Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Implementation

Imagine that you are interested in community development in your local neighborhood, and you need some information about the community at the same time that you are hoping to increase community involvement. You are interested in designing a type of research project to facilitate this process. In the last chapter we discussed six of the most common types of qualitative research, but none of them really will help you get all the information you need or will necessarily help to facilitate community involvement.

There are other types of research designs that could help with this, that are either fully qualitative or have a strong qualitative component. In this chapter, we discuss several approaches to research that have become increasingly popular in the last few years.

We begin by discussing mixed methods approaches (that have both quantitative and qualitative components) and then move on to a discussion of action research and its varieties. Third, we discuss openly ideological forms of critical qualitative research (informed by neo-Marxist, critical, feminist, queer, dis/ability, critical race theory, or postmodern/poststructural/postcolonial theoretical frames that explicitly attempt to analyze and challenge power relations). Finally, we end with a brief discussion of arts based approaches to research. While these types of research with qualitative components are not quite as common as those discussed in the last chapter, they have become increasingly more popular, and many recent dissertations and journal articles make use of such approaches; in fact, some journals are devoted to these approaches to research. No current text on qualitative research would be complete without a consideration of these research methodologies.

Mixed Methods Research

One approach to developing a study about community development in your neighborhood—in which you would gather information and, ideally, facilitate community involvement—is to conduct a mixed methods research study. You might begin by developing a quantitative survey exploring people's attitudes and interests, their involvement in community issues, and what they are most concerned about, as well as including the usual demographic queries. This would give you some important general information, and you might be able to explore statistically significant differences in concerns and involvement based on gender, race, or economic status.

But such a survey wouldn't tell you anything about how those who are most interested in being involved in the community perceive how to get things done or to facilitate its development. Hence you might choose to also include a qualitative component whereby you interview a certain subset of survey respondents based on purposeful criteria. You might do individual interviews simply to gather such information, or focus group interviews if you were also interested in engaging people in interaction. This is one example of a mixed methods research study.

There are different ways to discuss mixed methods research. Creswell (2015) highlights that it can be discussed from a philosophical stance, “in which epistemology and other philosophical assumptions take center stage. It can also be presented as a methodology, that is, as a research process originating from a broad philosophy and extending to its interpretation and dissemination” (p. 1). He acknowledges that different authors discuss mixed methods in different ways, but his own stance is to look at it as a method. As such, he defines mixed methods research as:

an approach to research in the social, behavioral, and health sciences in which the investigator gathers both quantitative (closed-ended) and qualitative (open-ended) data, integrates the two and then draws interpretations based on the combined strengths of both sets of data to understand research problems.

Our purpose here in this introductory book on qualitative research is primarily to discuss the use of mixed methods research for its qualitative components, and hence as a method in the way that Creswell (2015) describes. We first provide a brief history of the development of mixed methods approaches and then discuss the types of mixed methods designs.

A Brief History of Mixed Methods Research

Mixed methods approaches to research have developed and been accepted over time. Creswell and Plano Clark (2011) discuss the formative period as the late 1960s and early 1970s, when there began to be a combination of quantitative surveys and interviews to answer research questions.

They term the next stage, in the later 1970s and 1980s, as the paradigm debate period. These debates focused on the differences in epistemological assumptions of qualitative and quantitative research. As was discussed in Chapter One, qualitative research is generally based on the assumption that "reality" is constructed by individuals, in light of their experiences; hence, in this view, there is not one reality but many realities.

By contrast, some argue that the positivist underpinning of quantitative research is based on a belief that there is one reality that can be measured. Hence during this debate period (and currently still for some scholars), there were the purists, who argue that quantitative and qualitative methods should not be combined because they have incompatible epistemological underpinnings. Others counterargue that it is possible to conduct a quantitative study exploring general trends and tendencies without fully embracing a positivist worldview. These situationalists "adapt their methods to the situation," whereas"pragmatists believe that multiple paradigms can be used to address research problems".

The next period, during the 1990s, resulted in procedural developments in fleshing out different types of mixed methods approaches to research, whereas the more recent period, from roughly 2000 to the time of this writing, Creswell and Plano Clark (2011) term “the advocacy and expansion period.” This period has been characterized by not only an expansion of possibilities of mixed methods approaches but also a perception of such approaches as a methodology in their own right. This more recent period has resulted in the appearance of handbooks and journals devoted to mixed methods research. Further, funding sources have provided guidelines for doing mixed methods research, with the National Institutes of Health (N.I.H) taking the lead in 1999. The National Science Foundation in 2003 conducted a workshop on qualitative research methods and touted the benefits of a mixed methods approach, and since then numerous funding sources call for mixed methods research proposals.

Types of Mixed Methods Research

There are many types of mixed methods research. Creswell (2015) discusses three primary designs: a convergent design, an explanatory sequential design, and an exploratory sequential design. In a convergent design, both the qualitative and quantitative data are collected more or less simultaneously; both data sets are analyzed and the results are compared.

For example, Kerrigan (2014) made use of a “convergent parallel mixed method case study” (p. 341) of four different community colleges (each of which served as a “case”) to explore the relationship of organizational capacity and the use of data-driven decision making. In doing so she drew largely on the leadership literature and the literature on forms of capital. First, she used purposeful criteria to select the four cases. Next, she invited all administrators at the director level and above and selected faculty (based on certain criteria) to fill out a quantitative survey.

During the same period she also interviewed a select group of faculty and administrators about their data-driven decision making. She analyzed both sets of data within each case and across cases, and found that “community colleges' organizational capacity for data-driven decision-making is a function of human and social capital, but not physical capital” (p. 346), with physical capital being access to and an understanding of technology. This is an example not only of a convergent design study but also of a mixed methods comparative case study.

