Category: Qualitative Methodologies

Qualitative Analysis: Coding Project Report of a Virtual Interview Question

The virtual interview question: Explain what being a doctoral student means for you? How has your life changed since starting your doctoral journey?

Description of your coding process

The steps I followed in this coding process were to read the responses once, at least one week before this individual project assignment was due.  This allowed me to think of generic themes, and codes at a super high level throughout the week.  Then after the week was over, I quickly went to wordle.net to create a word cloud on the top 50 most used words in this virtual interview and found out the results below.

wordle

Figure 1: Screenshot for wordle.net results which were used to help develop sub-codes and codes, words that bigger appear more often in the virtual interview than those words that are smaller.

The most telling themes from Figure 1 are: Time, Family, Life, Work, Student, Learning, Frist, Opportunity, Research, People, etc.  This helped create some codes and some of the sub-codes like prioritization, for family, etc.  Figure 1 has also helped me to confirm my ideas for codes that I have been thinking already in my head for the past week, thus I felt ready to begin coding.  After, deciding on the initial set of codes, I did some manual coding, while asking the questions: “What is the person saying? And how they are saying it? And could there be a double meaning in the sentences?”  The last question helped me identify if each sentence in this virtual interview had multiple codes within it.  I used QDA Miner Lite as my software of choice for coding, it is an open-source product and there are plenty of end-user tutorials made by different researchers from many fields on how to effectively use this software effectively on YouTube.  After the initial manual coding, I revisited the initial coding book.  Some of the subcodes that fell under betterment, were moved into the future code as it better fit that theme than just pure betterment. This reanalysis of coding went on for all codes.  As I re-read the responses for the third time, some new subcodes got added as well.  The reason for re-reading this virtual interview a third time was to make sure not many other codes could be created or were missing.

Topical Coding Scheme (Code Book)

The codebook that was derived is as follows:

  • Family
    • For Family
    • Started by Family
    • First in the Family
  • Perseverance
    • Exhausted
    • Pushing through
    • Life Challenges
    • Drive/Motivation
    • Goals
  • Betterment
    • Upgrade skills
    • Personal Growth
    • Maturity
    • Understanding
    • Priority Reanalysis
  • Future
    • More rewarding
    • Better Life
    • Foresight
  • Proving something
    • To others

 

Diagram of findings

Below are images developed through the analytical/automated part QDA Miner Lite:

fig2

Figure 2: Distribution of codes in percentages throughout the virtual interview.

Figure 3: Distribution of codes in frequency throughout the virtual interview.

fig4

Figure 4: Distribution of codes in frequency throughout the virtual interview in terms of a word cloud where more frequent codes appear bigger than less frequent codes.

Brief narrative summary of finding referring to your graphic diagram

Given figures 2-4, one could say that the biggest theme for going into the doctoral program is the prospect of a better life and hoping to change the world, as they more frequently showed up in the interview.  One student states that their degree would open many doors, “Pursuing and obtaining this level of degree would help to open doors that I may not be able to walk through otherwise.” While another student says that hopefully, their research will change the future lives of many “The research that I am going to do will hopefully allow people to truly pursue after their dreams in this ever-changing age, and let the imagination of what is possible within the business world be the limit.” Other students are a bit more practical with their responses stating things like “…move up in my organization and make contributions to the existing knowledge” and finally “More opportunities open for you as well as more responsibility for being credible and usefulness as a cog in the system”

Another concept that kept repeating here is that this is done for family, and because of family work, and school, the life of a doctoral student in this class has to be reprioritized (hence the code priority reanalysis).  This is primarily seen as all forms of graphical output show that these are the two most significant things that drive towards the degree.  One student went to one extreme, “Excluding family and school members, I am void of the three ‘Ps’ (NO – people, pets, or plants). I quit my full-time job and will be having the TV signal turned off after the Super Bowl to force additional focus.”  Another student said that time was the most important thing they had and that it has changed significantly, “The most tangible thing that has changed in my life since I became a doctoral student has been my schedule.  Since this term began I have put myself on a strict schedule designating specific time for studies, my wife, and time for myself.”  Finally, another student says balance is key for them: “Having to balance family time, work, school, and other social responsibilities, has been another adjusted change while on this educational journey. The support of my family has been very instrumental in helping me to succeed and the journey has been a great experience thus far.”  There are 7 instances in which these two codes overlap/included within each other, which apparently happen 80% of the time.

