Genres, Elements, and Styles of Qualitative Research

this Book does not presume to serve as a comprehensive review of qualitative research but provides a practical introduction to its fundamentals, from this particular author's perspective. Qualitative research consists of an eclectic collection of approaches and methods used in several social science disciplines. Fundamentals of Qualitative Research first provides an overview of the field, then proceeds to its most commonly applied data collection methods. Research design and data analysis matters are discussed next, followed by recommendations for the writing and dissemination of reports, and resources for learning more about the subject.

Qualitative Research: A Definition

Qualitative research is an umbrella term for a wide variety of approaches to and methods for the study of natural social life. The information or data collected and analyzed is primarily (but not exclusively) nonquantitative in character, consisting of textual materials such as interview transcripts, fieldnotes, and documents, and/or visual materials such as artifacts, photographs, video recordings, and Internet sites, that document human experiences about others and/or one's self in social action and reflexive states.

The goals of qualitative research are also multiple, depending on the purpose of the particular project. Outcomes are most often composed of essential representations and presentations of salient findings from the analytic synthesis of data and can include: documentation of cultural observations, new insights and understandings about individual and social complexity, evaluation of the effectiveness of programs or policies, artistic renderings of human meanings, and/or the critique of existing social orders and the initiation of social justice. Qualitative research is conducted within and across multiple disciplines such as education, sociology, anthropology, psychology, communication, journalism, health care, social work, justice studies, business, and other related fields.

Just as there are multiple literary genres (short story, poetry, novel, drama, etcetera), literary elements (symbolism, metaphor, alliteration, etcetera), and literary styles (realism, comedy, tragedy, etcetera), so too are there multiple genres, elements, and styles of qualitative research. Naturalistic inquiry remains solidly grounded in the non-fictional realm of social reality for its investigation, yet its write-ups can employ expressive and creative literary components.

Genres of Qualitative Research

A literary genre is a type or kind of literature characterized by a particular purpose, structure, content, length, or format. Different genres include poetry, short story, drama, novel, romance, and science fiction, for example. In qualitative research, there is also a variety of genre: the usual criteria are the particular approach to inquiry, and the representation and presentation of the study. The overview below is not an exhaustive list, but is a compilation of the most common genres in which researchers across multiple disciplines work.

Also, some of these genres are not discrete; a few can be combined into one study. For example, an ethnography can also be a case study, an autoethnography can be presented in an arts-based research format, and so on.

Ethnography. Ethnography is the observation and documentation of social life in order to render an account of a group's culture.

Ethnography refers to both the process of long-term fieldwork and the final (most often) written product. Originally the method of anthropologists studying foreign peoples, ethnography is now multidisciplinary in its applications to explore cultures in classrooms, urban street settings, businesses and organizations, and even cyberspace.

Culture is a somewhat contested term and a difficult one to clarify—literally hundreds of definitions for the concept exist. Just a sampling of attempts includes the following:

We define culture as: knowledge that is learned and shared and that people use to generate behavior and interpret experience.... Culture is social knowledge, not knowledge unique to an individual.

But Chang (2008) offers an alternative to the notion of culture as a fixed and group construct:

[P]eople are neither blind followers of a predefined set of social norms, cultural clones of their previous generations, nor copycats of their cultural contemporaries. Rather, . . . individuals have autonomy to interpret and alter cultural knowledge and skills acquired from others and to develop their own versions of culture while staying in touch with social expectations. (p. 16)

Thus, culture is not a “thing” but an individual and social evolutionary process. “Through the individual we come to understand the culture, and through the culture we come to understand the individual”. But how does culture differ from and relate to the concept of society? explains:

Culture is the knowledge, language, values, customs, and material objects that are passed from person to person and from one generation to the next in a human group or society.

... [A] society is a large social grouping that occupies the same geographic territory and is subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations.

Whereas a society is composed of people, a culture is composed of ideas, behavior, and material possessions. Society and culture are interdependent; neither could exist without the other. (p. 42)

Of the many definitions and explanations of culture and society I've read, I've found that educational anthropologist resonates the most with others since he cleverly uses a contemporary analogy to explain the term. Culture is like a “toolkit” that permits us to get things done. And,

by analogy to computers, which are information tools, culture can be considered as the software—the coding systems for doing meaning and executing sequences of work—by which our human physiological and cognitive hardware is able to operate so that we can make sense and take action with others in daily life. Culture structures the “default” conditions of the everyday practices of being human. (p. 33)

The goal of ethnography, then, is to research the default conditions (and their “software updates”) of a people's ways of living. For example, Rebekah Nathan's (2005) ethnography, My Freshman Year, reports a professor's observations of undergraduate life when she covertly enrolled as a full-time student and lived on campus. Her detailed fieldwork on student culture documents how a university's mission and goals do not necessarily harmonize with student cultural concerns such as dorm life, dining patterns, preferred friendships, and attitudes toward classes and scheduling.

Grounded Theory. Grounded theory (discussed further in Chapter 4) is a methodology for meticulously analyzing qualitative data in order to understand human processes and to construct theory—that is, theory grounded in the data or constructed “from the ground up.” The originators of the methodology were Anselm L. Strauss and Barney G. Glaser, sociologists who in the 1960s studied illness and dying. Their original work has been reenvisioned by such later writers as Juliet Corbin, Adele E. Clarke, and Kathy Charmaz.

Grounded theory is an analytic process of constantly comparing small data units, primarily but not exclusively collected from interviews, through a series of cumulative coding cycles to achieve abstraction and a range of dimensions to the emergent categories' properties. Classic grounded theory works toward achieving a core or central category that conceptually represents what the study is all about. This core or central category becomes the foundation for generating a theory about the processes observed.