In what refers to as the explanatory sequential design, the quantitative data are collected first; the collection of the qualitative data follows, generally with the purpose of explaining the results or a particular part of the findings in more depth. One example is Tisdell, Taylor, and Sprow Forté's (2013) mixed methods study examining the teaching beliefs and pedagogical practices of 245 financial literacy educators and how they attempt to educate about financial matters in working class and cultural communities. They first conducted a quantitative survey.

Then interviews were conducted with 15 of those respondents who indicated high attention to cultural issues on the survey; the interviews focused on what they actually did in practice. Hence the quantitative data provided information about what the beliefs and espoused educational practices of financial literacy educators were, in general, including their level of attention to cultural issues. But the qualitative interviews provided cultural stories and examples of how these beliefs, specifically about cultural issues, played out in their pedagogy.

In the exploratory mixed methods research design, the qualitative data are collected first, and then a survey is created based on an analysis of the qualitative data. One generally employs this method of research when little is known about a particular population or subject, and the qualitative data are used to explore and define the topic in order to create a survey instrument to gather data from a larger sample. An example is dissertation study of third-year medical students' perceptions of teacher-learner relationships in the clinical environment and how they relate to students' perceptions of teaching and learning in their own future role as educators. (The third year is typically when medical students move from the classroom to the clinic.) While there had been some studies of third-year medical students, there was none about faculty-student relationships. Hence Jarecke initially interviewed thirteen students in their third year and then developed a survey, based on issues and themes that were raised during the interviews, that was distributed to all third-year students at a single institution. She found that relationships were affected by contextual factors, relating to time, the clinical hierarchy, and the particular clinical rotation content area. Further, faculty-student relationships were extremely important in determining students' specialty area.

Often one form of data in a mixed methods study is more primary than another (Plano Clark et al., 2013). For example using the topic posed at the beginning of this chapter, we could design the community development study of a local neighborhood predominantly as a qualitative case study, in which we primarily conduct observations, analyze documents, and interview neighborhood residents. In the middle of the project it might appear that a quantitative survey with a broader group of participants might yield some important further data. So what began as a qualitative case study becomes a qualitative mixed method case study, but the qualitative data remains primary.

In this scenario the quantitative component is nested within the design of what is predominantly a qualitative case study design. Plano refer to these as embedded designs, defined as:

having an unequal priority in terms of the relative importance of the quantitative and qualitative components for addressing the study's research questions. Researchers choose an embedded approach when their research questions include primary and secondary questions, where one question (for example, the primary question) calls for a quantitative approach and the other question (for example, the secondary question) calls for a qualitative approach. (p. 223)

Given that this book is primarily about qualitative research methods, most of the mixed methods studies we refer to here in this chapter and use as examples are embedded designs in which the quantitative components are nested within primarily qualitative designs. Our point here is to discuss the ways in which researchers have used qualitative and quantitative components together to yield a richer understanding of the subject under study. For further information on mixed methods research, we recommend readers to any of the excellent resources that have been cited here.

Action Research

Action research is a form of practitioner research. It not only seeks to understand how participants make meaning or interpret a particular phenomenon or problem in their workplace, community, or practice, but it also usually seeks to engage participants at some level in the process in order to solve a practical problem. Social workers, teachers, and health professionals often engage in action research to improve their practice. For example, a teacher might begin to wonder whether or not a particular intervention will improve the math skills of her students. She might develop an intervention strategy and study its effects over time, simultaneously engaging students in the process.

Practitioners also engage in action research in organizations, for social or community development, and for social change. The research design emerges over time, as one engages with the participants, and together researcher and participants decide on next steps in working toward coming up with solutions to the problem. In considering an example, let's return to the study posed at this chapter's opening about community development in your local neighborhood, at the same time that you are hoping to increase community involvement. You could easily design such a study through an action research methodology. What might such a study look like?

You could begin by gathering six key leaders in the community and conducting a focus group interview to explore what these leaders see as key issues in the community and how they think the community might work together to facilitate its own development. You would likely try to engage these key leaders as co-researchers to help design the next phase of study and to discuss what kinds of data need to be collected in the community. As a researcher and with the leaders' permission, you would audiotape this interaction and transcribe and analyze it as data. Imagine that during this opening focus group interview these leaders decide that the next step should be for them to conduct interviews with community members; they do so, and then all of you reconvene to analyze some of what was found so far. In the next stage, together you might decide to do a survey to get some more large-scale quantitative data about the community. Imagine that through the interviews and the survey you find that one thing that people seem to emphasize is the need to engage the youth of the neighborhood in positive change for the community; a few people suggest a community art project. So after figuring out how to find the money to fund such a project, one subgroup decides to engage a community artist to work with youth to create a series of community murals. This subgroup then studies the process of engaging youth in this mural creation.

The point here is that in action research studies, the research design continues to unfold as researcher and participants collect and analyze data and make decisions for the next phase of the study. Lead researchers work with participants as co-researchers at every phase of the study.

Principles of Action Research

Action research as a theory and approach to research began to develop in the 1940s out of psychologist Kurt Lewin's work on group relations. While Lewin wasn't necessarily the first to use action research—people have been informally doing action research since the dawn of time—"he was the first to develop a theory of action research that made it a respectable form of research in the social sciences". Since the time Lewin developed the theory, action research has been used in many different situations with many different configurations to solve practical problems; indeed, that is its purpose. There are different types of action research, but all forms of it share several principles. Herr and Anderson's (2015) explanation of action research is a useful starting point for examining some of these principles:"Action research is oriented toward some action or cycle of actions that organizational or community members have taken, are taking, or wish to take to address a particular problematic situation".

A first principle, then, of action research is that it focuses on a “problematic situation” in practice. Hence its purpose is to either solve this practical problem or at least to find a way to further enhance what is already positive in a practice situation; it is always focused on the improvement of practice.

