RICERCA ITALIANA     

Qualitative research: theories, methods and applications

Università degli Studi Roma Tre

Abstract

This research project aims at narrowing the currently existing gap, especially felt in Italy, between quantitative and qualitative studies, the latter being generally marginalised. To establish a firm footing for qualitative research, this project will therefore bring together the principal Italian experts - scholars who have contributed to qualitative research through theoretical-methodological studies or applied studies - for a confrontation covering a wide spectrum of theoretical, methodological and empirical approaches. However diverse the individual techniques used by these scholars may be, their interplay will undoubtedly contribute to illuminating the nature and grounding of qualitative research.
The project provides for a three-tiered approach: theory, method and applications. Eight months will be dedicated to each tier. Each research Unit will follow a common framework, decided nationally, while being free to implement it locally as seen fit. Each study will be polydisciplinary, thanks to the background of the researchers and to the methods and topics which will be adopted and studied. Thus, sociologists and psychologists, linguists, medical researchers and computer scientists will all come together in a carefully designed subdivision of tasks aiming at fitting their empirical studies into a mosaic illustrating the significance of empirical research. These tasks will be based on trends in the field which have been widely discussed both nationally and internationally but infrequently put into practice in validated field work. The methods to be used will range from life histories to vignettes, from content analysis to focus groups, from analysis of texts to analysis of multimodal behaviour.
The end product will be a protocol stating the landmarks of qualitative research. It will have as a target a varied public: scholars and social workers, trainers and researchers, methodologists and analysts. Hopefully, the protocol will be a frame of reference for future scholars interested in undertaking qualitative research, which historical and cultural barriers have kept from developing in Italy.
New tools, still in the experimental stage, will play a large role in the project. Indeed, the project itself will be a testing ground on which to evaluate the scope and reliability of these tools. This will involve the use of innovative procedures and the raising of uncommonly-asked questions, made possible by using as subjects of the various empirical studies: prison convicts, people with handicaps, classroom teachers and their pupils, tourists and workers, young people and adults. Another positive aspect of the project is represented by the good and well-established relationship which exists between researchers; therefore a "common language" will enable them to work out the analytical and interpretative implementations of the various themes, decided upon joint discussion to begin with.
Organizing this research project has, in fact, called for a long period of consultations, discussions, fine-tuning; simply finding time slots in which all participants could come together has been a task in itself. Thus the original list of possible participants (20 universities in all) had to be pruned, taking into consideration both qualifications and availability with respect to the overall requirements of the project. This, in itself, is an indication of the project's overall reach and of the dedication of those who have come to make up the various teams, scattered across the country. "Qualitative research: theories, methods and applications" purports to be a research project that could mark a decisive turn in social science research, favouring both a diversity and yet a unity of approach in various areas of study. <<<

