Second Edition

QUALITATIVE
INQUIRY&
RESEARCH DESIGN
Choosing Among Five Approaches

. John W Creswell
University of Nebraska, Lincoln

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Creswell, John W.
Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches /
John W. Creswell.-2nd ed.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4129-1606-6 (cloth)
ISBN 978-1-4129-1607-3 (pbk.)
1. Social sciences-Methodology. I. Title.
H61.C732007
300.72-dc22
2006031956

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

07 08 09 10 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

Acquisitions Editor: Lisa Cuevas Shaw

Editorial Assistant: Karen Greene
Production Editor: Denise Santoyo
Copy Editor: Jamie Robinson
Typesetter: C&M Digitals (P) Ltd.
Indexer: Kathy Paparchontis
Contents

Analytic Table of Contents by Approach xi

List of Tables and Figures xv
•Acknowledgements xvii

1. Introduction 1
Purpose 2
What Is New in This Edition 2
Rationale for This Book 5
Selection of the Five Approaches 6
Narrative Research 10
Phenomenology 10
Grounded Theory 10
Ethnography 10
Case Study 10
Positioning Myself 10
Audience 12
Organization 13
2. Philosophical, Paradigm, and Interpretive Frameworks 15
Questions for Discussion 16
Philosophical Assumptions 16
Paradigms or Worldviews 19
Postpositivism 20
Social Constructivism 20
AdvocacylParticipatory 21
Pragmatism 22
Interpretive Communities 23
Postmodern Perspectives 25
Feminist Theories 25
Critical Theory and Critical Race Theory (CRT) 27
Queer Theory 28
Disability Theories 30
Summary 30
Additional Readings 31
Exercises 33
3. Designing a Qualitative Study 35
Questions for Discussion 36
The Characteristics of Qualitative Research 36
When to Use Qualitative Research 39
The Process of Designing a Qualitative Study 41
The General Structure of a plan or Proposal 47
Summary 50
Additional Readiugs 51
Exercises 52
4. Five Qualitative Approaches to Inquiry 53
Questions for Discussion 53
Narrative Research 53
Definition and Background 53
Types of Narrative Studies 54
Procedures for Conducting Narrative Research 55
Challenges 57
Phenomenological Research 57
Definition and Background 57
Types of Phenomenology 59
Procedures for Conducting Phenomenological Research 60
Challenges 62
Grounded Theory Research 62
Definition and Background 62
Types of Grounded Theory Studies 64
Procedures for Conducting Grounded Theory Research 66
Challenges 67
Ethnographic Research 68
Definition and Background 68
Types of Ethnographies 69
Procedures for Conducting an Ethnography 70
Challenges 72
Case Study Research 73
Definition and Background 73
Types of Case Studies 74
Procedures for Conducting a Case Study 74
Challenges 75
The Five Approaches Compared 76
Summary 81
Additional Readings 81
Exercises 84
5. Five Different Qualitative Stndies 85
Questions for Discussion 86
A Narrative-Biographical Study (Angrosino, 1994; see
Appendix B) 86
A Phenomenological Study (Anderson & Spencer,
2002; see Appendix C) 88
A Grounded Theory Stndy (Morrow & Smith, 1995;
see Appendix D) 90
An Ethnography (Haenfler, 2004; see Appendix E) 91
A Case Study (Asmussen & Creswell, 1995;
See Appendix Fi 92
Differences Among the Approaches 93
Summary 96
Additional Readings 96
Exercises 100
6. Introducing and Focusing the Study 101
Questions for Discussion 101
The Research Problem 102
The Purpose Statement 103
The Research Questions 107
The Central Question 107
Subquestions 109
Summary 113
Additional Readings 114
Exercises 114
7. Data Collection 117
Questions for Discussion 117
The Data Collection Circle 118
The Site or Individual 119
Access and Rapport 123
Purposeful Sampling Strategy 125
Forms of Data 129
Interviewing 132
Observing 134
Recording Procedures 135
Field Issues 138
Access to the Organization 138
Observations 139
Interviews 140
Documents and Audiovisual Materials 141
Ethical Issues 141
Storing Data 142
Five Approaches Compared 143
Summary 144
Additional Readings 144
Exercises 145
8. Data Analysis and Representation 147
Questions for Discussion 14 7
Three Analysis Strategies 148
The Data Analysis Spiral 150
Analysis Within Approaches to Inquiry 155
Narrative Research Analysis and Representation 155
Phenomenological Analysis and Representation 159
Grounded Theory Analysis and Representation 160
Ethnographic Analysis and Representation 161
Case Study Analysis and Representation 163
Comparing the Five Approaches 164
Computer Use in Qualitative Data Analysis 164
Advantages and Disadvantages 165
A Sampling of Computer Programs 166
Use of Computer Software Programs
With the Five Approaches 168
How to Choose Among the Computer Programs 173
Summary 173
Additional Readings 175
Exercises 176
9. Writing a Qualitative Study 177
Questions for Discussion 178
Several Rhetorical Issues 178
Reflexivity and Representations in Writing 178
Audience for Our Writings 180
Encoding Our Writings 180
Quotes in Our Writings 182
Narrative Research Structure 183
Overall Rhetorical Structure 183
Embedded Rhetorical Structure 185
Phenomenological Structure 187
Overall Rhetorical Structure 187
Embedded Rhetorical Structure 188
Grounded Theory Structure 189
Overall Rhetorical Structure 190
Embedded Rhetorical Structure 191
Ethnographic Structure 192
Overall Rhetorical Structure 192
Embedded Rhetorical Structure 194
Case Study Structure 195
Overall Rhetorical Structure 195
Embedded Rhetorical Structure 196
A Comparison of Narrative Structures 197
Summary 198
Additional Readings 198
Exercises 199
10. Standards of Validation and Evaluation 201
Questions for Discussion 201
Validation and Reliability in Qualitative Research 202
Perspectives on Validation 202
Validation Strategies 207
Reliability Perspectives 209
Evaluation Criteria 211
Qualitative Perspectives 211
Narrative Research 213
Phenomenological Research 215
Grounded Theory Research 216
Ethnographic Research 217
Case Study Research 218
Comparing the Evaluation Standards
of the Five Approaches 219
Summary 219
Additional Readings 220
Exercises 221
11. "Turning the Story" and Conclusion 223
Turning the Story 224
A Case Study 225
A Narrative Study 225
A Phenomenology 226
A Grounded Theory Study 227
An Ethnography 228
Conclusion 230
Exercises 232
Appendix A. An Annotated Glossary of Terms 233
Appendix B. A Narrative Research Study-"On the Bus
With Vonnie Lee: Explorations in Life History and Metaphor" 251
Michael V. Angrosino
Appendix C. A Phenomenological Study-"Cognitive
Representations of AIDS" 265
Elizabeth H. Anderson and Margaret Hull Spencer
Appendix D. A Grounded Theory Study-"Constructions of
Survival and Coping by Women Who Have Survived
Childhood Sexual Abuse" 285
Susan L. Morrow and Mary Lee Smith
Appendix E. An Ethnography-"Rethinking Subcultural Resistance:
Core Values of the Straight Edge Movement" 309
Ross Haenfler
Appendix F. A Case Study-"Campus Response to
a Student Gunman" 337
Kelly j. Asmussen and John W. Creswell

References 355
Author Index 371
Subject Index 379
About the Author 395
Analytic Table of
Contents by Approach

Narrative Research
Use of narrative approaches 9
Key books and references 10
Definition and background 54
Types of narrative studies 54
Procedures in conducting narrative research 55
Challenges in using narrative research 57
Focus of narrative research 94
Example of a narrative study, Appendix B 252
Research problem 103
Purpose statement 106
Research questions 110
Individual or site to be studied 119
Access and rapport issues 123
Sampling strategy 126
Forms of data 131
Ethical issues 141
Data analysis 155
Writing a narrative study 183
Standards of evaluation 213
Case study "turned" into a narrative study 225

Phenomenology
Use of psychological approach 9
Key books and references 10
Definition and background 57
xi
xii Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Types of phenomenology 59
Procedures in conducting phenomenology 60
Challenges in using phenomenology 62
Focus of phenomenology 94
Example of a phenomenological study, Appendix C 265
Research problem 103
Purpose statement 106
Research questions 110
Participants in a phenomenological study 119
Access issues 125
Sampling strategy 128
Forms of data 131
Ethical issues 141
Data analysis 159
Writing a phenomenological study 187
Standards of evaluation 215
Case study "turned" into a phenomenology 225