A second principle of action research is that the design of the study is emergent; as Herr and Anderson (2015) state, it is “oriented toward some action or cycle of actions” in which researchers and participants engage to improve practice. Hence the design of an action research study typically unfolds while the study is in process through a spiral cycle of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. The researcher (s) initially plan what they are going to do as a first step; in the next phase they act or implement what they have initially planned; in the third phase they observe what happened as a result of the action; and in the fourth phase they reflect on what they will do next as a result of the data they have collected and analyzed in this first cycle. Typically the reflection phase becomes the next planning phase. Usually this reflective phase also engages the participants as co-researchers in the next steps for the study.

A third principle of action research is that, to at least some extent, researchers engage participants as co-investigators. Action research is generally not done on participants; it is done with participants. This is why emphasize that action research is about engaging in action that “organizational or community members have taken, are taking, or wish to take” to change some aspect of their situation. The degree to which participants act as co-investigators varies in action research projects, and they can also be more involved in some phases than in others. Often participants are not that interested in writing up the study, for example.

Further, the setting might dictate to some degree the extent to which participants can act fully as co-researchers. However, one key to the success of an action research project is the extent to which there is participant buy-in and active participation. As Stringer (2014) notes, “active participation is the key to feelings of ownership that motivate people to invest their time and energy to help shape the nature and quality of the acts, activities and behaviors in which they engage”. If one wants to make something happen in a community, or a workplace, or in an area of professional practice, one key to doing so is participants' active participation.

A fourth principle of action research is that the degree to which the lead researcher (the one who is eventually responsible for the study) is an insider or outsider to the community under study makes a difference and must be a consideration in any action research study. One can conduct an action research study as an insider to an organization, or as an outsider, or some configuration of the two that may emerge over time. One could be a complete insider; teacher researchers, for example, typically conduct research with students in their own classes to improve some aspect of their teaching. They are complete insiders both to the school and to their own classroom.

One could also be a collaborative researcher with a teacher doing a similar study. For example, a researcher from a university might engage with a teacher or group of teachers as co-researchers to engage in a certain approach to literacy. So if the university researcher were an outsider, this scenario represents an outsider collaborating with an insider. In our community development study example, if you are a member of the community you are an insider, but you might not necessarily be a leader in the community at the beginning of the study, and at the outset you may be a sort of marginal insider—you live in the community but may have not had a significant involvement with the community. However, you are an insider taking on a lead role as a researcher with other community members to get the study done and to make something happen in the community, and you may become a more important part of a group of community leaders in the process.

If one is a complete outsider to an organization, it is important to try to collaborate with at least one insider in some way in order to be able to engage more authentically with participants who have a vested interest in improving their practice. No matter what stance one takes as a researcher, it is important to remember this:"action research seeks to develop and maintain social and interpersonal interactions that are nonexploitive and enhance the social and emotional lives of all people who participate".

A final principle of action research is that researchers and co-investigators collect and analyze multiple forms of data in a systematic way as the research process unfolds. Most action research studies make use of only qualitative data collection methods. However, as we have seen, participants as co-researchers could also decide they want to conduct a quantitative survey as part of their data collection methods, though it is rare in action research studies that participants choose to do so. What all qualitative action research studies have in common is that they make use of only qualitative data collection methods, such as interviews, focus groups, observations, and analysis of documents or artifacts. Many qualitative action research studies begin with in-depth interviews of participants as part of the planning process and then engage participants as co-researchers in a problem-solving process, and often conclude with individual or focus group interviews reflecting on the process., for example, conducted an action research study of participants with Type 1 diabetes and the role of creative expression as they made further meaning of their diabetes. She conducted individual interviews, then engaged the participants in a series of group creative expression activities of their own choosing, and at the end of the process conducted individual interviews.

In sum, there are distinct principles of action research that hinge on making something happen, that focus on solving real problems in practice, and that engage participants, at least to some extent, so that the research meets their needs. Most action research studies are qualitative action research studies, since most collect only qualitative forms of data; however, as we have seen, it is possible to include a quantitative component in an action research study.

Types of Action Research

There are many types of action research that are variously named: teacher research, collaborative action research, cooperative inquiry, appreciative inquiry, critical action research, feminist action research, and participatory action research. There are some distinctions among these types, but most of the differences can be accounted for in the theoretical framework that informs the action research study, as well as the degree to which participants are involved in the overall design and implementation of the study.

In reviewing some of the developments of action research and its varieties, Kemmis, McTaggert, and Nixon (2014) distinguish the types of action research in light of Habermas's three types of knowledge:

1. Technical action research guided by an interest in improving control over outcomes;

2. Practical action research guided by an interest in educating or enlightening practitioners so they can act more wisely and prudently;

3. Critical action research guided by an interest in emancipating people and groups from irrationality, unsustainability and injustice. (p. 14)

This is a useful framework for considering some of the main differences in the types of action research.

While it is certainly possible to do a technical action research project—perhaps an intervention strategy for teaching math with the sole purpose of improving standardized test scores—such action research projects are clearly unusual. Most action research projects fall into what refer to as either “practical action research” or “critical action research.”

Teachers and professors often conduct qualitative action research studies in their own classrooms to improve their practice. These are most often examples of what refer to as “practical action research” studies. In the 1990s, such forms of action research were often referred to as “teacher research” or “teacher action research”; now they are more often called “practitioner inquiry” or “collaborative action research”. The point of teacher action research is the improvement of teaching practice at the same time that the teacher-researcher develops into more of a reflective practitioner and creates new knowledge about and with her or his students.

Such teacher action research projects typically emerge as teachers become curious about or have “puzzling moments” in their practice. As a result of such puzzling moments, a teacher might begin to implement a new strategy or method of teaching by making use of the plan-act-observe-reflect cycle to implement change. Some teachers do so by partnering with university researchers, and others do so on their own or with other teacher groups. In these forms of action research, there is generally less of an emphasis on engaging K-12 students directly as coresearchers, although teachers solicit their input; rather, the emphasis is more on the voice of collaborative teacher groups or on the unfolding knowledge and professional development in the teacher's practice.