For example, Charmaz (2009) studied how serious chronic illness affects the body and the identity of self. A core category or"mode of living" with physical impairment that she identified from her interviews was adapting. Note how the word is a gerund (an "ing" word) and implies process—actions that people take to solve a problem. Charmaz explains the theory, one that was not preapplied to the data, but one that emerged from them through her analysis of interview transcripts, appropriately coded to construct the actions at work in her participants:

By adapting, I mean altering life and self to accommodate to physical losses and to reunify the body and self accordingly. Adapting implies that the individual acknowledges impairment and alters life and self in socially and personally acceptable ways. Bodily limits and social circumstances often force adapting to loss. Adapting shades into acceptance. Thus, ill people adapt when they try to accommodate and flow with the experience of illness. (p. 155)

Later in the narrative, Charmaz extends the analysis by outlining and discussing the stages people undergo as they adapt. Again, note the gerunds at work here: “After long years of ignoring, minimizing, struggling against, and reconciling themselves to illness, they adapt as they regain a sense of wholeness, of unity of body and self in the face of loss” (p. 156).

Grounded theory is a complex, multistage genre of qualitative research, but an approach that has been utilized in thousands of studies in many disciplines since it was first introduced.

Phenomenology. Phenomenology is the study of the nature and meaning of things—a phenomenon's essence and essentials that determine what it is. The genre's roots lie in philosophy's early hermeneutic analysis, or the interpretation of texts for core meanings. Today, phenomenology is most often a research approach that focuses on concepts, events, or the lived experiences of humans. The experience can be as mundane as grocery shopping, to as life changing as getting married.

Motherhood, for example, is a phenomenon, and one of its essential elements is a parent with one or more children. But the purpose of this phenomenological study is not to examine the specific lives of, say, twenty mothers interviewed to gather data, but rather to synthesize the commonalities of their collective experiences and perceptions of motherhood. One essential that might be extracted from the data is motherhood as a “caretaking responsibility”; another essential might be motherhood as “protector of one's child.”

Some qualitative research studies take a phenomenological approach when the purpose is to come to an intimate awareness and deep understanding of how humans experience something. It is revealing to another what goes through one's mind and what one feels as the phenomenon occurs. Some researchers will document these experiences thematically through such statements as “Motherhood is...” and “Motherhood means...”. There are no specific methods for gathering data to develop a phenomenological analysis; interviews, participant observation, and even literary fiction, provide ample material for review. The primary task is researcher reflection on the data to capture the essence and essentials of the experience that make it what it is.

Case Study. A case study focuses on a single unit for analysis—one person, one group, one event, one organization, and so on. The genre serves as a reasonably manageable holistic project for novices to qualitative research to learn basic methods of fieldwork, data collection, and analysis. The purpose is not necessarily to develop an argument for how the single case represents or reflects comparable individuals or sites. Unlike studies that research a large number of settings or participants to gather a broader and more representative spectrum of perspectives, the case study in and of itself is valued as a unit that permits in-depth examination. Anthropologist Harry F. Wolcott addresses the most common criticism leveled at case study researchers when challenged with, "What can you learn by studying just one of anything?" His classic reply is, "All you can!" Nevertheless, any suggestion of the case study's generalizability or transferability is up to the researcher's logical and interpretive persuasiveness, and/or the reader's ability to draw inferences of how the case speaks to a broader population or issue.

A case may be chosen deliberately because of its unique character, thus presenting itself as a rich opportunity and exemplar for focused study—for example, a highly successful secondary school for adolescents of color in a lower-income neighborhood. At other times, a case may be chosen strategically because it is deemed to represent the most typical of its kind—for example, a moderately performing secondary school in a lower middle-class urban neighborhood; the ethnic distribution of its students parallels the ethnic demographics of the American population. Yet at other times, a case may be chosen simply and purposively for convenience—for example, a school in which the researcher's university has a collaborative partnership for preservice teacher education and field studies in child development.

Yet even within a single setting, there are diverse participants with diverse experiences and diverse perspectives. The “case” doesn't always refer to one person, and more than likely there is no single theme that perfectly captures how every individual within a group or organization thinks and feels. Nevertheless, in some qualitative studies, multiple cases might be examined simultaneously or consecutively for comparison and contrast. This approach places all cases in some type of context.

Michael V. Angrosino's (1994) classic case study article, “On the Bus with Vonnie Lee: Explorations in Life History and Metaphor,” tells the poignant story of a developmentally disabled adult and his fascination and love for riding the city bus. Vonnie Lee's childhood was a troubled and abusive one, but as a young man entering the work force, he takes pride and joy in his new sense of independence and status. The article extends beyond the specific case by noting how the disabled do not have to be viewed as those with “disorders,” but as individuals with lives as richly complex and metaphoric as someone from the average population.

Content Analysis. Content analysis is the systematic examination of texts and visuals (e.g., newspapers, magazines, speech transcripts), media (e.g., films, television episodes, Internet sites), and/or material culture (e.g., artifacts, commercial products) to analyze their prominent manifest and latent meanings. A manifest meaning is one that is surface and apparent—for example, describing a particular article of clothing as: a long-sleeved jacket constructed out of thick black leather with several silver-colored zippers and snaps, worn primarily for torso protection during motorcycle riding. A latent meaning is one that is suggestive, connotative, and subtextual—for example, that same black leather jacket symbolizing a member of “biker” culture and, when worn on a muscular, mesomorphic, bearded male, of a hypermasculine “outlaw” or “bad-ass” persona.

