Maxwell’s Chapter 2: Setting Goals

When we talk about goals we mean motives, desires and purposes. Goals answer two main actual functions: Guide the design decisions, and justifying the relevance of the whole study (page 23).

According to the author there are three main kinds of goals in a proper study.

Personal goals refer to the things that matter to the researcher in a subjective way. Trying to avoid or ignore them is whether futile or just counterproductive. When researchers try to hide their personal goals to others, they often feel that only they are failing to live up to the goal of scientific neutrality (page 25). On the other hand, the lack of personal goals would cut a major source of insights; therefore it’s highly recommendable to systematically monitor the researchers’ personal goals, their subjectivity (page 28). Most importantly, the lack of personal goals would severely diminish the motivation of the researcher, which plays a major role in any long distance race such as a research study. Another important feature of personal goals is how they help to answer the question “Why do I want to do a qualitative study?”. It is a key question to check the compatibility and pertinence of other goals, the research question and the actual activities involved in doing the qualitative study all together (page 26).

Practical goals such as administrative or policy goals are focused on accomplishing some need or specific objective. Maxwell argues that the research question has to ask directly about how to accomplish those practical goals. The researcher needs to frame the research question in ways that help the study achieve the practical goals. This issue, along with the intellectual goals will be developed in Chapter 4.

Goals that Qualitative Research Help you Achieve

Quantitative and qualitative research methods have different strengths and logics. A key difference between the two approaches is the distinction between “variance theory” and “process theory”. Quantitative research tends to see the world in terms of variables and statistical relationships between them. Process theory however tends to see the world in terms of people, situations, events and the process that connects these. This process implies an inductive approach and emphasis on descriptions rather than numbers (page 30). These elements influence the king of intellectual goals most convenient for a qualitative research method; such as the meaning of certain events or experiences, the features and influences of contexts on people, the processes by which events take place, the identification of unanticipated phenomena, and developing causal explanations for them (page 31).

The author also points out that researchers need to recognize the innate difference between qualitative and quantitative research methods: quantitative research tends to focus on whether there is a direct correlation between variable x and y, whereas qualitative research technique the researchers explore to which degree variable x play a role in causing y. Regardless of the differences of techniques, both approaches need to identify and situate threats to validity. (Page 31, the author further discusses this topic in Chapter 6)

Another goal that qualitative research helps you achieve is generating results and theories for the service of the people you are studying and future researchers. The results have to be clear, credible and understandable. Furthermore, the research should strive to achieve to improve the existing practices, protocols, or policies regarding the field/topic you are studying and not just reiterate the facts of the relationship between two variables. This technique is called “formative evaluation” (Page 32). It is more important to comprehend the processes that happen in your research and how the participants of your research understand it, than to excessively compare and contrast the situation of your study to others to establish a comparison (Page 32). Lastly, it is important to engage in grassroots and community-lead action with the participants to further create allegiance and solidarity with the community you are doing the work with.

To help us put the discussion of research goals into context, look at Example 2.3 – “Deciding on A Dissertation Topic” on page 33. This example describes the process one doctoral student took with regards to deciding on a topic for her dissertation. The issues the student, Isabel, took were her motivation to pursue her study, the responsibility she felt on making the research. She also expressed that she chose to disregard other people’s opinion on her to keep her centered and focused on her research.

Chapter five expands on the five different qualitative studies by giving example to each method—narrative, phenomenological, grounded theory, ethnographic, and a case study. We will discuss each study by elaborating on the key highlights of the discussion.

