Chapter 8

class: center, middle, inverse
background-image: url(https://www.unomaha.edu/university-communications/downloadables/campus-icon-the-o/uno-icon-color.png)
background-position: 95% 90%
background-size: 10%

# Qualitative Methods and Data Analysis

[Justin Nix](https://jnix.netlify.app)  
*School of Criminology and Criminal Justice*  
*University of Nebraska Omaha*

.white[April 6, 2023]

???

Distinctly different from Experimental and Survey designs!
-	Exploratory research questions
-	Focus on unstudied (or understudied) processes and phenomena
-	Orientation to social context and the interconnections between processes
-	Focus on human subjectivity
-	Focus on events experienced leading up to outcome
-	Reflexive research design that evolves as the project progresses
-	Sensitivity to researcher subjectivity

---
class: middle, center, inverse

# Three Distinctive Research Designs

---
class: top

# Participant Observation

???

**Participant Observation** - gathering data while developing a sustained relationship with individual or group under investigation
- Think of it like a continuum, where the researcher can take on more/less of an observer/participant role. We'll discuss some classic/contemporary examples of sociological work where the researcher has positioned themself at various points on the continuum.

Typically uses **purposive sampling**

Though we'll discuss how to enter the field and manage relationships with research subjects along the way. 
- As well as some challenges and ethical considerations

---
class: top

# Participant Observation

## Complete observation

???

**Complete Observation** - Researcher tries to see things as they happen, without actively participating in or disrupting these events
- May be interaction with subject(s) of study
- Subjects may not be aware they are being studied 
- Common when observing specific types of events and behaviors that occur in public

**Advantages/Disadvantages of  Complete Observation**
- Will people act naturally knowing they are being watched?
- *Reactive Effects*:  people’s actions are a reaction to being studied
- Researcher does not participate in illegal, unethical, or dangerous activities, BUT
  - Researcher may observe illegal behaviors or dangerous situations. **Should the researcher report?**
  
--

- Michael Sierra-Arévalo (2024) - [*The Danger Imperative*](https://www.sierraarevalo.com/dangerimperative)

???

Michael did 1000+ hours of ride-alongs with 3 U.S. police departments (as well as over 100 in-depth interviews)
- His work offers a fresh/updated take on police culture
- The "danger imperative" is a cultural frame that emphasizes violence, the possibility of death, and the sanctity of officer safety
  - Introduced at the academy, reinforced in field training and throughout an officer's career
  - Powerful rituals and symbols
- Police prioritize their safety above all else
  - In ways that, Michael argues, undermine their legitimacy and lead to injury and death, violate departmental policy and law, and perpetuate longstanding social inequalities within and outside policing.

- If you're interested in reading more, this work stems from his dissertation, and he has published a couple of articles in *Criminology* and *Law and Society Review*.

---
class: top

# Participant Observation

## Participation and Observation

???

**Participation and Observation**
Two types:
- Participate with group being studied, but make clear that you are also studying them
- Observes and interacts, but does not participate in group

Can combine roles
- Inform some members of group about research
- Participate enough to develop rapport and gain sense of what group members experience, but people know that you are not “one of them”

**Advantages and Disadvantages of Participant and Observer Role**
- Researcher can decline to participate in unethical or dangerous activities
- Because group members know the researcher’s real role in group, they can choose to keep some information or attitudes hidden

- Margaret Mead (1928) - [*Coming of Age in Samoa*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coming_of_Age_in_Samoa)

???

Mead, an anthropologist, studied adolescent girls in a village of ~600 people in the Samoan islands - in their **natural environment**.
- She lived with them for 6 to 9 months, studying their daily routines, education, rituals, social dynamics, etiquette, etc. 
  - Also interviewed 68 young women between the ages of 9 and 20
  
- The book details the sexual life of teenagers on the islands, theorizing that culture has a strong influence on psychosexual development
- It's a key text in the "nature vs. nurture" debate, as well as discussion about family, adolescence, gender and social norms.