Grounded Theory
Use of sociological approach 9
Key books and references 10
Definition and background 62
Types of grounded theory studies 64
Procedures in conducting grounded theory research 66
Challenges in using grounded theory research 67
Focus of grounded theory research 94
Example of a grounded theory study of, Appendix D 285
Research problem 103
Purpose statement 106
Research questions 111
Participants in a grounded theory study 122
Access issues 125
Sampling strategy 128
Forms of data 131
Ethical issues 141
Data analysis 160
Writing a grounded theory study 189
Standards of evaluation 216
Case study "turned" into a grounded theory study 227
Analytic Table of Contents by Approach xiii

EthnographY
Use of anthropological, sociological, and
interpretive approaches 9
Key books and references 10
Definition and background 68
Types of ethnographies 69
Procedures in conducting ethnography 70
Challenges in using ethnography 72
Focus of ethnography 94
Example of an ethnography, Appendix E 309
Research problem 103
Purpose statement 107
Research questions 112
Site to be studied 122
Access and rapport issues 125
Sampling strategy 128
Forms of data 131
Ethical issues 141
Data analysis 161
Writing an ethnography 192
Standards of evaluation 217
Case study "turned" into ethnography 228

Case Study
Use of evaluation approach 9
Key books and references 10
Definition and background 73
Types of case studies 74
Procedures for conducting a case study 74
Challenges in using a case study 75
Focus of a case study 94
Example of a case study, Appendix F 337
Research problem 103
Purpose statement 107
Research questions 112
Site to be studied 122
Access and rapport issues 125
Sampling strategy 129
Forms of data 132
xiv Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Ethical issues 141

Data analysis 163
Writing a case study 195
Standards of evaluation 218
A case study revisited before "turning" 225
List of Tables and Figures

Tables
Table 1.1. Qualitative Approaches Meutioned by Authors 7
Table 2.1. Philosophical Assumptions With Implications for Practice 17
Table 3.1. Characteristics of Qualitative Research 38
Table 4.1. Contrasting Characteristics of Five
Qualitative Approaches 78
Table 4.2. Reporting Structures for Each Approach 80
Table 6.1. Words to Use in Encoding the Purpose Statement 105
Table 7.1. Data Collection Activities by Five Approaches 120
Table 7.2. Typology of Sampling Strategies in Qualitative Inquiry 127
Table 8.1. General Data Analysis Strategies, by Authors 149
Table 8.2. Data Analysis and Representation, by Research
Approaches 156
Table 9.1. Overall and Embedded Rhetorical
Structure and the Five Approaches 184
Table 10.1. Perspectives and Terms Used in Qualitative Validation 203

Figures
Figure 5.1.
Differentiating Approaches by Foci 94
Figure 7.1.
Data Collection Activities 118
Figure 7.2.
Sample Human Subjects Consent-to-Participate Form 124
Figure A Compendium of Data Collection Approaches in
7.3.
Qualitative Research 130
Figure 7.4. Sample Interview Protocol 136
Figure 7.5. Sample Observational Protocol Length of Activity 137
Figure 8.1. The Data Analysis Spiral 151

xv
xvi Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Figure 8.2. Layers of Analysis in the Gunman Case 155

Figure 8.3. Template for Coding a Narrative Study 170
Figure 8.4. Template for Coding a Phenomenological Study 170
Figure 8.5. Template for Coding a Grounded Theory Study 171
Figure 8.6. Template for Coding an Ethnography 171
Figure 8.7. Template for Coding a Case Study (Using a
Multiple or Collective Case Approach) 172
Figure 8.8. Features to Consider When Comparing
Qualitative Data Analysis Software 174
Figure 11.1. Visual Diagram of the Three
Components of Qualitative Research 224
Acknowledgements

I am most thankful to the many students in my "Seminar in Qualitative

Research" at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln who helped to shape this
book over the years. They offered suggestions, provided examples, and dis-
tussed the material in this book. Also, I benefited from capable scholars who
helped to shape and form this book in the first edition: Paul Turner, Ken
Robson, Dana Miller, Diane Gillespie, Gregory Schraw, Sharon Hudson,
Karen Eifler, Neilida Aguilar, and Harry Wolcott. Ben Crabtree and Rich
Hofmann helped form the first edition text significantly and encouraged me
to proceed, and they diligently and timely responded to Sage's request to be
first edition external reviewers. In addition, Keith Pezzoli, Kathy O'Byrne,
Joanne Cooper, and Phyllis Limgton served as first edition reviewers for Sage
and add",d insight into content and structure that I could not see because
of my closenes§ to the material. As always, I am indebted to C. Deborah
Laughton, who served as my acquisition editor for the first edition, and to
Lisa Cuevas Shaw who served in this role for the second edition. Also, for the
second edition, members of my Office of Qualitative and Mixed Methods
Research all provided valuable input. I especially single out Dr. Vicki Piano
Clark and Dr. Ron Shope, who have been instrumental in refining and shap-
ing my ideas about qualitative research. Also, I am grateful to the Department
of Educational Psychology, which provided me with a full sabbatical year
during 2005-2006 to work on this book. Finally, to members of my family-
Karen, David, and Johanna-thanks for providing me with time to spend
long hours writing and revising this book. Thank you all.

xvii
1
Introduction

W ork on the first edition of this book initially began during a 1994
summer qualitative seminar in Vail, Colorado, sponsored by the
University of Denver under the able guidance of Edith King of the College of
Education. One morning, I facilitated the discussion about qualitative data
analysis. I began on a personal note, introducing one of my recent qualita-
tive studies-a case study of a campus response to a student gun incident
(Asmussen & Creswell, 1995). I knew this case might provoke some discus-
sion and present some complex analysis issues. It involved a Midwestern uni-
versity's reaction to a gunman who attempted to fire on students in his
undergraduate class. Standing before the group, I chronicled the events of
the case, the themes, and the lessons we learned about a university reaction
to a near tragic event. Then, unplanned, Harry Wolcott of the University of
Oregon, another resource person for our seminar, raised his hand and asked
for the podium. He explained how he would approach the study as a cultural
anthropologist. To my surprise, he "turned" our case study into ethnography,
framing the study in an entirely new way. After Harry had concluded, Les
Goodchild, then of Denver University, spoke, and he turned the gunman
case into a historical study. I delighted in these surprise turns of my initial
case study. This unforeseen set of events kindled an idea I had long har-
bored-that one designed a study differently depending on the type of qual-
itative research. I began to write the first edition of this book, guided by a
single, compelling question: How does the type or approach of qualitative
inquiry shape the design or procedures of a study?

1
2 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Purpose

Both editions of this book are my attempt to answer this question. My pri-
mary intent is to examine five different approaches to qualitative inquiry-
narrative, phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography, and case
studies-and to discuss their procedures for conducting a qnalitative study.
The conduct of a study includes the introduction to a study, including the
formation of the purpose and research questions; data collection; data analy-
sis; report writing; and standards of validation and evaluation. In the process
of providing procedures for conducting a study, I introduce a comparative
analysis of the five approaches so that researchers can make an informed
choice as to which approach best suits their research problems.
Because the procedures for conducting research evolve from a researcher's
philosophical and theoretical stances, I begin with these stances. Then, to set
the stage for discussing each of the five approaches, I summarize the major
characteristics and provide an example of each from a published journal arti-
cle. With this understanding, I next go through the steps in the process of
conducting a study and illustrate how this might proceed for each of the five
types of qualitative research. Throughout the book, I provide tables that
summarize major differences among the approaches. I end the book by tak-
ing the qualitative case study presented at the beginning of the book in
Chapter 5 and "turn" the type of study from the original case study to a nar-
rative study, a phenomenology, a grounded theory study, and an ethnogra-
phy. By reading this book, I hope that you will gain a better understanding
of the steps in the process of research, five qualitative approaches to inquiry,
and the differences and similarities among the five approaches to inquiry
(see the glossary in Appendix A for definitions of terms in bold italics).

