What I have learned in Qualitative Research Method course?

Finally it comes to the end of semester for this course. I always think that I wouldn't learn much from this course as my research area is not related to qualitative research. But I'm wrong. Professor Kerry has provided us a rich insight to the world of research in addition to the qualitative research method. I summarize a few key learning points from this course that I find very useful to PhD students and researchers.

(1) Rules of good research. A good research is fundamentally a good argument based on evidence, and has nothing to do with "truth".  Specifically, Kerry's rules for good research highlights that a good research should explore a problem that audience has interested in.

(2) Theory and theorisation. Theory helps us to make sense on our research problems and provide a settled basis for inference and data analysis.

(3) Writing, positioning and creating a research gap. A good writing skill represents and organises one ideas and communicate with the audience clearly. It serves a negotiation agreement with readers about his interpretations, findings and claims.

(4) Who is my audience? Research problems and the unit of analysis should be compatible. Don't use "Big" theory to explain "small" things.

(5) Designing the research. Design is an issue of logic and good argument rather than reality. Choosing a proper research method is crucial to reflect your conceptual framework and enable you to answer research question.

(6)  Getting on, getting out and getting back. Techniques of interview help us to gather sufficient data from interviewees. Example: Don't say too much and present yourself as a learner.

(7) Analysing interviews. Establishing a clear statement of what you expect to find based on previous literature and theory. Analyse interviews in relation to expectations and design. Finally, try to challenge, extend, reject or develop the theory.

(8) Write-up: Write to 'make an arguments' Planning your writing is important such as give a structure in the paper when start writing. Learn writing skills through practice and experience.       

Story telling

It is not common to see narratives in accounting and management research.  The paper from "Llewellyn, S. (1998), Narratives in accounting and management research" provides us a rich understanding on this methodology.

From this paper, we can see that narrative research involves story telling. Quoted from Reissman (1993, p.1) "Story telling, to put the argument simply, is what we do with our research materials and what informants do with us. The story metaphor emphasises that we create order, construct texts in particular contexts. The mechanical metaphor adopted from the natural sciences (increasingly questioned there) implies that we provide an objective description of forces in the world and position ourselves outside to do so." A narrative research emphasises the purpose and direction in a series of events and is used to evaluate the effects that plans can have on desired outcomes. Therefore narrative findings convey a particular message about purpose - the point of the story. The rhetorical power of narratives lies in the point of the story.

Narratives have plots. They also have temporal settings. Plots may be either a retrospective view of the past (as in Relevance Lost), a trajectory of the future (as in Relevance Regained) or be contemporary. Linked to the temporality of the plot is the intention of the author. Where the researcher is seeking to describe, explain or understand events retrospective or contemporary plots are the most common. Where researchers wish to strategize or prescribe they will write prospective accounts of the future. Many narratives will combine elements of all three sequences linking progressive, regressive and stability modes.

The narrative is a metastory as it depicts the interview quotes from a certain perspective, embedding them in the theoretical stance of the paper and/or relating them to strategic intent. Narratives are constructed from a plot orientation that links the key strategies, themes, characters and events that emerge from the interview material. The researcher embeds these key elements in a context by evaluating them from a certain perspective. This perspective constitutes the soul of the narrative (or what the point of the story is).

This paper also points out that the researchers should use narrative research as explanations. Narrative research configures characters, themes and events into a sequence that leads up to the phenomenon to be explained, or understood, and aims to render this phenomenon intelligible within the context presented in the narrative. Next, narratives should be used for argumentation. Through access to research narratives, organizational participants can use research to inform their own strategizing. Indeed narrative arguments are similar to management strategizing; narratives are useful in the same way that strategies are.

Personally, I think narrative research is interesting! It links with the identity of authors and convey messages to influence readers through story.

Reference

Llewellyn, S. (1998), Narratives in accounting and management research, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 12(2), 220-236.

Learning NVivo

This exposition of NVivo and its functions addresses just its most basic features. There may be features not covered here that you would find useful in your own work, so try to explore it! Enjoy!

(1) Import the documents

You need to import the documents you want to code. NVivo 9 can accept documents in both rich text and Word formats. To import the documents, →Internals→ External Data on Ribbon→ Document button on Find bar→ Browse→ Open.

