Summary Qualitative Research Practice A Guide for Social Science Students and Researchers

A snapshot of the summary - Qualitative Research Practice A Guide for Social Science Students and Researchers Author: Jane Ritchie Jane Lewis Professor of Social Policy Jane Lewis Carol McNaughton Nicholls Rachel Ormston ISBN: 9781446296202

• 1 Foundations of qualitative research

• 1.2.1 Ontology

• Ontology is about realism and idealism. What is realism?

  External reality does exist -> objectivism
• What are the three levels of realism?

  - empirical - senses
  - actual - observing
  - real - processes and mechanism

• 1.2.2 Epistemology

• What is, according to blaikie (2007) the nature of knowledge or truth?

  - foundational
  - fallibilistic - provisional (tijdelijk)
  - value-mediated knowledge
  - correspondence theory of truth - obserervation is equal with  reality
  - coherence theory of truth - multiuple researchers have same result
  - pragmatic theory of truth - beleifs are true if they have practical utility

• 1.3 Positivism and the scientific method

• What is post-positivism/post-empiricism/falsification? (Popper)

  Reality can be known approximately but not for sure. Hypothesis are made and compared with observation
• What is the reasoning of postivism/empiricism?

  Inductive reasoning - emprical facts
• What is the reasoning of post-positivism?

  Deductive, it is tested against observations

• 1.4.1 interpretivism and the origins of qualitative research

• What is the reasoning of interpretivism?

  Inductive reasoning, but observations are mediated by ideas and assumptions

• 1.4.2 advancement and diversification of qualitative research

• Discourse analysis - ethnography

  Sociologie - how knowledge is produced at different levels
• Personal construct theory

  Phycology - pshycologis construct people use to give meaning to their thought and behaviour
• Narrative/biographical methods

  Focuses on individual stories to get breadth and depth (cross-disciplinairy)