I am doing some reading and thinking about the process of ‘becoming’ a researcher as well as some additional reading to help fine tune a couple of upcoming conference presentations. Inevitably the comparison between qualitative research/approaches and quantitative research/approaches is discussed or suggested by many authors. I continue to resist either label and consider myself a mixed methods person although I think that a lot of people I know think of me as primarily one or the other depending on the context of our encounters. More and more, I question the importance of paradigmatic distinctions and definitions because most people I’ve encountered do not think or plan their research using any assumptions, or putting a lot of thought toward issues of truth, reality, or how others view those. Frankly, for a lot of people, mathematical approaches including use inferential and descriptive statistics are just what they use to get a quick answer out of their data. If there was some equally quick and equally (seemingly) decisive way of getting an answer that was considered qualitative, I’m sure a lot of people would have no hesitation about giving it a try. On a side note, I am currently exploring metasynthesis and metasummary (Sandelowski and Barroso, 2007, Springer) and I am intrigued by how it is going to feel to assign effect sizes to qualitative findings.
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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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