Thus, from this virtual interview, I am able to conclude that family is mentioned with priority reanalysis in order to meet the goal of the doctoral degree and that time management a component of priority reanalysis is key.  There are students that take this reanalysis to the extreme as aforementioned, but if they feel that is the only way they could accomplish this degree in a timely manner, then who am I to judge.  After all, it is the job of the researcher, when coding to be non-biased.  However, the family could drive people to complete the degree, it is the prospects of a better life and changing the world for the better is what was mentioned most.

Appendix A

An output file from qualitative software can be generated by using QDA Miner Lite.

 

Qualitative Methods: Questions distinctions

Qualitative Research Questions distinctions

Usually, qualitative research methods start off with an open-ended central question or two with the words “what” or “how” on a single phenomenon or concept, in order to suggest an exploratory design.  The rest of the question uses exploratory verbs (report, describe, discover, seek, explore, etc) in a non-directional manner as not to suggest causation.  The research question could also be asked in a way to suggest what qualitative research methodological tool you will use to analyze the data, i.e. using the words opinions could mean interviews. Finally, the research question could include the key defining features of the participants in the study (teen, women, men, veterans, people with disabilities, etc.) (Creswell, 2014).

Central research question:

So, an example of a central question could be to do a follow on study on the results of my doctoral research.  So:

What are the opinions on the results from the use of text analytics on tropical discussions to discover weather constructs that positively and negatively affecting hurricane forecast skills perceived and used by the hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center?

References:

Qualitative Research: Sampling

Purposive and Theoretical Sampling:

When identifying means for recording data, one must be wary in qualitative research to how they collect data as well, it can be via unstructured or semi-structured observations and interviews, documents, and visual materials (Creswell, 2014).  Purposeful sampling is to help select the (1) actors, (2) events, (3) setting, and (4) process that will best allow the researcher to get a firm grasp at understanding and addressing their central questions and sub-questions in their study.  Also, consider how many sites and participants there should be in the study (identifying your sample size).  The sample size can vary from 1-2 in narrative research, 3-10 in grounded theory, 20-30 for ethnographic studies, and 4-5 cases in case studies (Creswell, 2014).

However, you can reach data saturation (when the research stops the data collection because there exists no more new information that would reveal any other insights or properties addressing the question of the research) before any of these aforementioned numbers (Creswell, 2014). Theoretical sampling is theoretically bound around a concept, but this type of sampling touches more on this concept of data saturation.  Thus, when the researcher is trying to understand the data in order to help them define or understand their theory to the point of data saturation, rather than reaching a defined number.

Example:

An example of this could come from studying the effects of business decisions affecting the family through analyzing relocation decisions on non-military families. (PROCESS)  Purposefully I would like to sample in this example are three groups of families, ACTORS: those with no children, those with children that are no older than 12 years of age, and those with one or more children over the age of 13.  I want to see if there is a difference between the reactions based on having kids and having kids that are older versus younger, over the past decade (EVENT) at Boeing (SETTING).  I could aim for 20-30 families per group to a total of 60-90 sample size, or I could aim for data saturation between each of these groups (Theoretically sampling).  If I want to stick with 60-90 as a total sample size, I could aim for an open answer survey or conduct interviews (which is more costly on my end).  If I wish to aim for data saturation, it can be more easily done with interviews.

References:

Sample Literature Analysis

Article: Le, J. K, Tissington, P. A., & Budhwar, P. (2010). To move or not to move – a question of family? International Journal of Human Resource Management, 21(1), 17–45. CYBRARY – Business Source Premier

Issue or problem

The primary issue that Le et al (2010) wanted to study was the effect that family-on-work and work-on-family have.  They decide to do this research on relocation, as it is the most prevalent, direct, and most invasive aspect of work impinging its lives of the employees and its family members.  They break down the effect it has on intermediate family members compared to those on the external family members.  With further break down of the intermediate family members on the spouse and their children. The authors focused primarily on 62 Military Personnel (from UK’s Royal Air Force), because relocation in these situations is less of a choice, and they relocate many times that this is the extreme case scenario.