A Narrative Study: “Living in the Space between Participant and Researcher as a Narrative Inquirer: Examining Ethnic Identity of Chinese Canadian Students as Conflicting Studies to Live By” – Appendix B

Elaine Chan, who is an assistant professor of Diversity and Curriculum Studies at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, conducted a two-year long study at a Toronto middle school following the experiences of Ai Mei Zhang, an immigrant student from China in a close-examination setting. Chan used school-based narrative inquiry to research the ways in which expectations of academic performance and social behavior by teachers, peers at school, and parents at home played out in the life of an immigrant student. Ai Mei immigrated ot Canada five years prior to the start of the study and she did not speak a single word of English when she moved. In the discussion of the study in Appendix B, Chan reveals that Ai Mei experienced bullying and pressures from her peers, along with experiencing conflicting sentiments from her family, and acquaintances.

Chan has used narrative inquiry to explore the “interaction of student, teacher, and parent narratives, a story of interwoven lives” (page 304, Appendix B) in a Canadian context where she and her family are first generation immigrants. The researcher has also partaken in the family life of Ai Mei, and particularly notes the influence- for better or worse, Ai Mei’s mother had on her self-esteem and participation in the Toronto cultural platform. Chan states: “The interaction between Ai Mei and her mother highlighted the potential for tensions to develop when expressing differences in perspective about the value of certain kinds of behaviors over others” (Page 314) Ai Mei’s mother has criticized her for being too short, or not for helping her with household chores and Chan argues that this effected her self-esteem and could hinder her immersion into the multicultural English-speaking Toronto cultural landscape during her school-formation years. Chan also researched Ai Mei’s positionality within the classroom as she observed Chan during every homeroom classes for two-years straight. Chan also participated in school field trips, class activities, and other collective experiences that Ai Mei was a part of.

The method and approach of narrative inquiry, as Chan states: “facilitated the identification of the many nuances of living as an immigrant student in a North American school contest, and provided a framework in which to ponder these complexities.” (page 318) The narrative approach, as we see, close-examined a singular experience of one immigrant student, yet offers an indicative example to the experiences of immigrant students anywhere. In the conclusion part of her study (page 322), Chan puts forward that this study can offer tremendous value of insight to educators and policy makers who need to be well-versed and informed about students who come from immigrant backgrounds and to best accommodate their needs to succeed in both academic, and social life.

A Phenomenological Study—Cognitive Representations of Aids (Appendix C)

This study, conducted on a sample of 58 people- of which 41 were men and 17 were women, aimed to unpack the ways in which people who live with AIDS imagine their disease, and how these can be useful in understanding the medication adherence and other health behaviors of the individuals. The researchers E. Anderson and Margaret Spencer, studies 58 individuals and surveyed them to get statements regarding their experiences living with AIDS. Out of 175 statements, they concluded 11 themes, which were evaluated through the phenomenological point of research. In phenomenology, the researchers transcends the precedent knowledge and research in order to understand the phenomenon at a deeper level: they attempt to approach the issues with a sense of “newness” in order to pull out data that is more indicative and significant. (Page 331)

In this study, Anderson and Spencer used the Self-Regulation Model of Illness Representation, meaning that the patients are the “active problem solvers whose behavior is a product of their cognitive and emotional responses to a health threat” (Page 328). After surveying and interviewing the patients about their conception of their condition, they specified the attributes to illness representation under five categories: 1)identity, 2) time line, 3) perceived cause, 4)consequences, 5)controllability. By looking at the attributes, researchers were able to hypothesize how these findings could indicate an adherence to therapeutic regiments, engaging in high-risk sexual and safety behaviors, and an overall enhanced quality of life.

Amongst the participants, some focused on the final outcome of death by AIDS, while others treated AIDS as a chronic illness such as cancer or diabetes. The difference in attitudes and approach indicate a relationship with their condition. Participants who expressed pessimism and hopelessness has a different relationship to coping with their condition than participants who were more optimistic and hopeful of their condition. Examples of such approaches include someone describing their experience as a “skeleton crying” (page 335), or “death, just death” (page 333), while others chose to forget or push aside their condition. Another group of participants were able to recoup with their condition with time, or chose to turn to a higher power. The study concluded that the ways in which a person imagines AIDS might “influence medication adherence, high-risk behavior, and quality of life” (page 344)

Grounded theory approach consists of face to face interviews and uses the Strauss & Corbin approach (117).  This approach consists of “coding, concept development, constant comparisons between data and the emerging concepts, and the formulation of a theoretical model.”  According to the researcher, the grounded theory is the phase in which you develop your theory.  This is where a behavior process is understood and analyzed in order to develop the theoretical model which advances phases (117).

