Researching research methods
The main methods of research:
“Ontology. How you, the researcher, view the world and the assumptions that you make about the nature of the world and of reality.
Epistemology. The assumptions that you make about the best way of investigating the world and about reality.
Methodology. The way that you group together your research techniques to make a coherent picture.
Methods and techniques. What you actually do in order to collect your data and carry out your investigations.”
I think the kind of research I’ll be doing will be relativism since I will be asking people about their personal truths and how their lives as freelancers are.
“Social constructionists believe that reality does not exist by itself. Instead, it is constructed and given meaning by people. Their focus is therefore on feelings, beliefs and thoughts, and how people communicate these. Social constructionism fits better with a relativist ontology.“
“ Relativists, on the other hand, tend to take a social constructionist view. They start with questions. They use case studies and surveys to gather both words (views) and numbers, which they use to triangulate and compare. From these, they generate theories “
“ Social constructionist approaches tend to draw on qualitative sources of data. “
“Qualitative data is about the nature of the thing investigated, and tends to be words rather than numbers.“
“Primary data is gathered by the researcher themselves. Because it is collected for the purposes of the study, it is intrinsically interesting, although the researcher will also need to make some comment on it when publishing it.”
“Secondary data is published by someone else, usually a public body or company, although it may also consist of archive material such as historical records. A researcher using such data needs to generate new and original insights into it.“
(https://www.skillsyouneed.com/learn/research-methods-intro.html)
Approaching Research Five Questions:
Whatever approach you choose for your research, you need to consider five questions:
Will you verify or falsify a theory? You cannot conclusively prove any theory; the best that you can do is find nothing that disproves it. It is, therefore, easier to formulate a theory that you can try to disprove because you only need one ‘wrong’ answer to do so.
(I doubt I will be doing either. The point of my research is to try and prepare myself for the freelance life of starting up my own creative practice with lasting illnesses through peoples experience.)
What is the unit of analysis? For example, country, company or individual.
(It’ll be individual as I intend to talk with individuals one on one.)
Are you relying on universal theory or local knowledge? In other words, will your results be generalisable, and produce universally applicable results, or are there local factors that will affect your results?
(It will be very individual and highly specific to the one person. )
Will theory or data come first? Should you read the literature first, and then develop your theory, or will you gather your data and develop your theory from that? Recently, opinion seems to have swung towards this being an iterative process.
(I think technically speaking data will come first. From what I collect from the individuals I will try to take this into account when preparing my own freelancing career.)
Will your study be cross-sectional or longitudinal? Are you looking at one point in time or changes over time?
(This could be applicable to both as peoples illnesses/ disabilities will still be affecting them in the present but some questions I ask may only be applicable in the past.)
“These take either one or several examples, and study it or them in detail, then draw out the more general lessons for wider application. Researchers may try to take a more rigorous approach to demonstrate validity, and ensure that logic is applied to any comparisons, or focus on creating a detailed picture. Although a case study cannot prove a theory, it can be used to disprove one if the data from the organisation do not fit the theory.
Useful when you want to find out about one organisation, when one organisation is considered to be an exemplar, or to compare a few organisations and identify the key differences in approach.
Less useful for drawing generalised lessons that can be applied to any other organisation, although there may be some.”
(This seems like something that I will probably end up doing as i’ll be asking questios and maybe intervewing individuals about their freelancing experiances.)
(https://www.skillsyouneed.com/learn/designing-research.html)
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“Qualitative research is any which does not involve numbers or numerical data.
It often involves words or language, but may also use pictures or photographs and observations.”
“Qualitative analysis results in rich data that gives an in-depth picture and it is particularly useful for exploring how and why things have happened.”
“However, there are some pitfalls to qualitative research, such as: If respondents do not see a value for them in the research, they may provide inaccurate or false information. They may also say what they think the researcher wishes to hear. Qualitative researchers, therefore, need to take the time to build relationships with their research subjects and always be aware of this potential.”