- William Foote Whyte (1943) - [*Street Corner Society*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Corner_Society)

???

While on a fellowship at Harvard, Whyte lived in the North End of Boston, mostly inhabited by first and second-generation Italian immigrants
- He considered the neighborhood a "slum," and wanted to learn more about "lower class society."
- So he lived there for 3.5 years, including 18 months with an Italian family. 
- The book details how local gangs were formed and organized - differentiating "corner boys" from "college boys."

Note that the book came under some fire for allegedly mischaracterizing the North End and its residents. Some of the people who lived there read his book and felt embarassed. More on that later in the lecture.

- Sudhir Venkatesh (2000) - [*American Project*](https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674008304)

???

We briefly talked about Venkatesh's other book, *Gang Leader for a Day*, which stems from the same fieldwork. He spent almost a decade in Chicago's "Robert Taylor Homes" - a public housing complex occupied by members of the "Black Kings." 
- This book draws on conversations with tenants, gang members, police officers, and local organizations to detail their political battles to build a safe and secure community, for services from the city bureaucracy, daily struggles with poverty, and the tension regarding whether to work with or against street gangs whose drug dealing sustained their lives on the one hand, and endangered them on the other.

---
class: top

# Participant Observation

## Covert participation

???

**Covert (or Complete) Participation**
- Researcher operates as fully functioning member of the group or social setting 
- Most people being studied are usually not aware that they are being studied

**Problems with Covert Participation**
- *“Going Native”* – researcher becomes so wrapped up in role that adopt not only outward trappings (e.g., clothing) but also the ideas and views of people being studied
- Cannot take notes or record conversations, must rely on memory
- Cannot ask questions that might reveal the fact that a research study is being conducted
- Must “keep up the act” as all times which is difficult and may cause emotional strain on the researcher
- Danger to researcher and others
  - If others suspect the researcher’s identity or if the researcher contributes to, or impedes, group action, these consequences can be adverse 
    - Can manipulate the group
    - Cause distrust of social scientists

**Ethical Issues with Covert Participation**
- Faced with choosing to/not to engage in illegal behavior
- Deception
  - Participation by research ‘subjects’ is not voluntary
  - Researcher must determine deception is necessary, otherwise this role cannot be justified
  - Some researchers believe that it is never justified because the deception is unethical
  
--

- Erving Goffman (1961) - [*Asylums*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asylums_%28book%29)

???

**Goffman** worked as a physical therapist's assistant in a Washington DC mental institution. 
- The book details his theory of the **total institution**...
  - A place of work and residence where similarly situated people are cut off from the wider community for a considerable amount of time
  - Privacy is limited, since all aspects of life - sleep, work, play - are conducted in the same place. 
- The book also details the process by which the institution takes efforts to maintain predictable and regular behavior, for both the residents and the guards. 
  - Primarily by "institutionalizing" them - ensuring they know their social role and function.
- He has a lot to say about the "medicalization" of mental illness, saying it was an offshoot of the 19th Century and the Industrial Revolution

- In 1964, Goffman's first wife committed suicide after struggling with mental illness. He remarked that his book would have been "very different" had he written it after this experience.

- Laud Humphreys (1970) - [*Tearoom Trade*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tearoom_Trade)

???

**Tearoom Trade** stems from Humphreys' dissertation, which was an analysis of men who participated in anonymous sex with other men in public restrooms, a practice known as "tea-rooming."
- He found that the men who engaged in these activities came from diverse backgrounds and had different personal motives.
  - Some of the men self-identified as straight, others bisexual, others gay. 
- This book debunked a lot of stereotypes. He found that many of the men lived otherwise "conventional" lifestyles - as family men and respected community members.

- In the course of his fieldwork, Humphreys misrepresented himself and his intentions 
  - He posed as a "watchqueen" - slang for a lookout.
  