What Is New in This Edition

Since I wrote the first edition of this book, many changes have occurred on
the landscape of qualitative research, and these changes and my thinking
about them are reflected in this second edition. Qualitative research has
become more accepted as a legitimate mode of inquiry in the social behav-
ioral and health sciences than it was 10 years ago. Courses on qualitative
research, funding invitations for qnalitative projects, and the emergence
of qnalitative journals all speak to an increased acceptance of qualitative
research within the social and human sciences. Thus, I provide references to
new books that have captured the attention of the qualitative community
since I wrote the first edition during the mid-1990s.
Introduction 3

Since then, the interpretive qualitative research approach, focusing on

the self-reflective nature of how qualitative research is conducted, read,
and advanced, has become much more dominant in the qualitative dis-
course, and has, in many ways, been integrated into the core of qualitative
inquiry. The role of the researcher, the person reading a textual passage,
and the individuals from whom qualitative data are collected play a more
central role in researchers' design decisions (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005).
Some researchers have called for a methodological dialogue to address
questions of disciplinary power, theoretical future of the field, alternative
theoretical approaches, discontinuance of conceptual traditions, new meth-
ods of training and preparation, and alternative writing and publication
possibilities (Koro-Ljungberg & Greckhamer, 2005). I see this trend com-
ing largely from ethnography, but writers in grounded theory (Charmaz,
2006), narrative research (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000), and phenome-
'nology (van Manen, 1990) have certainly embraced this interpretive
"turn." To incorporate different theoretical approaches and to speak to
the power of discourse in qualitative research is certainly necessary. Not
all writers, however, have embraced the self-referential component of
the interpretive approach. For example, Atkinson, Coffey, and Delamont
(2003) have recently written about the dangers of forgetting the discipli-
nary traditions of ethnography: "We believe that too much contemporary
work advocates and celebrates self-referential work, with little relevance
to our understanding of actual social worlds." (p. xi). I agree. The focus
of all qualitative research needs to be on understanding the phenomenon
being explored rather than solely on the reader, the researcher, or the par-
ticipants being studied. But the interpretive stance has much to offer. Thus,
for each of the approaches discussed in this book, I now reflect on inter-
pretive elements of procedures. These interpretive aspects also inform how
I view the basic design of qualitative research found in Chapter 3. In addi-
tion, I brought up to the front of the book the philosophical and theoreti-
cal discussion (Chapter 2) so that it can help frame all other discussions
about qualitative research.
Some have argued that the purpose of qualitative research should be to
advance a social justice agenda (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005). While one needs
to acknowledge that our society has become more diverse, cognizant of
underrepresented groups, and educated about racial and ethnic tensions, not
all qualitative projects must have this agenda as a central feature. All studies
should acknowledge and recognize these issues as part of all inquiry and
actively write about them. The passages on data collection in this book focus
on the sensitivity required to collect data among diverse samples and the
strategies that inform these procedures.
4 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

I have become much more cognizant of the variations within each of the
five approaches (Creswell & Maietta, 2002). Partly this has developed because
readers have called it to my attention (for example, by saying that "there are
several ways to approach grounded theory"), and partly it is due to the
increasing fragmentation and diversiry that now exists in qualitative research.
Book writers on the various approaches have contributed to this development
as well. For example, I now see biography (Denzin, 1989a), described in detail
in my first edition, as one of only many approaches to narrative researt;:h
(Clandinin & Conoley, 2000), a broader more inclusive term. So narrative
research is now one of the five approaches highlighted in this book. Narrative
research incorporates many forms, such as autobiography, life stories, and per-
sonal stories, as well as biographies. Phenomenology, as I view it now, has sev-
eral approaches, such as hermeneutical phenomenology (van Manen, 1990)
and transcendental or psychological phenomenology (Moustakas, 1994).
Grounded theory, for years dominated by Strauss and Corbin (1990, 1998),
now has the strong constructivist, less structured approach advanced by
Charmaz (2005), and ethnography has taken a turn from description and the
objective, realist orientation to an openly ideological production of cultures .
(Koro-Ljungberg & Greckhamer, 2005). Case study research has the voice of
Yin (2003), a more structured approach to research than the earlier Stake
(1995) approach. I have inserted new passages addressing alternative rypes of
procedures within each of the five approaches, and I now discuss specific steps
in conducting a study within each of the five approaches.
The qualitative enterprise is much more fragmented than it was, and it is
being challenged by writings that advocate for a return to the experimental
model of inquiry, such as those found in the No Child Left Behind Act
(Maxwell, 2005) and the National Research Council's monograph on scientific
research in education (National Academy of Sciences, 2000). The "camps" in
qualitative research seem to be the methodologists, who embrace rigorous
methods; the philosophical advocates, who seek to identify and expand the
number of paradigmatic and theoretical lenses used in qualitative research; the
social justice researchers, largely drawn from ethnography, who advocate the
social ends for qualitative research; and those in the health science group, who
look to qualitative research to augment their experimental, intervention trials
and their correlational designs. Today, individuals teaching, writing, and dis-
cussing qualitative research need to be clear about their stance and share it with
their audiences. My attempt has been to honor all of these diverse perspectives
in qualitative research, but my strong background in applied methods has led
to an overall methods orientation to this text.
The data analysis has become more sophisticated as many qualitative
software programs vie for a privileged status in qualitative research and
incorporate more sophisticated subprograms that enable researchers to
Introduction 5

output qualitative codes to spreadsheets, statistical programs, or to concept

maps. In this edition, I introduce several computer programs being used to
analyze qualitative data, and thus extend the discussion of options available.
The term that I used in the first edition, "traditions," has now been
replaced by "approaches," signalizing that I not only want to respect past
approaches, but I also want to encourage current practices in qualitative
research. Other writers have referred to the approaches as "strategies of
inquiry" (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005), "varieties" (Tesch, 1990), or "meth-
ods" (Morse & Richards, 2002). By research design, I refer to the entire
process of research from conceptualizing a problem to writing research ques-
tions, and on to data collection, analysis, interpretation, and report writing
(Bogdan & Taylor, 1975). Yin (2003) commented, "The design is the logi-
cal sequence that connects the empirical data to a study's initial research
questions and, ultimately, to its conclusions" (p. 20). Hence, I include in the
'specific design features from the broad philosophical and theoretical per-
spectives to the quality and validation of a study.

Rationale for This Book

Since the 1994 Vail seminar, I have been asking individuals who approached
me with their qualitative studies, "What type are you doing?" Since the pub-
lication of the first edition of this book in 1998, I have increasingly heard
from individuals that they are doing ethnography, or grounded theory, case
study research. The types of qualitative approaches that I wrote about in the
first edition have now become part of the lexicon of qualitative research, and
researchers are much more aware of the type of designs they are using than
they were in the 1990s.
My intent is that this book will include several features:

• It highlights the procedures of actually doing qualitative research. For

years, the actual "doing" of qualitative research has been relegated to sec-
ondary status, behind the philosophical ideas and the important research
questions. Of course, philosophy and the guiding questions are important,
but the methods and procedures are important, too, and cannot be over-
looked in conducting scholarly qualitative research.
• It provides qualitative researchers with options for conducting quali-
tative inquiry and helps them with decisions about what approach is best
to use in studying their research problems. With so many books on quali-
tative research in general and on the various approaches of inquiry, quali-
tative research students are often at a loss for understanding what options
(i.e., approaches) exist and how one makes an informed choice of an option
for research. To clarify this, I limit the options to five major types.
6 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

• The book also provides a comparison of approaches so that readers

can weigh the options and decide which option is right for their research
problem. The way a researcher writes a qualitative study, for example, will
differ depending on the approach the researcher chooses. Research ques-
tions framed from grounded theory look different than questions framed
from a phenomenological study. When the approaches are displayed side by
side throughout the phases of the design of a study, the reader not only
gains perspective on their differences but also develops an applied perspec-
tive as to how the approaches inform each phase of the inquiry. In talking
about seeing different perspectives, I am reminded of the delightful little
book by Redfield (1963), who explored diverse anthropological and social
views of a "village" by devoting a chapter to each view. In the discussion
here of the different approaches to qualitative research, the reader will find
different views of conducting qualitative research.
• Regardless of approach, all qualitative research tends to follow the
basic process of research (e.g., introduction, questions, methods of data col-
lection and analysis, etc.). Thus, this book introduces the reader to or rein-
forces the basic procedures of inquiry and serves as a reminder of the
importance of these steps.
• Finally, for individuals trained or socialized in a specific approach,
this comparative analysis can enlarge their scope of inquiry methods and
encourage them to seek out alternative procedures. Students in my class
who have used the book may start with a grounded theory project, then
change their approach, and end with phenomenology. I hope that this book
will encourage inquirers to experiment with different forms of inquiry.