Some content analyses are both quantitative and qualitative in their design, since statistical frequency of occurrence becomes one important measure of salient themes, especially in texts and media. For example, the campaign speeches of two opposing political candidates may be analyzed by determining and counting the number of times each one says particular key words and phrases. The results may suggest not only what each individual candidate's platform emphasizes as a manifest reading of data, but also the latent messages suggested by their discourse when they are compared and contrasted with each other. One candidate's speeches may be imbued with frequently occurring words and phrases such as "community," "now," and "our responsibility," whereas the other candidate's speeches may highlight such text passages as "folks," "nation," and "back to better times."

Mixed Methods Research. Mixed methods research utilizes a strategic and purposeful combination of both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis for its studies. It is assumed that the epistemological (i.e., ways of knowing) and methodological advantages of each paradigm can work in concert to corroborate or more robustly support the findings, or to reveal complementary or even contradictory outcomes. For example, a group of participants might be administered a written survey that asks them to rate their attitudes toward a particular issue, such as their perceptions of their state government's effectiveness. A survey might include such response items as:

><?Table summary: A survey asking respondents to rate their agreement with three statements on a scale from 1 for strongly agree to 4 for strongly disagree. The statements cover whether respondents feel an elected state representative holds similar values, if annual state taxes are a reasonable amount, and if the state governor is an effective leader.

Participants are instructed to circle one of the ratings in response to each statement. The mean or average rating is then calculated for each item. If demographic data are also provided by respondents, mean ratings can be compared by gender, ethnicity, age range, political party affiliation, and other variables of interest to discern any statistically significant differences in responses.

Then, a sampling of participants who took the survey might be individually interviewed to expand on the survey's prompts. "Our state governor is an effective leader" might initiate an interview question such as, "What are your perceptions of our state's governor?" The open-ended qualitative responses are then analyzed to determine if there is corroboration or contradiction with related quantitative survey responses.

Mixed methods research has been present for several decades, but only recently has the genre emerged as an approach that brings the once-separated quantitative and qualitative paradigms together to form a new epistemological, theoretical, and methodological way of working, when appropriate for the research purpose and questions.

Narrative Inquiry. Narrative inquiry is a research genre inclusive of a variety of approaches, but they share the goal of transforming data from, by, and/or about participants into literary story formats—an approach colloquially labeled “creative nonfiction.” This genre acknowledges that humans tend to structure knowledge into narrative forms of cognition—in other words, we remember that which is in storied forms. If history were nothing but a bullet-pointed list of dates, names, places, and facts, it would be difficult to retain the information in our heads. But if there were a narrative that wove the facts to hold them together as a linear story line, we are more likely to make sense of history because we now have a plot that sequentially structures the details.

In everyday life, we also use story line and plotting as ways to make sense of current and past experiences. Our family lineage is a story, a student's university career is a story, even shopping for and purchasing an item of clothing is a story. There is a "What happens first, second, third,...?" and so on sequencing that keeps us on track with our daily routines, and "What happens next?" seems to be an almost universal curiosity hardwired into humans when we hear a story well told. Narrative inquiry recrafts the often scattered, improvisational ways we tend to share our accounts into well-plotted, artistic forms that utilize the conventions of fictional literature to present not just a more ordered rendering of life but an aesthetically rich one.

Touching Eternity: The Enduring Outcomes of Teaching, reports the long-term effects of Don Forrister, an outstanding high school art teacher, on some of his students. As with most qualitative studies, Barone interviewed his participants to gather essential data, but rather than merely reporting and analyzing in an objective manner the teacher's methods and former students' reflections on how their mentor may have influenced their lives, Barone crafts his text with imagery and emotion to create an evocative, omniscient narrative reminiscent of literary short stories. In the passage below, one of the art teacher's former students, through Barone's interpretation, recalls a significant moment for her in high school:

She had taken all of Don's classes, 3 years' worth, all of them wonderful and nurturing. She thought of his small, quick glances, his movements toward this student or that, the nods of affirmation, the laughs at students' self-deprecating remarks, the clear-headed and not unkind criticism, the busyness of it all, but a business never devoid of compassion and joy. This particular incident had occurred during her first year with him, sophomore year, age of 15. Late afternoon. The class had been working on drawing still lifes. Hers had been a penciled rendition of a gnarled old tree on the river road, a tree that she had loved for its natural dignity.

After seventh period everyone else had gone. She felt his presence. He had been looking at her drawing as she packed to go, had said to her at that moment, "You could be a good drawer."

Not “you are,” not “if you worked hard,” not the old cliché, “you have potential.” Just “you could be a good drawer.” Not gratuitous. Not meaning to flatter. Not cajoling. Not coercing. Just stating a positive fact.

To this very day, she remembered how flushed she had felt, in a glow, delighted that he had noticed her work, noticed her, intimidating that her existence was valued, at least to him, to one who knew so much about things like what makes for good drawings. She recalled that it had taken her years to realize that it had not been a compliment, had been in fact much better than that.... From that point on, she had considered herself among the chosen.

Poetic Inquiry. An emergent movement within qualitative research is the transformation of qualitative data or the expression of qualitative experience through poetic structures. Just as with literary poetry, the structures of poetic inquiry can take various forms. Sometimes a researcher will extract from an interview transcript the key verbatim words and phrases that seem to capture the essence of the text. The extracts might be kept in the same order as they appeared in the transcript, or rearranged or deconstructed for purposes of effect. An interview transcript sample from an older adult male might read (with selected words bolded since they seemed key at the time of transcription):

I regret not taking care of myself physically when I was younger. Now my body's real out of shape and this mass of fat and loose skin. I see all these younger kids and how firm and toned they are, and I think to myself I could have looked like that if only I hadn't eaten so much and exercised more. I'm going to the gym now just to lose weight, mostly, and so far I've been disciplined enough to go several times a week. I have this mantra that keeps me going, "Sometimes it's not about the journey—sometimes it's about the destination."

