Den kvalitativa metodens mångfald

Abstract

The qualitative method has grown to become an important methodological alternative within social science research. The qualitative method can to some extent be regarded as uniform and to some extent as varied. Unity of the qualitative method manifests on a higher level of scientific reflection. There are mainly the ontological and epistemological assumptions that constitute common foundations for qualitative research. In spite of these common foundations the qualitative method has become increasingly varied. Development of qualitative method has resulted in many, more or less, complex methodological procedures, which are well defined and well delimited in relation to each other. Researchers can today choose from several different research approaches. These approaches have their own specific research purposes, which lead to specific patterns of analysis and the structuring of empirical data. Examples of such qualitative research approaches are grounded theory, empirical phenomenology and heuristic research. The development of qualitative method has also resulted in a large variation within research approaches. An example of the variety within the same research approach consists of different variants of empirical phenomenology, developed by Colaizzi, Van Kaam and Giorgi. Another example consists of two variants of grounded theory, the first one developed by Glaser and the other one developed by Strauss in cooperation with Corbin. This report focuses on the issues of interpretation, understanding and validity of qualitative research. The qualitative method is interpretative in its character but can include different types of interpretation and understanding in its various qualitative research approaches. Two basic types of interpretation in qualitative research lead to two different kinds of understanding. The first concentrates on interpretative understanding of the direct meaning, which can be communicated consciously. The direct meaning can appear both in explicit and implicit form. Explicit meaning is communicated more distinctly in a linguistic way and implicit meaning is less distinctly communicated in an extra-linguistic way, for example, with the help of metaphors or anecdotes. The other type of interpretation exceeds the horizon of direct meaning and concentrates on meta-interpretative understanding of non-direct meaning. In this type of interpretation the researcher interprets the meaning with the help of an external frame of reference. Depending on the type of interpretation and understanding used, the different validation procedures can be, more or less, useful for various qualitative research approaches. Meta-interpretative validation is necessary, for example, in phenomeno21 graphic and hermeneutical studies for the justification of the researchers interpretations of non-direct meaning. On the contrary, within empirical phenomenology meta-interpretative validation is not needed, because phenomenological research results only concentrate on interpretative understanding of the direct meaning. Theoretical validation is necessary in most qualitative research approaches, but to various extents. In contrast to phenomenography or empirical phenomenology, grounded theory claims full theoretical validation.