Selection of the Five Approaches

Those undertaking qualitative studies have a baffling number of choices
of approaches. One can gain a sense of this diversity by examining several
classifications or typologies. One of the more popular classifications is pro-
vided by Tesch (1990), who organized 28 approaches into four branches of
a flowchart, sorting out these approaches based on the central interest of the
investigator. Wolcott (1992) classified approaches in a "tree" diagram with
branches of the tree designating strategies for data collection. Miller and
Crabtree (1992) organized 18 types according to the "domain" of human
life of primary concern to the researcher, such as a focus on the individual,
the social world, or the culture. In the field of education, Jacob (1987)
categorized all qualitative research into "traditions" such as ecological
psychology, symbolic interactionism, and holistic ethnography. Lancy
(1993) organized qualitative inquiry into discipline perspectives such as
Introduction 7

anthropology, sociology, biology, cognitive psychology, and history. Denzin

and Lincoln (2005) organized their types of q).lalitative strategies of inquiry
into ethnography (performance and ethnographic representation), case stud-
ies, grounded theory, life and narrative approaches, participatory action
research, and clinical research. In short, there is no lack for classification sys-
tems for types of qualitative research, and Table 1.1 lists these systems and
notes their interdisciplinary roots.

Table 1.1 Qualitative Approaches Mentioned by Authors

Authors Qualitative Approaches Discipline/Field

Jacob (1987) Ecological Psychology Education
Holistic Ethnography
Cognitive Anthropology
Ethnography of Communication
Symbolic Interactionism

Munhall & Phenomenology Nursing

Oiler (1986) Grounded Theory
Ethnography
Historica.1 Research

Lancy (1993) Anthropological Perspectives Education

Sociological Perspectives
Biological Perspectives
Case Studies
Personal Accounts
Cognitive Studies
Historical Inquiries

Strauss & Grounded Theory Sociology,

Corbin Ethnography Nursing
(1990)
Phenomenology
Life Histories
Conversational Analysis

Morse (1994) Phenomenology Nursing

Ethnography
Ethnoscience
Grounded Theory
=~" >=~~="""".

(Continued)
8 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Table 1.1 (Continued)

Authors Qualitative Approaches Discipline/Field

Moustakas Ethnography Psychology

(1994) Grounded Theory
Hermeneutics
Empirical Phenomenological Research
Heuristic Research
Transcendental Phenomenology

Denzin & Case Studies Social Sciences

Lincoln Ethnography
(1994)
Phenomenology
Ethnomethodology
Interpretative Practices
Grounded Theory
Biographical
Historical
Clinical Research

Miles & Approaches to Qualitative Social Sciences

Huberman Data Analysis:
(1994) Interpretivism
Social Anthropology
Collaborative Social Research

Slife & Categories of Qualitative Methods: Psychology

Williams Ethnography
(1995)
Phenomenology
Studies of Artifacts

Denzin & Performance, Critical, and Social Sciences

Lincoln Public Ethnography
(2005) Interpretive Practices
Case Studies
Grounded Theory
Life History
Narrative Authority
Participatory Action Research
Clinical Research
Introduction 9

With so many possibilities, how did I decide on the five approaches

presented in this book? My choice of the fiye approaches resulted from
following personal interests, selecting different foci, and electing to choose
representative discipline orientations. I have personal experience with each
of the five, as an advisor in counseling students and as a researcher in con-
ducting qualitative studies. Beyond this personal experience, I have been
reading the qualitative literature since my initial teaching assignment in the
area in 1985. The five approaches discussed in this book reflect the types of
qualitative research that I most frequently see in the social, behavioral, and
health science literature. It is not unusual, too, for authors to state that
certain approaches are most important in their fields (e.g., Morse & Field,
1995). Also, I prefer approaches with systematic procedures for inquiry.
That I could find books that espouse rigorous data collection and analysis
methods also contributed to the selection of the five. These books were also
• useful in that they represented different discipline perspectives in the social,
behavioral, and health sciences. For example, narrative originates from the
humanities and social sciences, phenomenology from psychology and phi-
losophy, grounded theory" from sociology, ethnography from anthropology
and sociology, and case studies from the human and social sciences and
applied areas such as evaluation research.
The primary ideas for this book came from several books that I have syn-
thesized to reflect scholarly; rigorous approaches to qualitative research. In
contrast to relying on one book per approach as in the first edition, in this
edition I rely on several books for each approach. On narrative research,
I refer to the educational perspective of C1andinin and Connelly (2000) but
also consider the organizational approach of Czarniawska (2004) and the
biographical approach of Denzin (1989a). In my discussion of phenomenol-
ogy, I largely advance a psychological perspective based on Moustakas
(1994) and also include the interpretive approach of van Manen (1990). In
describing grounded theory, my approach relies on the systematic approach
of the sociologists Strauss and Corbin (1990) but also incorporates ideas
from the more recent sociological constructivist approach of Charmaz
(2006). In discussing ethnography, I rely on the educational anthropology
perspective of Wolcott (1999) and incorporate other perspectives from
LeCompte and Schensul (1999) and the interpretive stances of Atkinson,
Coffey, and Delamont (2003). In my description of case study research, I
rely on an evaluation perspective from Stake (1995) but also include the
applied social science and cognitive science orientation of Yin (2003).
To enumerate further, the reader may appreciate a listing of the core
books I used in developing this discussion of approaches of inquiry and
research design.
!O Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Narrative Research
• Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and
story in qualitative research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• Czarniawska, B. (2004). Narratives in social science research. London: Sage.
• Denzin, N. K. (1989a). Interpretive biography. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Phenomenology
• Moustakas, C. (1994). Phenomenological research methods. Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage.
G van Manen, M. (1990). Researching lived experience: Human s.cience for an
action sensitive pedagogy. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Grounded Theory
• Charmaz, K. (2006). Constructing grounded theory. London: Sage.
• Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded
theory procedures and techniques. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Ethnography
• Atkinson, P., Coffey, A., & Delamont, S. (2003). Key themes in qualitative
research: Continuities and changes. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira.
• LeCompte, M. D., & Schensul, J. J. (1999). Designing and conducting ethno-
graphic research. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira.
• Woleott, H. F. (1994b). Transforming qualitative data: Description, analysis,
and interPretation. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
• Woleott, H. F. (1999). Ethnography: A way of seeing. Walnut Creek, CA:
AltaMira.

Case Study
• Stake, R. (1995). The art of case study research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
• Yin, R. K. (2003). Case study research: Design and methods (3rd ed.).
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Positioning Myself
My approach is to present the five approaches as "pure" approaches to
research design, when, in fact, authors may integrate them within a single
study. But before blending them, I find it useful as a heuristic to separate
them out, to see them as distinct approaches and visit each one, individually,
Introduction 11

as aprocedural guide for research. For beginning researchers, I would not

recommend choosing more than one approach. Separating them out as I do
in this book should help beginning researchers focus on a single approach
for their studies. For more advanced qualitative researchers, this book can
serve as a reminder of the many options available and the current writers
about the different approaches to qualitative research.
I limit the design discussion to specific components of the research design
process. I .leave for others additional aspects of research design, such as
defining terms, addressing the significance of the study, posing limitations
and delimitations, and advancing the role of the researcher (Marshall &
Rossman, 2006).
In a book of this scope, I cannot undertake an examination and compar-
ison of all types of qualitative inquiry. For example, I have not addressed
two approaches in this book. At the macro-community level, participatory
• action research, aimed at social change and examining the political struc-
tures that deprive and oppress groups of people, is a major approach to qual-
itative inquity (Kemmis & Wilkinson, 1998). At the micro-level, discourse
and couversational analysi's involves analyzing the content of text for syntax,
semantics, and social and historical situatedness (Cheek, 2004). The basic
premise is that language is not transparent or value free. In order to limit the
scope of this discussion, both approaches will not be addressed in detail.
However, some of the underlying principles of both approaches (e.g., the
collaborative nature of inquiry and the historical context for reading, writ-
ing, and understanding research) are features emphasized here within the
five types.
I situate this book within my thinking about qualitative research, and
I hope to model reflexivity, or self-awareness. Although I have been referred to
as associated with the postpositivist writers in qualitative research (Denzin &
Lincoln, 2005), my perspective tends to vary from social justice (e.g., see my
study of the homeless, Miller & Creswell, 1998) to realist accounts (e.g., see
my study of department chairpersons, Creswell & Brown, 1992). I do tend
to hold a more objective, scientific approach to qualitative research, as is
documented in my realist projects, use of analytic tools such as computer
programs, and emphasis on rigorous and thorough qualitative data collec-
tion and analysis. This is not to suggest that I am advocating the acceptance
of qualitative research in a "quantitative" world (Ely, Anzul, Friedman,
Garner, & Steinmetz, 1991). Qualitative inquiry represents a legitimate
mode of social and human science exploration, without apology or compar-
isons to quantitative research.
Unquestionably, too, as an applied research methodologist my focus is on
research designs or procedures, not on philosophical assumptions. Granted,
these assumptions cannot be separated from procedures, but I position these
12 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

assumptions in the background rather than the foreground, admitting

openly that I am not a philosopher of education but rather a rese~rch
methodologist, and my orientation in this book reflects thiS OrientatiOn.
Throughout the book, the writing of research is featured, and I continually
bring to the front the architecture or compositional approaches authors used
in their qualitative studies. I place emphasis on the terms used by authors in
each of the approaches and on the way in which the authors use encoding
of significant passages with these terms to make the text a distinct illustra-
tion of an approach. I highlight foreshadowing information early in a study
to hint at topics of ideas to come later. Along this line, I concur with Agger
(1991), who says that readers and writers can understand methodology in
less technical ways, thereby affording greater access to scholars and democ-
raticizing science. Finally, my approach presents not a "lock-step" proce-
dural guide but rather a general direction, offering alternatives for the
researcher and advancing my preferred stance. In many ways, I see this book
as a "quest" (Edel, 1984) for materials and ideas to best display and convey
design within the five approaches.