Defining features of a grounded theory approach include: understanding a behavior process, and then watching a theory emerge.  This theory helps develop the framework for the study.  The collection of data includes conducting a plethora of face to face interviews.  Data is analyzed using the Strauss and Corbin approach.

3 Theoretical phases in the behavioral process of integrating activity into a lifestyle: An initiation phase A transition phase Integration phase

Ethnographic study is useful for studying culture sharing groups. This is where you can take data sources, analyze the data and identify themes.  Themes are developed in order to understand how subcultures work. (pg. 118)

For example, in (Haefnler, 2004; see Appendix E), the researcher used the Ethnographic method for researching the lifestyle of the “straight edge movement”.  The researcher’s ethnographic data included interviews with members of the group, researcher participated in movement, gathered music lyrics from popular culture music, and analyzed behaviors and beliefs in order to understand the culture.

Core elements of ethnography include (119): identifying your study (finding your culture sharing group), describing the group in terms of its members and then using this knowledge to create a theme about the behavior of the group.  You will want to find the appropriate theory that applies to your ethnographic study, and figure out the critical approach to take.

During an ethnography study, the researcher must position oneself in the study: observer or participant? This researcher participated in the movement of his study. The researcher also engaged in fieldwork by engaging in in-depth interviews with members of the movement.  Here you also analyze emic & etic data. Emic data is how people “think”, how they perceive and categorize the world, and etic data focuses from the local observations, categories, etc to those of the anthropologist.

In a case study, you analyze data for a specific theme. This data is aggregated into large clusters of ideas, and providing specific details that supports the theme (p.293).  Case studies use one specific case that could be applicable to other similar cases. The intent of the case study is not to just be completely intrinsic/ it could be used to look at other similar cases involving a similar subculture. (pg. 120) (ex: a case of gun violence in one school which can be looked at in a larger picture). A case analysis can be ended by presenting assertions using collected data responses.  Assertions can also be grounded in literature support.  The literature can be “a larger explanation for our descriptive and thematic analyses.” (pg. 121).

Differences Among the Approaches

This section of Chapter 5 helps differentiate the 5 approaches to conducting a qualitative study by highlighting the central purpose of each one.  Table 5.1 (p. 122) illustrates the focus of each approach by breaking them down to their basic principles.  A narrative study will focus on an individual who illustrates a particular experience by gathering data though observations and conversations (See p. 112 for the narrative study on Ai Mei Zhang). Phenomenological studies are rooted in the lived experience, or essence, of the individuals studied through interviews like in Anderson and Spencer’s study on AIDS patients (p. 114).  Grounded Theory involves the creation of a theory through data collected and organized relative to a theoretical model. Ethnographic studies focus on culture-sharing groups and their behaviors, like sXe movement (p. 118). A case study focuses on an issue and the surrounding details that contributed to or led up to the issue.

The main way to effectively understand and employ each of the five approaches is to think about what your study intends to accomplish. The context of your idea for a study would help point you in the right direction as to which approach to take.  Other factors to consider when choosing an approach to your  study are outlined on page 124.   These factors include audience opinion, your qualifications and comfort as a researcher, and scholarly contribution to the specific field you are studying.

The importance of understanding each of these approaches is critical to the work  we’ll be doing because the data collection is different for each approach and the work the researcher does with  the data  varies also. As discussed in class, the approaches are employed as a means to show what exactly we are trying to research.   Fittingly, it is important to find the smaller, more refined research question out of the bigger ideas we initially have.