Database Reference
In-Depth Information
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Follow up on what the participant says. Do allow the interview to be shaped by
the information your participant is sharing.
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Avoid leading questions. An important part of minimizing experimenter bias is
wording questions carefully so as to avoid implying any types of answers. For
example, asking a participant what a given experience was like for them, leaves
space for their personal explanations.
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Ask open ended questions. This can involve asking for a temporal reconstruction
of an event or perhaps a working a day or asking for a subjective interpretation
of an event.
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Ask for concrete details. These can help trigger memories.
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With all the above do remember that one of the most important pluses of an in-
terview process is the humanity of interviewer. Being present, aware and sensi-
tive to the process is your biggest asset. These guidelines are just that; guidelines
to be used when useful and ignored when not.
5.2
Types of Qualitative Methodologies
This section is not intended to be a complete collection of all types of qualitative
inquiry. Rather it is meant to give an overview of some of the variations possible, set
in a discussion about when and where they have proven useful. This overview is di-
vided into three sections. First, the type of qualitative methodologies often used in
conjunction with or as part of more quantitative methodologies is discussed. Then, we
mention the approaches taken in the area of heuristic, or, as they are sometimes re-
ferred to 'discount', inspection methodologies. The last section will cover some study
methodologies that are intentionally primarily qualitative.
5.2.1 Nested Qualitative Methods
While qualitative methodologies can be at the core of some types of studies, some
aspects of qualitative inquiry are used in most studies. For instance, data gathered by
asking participants for their opinions or preferences is qualitative. Gorard [26] argues
that quantitative methods can not ignore the qualitative factors of the social context of
the study and that these factors are, of necessity, involved in developing an interpreta-
tion of the study results. There are many methods used as part of studies such as labo-
ratory experiments that provide us with qualitative data. The following are simply a
few examples to illustrate how common this mixed approach is.
Experimenter Observations:
An important part of most studies is that the experi-
menter keeps notes of what they observe as it is happening. The observations them-
selves can help add some degree of realism to the data and the practice of logging
these observations as they happen during the study helps make them more reliable
than mere memory. However, they are experimenter observations and as such are
naturally subjective. They do record occurrences that were not expected or are not
measurable so that they will also form part of the experimental record. These observa-
tions can be helpful during interpretation of the results in that they may offer explana-
tions for outliers, point towards important experimental re-design, and suggest future
directions for study. Here, experimenter observations augment and enrich the primar-
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