***What do you think: Ethical or unethical?***

- No truly informed consent here
- He tracked the mens' identities via their license plate numbers, later showing up at their homes to interview them, disguising himself as a health services interviewer. 
- The controversy around his study led to half the faculty in his department at Washington U in St. Louis leaving. 
- In the popular press, journalists condemned *all social scientists* as deceitful and indifferent.

---
class: top

# Ethnography

???

Study of a culture or cultures that a group of people share
- Can think of it as a special type of participant observation, usually done by one person as opposed to a team.

Naturalistic
- Seeks to understand social world as it really is

Major data collection technique is “being there”
- Analysis relies on thorough and insightful telling of the “story” of the culture/group being studied

Strive for objectivity
- “…look for and recognize underlying assumptions, their own and those of their subjects, and to try to override the former and uncover the latter” (Anderson, 1999)

<img src="east-baltimore.jpg" width="50%" style="display: block; margin: auto;" />
.small[Image by [Baltimore Heritage](https://www.flickr.com/photos/baltimoreheritage/) on [flickr](https://flic.kr/p/RbkGev), [CC BY 2.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)]

- James Marquart (1986) - ["Doing research in prison"](https://heinonline.org/HOL/P?h=hein.journals/jquart3&i=26)

???

Marquart had been visiting the Eastham Unit in the Texas Prison System, where the warden gave him pretty much free access to roam around and talk to guards and inmates. 
- Both guards and inmates regularly encouraged him to work as a guard in order to see the "real" penitentiary. 
- Marquart says at first he was scared, but over time realized this was the best way to get an insider's perspective. 
- The paper I've linked here provides an account of the behaviors he observed which would have been concealed from other fieldworkers.
  - It also talks about some of the ethical dilemmas and dangers he faced while working as a guard.

- Peter Moskos (2008) - [*Cop in the Hood*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cop_in_the_Hood)

???

**Peter Moskos** was working on his PhD in sociology from Harvard when he decided to become a cop in Baltimore to truly understand what it's like to work as a police officer. He worked in the East District for ~13 months.
- Moskos argues in favor of reforming the criminal justice system and legalizing drugs. 
- He's now a professor at John Jay.

- Rosa Brooks (2021) - [*Tangled Up in Blue*](https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/a-georgetown-professor-trades-her-classroom-for-a-police-beat/2021/02/11/15a2216a-5aa2-11eb-8bcf-3877871c819d_story.html)

???

**Rosa Brooks** is a law professor at Georgetown who went to the police academy and got certified as a reserve police officer with DC Metro.

---
class: top

# Intensive Interviewing

<img src="interview.jpg" width="60%" style="display: block; margin: auto;" />
.small[Image by [Amtec Photos](https://www.flickr.com/people/141761303@N08/) on [Wikimedia Commons](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/85/Young_Man_in_a_Interview.jpg/640px-Young_Man_in_a_Interview.jpg), [CC BY-SA 2.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/)]

???

**Intensive Interviewing** - involves open-ended and unstructured questioning posed to uncover in-depth information regarding the respondents feelings, experiences and perceptions
-	Aims to develop a comprehensive picture of interviewee’s background, attitudes and actions in their own words
-	Saturation point emerges when new interviews yield little additional information
-	Critical that researcher establishes rapport for interviewee comfort and interview productivity
-	Recording responses must be accurate but unobtrusive

- Fleury-Steiner (2003) - [*Jurors' Stories of Death*](https://www.press.umich.edu/23483/jurors_stories_of_death)

---
class: top

# Focus Groups

<img src="focus_group.jpg" width="60%" style="display: block; margin: auto;" />
.small[Image by [NSaad (WMF)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:NSaad_(WMF)) on [Wikimedia Commons](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Christ_University_focus_group_6.jpg), [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)]

???