“Although ethics are an issue for any type of research, there may be particular difficulties with qualitative research because the researcher may be a party to confidential information. It is important always to bear in mind that you must do no harm to your research subjects.”
“ It is generally harder for qualitative researchers to remain apart from their work. By the nature of their study, they are involved with people. It is therefore helpful to develop habits of reflecting on your part in the work and how this may affect the research.” (This last concern should be okay as I’m pretty good at self-reflection in a non-biased way. )
“Although qualitative data is much more general than quantitative, there are still a number of common techniques for gathering it. These include:
Interviews, which may be structured, semi-structured or unstructured;
Focus groups, which involve multiple participants discussing an issue;
‘Postcards’, or small-scale written questionnaires that ask, for example, three or four focused questions of participants but allow them space to write in their own words;
Secondary data, including diaries, written accounts of past events, and company reports; and
Observations, which may be on site, or under ‘laboratory conditions’, for example, where participants are asked to role-play a situation to show what they might do.”
(https://www.skillsyouneed.com/learn/quantitative-and-qualitative.html)
Information on structuring interviews: (https://www.skillsyouneed.com/learn/interviews-for-research.html)
semi-structured interviews :
This format is particularly useful in three cases:
When your interviewees are likely to provide you with interesting data in different areas but you’re not sure exactly who will provide which information;
When you want to be able to discuss emerging findings with your interviewees and test out ideas with them, without being held within a rigid structure; and
When your interviewee is nervous about what you might want to discuss because you can send the outline of questions to them in advance.
Face to face interviews vs. phone calls have there pros and cons.
Take the time to get to know the interviewee and break the ice. This will help the interview go better.
Make sure to set up the question without framing it with your personal bias.
“The basic probe is repeating the initial question, which reminds the interviewee what you asked. This is useful if they have wandered off the subject.
Explanatory probes are questions like ‘What did you mean by that?’ and ‘What makes you say that?’ and are useful for exploring meaning further.
Focused probes include questions like ‘What sort of…?’
The silent probe is where the interviewer simply remains silent and waits for the interviewee to say more.
Drawing out is useful when the interviewee seems to have stopped mid-sentence or mid-idea. Repeat the last few words that they said with an upward inflexion, like a question, or add ‘Tell me more about that’.
Giving ideas or suggestions would use questions like ‘Have you thought about x?’ or ‘Have you tried…?’”
“Laddering is a very specific interviewing technique which asks ‘Why?’-type questions repeatedly to explore the interviewee’s values and motivations.”
“ You can also ‘ladder’ in the opposite direction, where you get more specific until you reach examples, by asking questions like ‘Can you give me a specific example of that?’ or ‘When was the last time that you remember something like that happening?’. “
Information on secondary data and observations: (https://www.skillsyouneed.com/learn/observation-and-secondary-data.html)
“Here, you start with some ideas about hypotheses or themes that might emerge, and look for them in the data that you have collected. You might, for example, use a colour-coding or numbering system to identify text about the different themes, grouping together ideas and gathering evidence about views on each theme.” (I think what I would take from this is the method of grouping relating subjects.)
“This is similar to content analysis, in that it uses similar techniques for coding. However, in grounded analysis, you do not start from a defined point. Instead, you allow the data to ‘speak for itself’, with themes emerging from the discussions and conversations. In practice, this may be much harder to achieve because it requires you to put aside what you have read and simply concentrate on the data.” (This will probably be a method I’ll use more often as I do indeed want to see what the results are and don't have a hypothesis to try and prove/disprove.)
“This approach not only analyses the conversation, but also takes into account the social context in which the conversation occurs, including previous conversations, power relationships and the concept of individual identity. It may also include analysis of written sources, such as emails or letters, and body language to give a rich source of data surrounding the actual words used.” (This could also be a helpful method as I will be talking to people in a very individual context.)
Information on analysing qualitative data: (https://www.skillsyouneed.com/learn/analysing-qualitative-data.html)
