International Journal of Qualitative Methods

In this article the authors discuss the usefulness of focus groups for researching sensitive issues using evidence from a study examining the experiences of nurses providing care in the context of the Northern Ireland Troubles. They conducted three group interviews with nurses during which they asked about the issues the nurses face(d) in providing nursing care amid enduring social division. Through a discursive analysis of within-group interaction, they demonstrate how participants employ a range of interpretive resources, the effect of which is to prioritize particular knowledge concerning the nature of nursing care. The identification of such patterned activity highlights the ethnographic value of focus groups to reveal social conventions guiding the production of accounts but also suggests that accounts cannot be divorced from the circumstances of their production. Consequently, the authors argue that focus groups should be considered most useful for illuminating locally sanctioned ways of talking about sensitive issues.

In this article the authors present findings from a qualitative research study carried out with Ugandan nurses from September 2003 until June 2004. They highlight the process and philosophical basis of participatory action research (PAR) by reflecting on the challenges, opportunities, outcomes, and ethical issues encountered during the conduct of the research. In this study PAR fostered a climate in which nurses could engage in collective reflection on their practice, make sense of their experiences, and thereby change their understanding of their work.

This study demonstrates an ethnographically critically informed process evaluation of piloting an HIV intervention program targeting injection drug users. The authors used systematic ethnographic methods to identify and evaluate the factors that facilitated or inhibited message diffusion. Findings indicated that communication patterns and strategies advocated in training sessions did not translate immediately into the outreach encounter in the drug use communities. The intervention program was refined and developed based on findings from the ethnographic process evaluation. The authors argue that ethnographic methods provided a dynamic, flexible, and iterative process for evaluating the intervention's development and ensuring its cultural relevance.

Heidegger's hermeneutic phenomenology, although providing an appropriate philosophical foundation for research in the social sciences that seeks to investigate the meaning of lived experience, does not provide clarity of process, making it difficult to assign the degree of rigor to the work demanded in an era dominated by the positivist paradigm. Ricoeur (1981) further developed both Heidegger's and Gadamer's ideas, in the areas of method and interpretation of hermeneutic phenomenological research, in a direction that has addressed this difficulty. In this article the authors outline Ricoeur's theory, including three levels of data analysis, describe its application to the interpretation of data, and discuss two apparent contradictions in his theory. Ricoeur's theory of interpretation, as a tool for the interpretation of data in studies whose philosophical underpinning is hermeneutic phenomenology, deserves consideration by human sciences researchers who seek to provide a rigorous foundation for their work.

Hermeneutic or interpretive inquiry is a living tradition of interpretation with a rich legacy of theory, philosophy, and practice. This paper is not intended to be a treatise on the right way to view and practice this tradition, but an exploration of the legacies that inform the philosophy of practice as the author has taken it up. In this explication, the author examines the ancestral, philosophical, and methodological histories that inform a current practice of hermeneutic inquiry.

Although focus groups are adaptable to unique situations, experts warn that the physical environment in which discussions take place should (a) be free from distractions, (b) be neutral, and (c) permit participants to face each other. In 2004 and 2005 the authors experimented with roving focus groups in the rural landscape of Michigan (USA). As they moved along in a vehicle, participants discussed features that contributed to and detracted from rural landscape character. Results from a follow-up survey supported focus group themes. Such a congruence of results provides confidence in the procedure and expands interpretation of the concept, rural character. Qualitative procedures are rarely used to evaluate landscapes. In this study roving focus group results provided reliable and valid policy-relevant criteria at sufficient detail for planning purposes. The authors demonstrate the technology used to record the focus groups and discuss the pros and cons and ways of improving this procedure.

Focus groups have received substantial attention over the past few decades, particularly as they are considered to provide rich, interactive data, yet only occasionally do researchers discuss the process of conducting focus groups with young people. This paper contributes to wider debates on focus groups through engagement with three interrelated topics, each with unique reflection on focus groups with teenagers: the advantages of focus group interactions, particularly in relation to hierarchies of age and the research relationship, how focus groups shape self-representation and “truth-telling,” and, finally, the challenge of “unruly” data. The author addresses these topics through drawing on several sources of data: 18 focus groups with secondary students on the topic of school rules, exit questionnaires collected from focus group participants, and in-depth interviews with the primary investigator and three research assistants.