Audience
Although multiple audiences exist for any text (Ferterman, 1998), I direct
this book toward academics and scholars affiliated with the social and
human sciences. Examples throughout the book illustrate the diversiry of
disciplines and fields of study including sociology, psychology, education,
the health sciences, urban studies, marketing, communication and journal-
ism, educational psychology, family science and therapy, and other social
and human science areas.
My aim is to provide a useful text for those who produce scholarly qual-
itative research in the form of journal articles, theses, or dissertations. The
focus on a single type of qualitative research is ideal for shorter forms of
scholarly communication; longer works, such as books or monographs, may
employ multiple types. The level of discussion here is suitable for upper divi-
sion students and graduate students. For graduate students writing master's
theses or doctoral dissertations, I compare and contrast the five approaches
in the hope that such analysis helps in establishing a rationale for the choice
of a type to use. For beginning qualitative researchers, I provide Chapter 2
on the philosophical and theoretical lens that shapes qualitative research and
Chapter 3 on the basic elements in designing a qualitative study. While dis-
cussing the basic elements, I suggest several books aimed at the beginning
qualitative researcher that can provide a more extensive review of the basics
Introduction 13

of qualitative research. Such basics are necessary before delving into the five
approaches. For both inexperienced and eXPerienced researchers, I supply
recommendations for further reading that can extend the material in this
book. A focns on comparing the five approaches throughout this book pro-
vides an introduction for experienced researchers to approaches that build
on their training and research experiences.

Organization
The basic premise of this book is that different forms of qualitative
approaches exist and that the design of research within each has distinctive
features. In Chapter 2, I provide an introduction to the philosophical assum-
ptions, worldviews or paradigms, and theoretical lenses used in qualitative
• research. These broad perspectives guide all aspects of qualitative research
designs. Then, in Chapter 3, I review the basic elements of designing a
qualitative study. These elements begin with a definition of qualitative
research, the reasons for using this approach, and the phases in the process
of research. In Chapter 4, I provide an introdnction to each of the
five approaches of inquiry: narrative research, phenomenology, grounded
theory, ethnography, and case study research. Chapter 5 continues this dis-
cussion by presenting five published journal articles (with the complete arti-
cles in the appendices), which provide good illustrations of each of the
approaches. By reading my overview and then reading for yourself the com-
plete article, you can gain a deeper understanding of each of the five
approaches.
These five chapters form an introduction to the five types and an overview
of the process of research design. They set the stage for the remaining
chapters, which relate research design to each approach: writing introduc-
tions to studies (Chapter 6), collecting data (Chapter 7), analyzing and rep-
resenting data (Chapter 8), writing qualitative studies (Chapter 9), and the
validation of results and the nse of evalnation standards (Chapter 10). In all
of these design chapters, I continually compare the five types of qualitative
inquiry.
As a final experience to sharpen distinctions made among the five types,
I present Chapter 11, in which I return to the gunman case study (Asmussen
& Creswell, 1995), first introduced in Chapter 5, and "turn" the story from
a case study into a narrative biography, a phenomenology, a grounded
theory study, and an ethnography. This culminating chapter brings the
reader full circle to examining the gunman case in several ways, an extension
of my earlier Vail seminar experience.
14 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Throughout the book, I provide several aids to help the reader. At the
beginning of each chapter, I offer several conceptual questions to guide the
reading. At the end of each chapter, I provide further readings and sample
exercises. At least one of the exercises encourages the reader to design and
conduct an entire qualitative study, with phases in this study identified pro-
gressively throughout the book. Also, in most of the chapters, I present com-
parison tables that show the differences among the five approaches to
inquiry as well as figures to visualize distinctions and major design processes.
Finally, each approach comes with distinct terms that may be unfamiliar
to the reader. I provide a glossary of terms in Appendix A to facilitate the
reading and understanding of the material in this book.
2
Philosophical, Paradigm, and
Interpretive Frameworks

T he research design process in qualitative research begins with philo-

sophical assumptions that the inquirers make in deciding to undertake
a qualitative study. In addition, researchers bring their own worldviews, par-
adigms, or sets of beliefs to the research project, and these inform the con-
duct and writing of the qualitative study. Further, in many approaches to
qualitative research, the researchers use interpretive and theoretical frame-
works to further shape the study. Good research requires making these
assumptions, paradigms, and frameworks explicit in the writing of a study,
and, at a minimum, to be aware that they influence the conduct of inquiry.
The purpose of this chapter is to make explicit the assumptions made when
one chooses to conduct qualitative research, the worldviews or paradigms
available in qualitative research, and the diverse interpretive and theoretical
frameworks that shape the content of a qualitative project.
Five philosophicalassumptions lead to an individual's choice of qualitative
research: ontology, epistemology, axiology, rhetorical, and methodological
assumptions. The qualitative researcher chooses a stance on each of these
assumptions, and the choice has practical implications for designing and con-
ducting research. Although the paradigms of research continually evolve, four
will be mentioned that represent the beliefs of researchers that they bring to
qualitative research: postpositivism, constructivism, advocacy/participatory,
and pragmatism. Each represents a different paradigm for making claims
about knowledge, and the characteristics of each differ considerably. Again,

15
16 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

the practice of research is informed. Finally, the chapter will address theoret·
ical frameworks, those interpretive communities that have developed within
qualitative research that informs specific procedures of research. Several of
these frameworks will be discussed: postmodern theories, feminist research,
critical theory and critical race theory, queer theory, and disability inquiry.
The three elements discussed above-assumptions, paradigms, and interpre-
tive frameworks-often overlap and reinforce each other. For the purposes of
our discussion, they will be discussed separately.

Questions for Discussion

.. When qualitative researchers chose a qualitative study, what philosophical
assumptions are being implicitly acknowledged?
• When qualitative researchers bring their beliefs to qualitative research, what
alternative paradigm stances are they likely to use?
• When qualitative researchers select a framework as a lens for their study, what
interpretive or theoretical frameworks are they likely to use?
o In the practice of designing or conducting qualitative research, how are assurrip~
dons, paradigms, and interpretive and/or theoretical frameworks used?

Philosophical Assumptions
In the choice of qualitative research, inquirers make certain assumptions.
These philosophical assumptions consist of a stance toward the nature of
reality (ontology), how the researcher knows what she or he knows (epis-
temology), the role of values in the research (axiology), the language of
research (rhetoric), and the methods used in the process (methodology)
(Creswell, 2003). These assumptions, shown in Table 2.1, are adapted from
the "axiomatic" issues advanced by Guba and Lincoln (1988). However, my
discussion departs from their analysis in three ways. I do not contrast qual-
itative or naturalistic assumptions with conventional or positive assumptions
as they do, acknowledging that today qualitative research is legitimate in its
own right and does not need to be compared to achieve respectability. I add
to their issues one of my own concerns, the rhetorical assumption, recogniz-
ing that one needs to attend to the language and terms of qualitative inquiry.
Finally, I discuss the practical implications of each assumption in an attempt
to bridge philosophy and practice.
The ontological issue relates to the nature of reality and its characteris-
tics. When researchers conduct qualitative research, they are embracing the
idea of multiple realities. Different researchers embrace different realities, as
Philosophical, Paradigm, and Interpretive Frameworks 17