**Focus Groups** - unstructured group interviews in which the group leader actively encourages group discussion among participants
-	Samples include recruited participants that represent target population
  - Relatively homogeneous 
- Ask specific questions & guide discussions
- Encourage all members to participate
- Information gathered is qualitative and unstructured

Several focus groups on the same topic will help check for consistency

Good for:
- discovering unanticipated findings and exploring hidden meanings
- Developing or improving survey instruments
- Identifying the range of opinion on an issue

- Arlie Hochschild (1997) - [*The Time Bind*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Bind)

---
class: middle, center, inverse

# Navigating the Field

---
class: top

# Entering the Field

<img src="enter.jpg" width="60%" style="display: block; margin: auto;" />
.small[Image by [Mr. Brian](https://www.flickr.com/people/53360519@N04) on [Wikimedia Commons](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/07/ENTER_%286967506348%29.jpg/640px-ENTER_%286967506348%29.jpg), [CC BY 2.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)]

???

Learn about the setting
- Typical clothing
- Mannerisms of studied group
- Typical activities

Find someone to get your “foot in the door” and show you the ropes
- Vital to develop a trust relationship with at least one member of the group

First impressions can make or break a study

---
class: top

# Developing and Maintaining Relationships

<img src="friends.jpg" width="50%" style="display: block; margin: auto;" />
.small[Image by various on [Wikimedia Commons](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/30/Friends_actors_montage.jpg/640px-Friends_actors_montage.jpg), [CC BY-SA 3.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)]

Don't have to be **this** close, but you need to earn trust

???

Develop plausible and honest explanation for yourself and your study

Maintain support of key individuals in setting

Don’t be too aggressive in questioning others, to the point that you violate local social norms

Don’t fake similarity with your subjects (don’t “go native”)

Avoid giving and receiving money or gifts

Be prepared for difficulties and tensions if multiple groups are involved, may be pressured to “take sides”

---
class: middle, center, inverse

# Sampling People and Events

---
class: top

# Sampling

???

Field research usually does not use probability sampling

## Theoretical sampling

???

**Theoretical sampling**
- Does not occur at beginning
- Researcher learns of important processes during data collection and makes certain to sample enough people to investigate fully

- Glaser & Strauss (1967) - [*Awareness of Dying*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awareness_of_Dying)

- Decker & Van Winkle (1996) - [*Life in the Gang*](https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/life-gang-family-friends-and-violence)

## Experience Sampling Method (ESM)

???

**Experience Sampling Method (ESM)**

- Subjects carry pagers and when paged, they fill out reports of what they are doing at the time

- Kuppens et al. (2010) - ["Feelings change"](https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=abd1bfb2b95599c36913bc15cde42f607d3dd11f)

- .large[😄 😡 😞 😭 😨]

---
class: middle, center, inverse

# Note-taking

---
class: top

# Taking Notes

???

Primary method of recording participant observation data: **field notes**

Usually a mistake to try to take comprehensive notes while engaged in the field because it is too disruptive

Field researchers typically jot down partial notes while observing

After leaving field, researchers retreat to their computer, hand-write or dictate more complete notes on a daily basis

---
class: top

# Writing Up Field Notes

<img src="typing.jpg" width="60%" style="display: block; margin: auto;" />
.small[Image by [Rasheedhrasheed](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Rasheedhrasheed) on [Wikimedia Commons](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/77/Kazi_tanzania.jpg/640px-Kazi_tanzania.jpg), [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)]

???

Field notes must be as complete, detailed, and true to what was observed and heard as possible

With the aid of the jottings and some practice, researchers usually remember a great deal of what happened
- Write comprehensive field notes immediately afterward, or at least within the next 24 hours
- Write field notes before they have been discussed with anyone else

Usually, writing up notes takes at least three times longer than the field observation or interview did

---
class: top

# Systematic Observation

???

Use standard form on which to record observations
- Frequency of behaviors
- People observed
- Weather/environmental conditions
- Social conditions

Sampson & Raudenbush (1999) - ["Systematic social observation of public spaces"](https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/210356)

- NORC researchers drive an SUV 5mph down every street in 196 Chicago census tracts

- Cameras on each side "captured social activities and physical features...simultaneously"

- Two trained observers also kept a log of what they saw
  
  - *Physical disorder:* cigarettes on ground, graffiti, abandoned cars  
  - *Social disorder:* adults loitering, intoxicated people, drug sales

- This method resulted in 23,816 "face blocks" observed *and* videotaped

---
class: middle, center, inverse

# Qualitative Data Analysis

???