This research describes and analyses a methodological approach, known as Soft Systems Methodology (SSM). SSM was applied in the sugar industry, which is characterized by diverse stakeholders who have multiple and often competing objectives. SSM is a methodology that was developed in response to the limitations of the systems engineering approach. It uses a flexible, yet organized process to bring about action to improve problematical situations. A qualitative research approach was used. Interviews and SSM workshops were held with growers and the miller, and other stakeholders. Interviews were conducted with the focus on identifying the goals of the various stakeholders in the mill area, and how communication, trust, and overall efficiency were perceived by the stakeholder groups, on their own and as a whole. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Purposeful activity models were created after an analysis of the interview transcripts, and rich pictures were constructed by stakeholders in a SSM workshop. Stakeholders were invited to a second SSM workshop where they were presented with SSM tools that were constructed. Participants then chose to work on a model and engaged in debate about how the model compared to the real world, and considered how to take action to bring about improvement. The research illustrated the value of applying SSM in the sugar industry by bringing together diverse stakeholders to identify and address the multiple perspectives held about the overlapping problems. Through the SSM process, various problematic aspects of the sugar industry were uncovered and presented to stakeholders to bring about action. SSM facilitated the identification of the various objectives that the stakeholder groups were individually pursuing, and also created space for discussions into how to jointly create a desired future that could benefit all stakeholders. This collaborative methodology enabled meaningful and systemic interaction between the researcher and participants, by providing an opportunity for respondents to share their multiple and valid perspectives about the problems, challenges and opportunities in the mill area. Through the use of the SSM tools, further insight was gained into the roles, goals, values, power, and culture of the study context.

Feminist action research is a promising, though under-developed, research approach for advancing women's health and social justice agendas. In this article the foundations, principles, dimensions, promises, and challenges of engaging in feminist action research are explored.

Grounded theory has been evolving methodologically since Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss first described it in the late 1960s. Initially underpinned by modernist philosophy, grounded theory has had recent turns including the adoption of both constructivism and postmodernism. This article explores ontological offerings of critical realism as a basis for transformational grounded theory informed by participatory action research and decolonizing research methodologies. The potential for both theory and action to result from this critical grounded theory methodology, which promotes greater participation and equity of power for positive change, is the transformational in transformational grounded theory.

Despite the abundance of published material on conducting focus groups, scant specific information exists on how to analyze focus group data in social science research. Thus, the authors provide a new qualitative framework for collecting and analyzing focus group data. First, they identify types of data that can be collected during focus groups. Second, they identify the qualitative data analysis techniques best suited for analyzing these data. Third, they introduce what they term as a micro-interlocutor analysis, wherein meticulous information about which participant responds to each question, the order in which each participant responds, response characteristics, the nonverbal communication used, and the like is collected, analyzed, and interpreted. They conceptualize how conversation analysis offers great potential for analyzing focus group data. They believe that their framework goes far beyond analyzing only the verbal communication of focus group participants, thereby increasing the rigor of focus group analyses in social science research.

In this article, the authors examine claims that using more than one method in research automatically enhances validity. They argue that if the findings from different methods are the same this does not automatically prove the study is valid. It may show that the researchers looked only for evidence that supported the findings from one method. Complementarity of methods does not mean that different methods have to produce the same findings. That different methods work together as equal partners has to be demonstrated rather than assumed. A study of self-care in relation to people with diabetes is used to draw out some of the issues in the operationalisation of multiple method validation.

In this article, the author reports on a method crafted to interrogate the data of a Gadamerian hermeneutic phenomenological study that explored hope seen through the eyes of a small number of Australian youth. She advocates for transparency throughout data analysis, by commencing with an explication of Gadamerian hermeneutic phenomenology, followed by a description of the manner by which the data were interrogated. It is a basic premise of this work that all too often authors have adopted thematic analysis uncritically, and have used this method of analysis without considering its fit to the philosophical or methodological orientation of the study, and this practice has remained, by and large, unchallenged. While not advocating against thematic analysis per se, the author disputes that this analytical method is appropriate for studies that are grounded by the philosophical underpinnings of Gadamerian hermeneutic phenomenology, and therefore offers a unique method of data analysis.

Gaining access to participants in rural, politically unstable settings demands authority and consent not only from the participants and immediate line managers, but also from other players with interests in the research sites. This paper discusses data gathering experiences and challenges encountered during fieldwork for a PhD amidst a politically volatile situation in Zimbabwe in mid-2008. The article highlights the challenges encountered, how the researcher overcame some of them, and was stymied by others. Specifically, political challenges related to gaining access to schools and participants, which created time constraints and frustrations, fears and anxieties for the researcher. Issues of poor topography and interview space also emerged as other challenges. The paper proposes that the snags and surprises, the feelings of frustration, fear and anger that go with researching participants in politically unstable settings should not stall the research process but instead, handled with flexibility and patience, and used as motivation to continue. The experiences not only enhance the researcher's own reflexivity and reflectivity but also provide insights into the human conditions and actions as viewed from multiple perspectives.