Table 2.1 Philosophical Assumptions With Implications for Practice

Implications for
Assumption Question Characteristics Practice (Examples)
Ontological What is the Reality is subjective Researcher uses
nature of and multiple, quotes and themes
reality? as seen by in words of
participants in participants and
the study provides evidence of
different perspectives
Epistemological What is the Researcher attempts Researcher
relationship to lessen distance col1aborates, spends
between the between himself time in field with
researcher and or herself and that participants, and
that being being researched becomes an "insider"
researched?
Axiological What is the Researcher Researcher openly
role of acknowledges that discusses values
values? research is value- that shape the
laden and that narrative and includes
biases are present his or her own
interpretation in
conjunction with the
interpretations of
participants
Rhetorical What is the Researcher writes in Researcher uses an
language of a literary, informal engaging style of
research? style using the narrative, may
personal voice and use first-person
uses qualitative pronoun, and employs
terms and limited the language of
definitions qualitative research
Methodological What is the Researcher uses Researcher works
process of inductive logic, with particulars
research? studies the topic (details) before
within its context, generalizations,
and uses an describes in detail
emerging design the context of
the study, and
continually revises
questions from
experiences in
the field
. """"",,,',' ,. ""', ....
~"'''l)O'k ===="",,=' ~ ,"'\="",,,,~ -="
18 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

do also the individuals being studied and the readers of a qualitative study.
When studying individuals,qualitative researchers conduct a study with the
intent of reporting these multiple realities. Evidence of multiple realities
includes the use of multiple quotes based on the actual words of different
individuals and presenting different perspectives from individuals. When
writers compile a phenomenology, they report how individuals participating
in the study view their experiences differently (Moustakas, 1994).
With the epistemological assumption, conducting a qualitative study
means that researchers try to get as close as possible to the participants being
studied. In practice, qualitative researchers conduct their studies in the
"field," where the participants live and work-these are important contexts
for understanding what the participants are saying. The longer researchers stay
in the "field" or get to know the participants, the more they "know what they
know" from firsthand information. A good ethnography requires prolonged
stay at the research site (Wolcott, 1999). In short, the researcher tries to min-
imize the "distance" or "objective separateness" (Guba & Lincoln, 1988,
p. 94) between himself or herself and those being researched.
All researchers bring values to a study, but qualitative researchers like to
make explicit those values. This is the axiological assumption that charac-
terizes qualitative research. How does the researcher implement this assump-
tion in practice? In a qualitative study, the inquirers admit the value-laden
nature of the study and actively report their values and biases as well as the
value-laden nature of information gathered from the field. We say that they
"position themselves" in a study. In an interpretive biography, for example,
the researcher's presence is apparent in the text, and the author admits that
the stories voiced represent an interpretation and presentation of the author
as much as the subject of the study (Denzin, 1989a).
Researchers are notorious for providing labels and names for aspects of
qualitative methods (Koro-Ljungberg & Greckhamer, 2005). There is a
rhetoric for the discourse of qualitative research that has evolved over time.
Qualitative researchers tend to embrace the rhetorical assumption that the
writing needs to be personal and literary in form. For example, they use
metaphors, they refer to themselves using the first-person pronoun, "I," and
they tell stories with a beginning, middle, and end, sometimes crafted
chronologically, as in narrative research (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000).
Instead of using quantitative terms such as "internal validity," "external
validity," "generalizability," and "objectivity," the qualitative researcher
writing a case study may employ terms such as "credibility," "transferabil-
ity," "dependability," and "confirmability" (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) or
"validation" (Angen, 2000), as well as naturalistic generalizations (Stake,
1995). Words such as '~understanding," "discover," and "meaning" form
Philosophical, Paradigm, and Interpretive Frameworks 19

the glossary of emerging qualitative terms (see Schwandt, 2001) and are
important rhetorical markers in writing purpose statements and research
questions (as discussed later). The language of the qualitative researcher
becomes personal, literary, and based on definitions that evolve during a
study rather than being defined by the researcher. Seldom does one see an
extensive "Definition of Terms" section in a qualitative study, because the
terms as defined by participants are of primary importance.
The procedures of qualitative research, or its methodology, are charac-
terized as inductive, emerging, and shaped by the researcher's experience in
collecting and analyzing the data. The logic that the qualitative researcher
follows is inductive, from the ground up, rather than handed down entirely
from a theory or from the perspectives of the inquirer. Sometimes the
research questions change in the middle of the study to reflect better the
types of questions needed to understand the research problem. In response,
'the data collection strategy, planned before the study, needs to be modified
to accompany the new questions. During the data analysis, the researcher
follows a path of analyzing the data to develop an increasingly detailed
knowledge of the topic being studied.

Paradigms or Worldviews

The assumptions reflect a particular stance that researchers make when they
choose qualitative research. After researchers make this choice, they then
further shape their research by bringing to the inquiry paradigms or world-
views. A paradigm or worldview is "a basic set of beliefs that guide action"
(Guba, 1990, p. 17). These beliefs have been called paradigms (Lincoln &
Guba, 2000; Mertens, 1998); philosophical assumptions, epistemologies,
and ontologies (Crotty, 1998); broadly conceived research methodologies
(Neuman, 2000); and alternative knowledge claims (Creswell, 2003). Para-
digms used by qualitative researchers vary with the set of beliefs they bring
to research, and the types have continually evolved over time (contrast the
paradigms of Denzin and Lincoln, 1994, with the paradigms of Denzin and
Lincoln, 2005). Individuals may also use multiple paradigms in their quali-
tative research that are compatible, such as constructionist and participatory
worldviews (see Denzin & Lincoln, 2005).
In this discussion, I focus on four worldviews that inform qualitative
research and identify how these worldviews shape the practice of research.
The four are postpositivism, constructivism, advocacy/participatory, and
pragmatism (Creswell, 2003). It is helpful to see the major elements of each
paradigm, and how they inform the practice of research differently.
20 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Postpositivism
Those who engage in qualitative research using a belief system grounded
in postpositivism will take a scientific approach to research. The approach
has the elements of being reductionistic, logical, an emphasis on empirical
data collection, cause-and-effect oriented, and deterministic based on a pri-
ori theories. We can see this approach at work among individuals with prior
quantitative research training, and in fields such as the health sciences in
which qualitative research is a new approach to research and must be
couched in terms acceptable to quantitative researchers and funding agents
(e.g., the a priori use of theory; see Barbour, 2000). A good overview of post-
postivist approaches is available in Phillips and Burbules (2000).
In terms of practice, postpositivist researchers will likely view inquiry as
a series of logically related steps, believe in multiple perspectives from
participants rather than a single reality, and espouse rigorous methods of
qualitative data collection and analysis. They will use multiple levels of data
analysis for rigor, employ computer programs to assist in their analysis,
encourage the use of validity approaches, and write their qualitative studies
in the form of scientific reports, with a structure resembling quantitative
approaches (e.g., problem, questions, data collection, results, conclusions).
My approach to qualitative research has been identified as belonging to post-
positivism (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005), as have the approaches of others (e.g.,
Taylor & Bogdan, 1998). I do tend to use this belief system, although I
would not characterize all of my research as framed within a postpositivist
qualitative orientation (e.g., see the constructivist approach in McVea,
Harter, McEntarffer, and Creswell, 1999, and the social justice perspective
in Miller and Creswell, 1998). In their discussion here of the five approaches,
for example, I emphasize the systematic procedures of grounded theory
found in Strauss and Corbin (1990), the analytic steps in phenomenology
(Moustakas, 1994), and the alternative analysis strategies of Yin (2003).

Social Constructivism
Social constructivism (which is often combined with interpretivism; see
Mertens, 1998) is another worldview. In this worldview, individuals seek
understanding of the world in which they live and work. They develop sub-
jective meanings of their experiences-meanings directed toward certain
objects or things. These meanings are varied and multiple, leading the
researcher to look for the complexity of views rather than narrow the mean-
ings into a few categories or ideas. The goal of research, then, is to rely
as much as possible on the participants' views of the situation. Often these
Philosophical, Paradigm, and Interpretive Frameworks 21

subjective meanings are negotiated socially and historically. In other words,

they are nbt simply imprinted on individuals but are formed through inter-
action 'with others (hence social constructivism) and through historical and
cultural norms that operate in individuals' lives. Rather than starting with a
theory (as in postpositivism), inquirers generate or inductively develop a
theory or pattern of meaning. Examples of recent writers who have summa-
rized this position are Crotty (1998), Lincoln and Guba (2000), Schwandt
(2001), and Neuman (2000).
In terms of practice, the questions become broad and general so that the
participants can construct the meaning of a situation, a meaning typically
forged in discussions or interactions with other persons. The more open-ended
the questioning, the better, as the researcher listens carefully to what people
say or do in their life setting. Thus, constructivist researchers often address the
"processes" of interaction among individuals. They also focus on the specific
'contexts in which people live and work in order to understand the historical
and cultural settings of the participants. Researchers recognize that their own
background shapes their interpretation, and they "position themselves" in the
research to acknowledge how their interpretation flows from their own
personal, cultural, and historical experiences. Thus the researchers make an
interpretation of what they find, an interpretation shaped by their own expe-
riences and background. The researcher's intent, then, is to make sense (or
interpret) the meanings others have about the world. This is why qualitative
research is often called "interpretive" research.
In the discussion here of the five approaches, we will see the constructivist
worldview manifest in phenomenological studies, in which individuals
describe their experiences (Moustakas, 1994), and in the grounded theory
perspective of Charmaz (2006), in which she grounds her theoretical orien-
tation in the views or perspectives of individuals.

