Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Qualitative Research Notes

What to do with resulting data?
  • Find themes/patterns that can be used again
  • There are often blinders on these kinds of studies, because they are often to try to understand rather than to change or "fix" (using research to study research)
  • Things are always changing anyways, so... by the time we finish a study, that culture is already in the past. (How do you ever get progress?)
  • Can you create something like what you study? (Carl Marx, Rosa Parks, Ghandi)
  • There is something divine within us that allows us to innovate.
  • What if the case study is the "outlier"?
  • Describe the root meanings
  • Thick description: has enough contextual data to defend the bias/conclusion
  • Let go of the reins and don't think that you can tell everybody what they will do, because that's not really how it's going to go.
  • Case Study: give you the experience that you can't have by yourself. (Like what it's like to give birth, etc.) THIS requires that people who are writing it understand it from a personal perspective, so they can write it in a way that is applicable to people; something others can understand.
  • Write a documentary! :)
  • An ethnography can be something from middle-class America, even if you are middle-class America. Some of the most interesting ethnographies came from people who are native to that culture.
Writing Style
  • There is no real stance, just write in the voice that you usually use.
  • Don't pretend to be third person omniscient if you're not.

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