(2) Coding

For NVivo, coding is accomplished through nodes. There are several ways of going about the coding process in NVivo:

·      I read through the interviews both in printed form and in the Document viewer. The viewer is treated as having a number of different components or sections.

·      I worked out some codes that seemed relevant to the documents.

·      I went back to into documents and coded them using NVivo.

An alternative strategy is to code while browsing the documents. Notice that there are 3 groups of hierarchically organized nodes and two non-hierarchically organized nodes.

(3) Applying nodes in the coding process

Coding is carried out by applying nodes to segments of text. Once you have set up some nodes, assuming that you are looking at  a document in the viewer, you can highlight the area of the document that you want to code and then right-click on the mouse while holding the cursor over the highlighted text, and then → Code Selection → Code Selection at New node... This opens the New Node dialog box.   

(4) Coding Stripes

It is very helpful to be able to see the areas of text that have been coded and the nodes applied to them. Selecting this facility allows you to see multi-coloured stripes that representing portions of coded text and the nodes that have been used. To activate this facility, → View in the Ribbon and then→ Coding stripes in the Find bar→ Show Nodes Recently Coding.

(5) Searching Text

Once you have coded your data, however, preliminary that may be, you will want to conduct searches of your data at some points. NVivo allows you to trawl through all your documents so that you will end up with text that was coded at a particular node in all your documents. Document Viewer → Nodes in the Navigation View. This will bring up your list of nodes in the List view.

(6) Memos

One feature of the grounded theory approach to qualitative data analysis is the use of memos in which ideas and illustrations might be stored. In the Navigation View → Sources→ Memos→ Create tab on the Find bar and then → Memo.

(7) Saving on NVivo project

When you have finished working on your data, you will need to save it for future use. To do this, on the menu bar at the top, → File → Save.

Conducting Interviews

Recently, I have conducted several interviews with finance managers for my qualitative assignment and also ANU students for their learning experience. From my experience, I would like to share the following useful points to conduct semi-structured interviews:

(1) Know the schedule

Before interviewing anybody, an interviewer should be aware of their schedule. Even if you are the only person conducting interviews, make sure you know it inside out. Interviewing can be stressful and it is possible that under duress standard interview procedures like filter questions can cause interviewer to get flustered and miss questions out or ask wrong questions.

(2) Introducing the research

Prospective respondents have to be provided with a credible rationale for the research in which they are being asked to participate and for giving up their valuable time.

(3) Rapport

This means that very quickly the relationship must be established that encourages the respondents to want to participate in and persists with the interview. Unless an element of rapport can be established, some respondents may initially agree to be interview but then decide to terminate their participation because of the length of time the interview is taking or perhaps because of the nature of questions asked.

(4) Asking questions

Few tips are particular useful to engage with interviewees. First, Don't say too much. It is important to become listeners and treat interviewee as an expert in the field. Second, become reflective listening by spotting the grey areas and clarifying the answers provided by interviewee.

(5) Recording answers

Always ask permission to record the interview and explain the reasons of recording. Not to so can result in interviewers distorting respondents' answers and hence introducing errors.

(6) Questions order

Early questions should be directly related to the topic of the research. As far as questions that are more likely to be salient to respondents should be asked early in the interview schedule, so that their interest and attention are more likely to be secured. With a long schedule or questionnaire, questions should be grouped in sections, since this allows a better flow than skipping from one topic to another. A further aspect of the rule is general questions should precede specific questions to avoid interviewees provide brief answers on general questions after they provide details respond to specific questions.

(7) Probing

It frequently happens when respondents need help with their answer. One obvious case is where it is evident that interviewees do not understand the questions. The second kind of situation is respondents do not provide a sufficiently complete answers and has to be probed for more information. Some probing questions can be used. "Are there any other reasons why you think that" or "Could you say a little more about that?"

(8) Prompting

This occurs when the interviewer suggests a possible answer to a question to the respondent. There may be a very long list of possible answers. To read out a list of questions, it is probably to hand  a list of questions to the interviewee.

(9) Leaving the interview

Do not forget common courtesies like thanking the person for giving up their times. Ask "advice to a friend" to get recommendation to new interviewees.