Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
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Appendix A: Schools of Thought About
Qualitative Studies
There are nearly as many philosophical approaches to qualitative inquiry
as there are research teams. These philosophical stances strongly influence
the researchers' selection of methods, which is why these approaches are
introduced here. The positivist approach to qualitative research tries to
apply the criteria of validity and reliability, and is basically a deductive
approach such as that used in biomedical studies.
1
Post-positivist
approaches argue that a new set of criteria needs to be developed, and that
there are multiple views of reality. Along similar lines, the constructivist
approach, or naturalistic inquiry, maintains that truth is relative and is a
result of perspective. It considers the social construction of reality and uses
the criterion of trustworthiness. Our primary focus has been the construc-
tivist tradition throughout the preceding chapter.
The grounded theory approach in its purest form is the most inductive
and constructivist. First Glaser and Strauss
2
and then Strauss and Corbin
3
described this approach that is becoming more widely used in biomedical
informatics research. It is an approach that is firmly based or grounded in
the data. This means that few preconceived notions are allowed to struc-
ture the outcomes of the study. For example, when Crabtree did his early
work studying what it is like becoming a physician, he gathered observa-
tional and interview data, and did his coding by selecting the residents' own
words as a beginning coding scheme. He saw patterns as codes were
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