Final Statement on Qualitative Research

Final Statement on Qualitative Methods

               If I have figured anything out this semester, it is that qualitative methods are an iterative process constrained within certain professional expectations. Theoretically, they respond to the problems posed by traditional scientific inquiry, notably through acknowledging the role and position of the researcher. While metric empiricism (and other areas such as critical methods) may attempt to make the researcher invisible, qualitative methods take on the researcher as instrument. This is an important conceptual move, and it is related to where we believe truth or knowledge is located. In order to believe in the absent researcher of metric empiricism, you have to ascribe to the notion that truth is outside of the humans that desire it. It is something that can be reached as long as we find more perfect tools. For the qualitative researcher, the truth resides at the point that the self converges with the subject. It is truth that is contingent on the researcher’s ability to recognize it. Because this process is never simple or straightforward, the researcher must be able to constantly attune their process and methodology.

               It seems that one of the underlying assumptions in qualitative research is that the researcher should be given a degree of trust by those evaluating their work. Because there are not strict guidelines for doing qualitative research—no p-values for interview techniques—the researcher and their results are judged for qualities like coherence and resonance. This is not to say that it is easy to become accepted as a qualitative researcher. Scholars are expected to have certain standards of practice, and they are constrained by expectations placed on them by their academic institutions. This is why it is often difficult to do significant qualitative work early in one’s career: doing a true ethnography takes far too long, and qualitative work is simply not as frequently published as other types of work. This does not mean that it is not worthwhile. Qualitative work can access types of knowledge that cannot begin to be found through metric empiricism, particularly regarding cultural and relational information.

               Judging whether qualitative work is good is always going to be a difficult venture. Because the qualitative researcher is their own tool, it is exceedingly difficult to get outside of oneself to judge the work done. For this reason, having an auditor or colleague to provide feedback can be exceptionally valuable. For myself, I think that the way to define good work is in looking at its ability to help the site or culture that it studies. Attempting to judge whether a work is true is folly; the best you can do is to critique its methods from a third-party point of view. Instead, it may be more useful to define the merit of a work on the basis of what it can do. If the work can provide new understandings of a group or culture, then it is good; if it can help that group or culture become better regarded or gain validity, then it is very good. While I would not argue that all qualitative work needs to be prescriptive, it is hard to imagine a useful study that does not at least implicitly suggest a new course of action. In the realm of qualitative research, truth is always situated within the researcher, and while it will admittedly never produce pure, objective truths, qualitative research can benefit both scholarship and the outside world significantly.