The credibility of Qualitative research is always in
question because it is diverse, approached by different individuals, with
different participants in different reasons. There is simply no one truth to
prove any qualitative research. It is for this reason that this blog does a
book review of the following books and academic sources on research and
qualitative research to ensure that the reader can produce quality qualitative
research, irrespective of how diverse and subjective this type of research is.
In analysing the books, this blog will rate them on a
scale of one to five based on what it (the blog) considers to be its level of
helpfulness in conducting research, while also considering its ease of reading
- with regard to the use of language and ease of understanding. The rating will
be as follows: rating one, the book will be considered to be a poor assister in
understanding research and more in particular qualitative research. Two will be
a book which you do not lose much by not reading it, Three – it is a book which
you can consider, it lacks depth but can be reliably used, Four – it is a good
book which is well written in terms of use of language, its explanations of
phenomena and the quality of examples and case studies used, and lastly Five
which is an excellent book which is easily understood and covers most important
qualitative research aspects that the reader needs to adopt and can easily do
so.
Recommended Qualitative Research academic sources:
1. A Practical
Guide to Research Methods – A user friendly manual for mastering research
techniques and projects. Second edition by Dr Catherine Dawson. (165
pages).
About the Author:
According to the book’s preview (Dawson, 2006:
Back-cover), “Dawson has worked as a researcher since the mid-1980s and has
taught on research methods courses at universities. She has also written
extensively for academic journals on a wide range of subjects including
research methodology”. This reflects the quality and the experience from which
the book was written. The author in having over three decades of contributing
to the academic field should give the reader a sense security when it comes to
trusting the content of the book. Dawson is not new to writing or research. The
number of years that she has been in the academic field, have brought a wealth
of experience which stems from her knowing the most common problems experienced
by students in the academic field as well as in research. The title of the book
as stated above, which in its subtitle mentions that it is a User Friendly
Manual to Research Techniques and Projects, gives a clear idea into the
direction or the motive of the book in its intentions to contribute to the
social research discipline.
A Summary of the book:
The book explores most of the concepts that are
‘obvious’ when or in conducting research. These concepts that this blog refers
to include the Methodologies, which Dawson (2006:14-16) mentions to be
Qualitative, Quantitative or a use of a combination of the two which she refers
to as a mixed methodology. A methodology is a research design with qualitative
methodology being one that explores attitudes, observes etc while quantitative
is based on numerical analysis and accumulation of research data (Dawson, 2006:
16).This is the core to the book because a way forward on any research is
dependent on the methodologies that will be utilised or the options thereof
will be determined by the type of methodology or a mixed methodology chosen.
Dawson (2006: ix) defines research as “the deliberate study of other people or
phenomena for the purposes of increasing understanding and or adding
knowledge.” In her approach to the book she began by first addressing the most
basic aspect of the research process which is to define the research problem.
She encourages the researcher to make a research choice that they will remain
interested in. One of the ways to achieve this is by doing introspection and
knowing your interests, (Dawson. 2006:1-3). The book is written in point form
and addresses each aspect of research in the most minimum and straight to the
point manner, with the aid of case-studies and illustrations. It covers the
following aspects in the following order: How to define your project, How to
decide upon a methodology, How to choose your research methods, How to conduct
background research, How to choose participants, How to prepare a research
proposal, How to conduct interviews, focus groups, How to construct
Questionnaires, to carry out participant observation, data analysis, reporting
findings and How to be an ethical researcher.
Analytical Commentary of the book:
This blog rates Dawson’s book at number four. It is a
good book because it is very easy to understand and explains the majority of
research aspects in the shortest possible way. It is made up 163 pages, a small
book which is easy to carry around. It is not intimidating and thus this blog
recommends it to anyone who is new to research, or even those that are familiar
with research that may need to reference or a short reminder on some aspects of
research. This book is a social science research book, but every principle and
research aspect it contains is applicable to media research and thus will prove
to be very helpful to anyone who uses it, within a very short period of time.
2. Communication
Research, Techniques, Methods and Applications by Du Plooy, GM. (379 pages).
About the author:
Summary:
As the topic specifies, this book is more focused on
the Communications part of research. This is a more specific book to someone
who is conducting media research. In Chapter one to four, which the book refers
to as Units, the concepts addressed are similar to Dawson’s although they may
not be written in the same way. They address the same issues including:
Quantitative and Qualitative approaches to Communication Research (unit 1),
Steps in the research process – which this blog considers to be very important
which includes: Step 1, which includes identifying and analysing the problem,
Step 2 – Formulating the research problem, sub problems and assumptions, Step 3
– Reviewing the literature, Step 4 – Formulating a hypotheses (which is
formulated as a statement and not a question) or research questions. There are
types of hypotheses which Du Plooy (2008: 75) mentions to include: relational
or comparative hypothes, directional hypotheses or non-directional hypotheses
and lastly research hypotheses versus null hypotheses which are explained into
depth in the chapter. The remaining research steps include: Step 5 – Selecting
or developing the research design, Step 6 – Writing a Research Proposal, Step 6
– Data Collection, Analysing and Interpreting Data and lastly Step 7 – Writing
the Research Report. On Unit 5 and 6 of the book the focus is on Mass
Communication and Organisational Communication. This is one of the most
relevant books if you are a South African as it focuses on the South African
Context. This can be proved where Du Plooy (2008:216) mentions that “South
Africa has become part of a global economy, which means that the advertising
and mass-media industries have to compete with one another at regional,
national and international levels
Comments on the value of the book:
The concepts discussed are similar to those discussed
by Dawson with regard to research. Du Plooy also uses simple English and his
book is also easy to understand. The differences between the two books is that
Du Plooy’s covers the Communications side of research and the book focuses on
the South African context. However, the concepts of research remain the same
even when the focus may be more specific to communications. This blog
recommends it to be a reliable source one can use to guide their research as it
uses real-life examples, theoretical references and the use of executive
summaries as the author calls them helps the reader to note the important
aspects at the end of each chapter. This book is also rated four. It is
informative and is a good guide to conducting research.