Stated purpose

After the economic periods in the late 2000s, advancements in technology, higher than normal unemployment, and globalization, relocation for the purpose of work-related issues is on a rise for the past decade (le et al, 2010).  Work relocation directly impacts the family, thus studying how family and work interact with each other with a single point of commonality (the employee) is why this aspect was studied.

A lot of studies have looked into the negative effects on relocation on the family or on the employee.  A lot of studies measure this as a one-way relationship.  Le et al (2010), is trying to study a bidirectional positive and negative impact of relocation on work and family.  They want to use exploratory qualitative research to help find variables or themes (to be used in future quantitative studies).  The researchers also wanted to use this exploratory study to make suggestions on how to mitigate the negative side effects of relocation on the employee’s family and vice versa.

Theoretical (concept or construct) focus or topic

Relocation impacts could be defined loosely as:

Relocation effects on the employee ~ F (- marital status, – number of kids, – spousal employment, spousal support, marital status) * G (adjustment time, willingness)

It should be noted that the function above doesn’t contain weights, but just the positive or negative effect of each variable.  Weights can imply and add more meaning to this equation.  This equation was defined by lee et al (2010) survey of the literature.  These are some of the main factors that were addressed or brought up during a qualitative exploratory study of 62 military personnel.

The concepts or constructs defined

Spillover and facilitation were defined as the key to this analysis.  Spillover is defined as aspects of work that affect the family.  Whereas facilitation doing one thing for work positively impacts another thing for work.  These are needed in order for the study to take place.  If spillover doesn’t happen then how does family impact work and work impact the family through the employee?  If relocation doesn’t positively impact the career of the employee, then why would the employee undergo it?  So, there has to be a perceived or actualized benefit to relocation, before the employee moves or decides to leave their employer all together to avoid the relocation.

Research approach

The authors took an exploratory qualitative approach for their study.  Their main reason for this approach was to explore themes in relocation affecting the family, and the family affecting the relocation.  Their hopes were to identify themes for a future study that could measure the relative strengths of these themes through a quantitative approach. They also state that quantitative tools are insufficient at this part of the exploratory phase, whereas qualitative work has a particular advantage to it.  You need to know which themes to study on your sample before you can devise the appropriate measurement instrument and analysis tool.  Though this can be accomplished through an extensive analysis of the literature, the authors did state that the bidirectional relationship of family and work with respect to relocation is the gap in the current knowledge.

Conducting 30 minutes and 2 hours (average of 1 hour) long interviews with 62 military personnel, allowed to collect these themes.  Another aspect of qualitative research that was used is the three measures for validity.  Face validity (summarizing responses and getting confirmation back from the interviewers), Confirmation (asking clarifying questions), and peer examination (independent peers evaluating and commenting on the questions and findings), are used in this qualitative study, which is what makes this study appropriate for their purpose.

Conclusions of the study

Le et al (2010) stated that for the role of a family member, employees face issues like: guilt that arise from a lack of fulfilling family commitments and needs during relocation and pride due to advantages manifesting in the family because of relocation.

For the spouse of the employee, they face issues like: work-related issues (reduced earning potential, unemployment, and hire-ability), psychosocial impact (anger, depression, etc.), and social impacts (loss of social network, community, and friends).

For the children of the employees, they face issues like: school-related impacts (they may fall behind or speed ahead, depending on where they were relocated on and it is diminished if they were placed in boarding school), psychological impact (mirrors that of the spouse), and social impact (hard time making friends, but strengthens internal family bonds).

Finally for the extended family, though it can be hard to establish a connection, some found it amazing that they got to visit a new place to see the relocated family from time to time.

However, there can be a devastating impact on the family unit, separation can occur (divorce) if there is no focus on family, but only on one’s career, and if relocation fatigue (due to multiple relocations in a span of a few years) occurs.