Advocacy/Participatory
Researchers might use an alternative worldview, advocacy/participatory,
because the postpositivist imposes structural laws and theories that do not
fit marginalized individuals or groups and the constructivists do not go far
enough in advocating for action to help individuals. The basic tenet of this
worldview is that research should contain an action agenda for reform that
may change the lives of participants, the institutions in which they live and
work, or even the researchers' lives. The issues facing these marginalized
groups are of paramount importance to study, issues such as oppression,
domination, suppression, alienation, and hegemony. As these issues are
studied and exposed, the researchers provide a voice for these participants,
22 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

raising their consciousness and improving their lives. Kemmis and Wilkinson
(1998) summarize the key features of advocacy/participatory practice:

., Participatory action is recursive or dialectical and is focused on bringing

about change in practices. Thus, at the end of advocacy/participatory studies,
researchers advance an action agenda for change .
., It is focused on helping individuals free themselves from coristraints found in
the media, in language, in work procedures, and in the relationships of power
in educational settings. Advocacy/participatory studies often begin with an
important issue or stance about the problems in society, such as the need for
empowerment .
., It is emancipatory in that it helps unshackle people from the constraints of irra-
tional and unjust structures that limit self-development and self-determination.
The aim of advocacy/participatory studies is to create a political debate and
discussion so that change will occur.
s It is practical and collaborative because it is inquiry completed "with" others
rather than ~'on" or "to" others. In this spirit, advocacy/participatory authors
engage the participants as active collaborators in their inquiries.

Other researchers that embrace this worldview are Fay (1987) and Heron
and Reason (1997).
In practice, this worldview has shaped several approaches to inquiry.
Specific social issues (e.g., domination, oppression, inequiry) help frame the
research questions. Not wanting to further marginalize the individuals par-
ticipating in the research, advocacy/participatory inquirers collaborate with
research participants. They may ask participants to help with designing the
questions, collecting the data, analyzing it, and shaping the final report of
the research. In this way, the "voice" of the participants becomes heard
throughout the research process. The research also contains an action
agenda for reform, a specific plan for addressing the injustices of the mar-
ginalized group. These practices will be seen in the ethnographic approaches
to research found in Denzin and Lincoln (2005) and in the advocacy tone of
some forms of narrative research (Angrosino, 1994).

Pragmatism
There are many forms of pragmatism. Individuals holding this worldview
focus on the outcomes of the research-the actions, situations, and conse-
quences of inquiry-rather than antecedent conditions (as in postposi-
tivism). There is a concern with applications-"what works "-and solutions
to problems (Patton, 1990). Thus, instead of a focus on methods, the impor-
tant aspect of research is the problem being studied and the questions asked
Philosophical, Paradigm, and Interpretive Frameworks 23

about this problem (see Rossman & Wilson, 1985). Cherryholmes (1992)
and Murphy (1990) provide direction for the basic ideas:

• Pragmatism is not committed to anyone system of philosophy and reality.

.. Individual researchers have a freedom of choice. They are "free" to choose the
methods, techniques, and procedures of research that best meet their needs and
purposes.
e Pragmatists do not see the world as an absolute unity. In a similar way, mixed
methods researchers look to many approaches to collecting and analyzing data
rather than subscribing to only one way (e.g., quantitative or qualitative).
• Truth is what works at the time; it is not based in a dualism between reality
independent of the mind or within the mind.
• Pragmatist researchers look to the "whae' and how" to research based on its
(I

intended consequences-where they want to go with it.

e Pragmatists agree that research always occurs in sodal, historical, political,
and other contexts.
• Pragmatists have believed in an external world independent of the mind as
well as those lodged in the mind. But they believe (Cherryholmes, 1992) that
we need to stop asking questions about reality and the laws of nature. "They
would simply like to change the subject" (Rorty, 1983, p. xiv.)
o Recent writers embracing this worldview include Rorty (1990), Murphy
(1990), Patton (1990), Cherryholmes (1992), and Tashakkori and Teddlie
(2003).

In practice, the individual using this worldview will use multiple methods
of data collection to best answer the research question, will employ both quan-
titative and qualitative sources of data collection, will focus On the practical
implications of the research, and will emphasize the importance of conducting
research that best addresses the research problem. In the discussion here of the
five approaches to research, you will see this worldview at work when ethnog-
raphers employ both quantitative (e.g., surveys) and qualitative data collection
(LeCompte & Schensul, 1999) and when case study researchers use both
quantitative and qualitative data (Luck, Jackson, & Usher, 2006; Yin, 2003).

Interpretive Communities
Operating at a less philosophical level are various interpretive communities
for qualitative researchers (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005). Each community men-
tioned below is a community with a distinct body of literature and unique
issues of discussion. Space does not permit doing justice here to the scope
and issues raised by interpretive communities. However, at the end of this
chapter, I advance several readings that can extend and probe in more detail
24 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

the interpretive communities' stances. Also, throughout the approaches to

qualitative research discussed in this book, I will inten:eave research proce-
dures and specific journal articles that use mterpretive approaches. Our
focus in this discussion will be on how interpretive lenses impact the process
of research acrosS the different interpretive communities. Although qualita-
tive researchers use social sciences theories to frame their theoretical lens in
studies, such as the use of these theories in ethnography (see Chapter 4), our
discussion will be limited to the interpretive lens related to soeietal issues and
issues influencing marginalized or underrepresented groups.
Interpretive positions provide a pervasive lens or perspective on all
aspects of a qualitative research project. The participants in these interpre-
tive projects represent underrepresented or marginalized groups, whether
those differences take the form of gender, race, class, religion, sexuality, and
geography (Ladson-Billings & Donnor, 2005) or some intersection of these
differences. The problems and the research questions explored aim to under-
standing specific issues or topics-the conditions that serve to disadvantage
and exclude individuals or cultures, such as hierarchy, hegemony, racism,
sexism, unequal power relations, identity, or inequities in our society.
In addition, the procedures of research, such as data collection, data
analysis, representing the material to audiences, and standards of evaluation
and ethics, emphasize an interpretive stance. During data collection, the
researcher does not further marginalize the participants, but respects the par-
ticipants and the sites for research. Further, researchers provide reciprocity
by giving or paying back those who participate in research, and they focus
on the multiple-perspective stories of individuals and who tells the stories.
Researchers are also sensitive to power imbalances during all facets of the
research process. They respect individual differences rather than employ-
ing the traditional aggregation of categories such as men and women, or
Hispanics or African Americans. Ethical practices of the researchers recog-
nize the importance of the subjectivity of their own lens, acknowledge the
powerful position they have in the research, and admit that the participants
or the co-construction of the account between the researchers and the par-
ticipants are the true owners of the information collected.
How the research is presented and used also is important. The research
may be presented in traditional ways, such as journal articles, or in experi-
mental approaches, such as theater or poetry. Using an interpretive lens may
also lead to the call for action and transformation-the aims of social jus-
tice-in which the qualitative project ends with distinct steps of reform and
an incitement to action.
Based on these core ideas, several theoretical perspectives will be reviewed:
the postmodern perspective, feminist theories, critical theory and critical race
theory (CRT), queer theory, and disability theories.
Philosophical! Paradigm, and Interpretive Frameworks 25

Postmodern Perspectives
Tho,mas (1993) calls postmodernists "armchair radicals" (p. 23) who
focus their critiques on changing ways of thinking rather than on calling for
action based on these changes. Rather than viewing postmodernism as a
theory, it might be considered a family of theories and perspectives that have
something in common (Slife & Williams, 1995). The basic concept is that
knowledge claims must be set within the conditions of the world today and
in the multiple perspectives of class, race, gender, and other group affilia-
tions. These conditions are well articulated by individuals such as Foucault,
Derrida, Lyotard, Giroux, and Freire (Bloland, 1995). These are negative
conditions, and they show themselves in the presence of hierarchies, power
and control by individuals in these hierarchies, and the multiple meanings of
language. The conditions include the importance of different discourses, the
importance of marginalized people and groups (the "other"), and the pres-
ence of "meta-narratives" or universals that hold true regardless of the social
conditions. Also included are the need to "deconstruct" texts in terms of lan-
guage, their reading and their writing, and the examining and briuging to
the surface concealed hierarchies as well as dominatious, oppositions, incon-
sistencies, and contradictions (Bloland, 1995; Clarke, 2005; Stringer,
1993). Denzin's (1989a) approach to "interpretive" biography, Clandinin
and Connelly's (2000) approach to narrative research, and Clarke's (2005)
perspective on grounded theory draw on postmodernism in that researchers
study turning points, or problematic situations in which people find them-
selves during transition periods (Borgatta & Borgatta, 1992). Regarding a
"postmodern-influenced ethnography," Thomas (1993) writes that such a
study might "confront the centrality of media-created realities and the influ-
ence of information technologies" (p. 25). Thomas also comments that
narrative texts need to be challenged (and written), according to the post-
modernists, for their '~subtexts" of dominant meanings.

