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What is grounded theory?
- means of generating theory directly from obtained data
- involves continually refining the data gathering approach in response to new data
- data gathering and analysis are simultaneous and ongoing
- Initially created by Glasser and Strauss
- created to challenge some of the logical positivist assumptions of quan approaches
- POI must be a process that develops over time/theory about the overall role of the POI in participants lives
- can incorporate aspects of quan data but primarily a qual method
- key words such as manage, adapt, adjust, learn, choose, decide, develop, etc.
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Grounded Theory - sensitizing concepts
- ideas about how to pursue a topic (who should be the subjects, what should you ask them, etc.)
- treated as points of departure, which are moved past at study completion
- replaced by implicit material derived from gathered data
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Grounded Theory - open coding
- the process of selecting and naming categories from the analysis of data
- the initial stage
- basically creating a labeling system for data content using categories, dimensions, and properties
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Grounded Theory - Axial Coding
- next stage after open coding
- uses a "coding paradigm" to identify causal relationships between categories
- typically takes the form of a diagram or flow chart
- overall axial coding is used to sketch out hypothetical relationships between elements before trying to define what those relationships are
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Grounded Theory - Selective Coding
- creates a "story line" that integrates categories from the axial coding model
- selecting and identifying the core category and relates it to other categories in narrative form
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What is content analysis?
- identifying dominant themes in the protocols being analyzed/counting instances of meanings rather than words or phrases.
- data is organized using either predetermined (deductive) or attempt to discover (inductive) categories to examine data after collection.
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Content Analysis - Directed
- uses deductive categories working from a theory regarding the POI, which creates an expectation as to how the data can best be organized
- usually involves a team of raters
- most appropriate when the goal of a study is to validate an existing theory pertaining to the POI
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Content Analysis - Conventional
- less important to have a team of raters
- categories are a direct reflection of discovered data
- most useful when there is relatively little research and theory in regard to POI
- typically look for commonalities, significant distinct areas of content, and then give that content a label (6-8 words in a cause and effect form/experience and response)
- typically have to keep redefining labels are more data in analyzed to better encompass the common meanings of data across protocols.
- the final categories become the subheadings in the results section
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what are case studies?
- uses the example or a particular case to demonstrate the fact that this kind of case exists or the existence of a phenomenon
- data consists of interviews, session excerpts, collateral interviews, histories, consultations, etc.
- typically, no systemic analysis is done; instead, the writer simply tries to informally fashion a narrative of all materials
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What is Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR)?``
- Uses a team approach gather/analyze data using semi-structured interviews with open ended questions.
- Based on the tenet truth/reality is socially constructed and multiple perspectives are likely to make the study more effect, accurate, and freer from bias.
- has collectivist values found in social constructivism and feminist psychology
- usually has 3-5 researchers and 1-2 auditors
- team members work independently and present their work to the group for discussion
- usually has a sample of 8-15 people
- allows for researches to also act as participants
- write-ups are usually pretty broad and fairly abstract
- overall results are typically and overall pattern paired with illustrations from individual cases
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What is Qualitative Meta-Analysis?
- a systematic identification, appraisal, synthesis, and sometimes statistical aggregation of all relevant prior studies on a specific topic
- can be quan or qual
- quan uses statistical techniques to analyze the results of a number of quan studies in light of each other
- qual synthesizes more qual studies, theory, narrative accounts of quan results, and non-professional literature.
- goal of identifying themes from the body of literature that exists
- must watch for search biases when doing these studies
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What is Descriptive Phenomenology
- the purpose is to allow the researcher to extract essential elements of psychological meaning from an experienced phenomenon
- typically only one question is asked and then elaborated on. Can you think of a time when _________
- typically has 5-6 participants with an acceptable range of 4-8
- record and then transcribe interviews
- approach is considered to be holistic in nature
- uses the mindset of "phenomenological reduction" meaning an effort to understand everything as it was experienced as opposed to how it may objectively be (e.g., attend to the psychological rather than the concrete) or the subjective psychological experience
- items are then broke down into "meaning units"which signify significant meanings in the text
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What is qualitative research?
- looks AT something
- data analysis on words rather than numbers
- uses holistic language instead of numbers
- Typically rich, deep, and complex
- avoids distorted oversimplifications that are inherent to quantitative methods
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what was the first modern qualitative research?
- ethnographic work of Franz Boas
- opposed his colleagues tendencies to see cultures as monolithic and to overgeneralize the extent to which individuals fit within a template of a culture
- his work introduced cultural relativism into social science
- although the first offical recognition of the utility of qual data came from Gordon Allports book: Use of personal documents in the psychological sciences
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Grounded Theory - Define a category
important themes, domains of content. Types of phenomena being described
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Grounded Theory - Define properties
- distinct and important attributes that categories have
- the ways in which one instance of a category differs from another
- always something that can vary , or something a category can have more or less of
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Grounded Theory - Define Dimensions
- specific instances of having a degree or amount of a property
- two dimensions of the same property are distinct from one another because one is high/stronger than the other
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what is a basic descriptive question?
- a matter of fact description of an event, reaction, or phenomenon.
- Can you tell me what happened when _______?
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What is a follow up question?
- a simple question intended to get further detail
- you said you felt ________, can you tell me more about what _______ feels like?
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What is an Example/Experience Question?
- formulated in response to answers in which the subject described something in the abstract and you want them to give a specific instance of the abstract phenomenon
- You said you often feel disenchanted with your close friends when you get to know them better, can you tell me about a specific time of when that happened to you?
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What is a simple clarification question?
- a questioned asked when you simply dont understand part of the subjects response
- You said your dad was kind of a whiz-bang, tell me what you mean by that?
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What is a structural/paradigmatic question?
- ask the participant to theorize, offer their interpretation or understanding of a phenomenon
- you noted that several of your bosses have failed to connect with their employees and ran into difficulties. Why do you think this pattern seems to be recurring?
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What is a comparison/contrast question?
- asking the participant to expound upon the differences between people, things, phenomena, etc.
- you mentioned that you experience your anxious moods and your excited moods very differently, can you tell me more about the differences between them?
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What is a focus group?
- a group of individuals selected and assembled by researchers to discuss and comment on, from personal experience, the topic that is the subject of the research
- the main purpose is to draw upon respondents' attitudes, feelings, beliefs, experiences and reaction in a way in which would not be feasible using other methods
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Give an example of a phenomenological research question
- What is (the populations) experience of (the phenomenon of interest)?
- You cannot substitute any other terms for "experience of"
- What are parents experience of graduate school?
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Give an example of a phenomenological interview question
- Can you think of a time when you had the experience of (the phenomenon of interest)
- the phenomenon of interest in the research question and the interview question must be exactly the same
- can you think of a time when you had the experience of graduate school?
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Give an example of a grounded theory research question
How do teenage parents adjust to parenting obligations after the birth of their child?
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