With all of this work impacting the family, the family can impact the work.  The researchers found that the family can try to influence when and how they move.  This effect is amplified when the employee involves the family in the decision.  Doing this will increase buy-in from all members, and makes the family happier in the end.  The family can defer or accelerate the relocation depending on their own plans.  But, if the company pushes the relocation, the family could exert pressure on the employee as well, to a point where the employee will leave (think of leaving or be aware of the option) the organization because they would prefer to keep their family intact.

Recommendations for future research

This study involved military families.  They relocate every 2 to 3 years, more often than most families around the world.  In most of these cases, rejecting relocation is not a wise facilitating option.  For these reasons, this is an extreme case for employee relocation, as lee et al (2010), noted.  Thus, the study can be applied to generic global and national level companies.  Finally, now that they have identified themes, we can measure their strength/magnitude and correlations between each theme to relocation effects on family and family effects on relocation.

 

Exploring Mixed Methods

Explanatory Sequential (QUAN -> qual)

According to Creswell (2013), this mix method style uses qualitative methods to do a deep dive into the quantitative results that have been previously gathered (often to understand the data with respect to the culture).  The key defining feature here is that quantitative data is collected before the qualitative data and that the quantitative data drives the results from the qualitative.  Thus, the emphasis is given to the quantitative results in order to explore and make sense of qualitative results.  It is used to probe quantitative results by explaining them via qualitative results.  Essentially, using qualitative results to enhance your quantitative results.

Exploratory Sequential (QUAL -> quan)

According to Creswell (2013), this mix method style uses quantitative methods to confirm the qualitative results that have been previously gathered (often to understand the culture behind the data).  The key defining feature here is that qualitative data is collected before the quantitative data and that the qualitative data drives the results from the quantitative.  Thus, the emphasis is given to the qualitative results in order to explore and make sense of quantitative results.  It is used to probe qualitative results by explaining them via quantitative results.  Essentially, using quantitative results to enhance your qualitative results.

Which method would you most likely use?  If your methodological fit suggests you to use a mixed-methods research project, does your world view colors your choice?

Resources

Quasi-experimental

In the Quantitative Methodology, there are experimental (deals with the impact of an outcome, while having a controlling variable to see if the tested variable does have an impact), quasi-experimental (deals with a non-random sample but still measures the impact of an outcome) and non-experimental (deals with generalizing/inferring about a population) project designs.

For a non-experimental project design, surveys are used as an instrument to gather data and help produce quantitative/numeric data to help identify trends and sentiment from a sample of a total population (Creswell, 2013).  The Pew Research Center (2015), wanted to analyze the changing attitudes on Gay Marriage a few days after the Supreme Court struck down the bans as unconstitutional, have asked:

Do you oppose/favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally? What is your current age? What is your Religious Affiliation? What is your Political Party?  What is your Political Ideology? What is your Race? What is your gender?

Pew found that overall, since they were conducting this survey since 2001, they have seen that in every descriptive variable classifying people has shown an increase in acceptance for marriage, with an overall 55% approval rating to 39%.  This example is not trying to explain a relationship but rather a trend.

For an experimental project design, it usually follows the following steps: Identification of participants, gathering of materials, draft and finalize procedures and setting up measures so that you can conduct the experiment and derive some results from it (Creswell, 2013).

When a participant in a study is randomly assigned to a control group or in other groups in an experiment it is considered a true experiment, if the participants in a study are not randomly assigned then it is considered a quasi-experiment (Creswell, 2013).  In the famous Milgram Obedience Experiment (1974), an ad was posted to collect participants for a study on memory, but in fact, they were there to see if the presence of authority would compromise their internal morals to cause pain and sometimes delivering fatal shocks to another participant (an actor).  About 2/3 of people were willing to administer the deadly shock because they had the presence of authority (a man in a white coat) telling them to continue to the study.  Though this study will be hard to replicate today (due to IRB considerations), it wasn’t fully random, thus it’s a quasi-experiment, but it challenged and shocked the world.  This is a pivotal paper/experiment that defined behavioral science.

Resources

Methodological fit

Do you know what methodology you should use for your research project?

