Qualitative resources

Here is a a whole list of resources for a research student to use to get to grips with methodological approaches. The list includes a link to a video of Alan Bryman talking about conducting mixed methods research; it has helped me get a better idea of how people use the word 'paradigm' in the context of methodology.

I've now made the arguments that I want to make in my methodology chapter, though I daresay my supervisors will have plenty of critical comments to make. They can only be helpful to sorting out my confusion of terms. I shall submit a full draft of the thesis to them in a few hours, and then must wait three weeks to get their feedback.

But hey! a full draft!

Representative qualitative research

I was thinking about how to judge the goodness of my qualitative research - see chapter 10 of Miles and Huberman.

Are my informants representative? They are to some extent self-selected in that their organisation's management accepted my approach asking to research them. The management then suggested which IT project or programme to study. In that sense, the informants didn't volunteer, though the organisation did. So informants and organisations may not be representative.

But representative of what? They are representative case studies of successful IT projects, not failures. That's clear because:

1. the organisations made the cases available - I'd assume they'd not make failures so available
2. several of the cases have been submitted for awards
3. the pride is in the words and terms that the informants use

Informants tended to be articulate and elite in management, but outliers were available for interviews at very short notice, such as a clerk, a techie chap and a data input person. So does that mean I've got something representative - both management elite and operational grade informants?

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Miles & Huberman in Miles, M. B. and A. M. Huberman (1994). Qualitative Data Analysis : An Expanded Sourcebook. Thousand Oaks, Sage Publications.

Difference between 'techniques', 'methods' and 'methodology'

The OU PhD skills web site points to a comprehensive list, which for skill A4: asks Can you articulate the difference between 'techniques', 'methods' and 'methodology'? so I'm revising what I had learnt in B852: management research.

Techniques

• Reading documents, searching for and retrieving them, filing them, taking notes from them.
• Contacting people, recording contacts

Perhaps this is the how of the research

Methods

Procedures for collecting and analysing data – like what you are going to do to get the data

Methodology

Strategy, and design behind choice of methods to reach outcome – like why are you doing it this way

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Crotty, M. (1998) 'Introduction: the research process'. The foundations of social research: meaning and perspective in the research process, Sage, London. 816

See Crotty (1998) in the ‘Introduction’ to his book, The Foundations of Social Research: Meaning and Perspective in the Research Process