Other forms of practical action research are focused more on organizational change, sometimes on behalf of a particular subgroup within an organization., for example, conducted an action research dissertation study of early career scientists to develop leadership within their organization. She herself did the research as an insider to the organization; as such she was aware that early career scientists within the organization often feel isolated, and her study developed partly to ameliorate this need as well as to develop their leadership. Two different action research teams, made up of these early career scientists and their mentors, met monthly over a two-year period.

In this case she was looking for these scientists to get involved in continuing to design the project (a co-researcher role) even as they engaged in a leadership development project. As the researcher, she took responsibility for convening the groups and supporting the process (and writing up the report), but the participants determined their own projects. She found that they developed adaptive leadership capabilities to get their projects done, which was supported by the learning culture of the group itself.

Another player on the action research stage, particularly in education and other applied fields of practice, is appreciative inquiry (A.I), which emerged from the field of organizational development. Some would argue that A.I differs from action research in that it does not focus on solving a problem in practice per say. According to Cooperrider, Whitney, and Stavros (2008), its focus is more on what is positive in an organization and on initiating interventions by highlighting the positive, according to the 4D (discovery, dream, design, and destiny) model. In particular, they state:"A.I interventions focus on the speed of imagination and innovation instead of negative, critical, and spiraling diagnoses commonly used in organizations. The discovery, dream, design, and destiny model links the energy of the positive core to change never thought possible" (p. 3). A.I studies are often done in health care organizations.

For example, Richer, Ritchie, and Marchionni (2009) conducted an A.I study with health care workers to discover and implement innovative ideas related to cancer care. Later, this same group of researchers conducted a critical literature review analyzing studies that have used A.I in health care settings. While A.I does focus on what is positive in organizations as opposed to what is problematic, given that it is process oriented and initiates a change process, we consider it a form of what call “practical action research.”

There is a wide body of literature that discusses what refer to as “critical action research.” Critical action research studies are specifically about attempting to challenge power relations based on societal structures of race, gender, class, sexual orientation, or religion. From a theoretical perspective, such research studies are informed by critical theory or pedagogy, feminist theory, critical race theory, or other theoretical orientations that are specifically focused on challenging power relations. Some critical action research studies are also participatory action research studies, in which the participants in the study act to a great degree as co-researchers. In other critical action research studies, there are more limitations on the extent to which participants can act as co-researchers. For example, in most formal education settings there are some limitations on the extent to which students can be involved in determining curriculum or their final (graded) evaluation in the course. But in critical action research studies, teachers typically work with students so that they can have some say and control over what they are learning.

Siha's (2014) critical action research study serves as an example. Siha, a community college writing professor, conducted a critical action research study making use of critical pedagogy in his writing composition class, based on the thinking of Paulo Freire. He wanted his students to begin to write about things that they cared about and that mattered in their lives, as they learned about different types of writing—the kind of writing that was expected by an academic culture that requires “standard English” versus the kind of language that they might engage in at home or on the street. In his teaching, he emphasized that one form of language use or writing is not necessarily “better” than another; rather, they needed to know which type to use in which setting, and in the community college writing setting or in any formal writing, they generally had to make use of the standards of writing and language determined by the “power culture.” In emphasizing this, he was trying to highlight to some degree that writing and language “standards” are determined by those who are part of the hegemonic culture, and these standards are not better or worse than their home language; they just need to know which to use in which setting.

As part of the planning phase, he engaged participants in an initial educational narrative writing assignment in which they highlighted the kinds of writing and topics in which they were interested. After analyzing these papers as documents and as part of the group planning process, he and the student participants then opted to make use of smaller writing groups as a critical pedagogy technique to use for feedback related to a series of five different types of writing assignments. Students learned to question assumptions and analyze power issues in relation to writing and language, and they engaged in processes that helped them become more involved in their education and learn to build better writing skills in the process.

He and each of the students analyzed the writing, and at the end of the study Siha conducted individual interviews with students. This is an example of a critical action research study, in which students participated to some degree as active participants and had a say in determining the direction of writing assignments, but not to the same degree that they might in a participatory action research study.

Practitioners and community members sometimes take on an action researcher role and conduct participatory action research (P.A.R) studies in their own communities to specifically challenge power relations and initiate change in their communities. Our proposed community development study, described earlier as an action research project, could easily be considered a P.A.R study. In almost all P.A.R studies, such researchers are either insiders of the communities where they are conducting such studies or are specifically asked by a community to help them engage in a P.A.R study. Kemmis et al. (2014) highlight that in critical P.A.R studies, participants are “profoundly interested” in their practices “and in whether the conditions under which they practice are appropriate”. Hence it is easy to involve such participants in a P.A.R study; in fact, it is usually their idea, and they initiate the study specifically to engage with others to make those conditions better. Kemmis et al. (2014) provide numerous examples of critical P.A.R studies in their work.

Critical P.A.R studies can affect and transform people from both an individual and a societal perspective. Pyrch (2007) argues that P.A.R helps people to move beyond fear—or in spite of fear—to take action, and that taking control of fear is liberating in itself. He describes his own journey of doing so in much of his work in Canada and then discusses the connection between P.A.R and popular education as adult education, noting:"For me, the community development concept is a combination of adult learning and social action for the purpose of educating people for collective cooperative enterprises for local control of local affairs". Many people either do not believe that they can join with others to exercise control of local affairs or are too afraid to even think they can. Moving beyond that fear, that lack of awareness, or both is part of what P.A.R is about. This too can sometimes have policy implications.

