I was fortunate enough to view some very fine graduate student presentations earlier this week. These represented 'practical' or field work placements. Perhaps surprisingly, most incorporated some aspects of qualitative inquiry via focus groups, interviews, and/or observations. Perhaps less surprisingly, our students in this particular degree receive no required training in qualitative inquiry and have only recently had access to an elective course (that I could not talk any into taking). This results in 'on the job' training in qualitative methods, and the outcomes vary depending on the experience of and guidance provided by the field work supervisor. Many people I have encountered learned to design, conduct and analyze findings from qualitative inquiry while working on an academic research project such as a thesis or dissertation. Far fewer have had formal classroom training. I am in the latter category, by the way, with most of my early experience accrued in graduate courses, and most of my applied experience was accrued during or after completion of an 18 hour certificate in qualitative methods. I was thinking about this earlier this week in another context and I actually think that an apprenticeship model for learning qualitative inquiry can be very effective. That said, as with many complex activities, I think there is potential over time for practitioners to adapt practices to their specific needs and to take shortcuts. While this in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, I am concerned when the trainees are not taught that there are other ways to engage in some practices. When viewing the presentations yesterday, I noted a total absence of attribution to sources for decisions related to design, data collection, data processing, or analysis methods - and when I asked presenters, indeed, none had consulted, or been directed to consul any expert sources to help guide their work.
I could quibble over some of the little points that I disagree with that were evidenced yesterday and in other settings, including creating partial transcripts; defaulting to 'focus' group interviews without considering other methods including use of individual interviews; not attempting actual data analysis even though data are collected; coding the answers into codes that consist of the questions themselves, etc. - but, to be honest I am always going to have my preferences, and I am likely to at times disagree with the way some things are done; others certainly disagree with some of my choices. However, in just about every course, for just about every assignment or activity, students are told over and over again to do research, to look to the literature, to be aware of precedents, theories, prior results, etc. Given this, I do not have any idea why so many people seem to think that there is not value in consulting the experts on qualitative methods, when doing qualitative inquiry. This - failure to develop familiarity with described or recommended practices - is the greatest threat to quality work in my view as it encourages ignorance and perpetuation of practices based on preferences or convenience.
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AuthorI am Sheryl L. Chatfield, Ph.D, C.T.R.S. I am a member of the faculty in the College of Public Health at Kent State University. I also Co-coordinate the Graduate Certificate in Qualitative Research and I am a member of the Design Innovation Team at Kent State. Archives
February 2024
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