Principal Investigator

Roberto CIPRIANI Università degli Studi ROMA TRE

Research Objectives

This research project aims at satisfying a deeply felt need in the Italian scientific community: that of establishing recognized reference points for qualitative research, with respect to both its theoretical justification and the acceptable methodologies and applications coherent with that justification.
There has been, in fact, a noticeable increase in qualitative studies over the past few years, whether theoretical or applied; but this has not advanced qualitative research as such. The theoretical studies have tended to develop ex abrupto, each and every one, while the applied studies have given the impression of unique events, rather than a continuation and development of preceding work.
Thus the possibility of establishing a fruitful scientific dialogue with colleagues has been hindered by the very absence of recognized guidelines and by an established (even institutional) arena in which to share, compare and discuss the qualitative studies undertaken.
This situation is by no means typically Italian. It is international. After the uncontrasted dominion of quantitative research, in the United States and elsewhere, during the long parenthesis stretching from the 1920's to the 1950's, there has been a rebirth of the kind of qualitative input pioneered by Thomas and Znaniecki in the period 1918-20. But the rebirth has been slow, uncertain, and steadily contrasted.
Only recently has the stature of authors like Anselm Strauss and Norman Denzin, to mention but two names, given the qualitative dimension anything like a privileged status. And once more the trend is being set in English-speaking research communities.
The gleam of this new light, which is illuminating much of the world, has yet to arrive fully in Italy; and in those sectors where it has shone, it has not always produced a faithful and constant following. For the most part Italian researchers, constrained perhaps by the mechanism of recruitment and promotion practiced by both State and private universities, continue to feel obliged to work within the constraints of quantitative inquiry.
To be honest, the usual perception of qualitative studies - that their methodologies and techniques have not advanced much over the years - has some truth to it and this explains their inevitable status of inferiority when compared with the continual successes of quantitative research. The mixture of sociological inquiry and statistical methods has, in fact, enabled quantitative researchers to produce a steady set of reliable and copious studies while qualitative researchers have been able to counter only with hesitant, imperfect, discontinuous, incomplete and poorly constructed approximations.
But what is most amiss is the lack of communication between the two scientific communities. Vittorio Capecchi, in a famous talk in 1993 (which became a published paper in 1996), aptly compared the situation with two medieval castles. (Today one might add a third castle - that of cybernetics.) According to Capecchi:
"The relationship has long been conflictual, with the occupants of the quantitative castle shouting at their opponents in the other castle that qualitative methods do not permit measuring phenomena, and with the latter shouting back that quantitative methods do not permit understanding phenomena. Today energy is invested not so much in conflict as in defining boundaries and integration strategies."
The present research project is, in fact, situated along the just described borderline. It aims at elaborating research strategies which integrate both domains, that is, which are rooted in qualitative analysis or which aim for qualitative explanations while being mindful of the quantitative paradigm (this is the case of most of the research teams) or which are rooted in quantitative analysis but aim for qualitative explanations (some of the research undertaken by single universities corresponds to this method) or, lastly, which manage to use quantitative tools to produce qualitative data.
The same solution, i.e. "triangulation", can be tested at various levels in the hope of bringing together apparently contrasting methods: quality vs. quantity, induction vs. deduction, working hypothesis vs. sensitizing concepts, preliminary definition of theory vs. absence of starting theories, and so on. The possibility of this happening is guaranteed by the established competence of the researchers operating on the various teams, as well as by the declared policy of the project to favor the maximum openness, without compromising the rigor of the procedures used.
In other words, instead of the umpteenth call for more qualitative research, the present project sets out to do something about the situation. It provides a framework for testing concrete attempts to mix quality and quantity studies, as well as the other dichotomies just listed. Irreconcilability is not a dogma. Or, if it is one, the present project aims at deconstructing it, removing its pretences of credibility and respectability, and showing that communication between researchers on both banks of a common river is indeed possible and fruitful. For it is not the tool that makes the method; if anything, the opposite is true: if a scientific domain is common to two researchers, at least in part, no matter how different their approaches may be to studying it, the end product - an understanding of social reality, a reconstruction of that reality, a scientific hold on it - will somehow link those approaches one to the other.
There are, of course, many unanswered theoretical objections at this point. But this is normal and the present project, if anything, aims at answering them. There are also psychological barriers to overcome: doubts and resistances, hesitations and fear of controversy, opposing feelings and waryness. The answer to these problems lies in the experience of heuristics - the inquiry process itself will lead to a web of situations, proposals, readings, discovery processes, such that it will become possible to submit to the crossfire of conflicting approaches, each demanding compliance with an immense number of practices, regulations, checklists. Besides, whatever the result, it can only be better than the myopic result obtained by research methods which are isolated, self-referencing and confined to a single perspective.
The proposed project should therefore be thought of as a scientific adventure, a high-level interpersonal experience.
This particular moment in history, moreover, is propititious for just such an undertaking. There are now the appropriate conditions and expectancies for a step forward, precisely what we are proposing. Indeed, a whole new generation of researchers has grown up and they have an inkling for the problems that qualitative research poses. We can also count on the vanguard, not very numerous but certainly qualified, of the Italians who have pioneered qualitative research over the years. In other words, we can join the inclination of the young researchers for innovation with the acquired wisdom of the older scholars: the resulting combination should enable qualitative research finally to take off and fly on its own wings, closing the distance that separates it from quantitative studies.
The creation of the network outlined in the proposal and detailed in the present project should offer a sufficient guaranty of feasibility. A further indication of feasibility may be derived from the anedoctal fact that all of the researchers called upon to participate in the present project did so without a moment's hesitation - their "yes" was almost a chorus, and this indicates that each one of them sees in the present project a necessary step to take for the advancement of science. <<<

