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© Rosaline S. Barbour 2014
Second edition first published 2014
First edition published 2008. Reprinted in 2009, 2013.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2013940927
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ISBN 978-1-4462-5459-2
ISBN 978-1-4462-5460-8 (pbk)
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Contents
About the author
Preface
Acknowledgements
Companion website
Overview
Part I Introduction
1 The scope and contribution of qualitative research
2 Qualitative traditions: epistemology and ontology
3 Research design
4 Ethics
Part II Generating data
5 Interviews
6 Focus groups
7 Ethnography
8 Other sources of qualitative data
Part III Complex research designs in practice
9 Mixing methods
10 Action research
Part IV Analyzing and presenting qualitative research
11 Analysis: processing, coding and interrogating data
12 Theorizing in qualitative analysis
13 Presenting and writing-up qualitative research
Glossary
References
Name Index
Subject Index
About the author
Rosaline (Rose) Barbour is Prof of Health Care at the Open University. She is a Medical Sociologist with some 40
years’ experience of conducting qualitative research, focusing on the intersection between the social and the clinical,
spanning a range of substantive topic areas. She has published extensively in methodological journals, and has a
particular interest in the rigour of qualitative research. She is joint editor (with Jenny Kitzinger) of Developing
Focus Group Research: Politics, Theory and Practice (1999); London: Sage and is the author of Doing Focus
Groups (Book 4 of the SAGE Qualitative Methods Kit) published in 2008 and since translated into Portuguese,
Polish and Mandarin. Rose has also achieved international recognition for her qualitative methods workshops, which
she has been running for nearly 30 years and which provide the basis for much of the material included in this book.
Currently, she is focusing on re-examining the division between applied and theoretically-driven research.
Preface
Five years is a long time in the world of qualitative research; the landscape has shifted and a number of significant
debates have raged. Consequently, the first edition of this book (published in 2008) requires substantial updating. In
the time that has elapsed since then, qualitative research has been embraced by an ever-expanding number of
constituencies, each of which has brought its own disciplinary concerns and methodological assumptions to bear in
shaping how observational fieldwork, ethnographies, interviews, and focus groups – or combinations of these – have
been employed. This relates not just to methods used for generating qualitative data, but, also, to approaches to
analysis and the use that is made of a seemingly-endless array of potential theoretical frameworks.
There is, it is argued, much to be gained from taking a look at qualitative research practice in all its diversity. This
provides a significant challenge, but the accompanying website (a new feature of the current edition) allows a wide
range of supplementary materials to be made available to the reader and thus, allows the book to aspire to coverage
that would not be possible in a single printed volume. Since Sage is a major publisher of methodological journals
and textbooks, this imprint affords the opportunity to provide direct links, via the companion website, to most of the
significant papers and book chapters that are cited. The new edition accords space to considering the use to which
qualitative methods have been put in fields as diverse as anthropology, business studies, education, geography,
health services research, media studies, nursing, organizational research, political science, psychology, social work,
and sociology. Examples of such usages are provided throughout, with coverage extended to include topics such as
institutional ethnography, critical discourse analysis, elite interviews and media analysis (not explored in depth in
the previous edition). It is hoped that these highlighted exemplars make for stimulating reading, since they
encompass a wide variety of topics – ranging from ADHD, architects at work, bullying and cyber-bullying, through
to probation, social work practice (including the social construction of records), the work of tour guides, and
research carried out in a war zone. The new edition provides an overview of qualitative research practice in its many
forms and critically reviews both commonalities and differences, and, in particular, examines claims to
distinctiveness and/or superiority.
Matters of epistemology (ideas about knowledge and the nature of evidence) and ontology (ideas about what
constitutes the social world and how this can be studied) – and the debates between ‘realism’ and
‘constructivism’/‘relativism’ – and their relevance for qualitative research practice are discussed at length (see
Chapter 2). A case is made for a broadly ‘social constructionist’ approach, whereby it is possible to combine a
‘constructivist epistemology’ with a ‘realist ontology’.
In the last few years online research (including the use of social media) and visual methods has blossomed.
Research showcased and reviewed here covers, for example, the use of Facebook for sampling, a cyber-ethnography
of an online diaspora, online interviewing, photo-elicitation in various contexts, and a video and interview study of
family Christmases. This has served to highlight some perennial issues, regarding trustworthiness and authenticity of
data; to introduce some new challenges (not least the sheer volume of potential data ‘out there’); and to raise specific
ethical issues (with regard to anonymity, confidentiality, representation, and public access to data and findings). The
new edition includes an additional chapter that covers document analysis, online research and visual methods and
Chapter 4, on Ethics, has been extended to consider how best researchers can anticipate and respond to the issues
raised by emergent technologies and data-generating possibilities.
Mixed methods research – particularly applications which combine quantitative and qualitative methods – has,
meantime, emerged as a ‘movement’ – some have even argued a ‘paradigm’ in its own right, with ‘paradigm wars’
(between quantitative and qualitative camps) a thing of the past – at least in some quarters. This new edition
summarizes progress in mixed methods research, while considering the challenges ahead – not least, the potential
for resurgence – if not of full-blown ‘paradigm wars’, then, at least the potential for re-invoking of unhelpful
dichotomies, or importing of unhelpful and inappropriate assumptions. Consideration is also given to the challenges
involved in seeking to combine different qualitative methods and the role played here by the various disciplinary
heritages that are involved. The principles of successful research design are revisited and extended sections on case
studies and reasons for seeking to combine methods emphasize that, as always, having a clear rationale – for choices
and a plan specifying sequencing of methods and how these can inform each other – pays dividends.