If there is a lot of extensive literature for a topic, then, according to Edmonson and McManus (2007) one could make a contribution to a mature theory then quantitative methodology would be the best methodological fit. If one strays and does a qualitative methodology in this case, they could run into reinventing the wheel error and may fail to fill a gap in the body of knowledge.

If there is just a little literature for a topic, then one could make a contribution to a nascent theory via qualitative methodologies, which in turn would be the best methodological fit (Edmonson & McManus, 2007).  If you do a quantitative research project here, you may be jumping the gun and running into possible false conclusions caused by confounding variables and may still fail to fill the gap in the body of knowledge.

Finally, one can stray from both pure qualitative and quantitative methodologies, and go into a mixed-methods study, and this can occur when there is enough research that the body of knowledge isn’t considered nascent, but not enough to be considered mature (Edmonson & McManus, 2007). Going one route here would do an injustice in filling in the gap in the body of knowledge, because you may be missing key insights that the each part of the mixed methodology (both qualitative and quantitative) can bring to the field.

So, prior to deciding which methodology you should choose, you should do an in-depth literature review.  You cannot pick an appropriate methodology without knowing the body of knowledge.

Hint: The more quantitative research articles you find in a body of knowledge, the more likely your project will be dealing with either a mixed-methods (low number of articles) or a quantitative method (high number of articles) project. If you see none, you may be working on a qualitative methodology.

Reference

  • Edmondson, A., & McManus, S. (2007). Methodological fit in management field research. Academy of Management Review, 32(4), 1155–1179. CYBRARY.

Worldviews and Approaches to Inquiry

The four worldviews according to Cresswell (2013) are postpositivism (akin to quantitative methods), constructivism (akin to qualitative methods), advocacy (akin to advocating action), and pragmatism (akin to mixed methods).   There are positives and negatives for each world view. For pragmatists, they use what truth and what methods from anywhere that works at the time they need it, to get the results they need.  Though the pragmatist research style takes time to conduct.  The advocacy places importance on creating an action item for social change to diminish inequity gaps between asymmetric power relationships like those that exist with class structure and minorities.  Though this research is noble, the moral arc of history bends towards justice, but very slowly, it took centuries for race equality to be where it is at today, it took over 60 years for gender equality, and 40 years for LGBT equality.  Yet, there are still inequalities amongst these groups and the majority that have yet to be resolved.  For instance: Equal Pay for Equal Work for All, Employment/Housing Non-Discrimination for LGBT, Racial Profiling, etc.  The constructivist viewpoint researchers seek to understand the world around them through subjective means.  They use their own understanding and interpretation of historical and cultural settings of participants to shape their interpretation of the open-ended data they collect.  This can lead to an interpretation that is shaped by the researcher’s background and not representative of the whole situation at hand.  Finally, postpositivism looks at the world in numbers, knowing their limitation that not everything can be described in numbers, they choose to propose an alternative hypothesis where they can either accept or reject the hypothesis. Numbers are imperfect and fallible.

My personal world view is akin to a pragmatist world view.  My background in math, science, technology, and management help me synthesize ideas from multiple fields to drive innovation.  It has allowed me to learn rapidly because I can see how one field ties to the other and makes me more adaptable.   However, I also lean a bit more strongly to the math and science side of myself, which is a postpostivism view.

Resource:

The Role of Theory

The theory is intertwined with the research process, thus a thorough understanding of theory must involve the understanding of the relationship between theory and research (Bryman & Bell, 2007).  When looking at research from a deductive role (developing and testing a problem and hypothesis) the theory is presented at the beginning.  The theory here is being tested, as it helps define the problem, its parameters (boundaries) and a hypothesis to test.  Whereas an inductive role uses data and research to build a theory.  Theories can be grand (too hard to pinpoint and test) or they can be mid-range (easier to test, but it is still too big to test it under all assumptions) (Bryman & Bell, 2007).

