Field Research: Interviews, Focus Groups and Observation Babbie Ch 10

1
Field Research Interviews, Focus Groups and
Observation(Babbie Ch 10)
Geography 237aResearch Methods

• Four Qualitative Paradigms
• Interviews
• Interviews vs Surveys
• Terminology
• Common problems
• Advantages/Disadvantages
• Focus Groups
• Advantages/Disadvantages
• Observation
• Advantages/Disadvantages

2
Four Qualitative Paradigms

• Naturalism/Ethnography
• strong links to positivism
• assumes reality is out there to be discovered
• focus on detailing the social world
• often more attention to pattern than explanation
• idiographic
• e.g., Whytes Street Corner Society

3
Four Qualitative Paradigms

• Ethnomethodology
• strong links to phenomenology
• reality is socially constructed vs out there
• researcher must interpret what study participants
  say/do not take them for granted/at face value
• stronger interpretive role of researcher over
  naturalism/ethnography
• nomothetic explanations focus on underlying
  social processes
• e.g. Garfinkels conversation clarification
  experiment

4
Four Qualitative Paradigms

• Grounded Theory
• more blatantly inductive than the other 3
  paradigms
• typically ideographic theory development
• attempt to systematize naturalistic enquiry
• constant comparative method of sampling and
  analysis (see Qualitative Analysis lecture)
• e.g., Glaser and Straus
• Case Studies
• in depth study of an instance of a phenomenon
  (e.g, community, process)
• principally detailed idiographic explanations
  (nomothetic research must apply beyond particular
  case)

5
Interviews Interview vs Survey

• interview in geog 237 means qualitative
  in-depth interview (almost always face-to-face)
• in the literature, both are called interviews
• qualitative interviews less structured than
  survey questionnaires (but just as rigourous
  and useful)

6
Some Characteristics of Interview Research

• typically exploratory
• typically inductive
• typically idiographic (rarely nomothetic)
• typically small samples (even just one!, tens,
  rarely over 100)
• typically individuals and groups are the units of
  observation

7
What is the instrument?

• In survey research, the questionnaire is the
  instrument.
• What is the instrument in qualitative
  face-to-face interviews?

8
Preliminary Terminology

• Researcher as instrument
• think on feet, empathy, not passive
• data recorded in human memory
• thus, data are interpreted even at recording
  stage
• emotionless detachment not advisable
• experiential knowledge
• (contrast with questionnaire)
• Participant
• person with whom an interview is conducted
• ideally, a two-way exchange of information
• treat as human beings rather than rows in a
  spreadsheet.
• (contrast with respondent)

9
Researcher as Instrument

• Several forms of experiential knowledge are
  necessary to attempt understanding of the
  complexities and peculiarities of the educational
  reform processes at work in these settings.
  Cultural knowledge is needed of the racial,
  cultural, and sociopolitical contexts being
  studied. Schooling has been administered in four
  separate racially segregated and inequitably
  funded systems--European, African, Asian, and
  Indian. My knowledge of the history of
  residential and educational segregation is
  necessary to understand why attending the few
  open schools in central city and suburban areas
  was so desirable for the vast numbers of
  non-white students living in remote area
  townships in which schooling has been under
  funded and inferior to that offered white
  students.
• Source Brook 1992, Issues of researcher role and
  subjectivity in research on educational change in
  South Africa http//www.coe.uga.edu/quig/proceedin
  gs/Quig92_Proceedings/brook.92.html

10
Preliminary Terminology

• What about bias?
• If personal, subjective knowledge about the
  phenomena is allowed what is to be done about
  bias in the results?

