PS398 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Audit Trail, Semiotics, A Priori And A Posteriori
Document Summary
Multimethod in focus, involving an interpretive, naturalistic approach to its subject matter qualitative researchers study things in their natural setting to make sense of phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them. Empirical: explores relationships using textual data: case study, observation, ethnography, result not often generalizable, but often transferable. Inductive researcher builds concepts, hypotheses, and theories from the details. Mays and pope::::: goal: development of concepts which help us to understand social phenomena in natural (rather than experimental) settings, giving due emphasis to the meanings, experiences, and views of the participants. Context for the rise of qualitative methods in social sciences and medicine. Complementarity of qual and quan used in mixed methods studies. Limits of positivism and the strengths of naturalistic inquiry to provide new knowledge. When to do qualitative research: when little is known about a topic, sensitive/ stigmatized topic, lived experience promote understanding, black box for evaluation, explanatory detail for quantitative studies, action research.