I'd love to lose about 50 pounds, and if I give it time it's possible. There are all these clothes I'd love to buy and wear, but they only go so far up in size, you know? If I'm a "large" or, even better, a "medium," I can fit into them.

The bolded words are then extracted, examined, and arranged into a poetic structure (sometimes referred to as “found poetry”) to render an essentialized account of the participant's perceptions, though not everything bolded has to be incorporated into the poem, and minor additions can be added for clarity:

Code summary: The provided text is not a code block or algorithm, but rather a personal reflection on body image, aging, and the desire for physical transformation through discipline and gym attendance.

Arts-Based Research. Arts-based research applies performing and visual arts media and methods to sometimes collect and most often represent and present its findings. Interestingly, not just academics but professionals within the arts industries have researched and interviewed key people for their products. Composer Steven Reich took selections from audio-recorded interviews with selected participants about trains in America and Europe during World War 2 and arranged their vocal rhythmic and inflection patterns into melodies for his musical work, Different Trains. Playwright Doug Wright interviewed German celebrity and gay transvestite Charlotte von Mahlsdorf for his one-man Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play, I Am My Own Wife.

In qualitative research, artistic modes of expression can be used to collect participant data. For example, children might be given disposable or digital cameras and asked to photograph their everyday worlds to gather data for the researcher on what is important to them. The photos then serve as stimuli for interviews with young people about the photographs' contents and meanings. The pictures can become part of the data display that accompanies a written article, or the photos themselves can be exhibited with accompanying written or oral narratives as an arts-based presentation for selected viewers.

As another example, adolescents of color might be asked to use their bodies to sculpt themselves and others into still images or tableaux that represent such abstract concepts as “discrimination,” “prejudice,” and “power.” The facilitator may then ask them to move in space slowly in a way that shows how the body represents and transitions from “inequity” to “equity.” This sculpting technique is called Image Theatre, a participant-centered modality based on the premise that we sometimes cannot put into words what we think and feel. These images are videotape-recorded as they occur, providing the researcher rich visual data to analyze and even play back to the participants themselves for a discussion of their own perceptions of the work.

It is sometimes difficult for some to understand how a ten-minute dance performance can be labeled “research” and its abstract movements “data,” or how a hand-sewn quilt's patterns visually and symbolically represent the conceptual patterns of human action and feelings experienced during fieldwork. The arts are not just products, they are also epistemological processes—in other words, ways of knowing through personal inquiry and aesthetic expression. Art forms are media and rich metaphoric modes of communication that can provide insightful meaning when words alone are insufficient.

Autoethnography. Autoethnography is the reflexive, cultural reporting of self, most often through narrative. Davis and Ellis (2008) explain that the genre is “the study of a culture of which one is a part, integrated with one's relational and inward experiences. The author incorporates the 'I' into research and writing yet analyzes him-or herself as if studying an 'other'. ..” (p. 284). Though an individual's personal account certainly utilizes autobiographical details, autoethnography is more than just a retelling of one's life story or a key episode from it. Recall the various definitions of culture in “Ethnography” above. Autoethnography incorporates not just personal background experiences but personal ways of living and one's inherent value, attitude, and belief systems.

Lisa M. Tillmann-Healy's (1996) personal struggle with bulimia at various ages in “a culture of thinness” is graphically presented through a series of starkly written vignettes. This autoethnographic excerpt from a tale titled “Common Bathroom” suggests how rampant the problem is within university life:

I chew the last Dorito and take a swig of Diet Coke. Without bothering to look up, I head down the hall.

I stride to the common bath—the worst feature of dormitory living. When Gloria from the west wing exits, the swinging door nearly hits me in the face.

"Sorry," she says with a smile. Her red eyes, filled with tears, give her away.

“You O.K?” I ask.

"Never better," she responds, and I don't push.

I move to the corner stall and lift the toilet seat. Fresh vomit sprays cover the rim.

“You're getting indiscreet, Gloria,” I say softly.

I lean over and push my finger down my throat. The Doritos and Diet Coke come up stubbornly in thick clumps. "Bad idea," I scold myself.

The swinging door opens again, so I pull my finger out, quietly put the seat back, and sit on the toilet, waiting. Someone enters the stall two down from me. She slides the lock into place. Instead of the expected bathroom sounds, I hear the toilet seat being lifted, then a flush. Over the whirl of suction, I can still make out gagging and splashing.

...I am 19 years old. (pp. 93 to 94)

Some researchers take issue with autoethnography, asserting that the genre, if misused, can be nothing more than self-indulgent writing with little utility and transfer to the knowledge bases of a discipline. But autoethnography can also be perceived as a more authentic, first-person case study with rich details that provide a unique insider's perspective about the issues addressed. The genre also gives its writer intimate knowledge of what it takes for a participant to look inward to openly reveal personal experiences to others. A saying I pass along to others in my research classes is, "You can't learn how to tell someone else's story until you first learn how to tell your own."