Where you write your theory depends on the type of world view you have (positivism at the beginning of the paper, or constructivism at the beginning or end of the paper) (Creswell, 2013).   My particular focus will be on the postpositivism view (quantitative methods), so I will dissect the placement of the theory primarily on a quantitative research study (which are mostly deductive in nature).  Placement of the theory in the introduction lit review, or after the hypothesis runs into the issue that it will make it harder for the reader to isolate and separate the theory from their respective sections (Cresswell, 2013).  There is another disadvantage from what Creswell (2013) states for the after the hypothesis approach: you may forget to discuss the origins and rationale for the theory.  Cresswell (2013), suggests as a research tip to separate the theory and create a brand new section for it so that it is easily identified and its origin and rationale can be elaborated on.

However, separating the theory section from the rest of the paper can still get the paper tossed out of being published in a journal if it is still fuzzy to decipher amongst your peers and the editor.  Feldman’s 2004 editorial states that if the question & theory is succinct, grammatically correct, non-trivial, and makes a difference, it would help you get your results published.  However, he also states (like many of our professors do) we need to find what are the key articles and references in the past 5 years, that we should be exhaustive yet exclusive with our dataset, and establish clear boundary conditions such that we can adequately define independent and dependent variable would help you get your results published (Feldman, 2004).  The latter set of conditions helps build your theory, whereas the first set of conditions speaks to the readability of the theory.  If it is hard to read your theory because it’s so convoluted, then why should anyone care to read it?

Resources:

  • Bryman, A. & Bell, E. (2007) Business Research Methods. (2nd ed.). Location: Oxford University Press.
  • Creswell, J. W. (2013). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches, 4th Edition. [VitalSource Bookshelf version]. Retrieved from http://online.vitalsource.com/books/9781483321479/epubcfi/6/24
  • Feldman, D. C. (2004). What are we talking about when we talk about theory? Journal of Management, 30(5), 565–567.

Literature reviews

Side Note: This particular post was on my to-do list for a long time.

A literature review as a process containing a deep consideration of the current literature, to aid in identifying the current gaps in the existing knowledge, as well as building up the context for your research project (Gall, Gall, & Borg, 2006).  The literature review helps the researcher to build upon the works of other researchers, for the purpose of contributing to the collective knowledge. Our goal in the literature review will be undermined if we conduct any of the following common flaws (Gall et al., 2006):

  1. A literature review that becomes a standalone piece in the final document
  2. Analyzing results from studies that are not sound in their methodology
  3. Include the search procedures used to create this literature review
  4. Having only one study on particular ideas in the review, which may suggest the idea is not mature enough

For a literature review, one should be learning their field by reviewing the collective knowledge in the field by studying:

  • The beginning of {your topic}
  • The essence of {your topic}
  • Historical overview {your topic}
  • Politics of {your topic}
  • The Technology of {your topic}
  • Leaders in {your topic}
  • Current literature findings of {your topic}
  • Overview of research techniques {your topic}
  • The 21st century {your topic} Strategy

Creswell’s (2014), proposed that a literature map (similar to a mind map) of the research is a useful way to organize the literature, identify ideas with a small number of sources, determine the current issues in the existing knowledge, and determine the reviewers current gap in their understanding of the existing knowledge.  Finally, Creswell in 2014, listed what a good outline for a quantitative literature review should have:

  1. Introduction paragraph
  2. Review of topic one, which contains the independent variable(s).
  3. Review of topic two, which contains the dependent variable(s).
  4. Review of topic three, which provides how the independent variable(s) relate to the dependent variable(s).
  5. Summarize with highlights of key studies/major themes, to state why more research is needed.

Cresswell’s is generally a good method, but not the only one.  You can use a chronological literature review, where you build your story from the beginning to the present. In my dissertation, my literature review had to tie multiple topics into one: Big Data, Financial forecasting, and Hurricane forecasts.  I had to use the diffusion of innovation theory to transition between Financial and Hurricane forecast, to make the leap and justify the methodologies I will use later on.  In the end, you are the one that will be writing your literature review and the more of them you read, the easier it will be to define how you should write yours.

Here is a little gem I found during my second year in my dissertation: Dr. Guy White (2014) in the following youtube video has described a way to effectively and practically build your literature review. I use this technique all the time.  All of my friends that have seen this video have loved this method of putting together their literature reviews.

References