Carney, Dundon, and Ní Léime (2012), for example, describe how their P.A.R study in Ireland with community activist groups affected policy decisions as people moved beyond fear. Indeed, this is ultimately the purpose of P.A.R studies: to engage people in taking action on their own behalf as part of their own communities.

In sum, there are many types of action research studies. Most such studies fall into what refer to as “practical action research” or “critical action research” studies. In addition, most make use of only qualitative data collection methods; though occasionally some action researchers or collaborative teams will opt to collect some forms of quantitative data, this is quite unusual in action research studies.

While all action research studies attempt to engage participants to meet their own needs and interests, the extent to which participants actually become co-researchers varies with the type of action research study and the stage of the study. Participatory action research studies most fully engage participants as co-researchers. As we have seen, both critical and participatory action research studies are intended to challenge structured power relations such as those based on social class, race, gender, sexual orientation, or religion. But there are also other forms of critical research that are not specifically critical or participatory action research studies. It is to these types of qualitative research studies that we now turn.

Critical Research

In our preceding discussion, we talked about one form of critical research—critical action research (and participatory action research, which is a form of critical research). But thinking more generally about critical research, what makes it specifically critical is the theoretical framework that informs the study; in the case of critical action research studies, the point is specifically to help people understand and challenge power relations in the process of the study and to make something happen while the study is going on. There are many other types of qualitative studies informed by critical or feminist theory, queer theory, critical race theory, dis/ability, or poststructural/postmodern/postcolonial theory (collectively called "critical studies") that do not necessarily intend to specifically make something happen or solve a problem in practice while the study is going on. The point is that these types of studies are collectively critical in the sense of the theoretical framework that informs the study and in their analysis of power relations. It is analyzing the data, in light of the theoretical framework and the power relations of society that inform how people make meaning, that makes the study critical. We will discuss the role of the theoretical framework in qualitative research studies more thoroughly in the next chapter, but because critical research studies are now so common, in light of what refers to as"the critical turn" in qualitative social science research, we will discuss them in some depth here.

Goals and Types of Critical Research

In critical inquiry the goal of the study in its findings or results is to critique and challenge, to transform, and to analyze power relations. In most critical studies, the hope is often that people will take action as a result of the study. As Patton (2015, p. 692) observes, what makes critical research critical is that “it aims to critique existing conditions and through that critique bring about change.” Thus critical research is not a “type” of qualitative research in the same sense as the others covered in the last chapter. Rather, critical research is about a worldview, and this worldview and the tools of analysis from this perspective can be applied to many types of qualitative research. Thus, for example, one could do a critical ethnography or a critical narrative study. A critical lens can also be used for interpreting data in a basic qualitative study, a grounded theory study, or a case study. The point is that in design of the study and in the analysis of the study, the researcher would be specifically examining the nature of power relations.

Critical research has its roots in several traditions and, as currently practiced, encompasses a variety of approaches. Early influences include Marx's analysis of socioeconomic conditions and class structures, Habermas's notions of emancipatory knowledge, and Freire's transformative and emancipatory education. Kincheloe and McLaren (2000) center critical research in critical hermeneutics:"In its critical theory-driven context, the purpose of hermeneutical analysis is to develop a form of cultural criticism revealing power dynamics within social and cultural texts".

Critical research has become a broad term that covers a number of orientations to research, all of which seek to not just understand what is going on, but also to critique the way things are in the hopes of bringing about a more just society. Critical research can be combined with other qualitative methodologies., for example, suggests combining a critical stance toward social justice with the analytical tools of grounded theory.

As another methodological combination, critical ethnography attempts to interpret the culture but also to expose cultural systems that oppress and marginalize certain groups of people. In critical autoethnography a researcher uses data to analyze how structures of power inherent in culture inform some aspect of her or his own story., for example, analyzed how her working class roots along with her gender and “intellectual obsession” relate to how she became a researcher and an academic.

As noted earlier, critical qualitative research studies can be informed by critical theory, feminist theory, critical race theory, queer theory, or poststructural/postmodern/postcolonial theory. Critical theory tends to focus on the analysis of social class; critical race theory highlights race; feminist frames tend to focus on gender; queer theory on sexual orientation; postcolonial studies analyze colonial relations. Postmodern/poststructural frames analyze how all forms of power influence research—in Foucault's (1980) sense that power is “capillary,” or everywhere—at the same time that such theoretical perspectives tend to question categories and fixed notions of truth or knowledge.

Indeed, power dynamics are at the heart of critical research although, as implied earlier, typically researchers often have a specific interest about particular structural power relations—such as gender in feminist studies, or race in critical race studies—or in the intersections of social structures, such as that of race and gender in studies informed by Black feminist thought. Questions are asked about who has power, how it's negotiated, what structures in society reinforce the current distribution of power, and so on. Critical perspectives generally assume that people unconsciously accept things the way they are, and in so doing, reinforce the status quo. Others may act in seemingly self-destructive or counterproductive ways in resisting the status quo. In critical studies, the assumption is that power in combination with hegemonic social structures results in the marginalization and oppression of those without power. Critical research seeks to make these dynamics visible so that people can challenge power relations.

Critical research focuses less on individuals than on context. Critical educational research, for example, queries the context in which learning takes place, including the larger systems of society, the culture, and institutions that shape educational practice, and the structural and historical conditions framing practice. Questions are asked regarding whose interests are being served by the way the educational system is organized, who really has access to particular programs, who has the power to make changes, and what outcomes are produced by the way in which education is structured. Thus critical qualitative research raises questions about how power relations advance the interests of one group while oppressing those of other groups, and about the nature of truth and the construction of knowledge.