Evaluation Research. Evaluation research systematically examines people, programs, organizations, and/or policies to assess their quality, merit, and effectiveness. The genre is customized to specific purposes and can employ a combination of both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis, when needed. Evaluation research is generally a contracted enterprise, and the best studies involve the immediate stakeholders as part of the evaluation process from the beginning, soliciting from them their perceptions of the program, and how the evaluation will ultimately help them redesign current and future endeavors. The researcher or research team doesn't necessarily assume an "objective" stance but assesses the values at work in case-specific projects, offering constructive and practical recommendations for improvement.

As an example, I was once hired by a state arts commission to evaluate one of their funded education projects in distance learning—that is, using cable television broadcasts of videotaped programming as a medium for the instructional delivery of classroom performing arts lessons to rural elementary schools. I interviewed the three production team members separately on their intended goals and perceptions of the project in progress and observed them at work during their rehearsals and studio tapings. But since I was a novice to distance learning, I also interviewed teachers and media specialists in the field to gain a better understanding of what makes for effective programming of this nature. Once the distance learning videotapes were completed, I previewed a thirty-minute episode to an average classroom of children (the project's targeted audience) and observed them as they watched the show to document their body language and verbal comments, which suggested interest or boredom. I then interviewed them as a group afterward and collected written survey data from them to further assess their responses to and engagement with the program.

The primary readers of my final evaluation report were two administrators of the state arts commission, but I also shared my observations and personal comments, plus the children's general reactions, to the production team members themselves. Aside from this specific case project, broader issues related to distance learning were also raised and evaluated. For example, one ironic finding was that the massively extensive number of clock hours the three-member production team devoted to planning, scripting, rehearsing, taping, and editing the television series could have been devoted instead to their live, in-class instruction directly for and with the targeted child audiences.

In this particular project, distance learning technology did not effectively deliver the content to its constituents, as originally intended. Technology, in this particular case, actually lessened and inhibited the funded program's primary goal—quality arts instruction to rural children in remote areas of the state.

Action Research. Action research is conducted with the expressed purpose of not just observing social life, but reflecting on one's own practice or working collaboratively with participants to change their setting and circumstances for the better. Participants' lives and their social environment are examined critically. Diagnostics (via reflexive interviews, observation, journaling, and other data collection methods) are conducted to discern the specific problems and issues.

Solutions and empowerment strategies are then implemented to initiate and hopefully sustain positive change. The researcher or research team serves as a facilitator of the project and, ideally, works equitably and democratically with participants since their personal investment, ownership, and stakes in the matter are more likely to generate significant outcomes. It is also possible to conduct an action research project for and by oneself, and the method is applied by such professionals as teachers to improve their classroom environment, and by clinicians to enhance their practice with clients.

One example of a participatory action research project is a community-based worker who observes that the adolescent Hispanic girls she counsels devalue themselves in overt and subconscious ways because of their gender and ethnic background. With the girls' permission, the adult worker facilitates with them a series of carefully designed workshops on gender and ethnic identity, accompanied with focus group discussions and introspective reflection through journaling and poetry writing. Most of the girls come to heightened identity awareness and a systematic understanding of social discrimination, and how sometimes their own actions reinforce and maintain their marginalized status. Under the adult facilitator's guidance, the participants develop strategies for self-empowerment and resilience, then "field test" these ideas in everyday social encounters, recording their progress in journals and through follow-up group discussion.

Investigative Journalism. Journalists and qualitative researchers rely on similar methods to gather data for their particular purposes: interviewing people, going into settings to witness events firsthand, searching for information in various archives and data banks, taking photographs, and so on. Journalists, however, target general public audiences for their work through news media and mainstream publications. And, a journalist's writing is not bound by some of the more discursive traditions and scholarly standards of academia, though investigative journalism can be just as rigorously conducted as ethnography.

This genre uncovers social life and most often reveals its injustices that are of current interest to the general public and policymakers. For example, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, reports her experiences with six minimum wage jobs. The purpose of the investigation was to work and live solely on this level of income for a period of time to learn if and how the sizeable population of people making minimum wage coped with it. Ehrenreich's honest and riveting narrative reveals the sometimes degrading and frustrating environments of selected workplaces, plus a meticulous account of the meager monies she earned and had to spend on basic necessities. Her final chapter presents an insightful analysis and critique of the economic and social conditions and issues she investigated.

Critical Inquiry. Critical inquiry is not so much a method as it is a social and political mission. Canella & Perez (2009) identify the critical inquirer as “a hybrid body that is researcher, cultural worker, investigative journalist, and activist/communicator for the public good” (p. 172). This genre is not just knee-jerk social commentary, but carefully researched issues that analyze and reveal social injustices. In many cases, the critical inquirers themselves have been part of the action or restoration efforts to work for change that will benefit the oppressed.

In the passage below, Giardina & Vaughan (2009) do not just recount but openly and unabashedly comment on the misguided and insensitive political motivations during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina's 2005 destruction in the southern United States:

In the days following Katrina, calls rang out from all corners of the country to “rebuild New Orleans.” Congress authorized an initial $50 billion in emergency funds. The American Red Cross pledged untold funds and dispersed hundreds of volunteers to the region. Even President Bush stated that New Orleans would be rebuilt “better than before”.

Better than before. I supposed that is all a matter of perspective: Even from the outset, it was clear that if the powers-that-be were to have their own way, it certainly wasn't going to look much like the old New Orleans. Rep. Richard Baker Republican-Louisiana admitted as much when he told the Wall Street Journal, "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did." … Of course, by "cleaned up public housing," Rep. Baker meant that he was thankful that the hurricane displaced those (largely poor, largely black) residents who were living in impoverished dwellings, in effect making the now-abandoned or destroyed land prime for real estate (re)development. (p. 143)

Same Topic, Different Genres. Keep in mind that the same phenomenon, case, or process can be investigated using any one (or more) of the genres above. The specific genre selection, however, attributes expectations about how you approach the study and how its write-up may be shaped. For example, a broad topic for qualitative examination may be the seemingly mundane: “groceries.”

