This document discusses qualitative research methods and interpretive frameworks for advanced fieldwork. It outlines different types of qualitative investigations including ethnography, case studies, grounded theory, and more. Key characteristics of outstanding qualitative research are described such as having clearly stated purposes and representing all major stakeholders. Fundamental philosophical questions about the nature of reality, knowledge, and methodology are examined. Phenomenology as both a school of thought and methodology is explored, focusing on phenomena as they appear rather than speculative thinking. Data gathering, analysis, collection strategies, and potential research products are outlined.

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.