A delightful and now classic example of critical research is analysis of the children's book Tootle. This is a good example of applying a critical lens to a text. Burbules reveals how the seemingly innocent story of a baby locomotive learning to be an adult locomotive can be read as a parable of schooling, work, and adulthood—and how the oppressive structures of class and gender are reinforced in our society. Three more recent examples of critical qualitative research are by Davidson (2006),, and Robertson, Bravo, and Chaney (2014). Using a critical and queer theoretical lens, Davidson (2006) presents a case study of a bisexual Latino male; study of women working internationally for social justice employed postcolonial theory, which examines those who are marginalized due to race, gender, and ethnic group as a result of colonization. Robertson, Bravo, and Chaney (2014) examine Latino/Latina students' experiences of racism at a predominantly White university from a critical race theory perspective, and how they found counter spaces to navigate this predominantly White milieu. There are numerous critical research studies, and entire journals are specifically devoted to publishing critical forms of social research.

Attending to Positionalitity and Reflexivity in Critical Research

So far we have emphasized the fact that it is the theoretical framework and the analysis of societal power relations that makes a study critical. But there are also methodological issues, particularly related to the role of the researcher in conducting studies, that are theoretically grounded in any critical perspective analyzing power relations that need to be considered in critical qualitative studies. A basic assumption of critical theory, feminist theory, dis/ability theory, critical race theory, queer theory, and postcolonial/poststructural/postmodern theory is that the world is informed by structured power relations based on race, gender, class, sexual orientation, dis/ability, or religion. In essence, the assumption is that power relations are everywhere, including in the research study itself. While all forms of qualitative research address issues such as building rapport with participants in qualitative data collection, in critical research more attention is given to an examination of power relations in the research act itself.

We made the point earlier that, aside from critical action research studies, in other types of critical research studies researchers generally do not necessarily intend to make change happen during the study itself. However, there is a certain assumption in most critical forms of research that change is happening all the time, and when participants are asked questions in interviews or in other forms of data collection about their experiences related to gender, race, class, or sexual orientation, the very act of talking about issues changes their consciousness about these things and hence invites change. Thus change is accepted as a given in critical forms of qualitative research; however, except in the case of critical action research studies (and at times in critical ethnography), the point isn't really to study how people or groups change in the research process. Rather, it's to analyze issues relating to power relations in participants' lives. Of course, most critical researchers hope that the participants or others will do something and engage in action as a result of the study. But most critical researchers also recognize and attempt to grapple with power relations within the study while they are doing it.

Discussions of critical research tend to highlight three major interrelated issues in considering the relationship the researcher has with participants: insider/outsider issues; positionality issues; and, as a result of both of these intersecting factors, the importance of researcher reflexivity. Lincoln (2010, citing Fine, 1994) refers to the work on these issues collectively as “working the hyphen” and explains that “working the hyphen refers to studying the Self-Other conjunction” (p. 5) —in essence, the researcher-participant relationship and how one affects the other in the research process. To some extent we have talked about insider/outsider issues in our earlier discussion of action research.

But critical researchers of all types need to grapple with these issues, to consider how whether or not one is an insider or outsider affects the research process. For example, if one is doing a study as an academic university researcher of how high school teachers try to attend to power relations in classrooms, and one has never been a high school teacher, then one does the research as a complete outsider. If one has been a high school teacher in the past but now teaches at a university, one may have a mix of insider and outsider status in the view of the participants.

These insider/outsider status issues can affect whether one has access to participants, as well as to the kinds of stories they will tell the researcher.

An extension of this notion of insider/outsider status is the issue of researchers' positionality—their race, gender, social class background, and sexual orientation—particularly with respect to the study purposes. For example, doing a research study about gay men might be easier if one is a gay man; getting access and developing trust with participants is often more natural if relevant aspects of one's positionality are similar to those under study. Vicars (2012) highlights this in his study of gay men's childhood and adolescent reading practices that related to their identity development.

He conducted the research as a gay man, and he writes that"without insider access, it would have proved difficult to find gay men in education that would have been willing and prepared to talk openly about their experiences" (p. 468). This is not to say that researchers' positionality needs to always match that of the participants. And as Johnson-Bailey (2004) explains, in her experience of doing a critical narrative study with Black women returning to higher education, there are always ways one's positionality does not match participants'; she was an insider with her participants in regard to race and gender, but with some participants she was an outsider in relation to social class and color. The point is that participants in studies of marginalized groups (by race, gender, class, sexual orientation) are often suspicious of those who are members of the dominant culture doing research on people of oppressed groups.

They often worry about what the researcher's agenda is and how they will be portrayed as participants. The point of critical research is generally to do research with people, not on people.

While all qualitative researchers would argue that it is important to tend to researcher reflexivity, critical researchers in particular emphasize this because of the power relations inherent in the research act itself. In their recent study of the role of reflexivity in social work researchers, Probst and Berenson (2014) note: “Reflexivity is generally understood as awareness of the influence the researcher has on what is being studied and, simultaneously, of how the research process affects the researcher. It is both a state of mind and a set of actions” (p. 814). This implies that qualitative research is a dialectical process that affects and changes both the participants and the researcher, at least to some extent. In the critical sense of qualitative research—and if one is serious about challenging power relations both in the world and in the research process itself—it is incumbent upon the critical researcher to be reflexive: to consider issues such as positionality and insider/outsider stances. in research and to try to own their effects in the process in so far as this is possible. A word of caution is in order here, though, in finding balance in the write-up: as Pillow (2003) observes, one can go overboard in discussing these issues, so that it appears that the study is more about the researcher than the participants and the findings of the study. Nevertheless, this issue of researcher reflexivity in critical research and how the researcher deals with it in a report is part of what also contributes to making critical research studies critical.