An ethnography might involve spending several months observing the culture of one particular grocery store chain. A grounded theory study might explore the decision-making processes of customers "grocery shopping." A phenomenology could investigate with particular individuals what it means "to consume."

A case study might focus on a soft drink deliveryman and his daily route and routines. A content analysis could be conducted to examine how cereal box art work may influence and affect potential buyers of the products. And a mixed methods study might investigate how the monetary costs and consumer-perceived qualities of "brand name," "in-store," and "generic" brands of packaged foods shape customer purchases.

A provocative narrative inquiry might render an omniscient stream-of-consciousness soliloquy as a woman thinks about what food items to buy while reflecting on her troubled marriage at home. Poetic inquiry could profile in elegant verse the delight of how a six-year-old child perceives the world of a grocery store. An arts-based research approach can document, dramatize, and perform for an audience what workers actually talk about “backstage” in the grocery store's break room. An autoethnography might be composed by an undergraduate sociology student on her part-time work as a grocery store cashier to put herself through school.

An evaluation research project can investigate why some grocery store chains succeed while others go into bankruptcy, while an action research project might explore how a homeless youth shelter could negotiate and collaborate with local grocery stores to receive food donations. Investigative journalism could explore a national food recall effort after an E. coli outbreak, while critical inquiry might focus on the contradictory excesses of junk food consumption and obesity amidst poverty and starvation in the country.

Just some of the qualitative research genres not discussed above are longitudinal qualitative inquiry, conversation analysis, discourse analysis, appreciative inquiry, oral history, and other specialized forms. But now that a broad landscape of a few major genres has been viewed, let's examine the constituent elements of inquiry.

Elements of Qualitative Research

In literature, elements are most often devices strategically employed by writers to achieve a certain effect. In Tennessee Williams' play The Glass Menagerie, the unicorn glass figurine symbolizes the fragility and “oddity” of the disabled, painfully withdrawn character of Laura. In Dylan Thomas' famous poem about death, “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night,” meter (referring to the stressed and unstressed patterns of syllabication) creates an ethereal and disjointed mood as one hears in iambic pentameter, “Do not go gentle into that good night.../Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Even nonliterary official documents have their elements, such as the use of organizational outlining (I. A. B. 1. a., etcetera) and motif (e.g., the repetitive use of “Whereas” in a set of resolutions).

In qualitative research, as in literature, elements are devices strategically employed by writers to achieve a certain effect within selected genres. But elements also refer to what are elemental or necessary for a study to be conducted. These are not discrete components but things that work in unified concert, several with significant influence and affect on others.

The Researcher(s). An individual or team members, motivated by personal and scholarly interests, conduct a research study to investigate some facet of social life. The principal investigator initiates, plans, facilitates, and oversees all aspects of the project from start to finish, working in a rigorously curious and ethical manner to achieve the project's goals. The researcher, whether novice or veteran, is considered by many within the field of qualitative inquiry to be the primary instrument of the endeavor.

Your autobiography and identity—life experiences, knowledge, training, emotions, values, attitudes, beliefs, gender, ethnicity, and so forth—influence and affect how you navigate through the enterprise and approach other important elements, such as the relationship between you and your participants and the analysis of your data. Who you are (or are becoming) determines to a large extent what and how you research.

Epistemology. Some refer to epistemology broadly as a theory of knowledge construction based on the researcher's worldview—how his or her lens on the world and ways of knowing it focus and filter the perception and interpretation of it. In contemporary research, some adhere to a positivist conception of truth as factual information that exists in the real world and thus can be reliably and validly documented with proper instrumentation and measurement. Others—most qualitative researchers, in fact—adopt a more postmodern perspective that promotes there is no absolute truth because it is contingent on context and multiple perspectives. Knowledge is constructed within the individual, rather than something outside of oneself waiting to be discovered. The goal is to come to insight and understanding about social life, not necessarily to predict and control it.

Such factors as your gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, economic class, and so on, may not just subconsciously but even intentionally and politically frame your observations of the world. Women may adopt a feminist research epistemology to explore gender-and power-related issues. Lesbians, gays, and the transgendered may adopt the tenets of what is labeled queer theory in their study of gay culture, heterosexualism, and homophobia.

Researchers of color and their personal life experiences with prejudice and discrimination from the mainstream accumulate to develop a distinctive ethnic worldview. Thus, there are no such things as “neutral,” “bias-free,” or “objective” lenses for qualitative researchers. There are, however, guidelines and procedures available to enhance the credibility and trustworthiness of one's knowledge construction to develop a vivid and persuasive account for readers.

The Contextual Legacy. Research is situated in context. Our current projects build on the legacy of former researchers and their studies that have documented observations and analyses of social life. Methodologists have also provided recommended ways of conducting fieldwork and collecting and analyzing data. Theories exist for us to contemplate as frameworks for our research, or as challenges to critically evaluate and revise.

A vast array of literature and media are available for us that shape our current studies, and we benefit greatly from our knowledge of and familiarity with those major works. Just as writers before us have contributed to the knowledge and practice bases of our disciplines, so too can we make active contributions through our substantive research efforts for contemporary and future readers and society at large.

