2 Research Philosophy and Qualitative Interviews

CHAPTER 2 RESEARCH PHILOSOPHY AND QUALITATIVE INTERVIEWS IN THIS CHAPTER: CHOOSING A PHILOSOPHY OF RESEARCH DIFFERENCES BETWEEN POSITIVIST AND NATURALIST–CONSTRUCTIONIST PARADIGMS AN ILLUSTRATION OF THE DIFFERENCES IN PRACTICE VARIATIONS ON THE CORE PARADIGM Positivism Yields to Postpositivism Naturalist and Interpretive Constructionist Perspectives Critical, Feminist, and Postmodern Perspectives TOWARD THE RESPONSIVE INTERVIEWING MODEL 13 14 QUALITATIVE INTERVIEWING v INTRODUCTION Which data-gathering tools you use depends largely on the research question at hand. You do not use interviewing to analyze census data; you don’t count to get descriptions of what happened in a closed-door meeting. In practice, researchers choose topics that lend themselves to quantitative or qualitative techniques based on their interests, personalities, and talents. If you enjoy talking with people and shudder just thinking about endless streams of numbers, you are more likely to choose a project suitable for in-depth interviewing than one requiring reams of statistical data. In addition, the choice of techniques also depends Not that long ago, many quantitative on your willingness to accept the assumptions researchers looked down on any project that did underlying each set of tools. Researchers who not involve precise measurement; they rejected use quantitative tools, techniques that empha- observational research and open-ended inter- size measuring and counting, are called posi- viewing as unscientific. Qualitative researchers tivists; those who prefer the qualitative tools were equally critical of positivists’ work, arguing of observation, questioning, and description are that the positivists’ search for generalizable rules called naturalists. Positivists and naturalists dif- and their focus on quantification ignored mat- fer in their assumptions about what is important ters that are important but not easily counted to study, what can be known, what research and denied the complexity and the conditional tools and designs are appropriate, and what nature of reality. standards should be used to judge the quality Fortunately, the conflict has calmed down of the research. Taken together, these assump- in recent years. There is widespread recogni- tions are termed research paradigms or research tion that people can do good work using either philosophies. paradigm as long as they adhere to its underly- Positivists assume that reality is fixed, ing assumptions. To help you understand the directly measurable, and knowable and that assumptions behind qualitative interviews, in there is just one truth, one external reality. In this chapter we compare the assumptions of the contrast, naturalistic researchers assume that positivist and naturalistic approaches. reality constantly changes and can be known only indirectly, through the interpretations of people; they accept the possibility that there CHOOSING A PHILOSOPHY are multiple versions of reality. People who OF RESEARCH are uncomfortable with such uncertainty are more likely to choose the quantitative paradigm with its assumptions of a single, measurable Why do you need to understand differences in (countable) and knowable truth; people who philosophies of research? Why not just go ahead can tolerate uncertainty are more likely to favor and do a survey or carry out the interviews? You a qualitative paradigm with its acceptance of can, of course; but for several reasons (listed multiple perspectives of truth and constantly below), it is better first to understand the assump- changing reality. tions behind the research tools you choose. CHAPTER 2 RESEARCH PHILOSOPHY AND QUALITATIVE INTERVIEWS 15 1. The assumptions provide guidance undergird the techniques you use gives you for conducting your research. They confidence to build on the strengths and offset prescribe your research role—whether the weaknesses of those techniques. you should try to be neutral or let your own personality come through. They indicate whether you must ask each person in a study the same questions in DIFFERENCES BETWEEN an identical way or can change ques- POSITIVIST AND NATURALIST– tions midstream. 2. Dissertation committee members, CONSTRUCTIONIST institutional review board members, and PARADIGMS journal reviewers and editors might follow different research philosophies from yours and may be unwilling to accept the Research philosophies differ on the goals of the legitimacy of your approach unless you research and the way to achieve these goals. Is can make its assumptions clear. the purpose to test theories and discover general 3. You have to comply with the research principles, or is it to describe and explain com- standards speciﬁ c to the research plex situations? Should the work be primarily paradigm you are using rather than deductive; that is, should it start out with broad those that guide alternative approaches. theories and suppositions and then systematically Qualitative interviewers need not apologize for not interviewing hundreds test their implications? Or should it be inductive; of people any more than quantitative that is, should it build explanations from the researchers need to apologize for not ground up, based on what is discovered? Is there producing in-depth descriptions. one truth out there that the researcher is trying to 4. Understanding the theoretical measure, or are there many possibly contradic- assumptions helps you recognize what tory ones? the techniques you are working with Positivists claim there is a single, objective real- do well and what they do less well, and ity that can be observed and measured without lets you design your research to take bias using standardized instruments. Naturalists full advantage of their strengths and and, in particular, interpretive constructionists, compensate for their weaknesses. accept that there is a reality but argue that it cannot be measured directly, only perceived by To summarize: First, the assumptions of people, each of whom views it through the lens the research paradigm guide how you do your of his or her prior experience, knowledge, and work; second, they enable you to explain the expectations. That lens affects what people see methods you are using to your professors, to and how they interpret what they find. What we editors or reviewers, and to members of the know, then, is not objective; it is always filtered institutional review board; third, each research through people, always subjective. paradigm comes with its own standards for For the positivists, the goal is a universal truth, evaluating the quality of research; and finally, a rule or explanation that is always true so long fully understanding the assumptions that as specified conditions hold. For the naturalists, 16 QUALITATIVE INTERVIEWING what is discovered is embedded in a complex and Under the naturalist–constructionist para- changing reality from which it cannot be rea- digm, the fact that interviewers or observers sonably abstracted. Naturalists seek to explain reach different conclusions is not considered what they have seen, regardless of whether their problematic, since meaning is always contextual findings can be extended beyond the time and and always interpreted. If one interviewee says circumstances of the current study. Naturalistic the meeting was a success and another says it research is focused more on understanding what was a failure, a positivist would say that one has happened in a specific circumstance than on is probably wrong or being deceptive. But the trying to predict what will happen next. naturalist–constructionist would say that this In the positivist paradigm, the researcher sees apparent contradiction is intriguing, that both himself or herself as a neutral recorder. Different interviewees could be speaking the truth as they researchers using the same instruments should see it, and then would try to explore what “suc- reach the same conclusions. Positivists evaluate cessful meetings” or “unsuccessful meetings” the success of their research in part by measuring meant to each of the speakers. Positivists assume how closely the findings of different researchers that respondents understand the meaning of match. Though recognizing that no data col- their questions in an identical way; construction- lection instrument is perfect, positivists seek ists are more likely to assume that interviewees to develop standardized instruments that they have different frames of reference and then to believe precisely tap a single reality. They seek try to discover the lenses through which their to imitate the sciences that have developed quan- interviewees see the world. titative ways of measuring physical, biological, Positivists aim to work out theories that apply or chemical phenomena in replicable ways. In to people or societies broadly. Naturalists focus addition, positivists judge research in terms of more on themes that are true at some time or in its validity—that is, the extent to which their some places, while working to learn which ele- research tools actually do measure the underly- ments of a complex environment affected what ing concept that they are supposed to measure. was seen or heard. Qualitative work is judged Naturalists who emphasize that all mean- more on its freshness—its ability to discover new ing is sifted through people’s prior experience themes and new explanations—than on its gen- and biases are called constructionists because eralizability. It is also evaluated for its richness, they believe that people build or construct their vividness,

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