Arts Based Research

Qualitative research is fundamentally about examining how people make meaning. Most typically, researchers have analyzed what people say (in interviews or in written documents) and what people do by observing them and writing down field notes. Hence most qualitative researchers analyze data that are words. But people do not make meaning or express it only through words; they also do so by art, in visual art, in symbol, in theater based art, and through photography, music, dance, story, or poetry. Since the advent of the new millennium, there has been much more of an emphasis on how creative expression can be a part of qualitative research efforts in what has come to be referred to as arts based research (A.B.R). Barone and Eisner (2012) discuss the limitations of using narrative words alone, and note that “arts based research is the effort to extend beyond the limiting constraints of discursive communication in order to express meanings that would otherwise be ineffable”.

Researchers can make use of arts based practices at different phases of the research study or at all phases. As Leavy (2015) explains, “A.B.R practices are a set of methodological tools used by qualitative researchers across the disciplines during all phases of social research, including data collection, analysis, interpretation, and representation”. The point of incorporating art into research is partly in recognition of the fact that people make meaning and express it in different ways. However, as artists and many teachers know, people also often make meaning in new and even deeper ways when asked to express something through symbol, photography, visual art, music, metaphor, dance, poetry, or other forms of creative expression. Artists know this and regularly do so in their creative process. But people who do not see themselves as artists or “good” at art can also make deeper meaning through arts based forms of expression—perhaps because doing so taps into a different part of the brain. In any case, a researcher can engage in arts based research and not identify as an artist; one can also incorporate arts based activities into aspects of a research project with people who do not identify as artists. Researchers do so because its use generally invites deeper meaning making, and meaning making is the focus of qualitative research.

There are debates about whether or not arts based research is a unique form of research. Some argue it is not, in and of itself; one can make use of arts based approaches in a myriad of ways in basic interpretive studies, ethnographies, narrative studies, grounded theory approaches, case studies, or critical or action forms of research. Nevertheless, others argue that arts based research has its own methodology and extends the paradigm of qualitative research. To some extent the poles of the argument hinge on (1) whether the purpose of the arts based approach is as a data collection and/or presentation method, or (2) whether the whole purpose of the research is really to study artists and/or the artistic process. Hence, for the sake of simplicity, we break our discussion of arts based approaches down into these two primary areas.

Use of the Arts in Data Collection and Research Presentation

Many researchers make use of arts based approaches more as part of their data collection methods, to a lesser or greater extent, and sometimes in the presentation of the findings to clarify a point. In these instances the studies' purposes are not really about the art or the image; the images in this sense are more typically used as an elicitation device during interviews. In speaking about the use of photos in research, Harper (2002) explains that photo elicitation is"the simple idea of inserting a photograph into a research interview"; he goes on to note that any visual image—such as cartoons, paintings, symbols, graphic images or objects—can be inserted into an interview. Participants are invited to talk about the image during the interview to see how they make meaning of it. If it is a researcher-generated image, the images are typically used to elicit meaning about particular types of experiences. For example, Matteucci (2013) used photos of the flamenco music and dance experience with tourists who had gone to the southern part of Spain specifically to engage in flamenco music and dance classes. He chose the photos himself for two primary reasons: he was interested in exploring particular aspects of tourists' perceptions and experiences of flamenco music and dance as depicted in these photos, and participants were in this region for only a brief time, so taking their own photos would have been time-prohibitive.

More often, researchers use participant-gathered or participant-created photos or visual images as an elicitation device in data gathering, which we discuss further in Chapter Seven. If the participant simply found an image or object and brought it to the interview, the researcher might ask not only what it means but also how it was chosen; if the participant created it, the researcher might ask what the creative experience was like. For example, Lachal et al. (2012) conducted a study with obese adolescents to examine the role of food in family relationships. They gave these adolescents a disposable camera with the directions to take a photo of the family table following a meal before the table was cleared; they were told no one was to be in the pictures. They interviewed the adolescents about how meals unfolded in their family and the nature of family relationships around food; the picture was used as an elicitation device.

In these uses of arts based approaches as data collection, the studies are about the subject itself and typically not primarily about the images per say. Matteucci's (2013) study was about tourists' experiences of taking flamenco music and dance classes; Lachal et al.'s study was to examine the role of food in family relationships. The use of images was only an elicitation device to see how participants make meaning of their experience.

In some studies that make use of arts based approaches, the role of the art or image making takes on a more central role. This is often the case in action research studies when participants are asked to create some sort of drawing, collage, or symbol to express something. Stuckey (2009) and her participants, in her action research study about the role of creative expression in making further meaning of diabetes, together decided to first create an image in one session and then take photographs in another. They also discussed the image-making and the photo-gathering experience in the sessions themselves. These sessions were not only about how they made meaning of diabetes; they were also about how the role of creative expression facilitated the meaning-making process. In the final interviews participants were invited to create an art piece to depict their whole experience. In this case, the study was about their further meaning-making of diabetes through engaging in the creative process. The study was still more about how they made meaning of their diabetes, but the role of creative expression did take center stage.

Qualitative researchers employ arts based approaches to research not only in the data collection methods but also in the presentation of the findings. Lodico, Spaulding, and Voegtle (2010), for example, discuss a program evaluation study of a youth summer camp academic enrichment program; the researchers had some of the youth create photographs of what their experience was like and used the photos as a way of presenting some of the major findings of the study, but the study was more about the evaluation of the youth summer camp program.

Of course, arts based inquiry is more than just using or creating images; it often involves the more creative use of words, such as in the use of poetry or in creating a performance out of participants' words., for example, conducted a narrative study of four students with disabilities. She described how she used poetic writing from the students' narratives in"bringing the message forward" to solve the research dilemmas she ran into along the way. In her conclusion she writes that the effect of using poetry"foregrounded the students' stories, enabling focus on the meaning and threads of their experiences and creating coherent storylines, verisimilitude, and evocative text to engage the reader in reflection and deeper understanding."