The Purpose. The purpose of a study gives meaning, motivation, and direction to our work. The constituent elements of a purpose include the rationale or justification for the study, the topic, the central and related research questions and/or the problems addressed, and anticipated project outcomes. An umbrella term used for the overall epistemological, theoretical, and methodological approach to a study is called its conceptual framework. This template is not always fixed from beginning to end, for it can evolve and change as the research proceeds, as new insights into the study are gained, and as unanticipated contingencies occur.

Participants and/or Materials. Most qualitative studies will observe and interview people as part of their social investigation, but a few projects may rely solely on documents, artifacts, and/or media materials humans have created. To study the social world is, by default, to study humans and their products—complex endeavors to be certain. The people involved with our study are called participants, coresearchers, informants, and other labels, though the use of “subjects,” still in use by some, is falling out of favor since it suggests a distant and overly clinical relationship. Participants' voluntary engagement in the project and our supportive rapport with them are necessary for the ethical conduct of research.

Ethics. Researchers, even those with action research or investigative journalism agendas, do not have complete free reign to do what is necessary to achieve their goals. There are moral and legal codes in place regarding the ethical treatment and care of people involved with research studies. The classic principle, "But first, do no harm," is the primary objective when working with human participants.

Depending on your affiliation with universities, organizations, and/or governmental agencies, your study proposals are subject to review by established boards that oversee such matters to guarantee the safe design and ethical conduct of your work, especially with children and other vulnerable populations such as prisoners and pregnant women. Granted, there will always be subtle, slippery, even unsolvable dilemmas when we work with human participants because of unforeseen issues and the idiosyncratic nature of being human. For example, I once interviewed a seemingly upstanding young man about his future call to the ministry, only to learn through interviews that his past had been troubled with drug abuse and an alcoholic father, about whom he spoke disparagingly. I exercised my best judgment at the moment he disclosed these issues to listen sympathetically, but to not probe any further than we both wished to go. Thus, researchers need heightened attunement during all stages of a study to ensure that no harm and minimal discomfort come to anyone.

Duration. All human endeavors, including qualitative research projects, are bounded by time. Some data collection stages may last only a few days (colloquially labeled “quick ethnography”) due to restricted availability to site access, while other fieldwork projects in anthropology may last for decades within the same geographic area. The time we should spend in the field varies and depends on such factors as funding support, participant permissions, deadlines for study conclusion, human resources availability, and others. There is no standardized minimum number of clock hours required to assess a study's sufficiency and trustworthiness, but accounts tend to be more persuasive when the researcher logs an acceptable amount of time that others consider adequate for a study's purpose. For example, if we want to achieve the effect of credibly “being there” for the reader (its literary equivalent is called “local color”), then an extended period of months of fieldwork time with meticulously detailed fieldnotes may provide us with the experiences and data to write vividly and convincingly about the setting and its people.

The Field Site and/or Repository. Research happens somewhere, and the fieldwork locations of rooms, buildings, natural outdoor settings, towns, and so on, shape and are shaped by the humans who inhabit them. Even if we are not conducting participant observation in a specific social setting, there are sites where we must meet with and interview people, and they themselves may refer to their social settings and environments during the conversation. Cyberspace is not just a conceptual construct, but an actual entity, for digital data also requires tangible storage, transfer methods, electronic equipment, and sites for display. Even paper documents were produced by someone somewhere, and they are circulating in various locations or archived in selected spaces.

Within these sites are hundreds and often thousands of details that are part of human mental and physical extensions. Our entry into them is an opportunity to observe how space, environment, and objects reflect and affect the people within and around them.

Data and Their Collection. The Latin root of datum (the singular form of data) is “something given.” As researchers we collect data as part of our study, but we must also remember that the humans we investigate give data to us as well. Some call the total body of data collected the corpus, suggesting that what we gather is not just a massive collection of information but a living entity to analyze. Data can be perceived as bits of information that range from one-sentence facts to paragraph descriptions about a setting to extensive passages of text revealing insightful awareness about the human condition. Grounded theory methodologist Barney G. Glaser is credited with the oft-quoted phrase, “All is data,” meaning that anything that informs a study, be it interview transcripts or related fiction or the researcher's experiential knowledge base, has active contributions to make toward our understanding of a phenomenon.

Analytic Approaches. As data are both given and collected, researchers sort through these massive amounts of information to bring order and sense to them. Humans are pattern-making beings, and we apply that same process to data analysis. Patterns are constructed by reorganizing and grouping data into comparable categories and/or themes. But other genres of qualitative research approach analysis in more holistic, interpretive, and artistic manners.

There are no standardized methods of data analysis for qualitative researchers, but there are several recommended ways for constructing meaning manually and with the assistance of technology. Though it is possible to offer our data corpus verbatim and unedited, we do a disservice to our audiences by not organizing and synthesizing the information into a streamlined, coherent presentation. If we wish to communicate to readers the core meanings of our study, we might utilize not only theoretical statements but even traditional literary devices such as imagery, metaphor, symbolism, and simile (e.g., "Teaching is like social work"; "Employees in the service-and helping professions engage in emotional labor"; "Culture is performance").

Representation and Presentation. The summary of a research study is presented in some type of appropriate form and venue such as a dissertation, journal article, Internet site, conference session presentation, stage, and so forth. The medium selected should be one that not only presents but best represents the story of the project. A ten-minute oral presentation of your work at a conference session may be soon forgotten by an audience unless an accompanying hard copy handout is provided for future reference. Access to your work increases when you publish in mainstream, high-impact journals. And if a dramatized adaptation of your research is formatted as a play script, the true test of a play's effectiveness is when it is mounted on stage as a reading or performance.

