This course provides an introduction to qualitative methodology used in social science research, beginning with an overview of ethnography, phenomenology, case study, and action research paradigms. Qualitative inquiry allows researchers to ask “how” and “why” questions and to describe complexity of social phenomena over time. It is interpretive in nature and presents researchers with tools to better understand the meanings that people give to their lived experience. This course is intended to provide an overview of particular techniques in research design, data collection and data analysis most commonly associated with qualitative research including structured, semi-structured, and open-ended individual interviews, observation and participant-observation, focus group discussions, participatory methods, visual methods and document review. Mixed-methods as a research design approach will be covered only minimally. In addition to reading methodology texts and selected empirical literature that incorporates qualitative methods, students will conduct a “hands-on” research project by selecting a research site, developing a research question(s), collecting qualitative data, analyzing and interpreting the data, and writing a final research report. Theoretical and ethical aspects of qualitative methods will be considered in the context of these projects.
- Dozent/in: Cathryn Susan Magno