Research methods in clinical psychology: An introduction for students and practitioners Chris Barker

1
Research methods in clinical psychologyAn
introduction for students and practitionersChris
Barker, Nancy Pistrang, and Robert Elliott

• CHAPTER 5
• Foundations of qualitative methods

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Features of qualitative research

• Uses language as its raw material
• Sources of data interviews, conversations, field
  notes, policy statements, newspaper articles
• Aims to study peoples thoughts, feelings, or use
  of language in depth and detail
• Emphasises description and understanding rather
  than explanation and prediction
• Emphasises the meaning of experience/behaviour in
  context
• Inductive

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Quantitative - qualitative debate

• technical
• epistemological

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Advantages of qualitative methods

• Enable the individual to be studied in depth and
  detail
• Can address complex issues or processes
• Avoid the simplifications imposed by
  quantification
• Data vivid and easy to grasp
• Good for hypothesis generation and for
  exploratory research
• Participant has more freedom
• May find things that you werent looking for
• Can integrate with clinical work

5
Disadvantages of qualitative methods

• Less control
• Longer to carry out
• Data hard to analyse (data overload)
• Reliability and validity harder to evaluate

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Qualitative traditions

• Phenomenology
• Social constructionism

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Phenomenology

• (Husserl)
• The study of peoples experiences, life worlds
  and underlying assumptions
• Understanding is the true end of science
• Multiple valid perspectives (epistemological
  pluralism)

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Types of phenomenological research

• Grounded theory (Glaser Strauss)
• Interpretative phenomenological analysis (Smith)
• Life history research (Denzin)
• Participant observation (Taylor Bogdan)
• Protocol analysis (Ericsson Simon)

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Doing phenomenological research

• The role of theory
• Personal biases/expectations
• Bracketing
• setting ones beliefs aside
• Empathic stance

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Social constructionism

• Part of the post-modernist and post-structuralist
  movements
• Non-realist
• Radical pluralism
• Often focuses on language in text or speech
• indeterminacy of language and meaning
• language as social action
• doesnt assume that language reflects cognition
• Emphasises the reflexivity of psychological theory

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Types of constructionist research

• Critical approaches (Reason Rowan)
• Discourse analysis (Potter Wetherell)
• Radical feminist research (Belenky et al.)
• Social representation (Moscovici)

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Ways of evaluating qualitative research

• 1. Owning ones perspective
• 2. Situating the sample
• 3. Grounding in examples
• 4. Providing credibility checks
• 5. Coherence
• 6. Accomplishing general v. specific research
  tasks
• 7. Resonating with readers
• (Elliott, Fischer Rennie, 1999)

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Conclusions

• When best to use qualitative or quantitative
  methods?
• Methodological pluralism
• Triangulation
• best not to rely solely on one perspective,
  source or approach
• Can combine qualitative and quantitative methods