First Results

1.st phase
The partial expected findings will above all be related to drawing up a shared theoretical approach, as far as possible, and producing a shared conceptual glossary. These tools must be considered of fundamental importance in guaranteeing uniformity of approach right from the start of the study, so that some general principles at least will be respected by all the Research Units. Subsequent diversification of methodologies, techniques and analytical topics will also have to respect certain general criteria that have been established as binding for all the researchers.2.nd phase
The partial findings will relate to the approval of the procedures to be implemented during the empirical field research planned for the next phase. The disciplinary differentiation of the researchers will in some way be made to converge on certain logical points and research styles. The shared empirical experience will be inspired by certain premises set out a priori in this phase. In a more explicit manner, this will put into practice the feature that is central to this research proposal - a polydisciplinary approach.3.rd phase
Partial expected findings will regard the empirical testing of the analysis tools laid out at the end of the second research phase. In this phase various forms of empirical research will be tested, depending on the plans and competences of each single research Unit. These will range from life histories, content analysis and visual sociology to socio-linguistic studies, participant observation, naturalistic observation and focus groups. The multiplicity of issues addressed will be anchored in the common perspective of a poly-disciplinary approach. Approximately half-way through the process, there will be a Work-in-Progress Assessment Meeting. A final meeting with all researchers will be held before the end of activities, in order to co-ordinate the various publications and the overall treatise. <<<