3. Sofaer Shoshnna’s Online
Journal Article: Qualitative Research Methods (8 pages)
Summary:
Sofaer’s article is based on qualitative methods for
health care. As this blog had discussed earlier on with Du Plooy’s book, research
principle’s remain the same irrespective of the subject or discipline that is
being researched upon. It is only the methods that will differ in the approach
to different disciplines. Sofaer (2002:329) mentions that “the use of rigorous
qualitative methods can enhance the development of quality measures, the
development and dissemination of comparative quality reports, as well as
quality improvement efforts. This paper describes how such methods have been
used and can be used, and identifies how to improve the use of such methods in
studying the studying of health care.” Therefore from this particular abstract
it already obvious that the different qualitative methods are explored in
detail are discussed. The following are discussed: Consumer Surveys, Focus
groups, Key informant interviews, Qualitative Data Analysis, Qualitative
Methods and Structured Observations. Sofaer (2002: 329) further highlights the
importance of qualitative research be mentioning that “the growth in the use of
these methods is consistent with developments in the social and policy sciences
at large, reflecting the need for more in-depth understanding of naturalistic
settings, the importance of understanding context, and the complexity of
implementing social change.” The same applies to media research. With the
consistent developments in social and media policies and in-depth understanding
of its impacts and what the changes imply for society, qualitative research is
needed to explore this phenomenon in-depth. The in-depth understanding will be
impossible with quantitative research because it is focused on numerical data,
which is unable to explain a phenomenon in-depth.
Opinion of the journal article:
The reader conducting media research or any other
qualitative research will benefit by reading this article. It focuses on the
methods used in qualitative research. It is only eight pages long, meaning that
it is very limited in terms of scope. However, it is very helpful when the
researcher has to choose qualitative data collection methods. A very important
aspect mentioned by Sofaer (2002: 333) which this blog wants the reader to note
under the title Key factors to improve
the use of qualitative methods which
is that “when qualitative research is designed or executed poorly, the
results are neither credible or useful.” Sofaer then discusses important issues
to consider in the researchers qualitative design and approach. This aspect
will be very useful to the reader and in conducting research. The article is
give a rate of three.
4. How to read a paper: Papers that go beyond numbers
(qualitative research) by: Greenhalgh Trisha and Taylor Rod. (12pages)
The authors were both Senior Lecturers in the Department of Primary Care and
Population Sciences at the University College London Medical School or Royal
Free School of Medicine when this article was published.
Summary:
This article helps a researcher in knowing how to
evaluate papers that describe qualitative methods of research. They start by
highlighting the importance of qualitative research and giving examples of
where it is necessary e.g. “what stops people from giving up smoking?”
(Greenhalgh and Rod. 1997:...). On this example they try to highlight the fact
that some questions in society cannot be quantified or answered in numbers or statistics
and thus require explanations and exploration which only qualitative research
can achieve. They start by discussing what qualitative research is, then how to
evaluate qualitative papers with the use of questions to ask when consulting
such papers. These questions include amongst others: Was a qualitative approach
necessary? How were the setting and the subjects selected? Are the results
credible? Etc
Commentary:
The article is basic, guiding a researcher on how to
evaluate credible qualitative research from that which is not valuable. It is a
quick solution to judging sources that one can use or consult in qualitative
research and not accepting everything that is found as the truth. This blog
recommends it as it will be helpful in data collection as well as in conducting
background research in the early stages of the research. This blog gives it a
rating of three.
5 .Chapter 1: Qualitative Reseach by: Sage
(40 pages).
This particular chapter in qualitative research is
directly compared to Sofaer’s article on Qualitative methods as discussed
earlier in the blog. This chapter goes more in-depth in exploring the
qualitative methods. Sage (sa:...) mentions that “Researchers and
practitioner’s in fields as diverse as anthropology, education, nursing, psychology,
sociology, and marketing regularly use qualitative methods to address questions
about people’s ways of organising, relating to and interacting with the world.
Despite the interdisciplinary recognition on the value of “qualitative
research” (or because of it), qualitative research is not a unified field of
theory and practice”. This is so because it is highly subjective in what the
researcher sets to research, having its own limitations, as well as their own
bias in the research which they may not be aware of themselves. This chapter is
longer as compared to Sofaer’s article therefore the two cannot be compared on
the basis of quality because of their size. One has gone into more detail,
while the other did more of a summary of the qualitative methodology’s method
of research. This chapter is rated a four by this blog. It is easy to
understand and explains in depth the methods of qualitative research.
Bibliography:
Dawson, C. 2006. A
PRACTICAL GUIDE TO RESEARCH METHODS. A USER-FRIENDLY MANUAL FOR MASTERING
RESEARCH TECHNIQUES AND PROJECTS. Second edition. How to Books: United
Kingdom
Du Plooy. G,M. 2008. Communication Research. TECHNIQUES, METHODS AND APPLICATIONS. Juta
& Company: Lansdowne
Sage. 1997. Qualitative
Reseach. [O]. http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/48453_ch_1.
pdf. (Accessed 05.June.2015)
Sofaer,
S. 2002. Qualitative Research Methods. International
Journal of …[O] .http://www.intqhc.oxfordjournals.org/content/14/4/329 (Accessed 05.06.2015)
Greenhalgh,T and Rod, T.1997. What is Qualitative Research?
College of Education, Idaho State. http://www.ed.isu.edu.sspe.document/.../research.../reading_qualitative_research.
pdf. (Accesse
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