Literally (L) – focused on literal content and form
- Text leads the dance

Reflexively (R) – focuses on how researcher’s orientation shapes interpretations and focus
- Researcher leads the dance

Interpretively (I)
- Construct own interpretation of what the text means

---
class: top

# Qualitative v. Quantitative Data Analysis

.pull-left[
**Qualitative**
]

.pull-right[
**Quantitative**
]

.pull-left[
Focus on meanings
]

.pull-right[
Focus on quantifying social phenomena
]

.pull-left[
Collect rich data from a few cases
]

.pull-right[
Collect few data from a lot of cases
]

.pull-left[
No pre-determined categories or directions
]

.pull-right[
Analyses, categories of data planned in advance
]

---
class: top

# Qualitative v. Quantitative Data Analysis

.pull-left[
**Qualitative**
]

.pull-right[
**Quantitative**
]

.pull-left[
Conclusions reflect sensitivity to the social situation being studied
]

.pull-right[
Conclusions aimed toward making generalizations
]

.pull-left[
Goal is rich descriptions of the social world
]

.pull-right[
Goal is valid & reliable measurement of specific variables
]

---
class: top

# Techniques of Qualitative Data Analysis

???

Documentation of the data and the process of data collection

Organization/categorization of the data into concepts

Connection of the data to show how one concept may influence another

Corroboration/legitimization, by evaluating alternative explanations and disconfirming evidence and searching for negative cases

Representing the account (reporting the findings)

## Documentation

???

The data for a qualitative study most often are notes jotted down in the field or during an interview—from which the original comments, observations, and feelings are reconstructed— or text transcribed from audiotapes.

“The basic data are these observations and conversations, the actual words of people reproduced to the best of my ability from the field notes” (Diamond, 1992:7).

## Conceptualization, Coding, and Categorizing

???

Identifying and refining important concepts is a key part of the iterative process of qualitative research

Conceptualization may begin with a simple observation that is interpreted directly, “pulled apart” and then put back together more meaningfully

## Examining Relationships and Displaying Data

???

Centerpiece of the analytic process
- allows the researcher to move from simple description of the people and settings to explanations of why things happened as they did with those people in that setting.

The process of examining relationships can be captured in a matrix that shows how different concepts are connected, or perhaps what causes are linked with what effects

## Authenticating Conclusions

???

No set standards exist for evaluating the validity or “authenticity” of conclusions in a qualitative study, but the need to consider carefully the evidence and methods on which conclusions are based is just as great as with other types of research. Individual items of information can be assessed in terms of at least three criteria (Becker, 1958)

1. How credible is the informant?

2. Were statements made in response to researcher's questions, or were they spontaneous?

3. How does the presence/absence of the researcher influence the actions and statements of other group members?

---
class: top

# Reflexivity

<img src="transparency.jpg" width="65%" style="display: block; margin: auto;" />
.small[Image by [Nick Youngson](http://www.nyphotographic.com/) on [Pix4free](https://pix4free.org/photo/16458/transparency.html), [CC BY-SA 3.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)]

???

Confidence in the conclusions from a field research study is also strengthened by
- honest and informative account about how the researcher interacted with subjects in the field
- problems he or she encountered
- how these problems were or were not resolved

This “natural history” of the development of the evidence enables others to evaluate the findings

---
class: middle, center, inverse

# Grounded Theory

---
class: top

# Grounded Theory

???

Creation of grounded theory is goal of much qualitative research

Process of inductive reasoning
- Refine definitions of problems and concepts and select indicators
- Create theoretical models
- Modify models as researcher gains experience in the setting

Check models carefully against notes to discover evidence suggesting model is incorrect

When models are not supported by data, refine the models

---
class: middle, center, inverse

# Have a great day! 😄