Qualitative Research in Psychology

This twelve-hour course on qualitative research in psychology begins by exploring the historical and cross-disciplinary foundations of the field, emphasizing philosophical underpinnings such as postpositivism, constructivism, transformative, and pragmatism. The course highlights the iterative, naturalistic, and contextual facets of qualitative research, focusing on trustworthiness criteria like credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. It also addresses common critiques from a quantitative perspective and the concept of reflexivity, stressing the importance of the researcher’s role and biases.

Phenomenology, narrative inquiry, and constructivist grounded theory are explored next. Phenomenology captures the essence of human experiences through in-depth interviews, revealing nuances like maternal identity development. Narrative inquiry uses storytelling to uncover life nuances, such as the challenges faced by first-generation college students. Constructivist grounded theory develops theories based on participants’ experiences, explaining social processes like identity development and resilience-building. Interviewing techniques tailored to each tradition are explored, emphasizing the researcher’s role as the core instrument of data collection.

The course then explores ethnographic inquiry and case studies. Ethnography involves direct engagement in the setting of interest, uncovering cultural phenomena through various genres like classical, mainstream, public, and postmodern. Case studies investigate phenomena bounded by time and place, focusing on individuals, interventions, organizations, or systems.

Finally, the course examines qualitative data analysis and coding techniques. The iterative nature of qualitative research is emphasized, where data collection and analysis occur simultaneously, allowing for constant comparison and refinement of codes.

Learning objectives

• Describe the philosophical and interpretive foundations of qualitative research.
• Differentiate qualitative claims, methods, and analyses from quantitative claims, methods, and analyses.
• Explore, identify, and evaluate core qualitative traditions (phenomenology, narrative inquiry, constructivist grounded theory, ethnographic inquiry, and case study).
• Distinguish common methods (e.g., interviewing, focus groups) and analytical techniques (qualitative data analysis) used within and across core qualitative traditions.
• Begin thinking about your own qualitative study of a topic in psychology.