Timescale

24 months

National and international background

The personal development of many social scientists has heavily conditioned the evolution of methods and techniques and, above all, their spread. A case in point is the success enjoyed by Thomas and Znaniecki's The Polish Peasant (1918-1922): it shows the difficulty that an innovative solution, in particular one based on qualitative analysis, has in making itself heard.
While in other disciplines, one encounters a certain amount of cross-fertilization between qualitative and quantitative studies - for example, the defining categories used by one approach may be taken over by the other - in sociology, psychology and statistics qualitative research seems to be frequentely ignored. What counts are numbers, percentages, tables - not qualities which, as Herbert A. Simon reminds us, call into question the very sense of what numbers purport to describe.
Sociology as an incomplete science
Historically speaking, sociology is clearly an incomplete science: it is a latecomer into the arena of social sciences, where for example history has reigned supreme for millennia. To this extent sociology seems to have learned little from the more advanced contemporary sciences. This, of course, is due to the lack of interdisciplinary exchange, especially regarding the epistemology of sciences, a terrain where one would think contact would be entirely possible. If, for example, we take as the object of our research the determination of the independent variable that produces a particular behavioural event, then we are obliged to share with Ernest Nagel the view of the behaviour as fundamentally probabilistic. This is because individual actions can be accounted for, only on the basis of generalizations derived from statistical treatment of human behaviour in similar occurrences. Thus there can be no absolute "truth", for we cannot analyse statistically all possible events of a kind. This lack of certitude leads us to construct a certitude of another order: we link the specific behavioural event under study with its specific context. The greater the detail, the more unrepeatable the event and therefore the stronger the link.
These considerations are by no means new: Weber is at the door. Hans W. Gruhle wrote an important paper on the origin of knowledge, to honour Max Weber. It is also a significant indicator of the inconsistency of certain interdisciplinary and intradisciplinary barriers that often keep researchers from talking to each other and "taking a dip" in the other fellow's swimming pool.
Thus, having forsaken visits to less familiar surroundings, sociology remains ad infinitum a young, incomplete science - locked in its quantitative measurements, however obsolete, uninteresting and déjà vu.
The theoretical-methodological question
Ahead of his times, Gruhle correctly raised many epistemological and methodological questions: he insisted on the criteria of methodical doubt with respect to the use of qualitative materials for scientific purposes. For example, he wondered if it is possible to understand (verstehen) the personality of an individual, the most profound drives which explain that person's behaviour, the dark side of her/his character, the peculiarity of her/his opinions. In the case of a historical figure, the time lapse may serve to guarantee more objectivity; nonetheless, it is still necessary to "enter into" the subject under study empathetically. Historians have to ask themselves if, in view of identifying with the character of Napoleon in order to appreciate his choices from his point of view, they "must somehow resemble Napoleon" character. Moreover, historians can even raise the question whether a subject is able to appreciate her or his own choices, from her/his point of view: errors of perspective, conditioning affecting the perception of reality and other psychological quirks make introspection problematic. Obvious examples are autobiographies written by elderly people: such works are often highly deformed and of little use in understanding the subject's life history. Of course, a sociologist could always study the deformations as a clue to the present state of mind of a subject; such mystification, turned into an object of analysis, may help the researcher understand the subject's motivational matrix, and currently active conditionings, and these findings may illuminate current behaviour. In other words, social scientists must read between the lines to grasp the subject's underlying motivations; to do so, they must pay close attention to her/his omissions and reticence, foregrounding and emphasis.
One can never paint a portrait of oneself, only of the image of oneself reflected in a mirror. That image is a historical sedimentation of a self-perception and if it is not recognized as such, it can disorientate rather than help the social scientist in her/his heuristic. The experience acquired in finding the right heuristic enables social scientists to go beyond the appearances, and to discern between the subject's real character and the character traits she/he wishes to have and attributes to her/himself utopistically.
It is at this point that the problem of "genuineness" (or rather "authenticity") arises. The question may be of major interest to the historian, just as the study of pathologies (the influence of functional disorders on behaviour) is said to be of prime interest to the psychologist. That being so, there are many disciplines having borderline themes and methods from whom the sociologist can draw inspiration - just as there are naive applications of sciences (for example, Freudian psychoanalysis) that should not be forced into a biographical study.
Nonetheless, it cannot be ruled out that other scholars may have pertinent knowledge, though we should not exaggerate in seeking to pinpoint very close links between pathologies and human action, in what would be a typically deterministic approach. Yet how else can we understand the present, which is but a fleeting moment compared to the colossal mass of past facts conditioning current life? Moreover, how can the social sciences be equipped with a sort of ‘qualistics' capable of keeping up with the ‘quantistic' perspective? How should the core issue of narration be addressed, given its nature as an epistemological problem within the social sciences?
A proposed solution
The common denominator within the various branches of the humanities and social sciences is the goal of understanding men and women as social actors who attribute meaning to their own actions and those of the people with whom they interact based on a language that is not merely verbal. It is precisely for this reason that a qualitative approach is also, and must be, characterized by precise observations of the unspoken - the silent communication of body language and gesture.
This is a considerable leap forward compared to early nineteenth century debates on social science methodology. We no longer need to fear the smoothing out of singularity in a tribute to a form of self-fulfilling sociologism. On the contrary, we are recovering the real individual ability to influence historical process, give it direction and meaning, and sway national and local policies in a real sense. It is not an issue of contrasting general social conditioning and context-specific personal influences; rather, there is an interrelationship between these two moments which actually clarifies the exchange between the individual and society.
The idea of social research of a qualitative kind is not, consequently, beyond the reach of contemporary social sciences. When Otto Hintze posited the idea of characterizing the moments and structures of societies by using an individual-oriented approach as a starting point, he was following Weberian directions. A symbiotic framework of individualizing knowledge and structuring sociology had already emerged in Hintze and Weber's view of social processes. Unfortunately, few paid due attention to their approach and thus this reciprocal lack of awareness characterized the twentieth century in Germany, France and Italy. At most, a few marginal, specialized approaches were laid out.