Selected genres of qualitative research also contain their unique elements (though they can most certainly be used across various studies). For example, classic grounded theory assumes that the researcher will identify a primary theoretical code or a central/core category that has been emergently developed through data analysis. A phenomenological study assumes that what will be reported are the essences and essentials of a phenomenon (e.g., what does it mean “to belong”?) in narrative or even propositional format.

Mixed methods studies assume that both qualitative and quantitative data have been collected and analyzed and should be referenced in the final report. Even an arts-based research project about drawings participants created as part of data collection would feel seemingly incomplete unless photographs of some of their artwork were included in a written report.

Selected technical features of standard academic reportage are also elements and include such devices as the abstract, headings and subheadings, summary or conclusion, endnotes/footnotes, and references. Standard data display features such as tables, charts, matrices, graphs, flow diagrams, and other models are part of the researcher's canon of visual summary devices.

Elements of qualitative research refer not just to technical matters but also to technique. As a broad brushstroke conclusion, elements refer primarily to the craft of the endeavor.

Styles of Qualitative Research

Style is a somewhat elusive term, even in literature and the arts where it is most often deliberately pursued. To me, style is the interpreted, overall result of a writer's or artist's particularly chosen combination of genre and elements, integrated together to form a distinctive whole. The styles of qualitative research refer to the varied and available tones for its reportage and writing. If elements are the craft of qualitative research, then style is the art of it.

Styles also deal more with the hows of representation and presentation (most often in written formats) of a study's delivery to its audience. Genres, due to the nature of their approaches, address more of the methodological whys of the study, while elements deal more with the whos, whats, whens, and wheres.

Tales of the Field. John van classic treatise, Tales of the Field, broadly classified types of ethnographic writing into several categories: realist, confessional, impressionist, critical, formal, literary, and jointly told tales. These are comparable to literary styles.

A realist tale is usually told in a third person/objective voice with a “measured, intellectual style that is uncontaminated by personal bias, political goals, or moral judgments. A studied neutrality characterizes the realist tale” (p. 47). Emphasis is placed on reporting the details of what participants say and do, followed by a rigorous analysis.

A confessional tale is a researcher's first-person, more intimate, "backstage" account of what transpired during the study. Biases, problems, ethical dilemmas, and emotional responses of the fieldworker are openly addressed when reporting the participants' stories. Ironically, these types of tales can be more believable than realist tales since "fieldwork is an interpretive act, not an observational or descriptive one" (p. 93).

An impressionist tale uses language's power of imagery, metaphors, and evocation to write about the more significant and dramatic moments of fieldwork. The reader "is asked to relive the tale with the fieldworker, not interpret or analyze it" (p. 103). Rich narration and stories provide insight into the participants' personalities and their "episodic, complex, and ambivalent realities" (p. 119).

Critical tales focus on the political and social ramifications of fieldwork, with a deliberate focus on the inequities and injustices of the world for achieving emancipatory goals. Formal tales emphasize theory derived from the systematic analysis of data. Literary tales emphasize the writer as storyteller utilizing the devices of realistic fiction to portray participants as “characters” in active story lines. Jointly told tales are collaborative, polyvocal constructions in which the researcher and researched share narrative space equitably in a coauthored account.

Description, Analysis, and Interpretation. Harry F. Wolcott (1994) identified three dimensions of qualitative research that may also function as styles: description, analysis, and interpretation. Though there is some overlap between these three and van Maanen's tales (including his later additions of structural, poststructural, and advocacy tales), Wolcott's dimensions are not just about the writing but how one gets there. Plus, the first dimension, description, builds a foundation for the latter two, analysis and interpretation.

Description remains firmly rooted in the data themselves to present a “factual” account of the fieldwork observations to answer the question, “What is going on here?” Ways of structuring descriptive accounts can include chronological documentation, a progressive focusing from the particular to the general, presenting a key incident or a reconstructed “day in the life” of the participants, and other ways.

Analysis presents a systematic expansion beyond description that identifies “key factors in the data and relationships among them” to explain how things work (pp. 10, 12). Findings are presented as a narrative or data display with an accompanying description of how they were achieved. Patterned regularities can be contextualized, compared with another case, and evaluated. The research procedures themselves are both spelled out and self-critiqued for their effectiveness.

Interpretation reaches out for “understanding or explanation” beyond the particular study to find broader application and meaning (p. 10). Sometimes the discussion can extend to relating the observations to established theory. At other times the researcher can reflect on how the study relates to his or her personal experiences. Alternative formats for the findings can be probed through interpretive means such as poetry and creative narrative. This aspect is the meaning-and sense-making dimension that addresses the higher-level question, “What is to be made of it all?” (p. 12)

Wolcott advises that all three dimensions can, but not must, be integrated into a single study, but description is the foundation on which analysis and interpretation rest. He succinctly summarizes the differences by stating, “When you emphasize description, you want your reader to see what you saw. When you emphasize analysis, you want your reader to know what you know. When you emphasize interpretation, you want your reader to understand what you think you yourself have understood” (1994, p. 412). The overarching goal is to not just transform data, but to transcend them.

Closure

Qualitative research is composed of a variety of genres, elements, and styles, and this introductory chapter reinforces that there is not one but many possible approaches to naturalistic inquiry. Generally, the investigative methods are eclectic, heuristic, and holistic, rather than prescribed, algorithmic, and linear. Emphasis is also placed on the researcher as human instrument, who develops not just rigorous skills but also empathetic understanding and personal creativity in the investigation and documentation of complex social life.

More on the genres, elements, and styles of qualitative research will be addressed as chapters proceed, but in the next chapter, the technical fundamentals of collecting qualitative research data are addressed.