Ukraine)

Tiring of the quantitative vs qualitative battle fought in
terms
Recognising limitations of formulaic qualitative studies
Data reification & obsession with big data (Markham, 2018)
Ontological/epistemological challenge of post-qualitative
(St Pierre, 2019)
Recognising the historic framing of research and questioning
socio-historical production of knowledge (Liu, 2020)
Reprioritising fundamental concepts such as temporality and
materiality in research
the push

Time (past,
present,
future)
Place
virtual,
Community
(social, work)
Individual/
Traditional qualitative
methods focus basic
relational aspects here and
their textual representation
Advanced qualitative methods
allow more complexity and
highlight other modalities.

Participant
experience
Research
interview
Data
themes

Participant
experience
Research
interview
Phenomenological
analysis of
interview &
material outcomes
from the interview
Material
methods
Material Methods Taster Session

Organization
Documents
Data
themes
Organization
Websites

Organization
Documents
Data
themes
Organization
Websites
Textual & Visual
Representations
via online
media
Discursive
Analysis
Visual
Analysis
Visual Methods Taster Session

Welcome
Visual methods taster session
Material methods taster session
Wrap up & Q&A
SESSION
PLAN

Visual methods: why study images?
‘media spectacle’
(Tan, 2011)
‘cultural text[s]’
(Milestone & Meyer,
2012)
‘mediascapes’
(Banet-Weiser, 2018)
‘shifting relationship between word and
image’
(Rämö, 2011)
spread and flow of aesthetic assets
reinforces a cultural market place driven
by capitalist logic (Bergeron, 2001).
Images
generated
through/ within
research
Images curated
through
research

Visual methods: research so far
HRM
 234 Stock images
 Developed ‘Combined
Visual Analysis’ (CVA)
methodology
Pritchard, K. (2020). Examining web
images: a combined visual analysis
approach. European Management
Review, 17(1), 297-310.
Ageing
 Images from online news
media
 Davison’s Portrait Codes
 Group photo-elicitation
Pritchard, K., & Whiting, R. (2015).
Taking stock: A visual analysis of
gendered ageing. Gender, Work
& Organization, 22(5), 510-528.
Entrepreneurship
o 248 online images
o Applied CVA + Davison’s
portrait codes, analysis of
gaze & gesture
Pritchard, K, Williams, H.C &
Miller, M.C. (2022) Tracing
networked images of gendered
entrepreneurship online.
Gender, Work & Organization
29(6) 1779-1795

Visual methods: tracing images online
Search
Top Ten
Search
related
images
Categorisation
and tags
Image Library Digital Space
Search Engine Digital Space
Text &
add’l
images
Online
media
use
Online Media Digital Spaces
START HERE
Entrepreneurship
o 248 online images
o Applied CVA + Davison’s
portrait codes, analysis of
gaze & gesture
Pritchard, K, Williams, H.C &
Miller, M.C. (2022) Tracing
networked images of gendered
entrepreneurship online.
Gender, Work & Organization
29(6) 1779-1795

Visual methods: analytic combinations
Portrait
Analysis
(Davison, 2010)
Physical, Dress,
Interpersonal,
Spatial Codes
Combined Visual Analysis CVA (Pritchard, 2020)
Categorical Compositional Montage (what are these images of)
Thematic Compositional Analysis (how images constructed)
Semiotic Analysis (what might these images mean)
(cf Rose, 2016 re compositional analysis & Machin and Van Leeuwen (2016) re semiotic analysis)
Specific Visual features:
Gaze (e.g. Martinez, 2020) and Gesture (e.g. Kendon, 2004)
7

12
Visual methods: tracing image composition
Combined Visual Analysis CVA
Categorical Compositional Montage
Thematic Compositional Analysis
Semiotic Analysis

Visual methods: specific visual feature
Women’s hands:
highlight femininity,
hold inconsequential
objects, indicate
tiredness or
puzzlement
Men’s hands:
Fill/connect
spaces, underline
entrepreneurial
values: time and
money
Specific Visual features:
Gaze and Gesture

12
Visual methods: what have we learnt
Challenges
 Maintaining Reflexive engagement with
images
 Keeping the image central to analysis
 Practical issues of montage
 Challenges of limits to tracing images
 Instability of online environments
 Ethical & copyright complexity
 Perception of playing with pictures
Opportunities
 Encourages move away from lexical
perspectives in analysis
 Visual given appropriate recognition in
research
 Basis for moving to multimodal
perspective
 Engaging with methodological debates
beyond disciplinary boundaries
 Become alert to image use everywhere
(including by our institutions and in our
teaching)

Material methods: the material and creative
turn in research
 Reflexivity may offer the potential, as Rhodes (2009, p. 656) suggests,
“for research to recognise itself as creative practice”.
 Useful in understanding totalities of experiences, the aesthetics of
everyday lives.
 Aesthetic knowledge is ‘beyond words’ and reflects that organisational
life is multi-sensory (Ewenstein & Whyte, 2007, p. 689).
 Integrating the visual and verbal in such a way that neither can be
understood without each other (Meyer et al., 2013, p. 4).

Material methods: Problematising interviews
• Critical discussions continue to highlight the dominance of the ‘interview society’
(Atkinson & Silverman, 1997; Silverman, 2017).
• Interviewing has been too easy, too obvious, too little studied and too open to
providing a convenient launch pad for poor research (Potter & Hepburn, 2012, p. 555).
• Can we (as researchers) really do better than Oprah? (Silverman, 2017, p. 145).
• An interview ‘done well’ is reliant on interviewer skills – but what about the
interviewee? (Holstein & Gubrium, 2016; Cassell et al, 2019).

Material methods:
Object Interviews
(Woodward, 2020)
'Things’ to consider:
• Data elicitation tool (purpose)
• Role of objects - meanings are interactional
accomplishments (Holstein & Golbrium, 2016) and
therefore we must also consider the:
• role of researcher
• role of participant
• Logistics

 Set out the Lego on the table, using containers to organise. Provide
a ‘build area’ in the middle. You can ask the participant if they’d like
to help.
 Ask the participant to build and provide a name for their ‘Lego self’.
 Ask the participant to talk through their build and explain this is
how the interview will be structured. Explain that all Lego pieces
can be used as and when they wish, or not at all, there are no
boundaries in what can or can’t be built.
Material methods:
Step 1. Building Rapport

Material methods:
Step 2. Building talk
 Begin the interview, using question prompts and probes where
necessary.
 As models are being constructed encourage participants to talk
through constructions.
 Label each model with a description. Assign models a code to
identify the build order.
 Participants may deconstruct or reconstruct existing models.
Record all changes.

Material methods:
Step 3. Deconstructing talk
 Finally, invite participants to talk or build anything else they felt
was significant.
 Ensure time is taken to review all the Lego models constructed
(they will reflect the interview arc).
 Go through all the images taken to ensure participants are
happy and no identifiable features are present in them.
 Put the Lego away, participants may help which can form part of
the debrief.

Material methods: what have we learnt?
Opportunities
• Provides a tangible base for longitudinal
work.
• Data can be checked by participants and
model's can be rebuilt (which can aid
analysis).
• Using it within research teams - even
remotely – for reflexivity etc.
• Unpacking our assumptions about research
as a material practice, puts 'construction' of
data centre stage.
Challenges
• Practicalities need to be considered (cost,
transport, accessibility, space).
• Demands awareness of ‘your audience’.
• Academic identity - not regarded as
‘proper research’.
• Requires more ‘interview management’
(and thus a need for reflexivity).
• Requires thinking about your positionality
– not something you can just ‘pull off the
shelf’.

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