Class Notes 3

Qualitative Methods 9.10.2013

Each week, the website should have notes about the weekly assignments, notes on the assigned reading material, and notes following in class discussions.

We should read chapters 1-3 for next week, 4-8 for the week after, and 9-14 for the week after that. We also need to write notes for these and post them to our pages before class. After that, we start the coding book with chapters 1 and 2, then 3 and 4, and then 5 and 6.

Tracey Ch. 1-3	9/17
Tracey Ch. 4-8	9/24
Tracey Ch. 9-14	10/1
Saldana Ch. 1 and 2	10/8
Saldana Ch. 3 and 4	10/22
Saldana Ch. 5 and 6	10/29
Hammersley Ch. 1-4	11/5
Hammersley Ch. 5-7	11/12
Hammersley Ch. 8-10	11/26

Since I am only doing one presentation, I will present for one hour (with Tiffany) on outside readings on December 3^rd.

We are taking on a class project, working on developing a training program for a local organization that works on improving technological literacy with people over the age of 50. We need to work on getting data from the users by visiting senior centers where we can talk to current participants.

When doing narrative analysis, we need to be able to account for the full complexity of the text. All interpreters come to the narratives with pre-existing toolboxes. Addressing a narrative can be relatively difficult—it’s difficult to get any kind of cultural meaning. The intention of the interpretation is also a useful, but complicated tool in so much as we are given an agenda of what to do. In order to get an interpretation, we must have interpretive tools.

For next week, think about a cultural argument I’d like to mount, then find videos to support it. Provide a close reading of two videos, moving into interpretation. These need to be competent texts. This should be a shot-by-shot analysis. If this doesn’t work, then the unit of analysis should be thematic. We will start with a question or a problem. We will flesh out the problem, its implications, hooks, and sources of solutions. We are essentially building out the problem.

The research process will always start with an issue or a problem and proceed to an outcome. It moves from the question to preliminary investigation. That then is followed by either problem refinement or a literature review (or both). These then lead to a problem statement, which is accompanied by the four major types of analysis: metric empirical, interpretive empirical, critical empirical, and critical analytical. These methods are followed by an implications analysis, and finally an outcome. Reading comes into the research process late, specifically reading on a topic area. Though the literature review is placed early in the model, it often actually happens later. We should be wary of colonizing our own thinking. Only when we run up against a wall do we need to go out and do some reading. Literature reviews are rhetorical devices in the final paper—it is not a holistic overview of an entire area for the researcher. It should be efficient and directed toward the argument we’re making. In qualitative research, there is not much need to show that your conclusions are supported in the literature. The problem statement is generally about ¾ of a page long. If it isn’t an elevator speech, you need to refine it more. It needs to answer: what is it; why is it important; and how do you accomplish it? We also need to be able to write about the implications of our problem. What does it require of us? What should we be asking? The outcomes are not conclusions, but rather the potential venues of the work done.

Problem statements always begin with “What is?,” “How does?,” “Why is?,” or “What value?” Metric-empirical methods are suited for what and why questions, interpretive-empirical are suited for how and value questions, and critical-empirical are best for critical and value questions. Whenever we do mixed methods, we tend to favor one side over another. One type of method usually drives and takes primacy in the final product. We are better able to mix methods if they agree on their reliance on social construction or universal principles. Especially since advocacy fits in with these types of research, it is an ethical duty to have well defined methods. The main difference between participant ethnography and performative ethnography is that the performative ethnography is eventually performed in some way (on a stage, through video). The ethical problem of critical ethnography is asking how we know better. The only way to resolve that is to find the warrants for what we want to accomplish in the lives we are observing.