Actually Bulferetti warns that "we must not therefore become accustomed to considering the use of numbers" in scientific exposition "as a defining feature of this type of exposition." Furthermore, "the use of mathematical devices can certainly produce clearer or more exact results, which thereby provide more penetrating and effective representations in certain cases. Yet what are they if not the application of logic? Nor should we ever forget the limit to the validity of logic, like any form of experience, given the fact that it is history-specific and there are limits to experience in the terms used and the rules of the game. Their value and their meaning can be known by reconstructing that experience, or rather by clarifying it. This process of clarification is in all cases correlated with other experiences that, in turn, need to be clarified, and with common sense and contemporary conventions, which are, in turn, the components of the situation, on the cognitive front".
Thus it is no surprise that the African ‘griot' storyteller, a veritable human archive, is the social individual par excellence, because he not only represents his own person but also the entire group to which he belongs. "I am griot... a master in the art of speaking… we are the word-satchels, the satchels containing secrets many centuries old. The art of telling harbours no secrets for us; without us the names of kings would be left to oblivion. We are human memory; through words we give life to events and the acts of kings for new generations… I have taught kings the history of their ancestors to provide them with a guide, since the world is ancient but the future springs from the past… Listen to my words, you who want to know; from my mouth you will know history".
What more can be added to such a clear and unequivocal definition of the role of the knowledge and memory of a people, as expressed by a single representative of it? This is most likely the missing link in achieving "total understanding", in the same way qualitative methodology is, perhaps, the key element required to overcome the incompleteness of this science.
Qualitative approaches seem, in practice, to have had greater publishing success in the literary field - than as data that scientifically proves a sociologically defined reality. Oscar Lewis is an exemplary case in this regard. His work has perhaps become well-known and appreciated thanks more to its "novel-like flavour" than to its "scientific rigour". A somewhat inverse situation is that of the literary production of an author such as Pier Paolo Pasolini. While his literary skills are undisputed, all the more can we say that of his shrewd social analysis. Indeed, his realism has even been called "crass" simply due to its extreme objectiveness. This author from Italy's Friuli region was well aware of this and he did not spare himself sardonic comments regarding his intellectual multifacetedness; he said his written works were "usually so oddly interdisciplinary." Thus, Pasolini himself realized that an interdisciplinary tendency in contemporary culture seemed odd, a strange fruit, original perhaps, but not worthy of serious attention. His stories of socio-literary life, consequently, ranging from Ragazzi di vita to Una vita violenta, strike us more in terms of the narrative devices than in terms of the social portrait they provide.
From another viewpoint, research seems now to be following the lead of the many studies that focus on life histories, for instance, much more than in the past. It has thus been forgotten that long before the Annales there had been seminal works that were worthy of note, even though they were imperfect and lacked many followers or subsequent in-depth analysis. It should not be forgotten that Thomas and Znaniecki's Polish Peasant dates back to more than eighty years ago. The motivation for these authors was actually rather different and related to issues internal to their science. As a result, their work is quite autonomous, having more plausible links with general philosophy.
Without a doubt, the very foundations of qualitative research and its history demonstrate how it provides adequate guarantees in its methodology. Yet, does qualitative research have a legitimate claim to the label ‘scientific'? And if it is indeed science, what criteria must be implemented to assess the reliability of its findings? The answer to these questions allows us to divide up the territory of social research into three metaphorical provinces. Two "tribes" appear to peacefully co-exist in the first of these provinces: the post-structuralists side by side with the post-modernists. The former view both the above-mentioned questions as unimportant or, at least, poorly expressed. They argue that the objective of social research cannot be reached simply through the construction of a representation of its subject. The representation must be followed up with the support for the motivations of those being studied. Rather importantly, those being studied have been chosen among the underprivileged members of a society. By comparison, the post-modernist position is even more heretical. It matters little whether qualitative research is considered a science or a literary form of narration. This process of radical "de-differentiation" (Davis) rules out the likelihood of identifying criteria able to unite the plausibility of knowledge produced with qualitative research.
The second metaphorical province is home to scholars who argue for the need to assess the plausibility of qualitative research using the same criteria adopted for quantitative research. Some of the most authoritative figures to have espoused this position include Runciman, Goldthorpe and, in Italy, Campelli.
The third and last province brings together a wide range of scholars who defend the need to evaluate the results of qualitative research using criteria different from those used for quantitative research. Glaser and Strauss's proposal (1967) is in the forefront here. In their best-known book, which contains the first organic presentation of grounded theory, Glaser and Strauss express serious doubts regarding the possibility of applying "quantitative research's canons of rigorous testing" to qualitative research.
The plausibility of qualitative research findings or its "credibility" would depend on the use of a rigorous inductive procedure, as laid out in detail by the two North American researchers. In essence, Glaser and Strauss base the plausibility of qualitative research findings on their conformity to a specific research approach, simultaneously inductive and transparent and, consequently, easily to communicate to others - in other words, of thoroughly public domain. When addressing the need for criteria to assess the "reliability" of the findings produced by qualitative techniques, the naturalism of Guba and Lincoln also provides insight. They propose that each of the plausibility criteria employed by quantitative research be matched with a corresponding - but not interchangeable - concept and procedure for qualitative research. Validity thereby becomes credibility for qualitative research, trustworthiness becomes reliability, generalized findings correspond to those that can be extrapolated to other situations, and objectivity is related to findings that can be confirmed elsewhere. Lastly, we should mention the proposal expounded most completely by Altheide and Johnson. They argue that the reflexive account is the best tool for instilling qualitative research findings with plausibility. Altheide and Johnson formulate their proposal as a collection of principles, conceived for the context of ethnographic research, but they can legitimately be applied to all qualitative research. <<<