11
Preliminary Terminology

• Field Notes
• researcher notes
• before interview
• during interview
• after interview
• Autobiography
• researcher description of likely influences on
  interpretation
• personal biases in relation to research questions
  and participants
• track changes in views

12
Autobiography

• In describing the researcher as the primary
  research instrument, and as a participant
  observer throughout the study, there is some
  obligation on my part to provide a more extensive
  description of who I am, and of my experiential
  background, so that the reader may form a context
  in which to situate the comments and the
  conclusions of this study. As a local Hispanic
  woman who believes in life-long learning, I
  regard myself as having pulled myself up by my
  boot strings against all odds. Born in Laredo,
  Texas, I lived in the small South Texas town of
  Hebbronville for the first sixteen years of my
  life. I grew up as a physically challenged child
  who was not expected to live.
• Source Gramirez, http//www.tamucc.edu/gramirez/
  aperso1.doc

13
Steps in Interviewing

• Clarify objectives
• though generally inductive, still do as much
  background work as possible
• Participant Selection
• typically purposive wide variety of people to
  cover as many dimensions of phenomena as possible
• temptation to convenience sample (those easiest
  to talk with)
• random selection (but statistics rare)

14
Steps in Interviewing

• Interview
• take field notes, audio tape record
• Transcribe
• field notes
• audio tapes
• ideally researcher transcribes to stay close to
  data

15
Steps in Interviewing

• Analyze
• read over material and interpret meaning
• assisted by software (NVivo, NUDIST, Ethnograph)
• Verify (member check)
• go back to participants and see if you have it
  right
• negotiated text
• what about disagreement?
• Report
• write up
• present
• participants are audience too!

16
Interview Guide

• Characteristics
• topics to direct conversation
• minimum to be covered in conversation
• allows inter-interview comparisons in
  interpretation
• not necessarily covered in order
• not a linear roadmap per se more a series of
  unordered signposts
• participant guides conversation too

17
Interview Guide Example
18
InterviewsAdvantages/Disadvantages(e.g.,
compared to surveys)

• Advantages
• Disadvantages

19
InterviewsAdvantages/Disadvantages

• Advantages
• high validity
• closer to social life
• flexible
• words of participants
• discover the unexpected
• Disadvantages
• no (rare) statistical analysis
• labour intensive
• training - researcher as instrument
• weak reliability
• weak generalizability

20
Focus GroupsCharacteristics

• group interviews
• 8-10
• facilitator
• note taker
• participants similar characteristics (e.g., all
  women, all against issue X)
• exploration
• group dynamics relevant exchange of ideas

21
Focus GroupsExample

• FACILITATOR So what were the alternatives?
  What was the state of Ryley in 1992 when economic
  development seemed to be an issue?
• MARGRET It was dying like most small towns were
  at that time.
• SADY Its been dying for 40 years and it hasnt
  changed any from then.
• FACILITATOR Whats the population?
• SADY Including cats and dogs?
• UNIDENTIFIED 411 I think.
• FACILITATOR The last I have is 96 statistics
  and it says around 500. But it could have gone
  down or up by then.
• MARGRET Ryleys around 500 I would say now.
• HUGO I think, like all these little towns are
  dying, Holden is next and its 8 miles and thats
  another small town. And I remember the school
  there when it had about 600, 650 people and now I
  think its under 400, 390. So its dying too.
  And so Ryley, theyre roughly the same size and I
  imagine Ryley was probably in that 500 or 600
  once upon a time in the 50s.
• Margaret Oh lots more before that, we had all
  these businesses here.

22
Focus GroupsAdvantages/Disadvantages

• Advantages
• approximates social conditions
• new ideas
• forces participants consider issues may not think
  of themselves
• increased participant self-awareness on issue
• Disadvantages
• researcher has less control
• difficult to analyze
• training facilitator skill
• difficult to obtain groups
• social conditions contrived

23
ObservationTerminology

• covert
• people do not know being studied
• ethical implications?
• participant
• the only way to truly know is to do
• method acting for researchers?
• get involved in study group

24
ObservationTerminology

• going native
• researchers reference group is no longer
  academics, but group under study
• Hawthorne effect
• act differently because special attention
• different from social acceptability bias
  (intentional) in surveys, but related

25
Observation (field research)
26
ObservationAdvantages/Disadvantages(e.g.,
compared to interviews)

• Advantages
• Disadvantages