1. Advanced Fieldwork
Methods and
Interpretive
Frameworks
Paul J. Ilsley
Hämeenlinna Education Center
of Tampere University
14.10.2003
paul.ilsley@helsinki.fi

2. Selected Types of
Qualitative
Investigations
 Straight ethnography
 Narrative Analysis
 Case study
 Constructivism
 Critical theory
 Participatory research
 Grounded theory
 Biography
 Art-as-research
 Other

3. Characteristics of
Outstanding Qualitative
Research
 Honest and open, clearly stated
purposes.
 Intended to make a difference.
 Researcher’s stake is understood.
 All major stakeholders are represented.
 Holistic understanding.
 Detailed understanding about
relationships and contexts.
 Creative, interesting presentation.
 Congruence of purpose, data collection,
analysis, conceptual base, and product.

4. Fundamental
Philosophic Questions
 What is the nature of reality? The
Ontology.
 What is the relationship between
the knower and what can be
known? The Epistemology.
 What are the limits to our methods
of inquiry? The Methodology.

5. Phenomenology
“To the things
themselves”  Both a school of thought and a
methodology.
 Considers both the properties of a
phenomenon and the way we behold it.
 Attends to the things themselves.
 Rejects psychologism, or other forms of
pre-supposition.
 Is a platform that leads to inductive
assertions, even theory.
 Treats causality very carefully, if at all.
Just what is
“causality?”

6. Cultural Phenomena
 A phenomenon is a thing (a
quality, an event, a relation, a state
of affairs, or object) as it appears
to us.
 There are philosophical limits as to
how much we know about the way
things really are.
 Perceptions and interpretations
drive the research.

7. Philosophical Points of
Qual R
 Qualitative researchers tend to oppose
the acceptance of unobservable matters,
grand systems, or speculative thinking.
 Qualitative Research is an investigation
into contexts.
 Qualitative research focuses upon
objects, subjects, and occurrences as
they are encountered, in context.
 Human Action can be seen through
relationships, according to peoples’
 Choices.
 Free Will.
 Meaning structures.

8. A Phenomenologically-
Based Qualitative
Inquiry
 Remains fixed on observable
matters.
 Focuses on the subjective, the
interpreted, worldview.
 What is discovered is inseparable
from the way one got there.
 Requires a systematic
disengagement to
methodologically explore what is
disclosed.

9. How are Academic
Research Topics
Selected?
 Individual passions,interests, and
quests,
 Guided by the current state of the
field.
Therefore…
 Researchers need to know their
interests,
 And the state of the literature.

10. Data Gathering
 Data gathering includes interviewing,
observation, document analysis, focus
groups, narrative analysis, historical
analysis, artistic analysis, artifact
analysis, reflective insight,
autobiographical insight, contextual
analysis, comparative analysis,
phenomenological insight, among others.
 But it’s mostly interviewing and reflective
insight.

11. Data Analysis
 Data analysis includes, among
others, comparisons of within and
like types, meaning structure
analysis, value analysis, normative
analysis, essentialities analysis.
 But mostly it’s meaning structure
analysis.

12. Data Collection and Data
Analysis
 One is inseparable from the other.
 The search for congruence
between the two.
 Data collection strategies change
over the course of an investigation.
 Keeping a journal is an essential
aspect of the research.

13. State-of-the-Art
Methodologies
 Digital video.
 Digital audio.
 Advanced Web searching.
 Multiple media presentation.
 Computer-based data storage and
retrieval programs, i.e., Nudist, N-
Vivo, Ethnograph, Qualrus.
 Participant involvement.

14. Potential Products
 Theory
 Thick description.
 Model building.
 Political action plans.

15. Words to think
about……
 Objectivity
 Subjectivity
 Causality
 Contextual relevance
 Cultural relevance
 Epistemology
 Ontology
 Induction
 Deduction
 Functionalism
 Interpretivism
 Existentialism
 Essentialism

16. Apprehending General
Essences- An Exercise
 Finding constituents of
investigation. Three types:
 Essential.
 Important.
 Merely Present.