Researchers sometimes use participants' words or work to create some sort of performance to engage with the larger public about the findings of the study. Davis (2014) for example, created an ethnodrama of young adults' stories of transitioning from high school to adult basic education in G.E.D programs, which was performed as readers' theater to create discussion about the life experiences of such young adults in these educational programs. An even more dramatic example of arts based research as presentation is in “how Eve Ensler transformed her interviews with victims of sexual violence into a play, The Vagina Monologues, that has been performed in hundreds of locations”.

There are many other examples of how researchers have drawn on the arts to more creatively present the findings of their study to different audiences, rather than strictly presenting themes of findings in an academic journal. This is where, to some extent, some arts based approaches are often critical in their orientation, in that the findings are meant to effect change in people by raising consciousness about the issues under study. Those who draw on the findings of a study to engage with poetic license in this way have found that their approach raised some issues. Some were concerned about the trustworthiness of findings, or the ethics of doing so; hence most who discuss arts based approaches to research specifically address such questions. Further, researchers who present findings in this manner generally have their participants' permission to do so, or specifically work with their participants to engage in such a production. In addition, when findings are presented as poetry or even creative prose, in either a research article or writing for a more general audience, the author-researchers are generally transparent about what they are doing in trying to take a more creative approach that will appeal to a more general audience.

Arts Based Research About Artists and Artistic Processes

In most of the examples just provided, the purpose of the research was to explore how participants make meaning of a particular phenomenon or experience, not about the art itself. But there are qualitative research projects that are specifically intended to study artists or the processes of creating and/or presenting some form of art.

These studies take various forms. Some studies focus more on artists and their art as a form of knowledge creation or education., for example, studied how the art and practice of German-born Uruguayan conceptual artist Luis Camnitzer functioned as a form of public pedagogy. From the time Camnitzer was a child and escaped the Nazi regime with his family, he has lived his life in a constant state of exile from oppressive regimes. He uses his art to raise consciousness about oppression. Zorrilla's specific purpose was to examine both how Camnitzer thought about his role as someone engaged in a form of public pedagogy, as well as how his art functions as a form of education. She carried out her study by conducting interviews with Camnitzer and with art curators who had shown his work, as well as by analyzing Camnitzer's writings and his art. Zorrilla's specific point was to examine the artist and the artistic process.

, in her book about arts based approaches, specifically discusses situations in which the researchers engage the arts for the purposes of producing art or for examining how art contributes to the knowledge construction process. She has separate chapters on qualitative approaches in creating visual arts, dance, and movement; music; drama and performance studies; poetry; and fictional and autobiographical writing in narrative studies. One good example of using drama and poetry is critical race theory study using interviews with African American, Latino/Latina, and Native Americans to create poetry and drama that challenges the dominant narrative on race and culture. Their purpose was explicitly to create a performance using participants' words to engage communities about issues related to race and ethnic identity and the role of creativity in the creation of counter-narrative.

Many arts based research studies about artists and/or the artistic process are written as autoethnographies in which the researcher is examining aspects of her or his cultural identity through engagement in one or more of the arts. Quite a provocative example is use of multiple art forms including poetry, visual art, and especially music to examine intersecting aspects of her identity around race, gender, sexuality, and national origin.

Many arts based research projects are partly about how participants produce new knowledge through the engagement of arts in their process of doing it; hence they are often P.A.R projects. An interesting recent example is Tyler's (in press) study of an organizational development project with a faith-driven and community-based nonprofit organization group, My Brother's Keeper (also known as M.B.K), in inner-city Baltimore, which provides various services to the community at large. Her purpose was to integrate storytelling and the creation of a mosaic, a landscape of integrated images created by and with the community, as a form of presentational knowing, to see how these activities affected the organization's strategic visioning and planning processes. She first gathered together 30 participants from the community. She asked them to imagine it was ten years from now and the larger community was thriving, partly due to M.B.K's role. She then asked them to tell a story, in pairs, about what had contributed to the success.

From there she asked them to come up with an image, which they shared with the larger group. Eventually, over the course of time, from these images the community chose those that were the most salient, drew them, and then laid them out in a sequence that made sense to serve as sort of a vision to the community. Then they created a mosaic from the drawings.

Tyler describes the process and the impact on the organization; the key factor was participants' buy-in and ownership of the project. Evidence for this was the fact that they installed the mosaic at the entrance of the agency's dining room, so every day their visioning is imprinted and reinsorbed in time and space, and in the hearts, minds, and spirits of those who use the space (see Figure 3.1). As Tyler observes, doing such projects is exciting, it makes use of multiple ways of knowing, and the reward is great; but such projects also require time and patience and the invitation of the community. Indeed, there are numerous interesting examples of such approaches for which the creation of art and its impacts was central to the purpose of the qualitative or action research study.

Figure 3.1 summary: A photograph of a multi-panel mosaic titled My Brother's Keeper, installed on an orange wall next to a door. The mosaic consists of several textured panels depicting various figures, symbols, and text, including a banner that reads Motivated By Love For God. The image depicts a community-focused art installation.

Source: Tyler (in press). Reprinted with permission.

Summary

In this chapter we explored newer forms of qualitative research or research with a strong qualitative component. We began by discussing mixed methods research, which makes use of both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Then we discussed various kinds of action research studies, pointing out that most often such studies make use of only qualitative methods, but that they can occasionally incorporate quantitative components. Third, we discussed critical research studies, which are intended to examine and hopefully challenge power relations, and ended the chapter by considering arts based approaches to qualitative research, pointing out that there can be overlap among some of these types of research. For example, arts based approaches can be incorporated into action research, critical research, or other types of studies.

These types of designs have contributed to expanding the qualitative paradigm of research. They have become increasingly more common in the last two decades; many dissertation studies now make use of mixed methods, action research, and arts based research, or are designed specifically as critical research studies intended to challenge power relations. There are also now specific journals devoted to one or more of these research designs that make use of qualitative research methods, which indicates how common such designs are becoming in further expanding the influence of the qualitative paradigm.