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What is this qualitative approach trying to produce from the data?
More, if you want it
What does the student want to produce from the data?Tap a term: its definition, what you can do with it, and how often the exam asks it.
Definition: an approach that explores lived experience and the meaning people give it.
You can: Tell phenomenology from ethnography by whether the study describes one person's inner experience or a group's culture.
Definition: an approach that studies a group's culture from inside the group.
You can: Tell ethnography from phenomenology by whether the researcher is immersed in a social group.
Definition: an approach that builds a new theory from the data in repeated cycles.
You can: Tell grounded theory from phenomenology by whether the study ends in a new theory.
Definition: an approach that finds, codes and organises recurring themes.
You can: Tell thematic analysis from content analysis by whether the study ends in themes or in counts.
Definition: an approach that condenses the dataset in repeated steps to key findings.
You can: Tell recursive abstraction from thematic analysis by whether the data are condensed again and again to key findings.
Definition: an approach that codes and counts patterns in existing text or media.
You can: Tell content analysis from thematic analysis by whether coded patterns in existing text are counted.
Each card is one term. The grey line is what the patient says, which is what the question stem gives.
Summary
Phenomenology is the qualitative approach that explores people's subjective, lived experience and the meaning they give it.
is the qualitative approach that explores people's subjective, lived experience and the meaning they give it. Lived experience is what a situation feels like to the person going through it.
Participants judge qualitative work by asking whether the researcher's interpretations describe their own experiences accurately.
Brendan Cassidy is a PhD student in a mental health research unit at the University of Glasgow. He has a stack of interview transcripts from lonely young adults. Brendan says, "I want to know what loneliness feels like to each person."
A stem often gives the study aim in a few words, such as "what it feels like". An aim about how something feels to each person needs phenomenology.
Mnemonic
Feel, Folk, Fresh theory, Shrink, Themes, Tally. Cue: felt like to her
Feel is phenomenology, the lived experience of one person. Folk is ethnography, the culture of a group the researcher joins. Fresh theory is grounded theory, a new theory built from the data in cycles.
Shrink is recursive abstraction, condensing the data again and again to key findings. Themes is thematic analysis, which organises recurring themes. Tally is content analysis, which counts coded patterns in existing text.
6 more sections on Qualitative research approaches: phenomenology, ethnography, grounded theory and more
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