This is an introductory unit for individuals with limited or no previous experience with qualitative traditions or techniques of inquiry.
Dr Emma Mitchell is a Macquarie University Research Fellow in the Macquarie School of Social Sciences. She is an experienced teacher and has taught undergraduate, postgraduate, and intensive Bloc mode courses at the University of Sydney and Macquarie University. Emma has designed and convened undergraduate and specialist courses on qualitative inquiry in the social sciences and conducted qualitative research across multiple ARC and partner-funded projects. Emma's research has used inclusive methodologies to explore culturally and linguistically diverse contexts of poverty, welfare, and housing precarity, with a focus on the everyday forms of care that enable survival and make life liveable in hardship. Her current research uses child-focused, creative methods to investigate how children’s care activities help sustain low-income families.
In this course you will learn about all elements of the qualitative research process and how they are interrelated. We will unpack the key components of qualitative research design, including the stances and theories that underpin qualitative methodologies, as well as techniques of data collection and analysis. We pay particular attention to what’s involved in ethically employing popular methods such as interviewing and observation. The course combines lectures covering foundational issues with practical workshops that give you a chance to practice qualitative techniques first-hand.
The target audience for this course is those who would like to become more familiar with qualitative research techniques, from postgraduate university students and staff to researchers in government and private organisations.
Day 1
- Situating qualitative inquiry in the social sciences.
- Designing qualitative methodologies: frames, methods, and issues.
- The politics and ethics of qualitative research.
Day 2
- Situating the researcher in the field: the researcher as instrument.
- Interviewing practices: Planning and conducting in-depth interviews (forms of interview, rapport, phrasing questions, probing).
- Group interviews (composition, structure, facilitation).
Day 3
- Observational practices: forms of observation, what to look for, writing field notes.
- Unobtrusive methods: access, interpretation, online data.
- Handling data: an iterative approach, preliminary data analysis, data storage.
- Using computer software in qualitative analysis.
Day 4
- Data analysis: inductive logic, generating meaning.
- Coding systems and cycles.
- Thematic analysis.
- Discourse analysis.
Day 5
- Writing up: The purpose of qualitative writing.
- Presenting data: audience and purpose/voice and style.
- Criteria for assessing good qualitative research.
- One-on-one consultations.
This course will run in a classroom. No Equipment is required
The course will wrap-up at lunchtime on Friday, allowing time for one-on-one consultations after lunch if requested.
There are no prerequisites for this course.
Other reading that may be useful:
- Creswell, J. (2016) 30 Essential Skills for the Qualitative Researcher, Sage: Thousand Oaks.
- Tracy, S.J. (2013) Qualitative Research Methods: Collecting evidence, crafting analysis and communicating impact, Wiley-Blackwell: West Sussex.
Q. Do I have to have had any qualitative or quantitative research experience to do this course?
A. No, this is an introductory course and no prior knowledge is required.
Excellent practice combined with theory & awesome teacher! (Summer 2019)
Consolidated prior knowledge, allowed for discussions regarding research projects, allowed an understanding to develop beyond what had been read in texts. (Summer 2019)
Relevant to role in employment. Will inform both the design and conduct of research. (Summer 2019)
We had equal balanced of lectures discussions group activity, individual activity, interactions (Spring 2018)
The course gave me great understanding of qualitative aspect of my research how to do interviews, how to do analysis. (Spring 2018)
The instructor's course notes will serve as the course text.