Feminist Theories
Feminism draws on different theoretical and pragmatic orientations, dif-
ferent national contexts, and dynamic developments (Olesen, 2005).
Feminist research approaches center and make problematic women's diverse
situations and the institutions that frame those situations. Research topics
may include policy issues related to realizing social justice for women in
specific contexts and knowledge about oppressive situations for women
(Olesen, 2005). The theme of domination prevails in the feminist literature
as well, but the subject matter is gender domination within a patriarchal
society. Feminist research also embraces many of the tenets of postmodern
26 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

critiques as a challenge to current society. In feminist research approaches,

the goals are to establish collaborative and nonexploitative relationships, to
place the researcher within the study so as to avoid objectification, and to
conduct research that is transformative. It is a complex area of inquiry, with
numerous frameworks (e.g., male oriented, white feminist oriented, able-
bodied female oriented) and difficult issues (e.g., the absence and invisibility
of women, who can be "knowers") (Olesen, 2005).
One of the leading scholars of this approach, Lather (1991), comments on
the essential perspectives of this framework. Feminist researchers see gender
as a basic organizing principle that shapes the conditions of their lives. It is
"a lens that brings into focus particular questions" (Fox-Keller, 1985, p. 6).
The questions feminists pose relate to the centrality of gender in the shaping
of our consciousness. The aim of this ideological research is to "correct both
the invisibility and distortion of female experience in ways relevant to end-
ing women's unequal social position" (Lather, 1991, p. 71). Another writer,
Stewart (1994), translates feminist critiques and methodology into proce-
dural guides. She suggests that researchers need to look for what has been
left out in social science writing, and to study women's lives and issues such
as identities, sex roles, domestic violence, abortion activism, comparable
worth, affirmative action, and the way in which women struggle with their
social devaluation and powerlessness within their families. Also, researchers
need to consciously and systematically include their own roles or positions
and aSSess how they impact their understandings of a woman's life. In addi-
tion, Stewart views women as having agency, the ability to make choices and
resist oppression, and she suggests that researchers need to inquire into how
a woman understands her gender, acknowledging that gender is a social con-
tract that differs for each individual. Stewart highlights the importance of
studying power relationships and individuals' social position and how they
impact women. Finally, she sees each woman as different and recommends
that scholars avoid the search for a unified or coherent self or voice.
Recent discussions indicate that the apptoach of finding appropriate
methods for feminist research has given way to the thought that any method
can be made feminist (Deem, 2002; Moss, 2006). The focus on feminist-
oriented methods is a fruitless one; rather, the focus, as noted by Olesen
(2005), needs to be on topics such as what feminist knowledge might look
like, with questions including whose knowledge it is and where and how is
it obtained, by whom, and for what purposes. Olesen further explains some
of the issues feminist researchers are addressing today, such as the feminist
researcher as objective with insider knowledge; the need to uncover the hid-
den or unrecognized elements in a researcher's background; the credibility,
trustworthiness, and validity of researchers' accounts; the reporting of
Philosophical, Paradigm, and Interpretive Frameworks 27

women's voices without exploiting or distorting them; the use of experi-

mentation in presentation, such as in performance pieces, dramatic readings,
and plays; and ethical issues of care, establishing positive relationships with
participants, and recognizing power and ownership of materials. In short,
rather than a focus on methods, the discussions have now turned to how to
use the methods in a self-disclosing and respectful way.

Critical Theory and Critical Race Theory (CRT)

Critical theory perspectives are concerned with empowering human
beings to transcend the constraints placed on them by race, class, and gen-
der (Fay, 1987). Researchers need to acknowledge their own power, engage
in dialogues, and use theory to interpret or illuminate social action
(Madison, 2005). Central themes that a critical researcher might explore
Include the scientific study of social institutions and their iransformations
through interpreting the meanings of social life; the historical problems of
domination, alienation, and social struggles; and a critique of society and the
envisioning of new possibilities (Fay, 1987; Morrow & Brown, 1994).
In research, critical theory can be "defined by the particular configuration
of methodological postures it embraces" (p. 241). The critical researcher
might design, for example, an ethnographic study to include changes in how
people think; encourage people to interact, form networks, become activists,
and action-oriented groups; and help individuals examine the conditions of
their existence (Madison, 2005; Thomas, 1993). The end goal of the study
might be social theorizing, which Morrow and Brown (1994) define as "the
desire to comprehend and, in some cases, transform (through praxis) the
underlying orders of social life-those social and systemic relations that con-
stitute society" (p. 211). The investigator accomplishes this, for example,
through an intensive case study or across a small number of historically com-
parable cases of specific actors (biographies), mediations, or systems and
through "ethnographic accounts (interpretive social psychology), compo-
nential taxonomies (cognitive anthropology), and formal models (mathe-
matical sociology)" (p. 212). In critical action research in teacher education,
for example, Kincheloe (1991) recommends that the "critical teacher"
exposes the assumptions of existing research orientations, critiques of the
knowledge base, and through these critiques reveals ideological effects on
teachers, schools, and the culture's view of education. The design of research
within a critical theory approach, according to sociologist Agger (1991),
falls into two broad categories: methodological, in that it affects the ways in
which people write and read, and substantive, in the theories and topics of
the investigator (e.g., theorizing about the role of the state and culture in
28 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

d capitalism). An often-cited classic of critical theory is the ethnog-

advance ., d' b h '
. raphy from Willis (1977) ,of the "lads" ,,:~o partlclp at7, In e aVlOr as
opposition to authority, as mformal groups havmg ~ laff . (p. 29) as ~ form
of resistance to their school. As a study of the mamfestatIons of resIstance
and state regulation, it highlights ways in which actors come to terms with
and struggle against cultural forms that dominate them (Morrow & Brown,
1994). Resistance is also the theme addressed in the ethnography of a sub-
cultural group of youths highlighted as an example of ethnography in this
book (see Haenfler, 2004).
Critical race theory (CRT) focuses theoretical attention on race and how
racism is deeply embedded within the framework of American society (Parker
& Lynn, 2002). Racism has directly shaped the U.S. legal system and the
ways people think about the law, racial categories, and privilege (Harris,
1993). According to Parker and Lynn (2002), CRT has three main goals. Its
first goal is to present stories about discrimination from the perspective of
people of color. These may be qualitative case studies of descriptions and
interviews. These cases may then be drawn together to build cases against
racially biased officials or discrminatory practices. Since many stories
advance White privilege through "majoritiarian" master narratives, counter-
stories by people of calor can help to shatter the complacency that may
accompany such privilege and challenge the dominant discourses that serve to
suppress people on the margins of society (Solorzano & Yosso, 2002). As a
second goal, CRT argues for the eradication of racial subjugation while
simultaneously recognizing that race is a social construct (Parker & Lynn,
2002). In this view, race is not a fixed term, but one that is fluid and contin-
ually shaped by political pressures and informed by individual lived experi-
ences. Finally, the third goal of CRT addresses other areas of difference, such
as gender, class, and any inequities experienced by individuals. As Parker and
Lynn (2002) comment: "In the case of Black women, race does not exist out-
side of gender and gender does not exist outside of race" (p. 12). In research,
the use of CRT methodology means that the researcher foregrounds race and
racism in all aspects of the research process; challenges the traditional
research paradigms, texts, and theories used to explain the experiences of
people of col or; and offers transformative solutions to racial, gender, and
class subordination in our societal and institutional structures.

Queer Theory
Queer theory is characterized by a variety of methods and strategies relat-
ing to individual identity (Watson, 2005). As a body of literature continuing
to evolve, it explores the myriad complexities of the construct, identity, and
Philosophical, Paradigm, and Interpretive Frameworks 29

how identities reproduce and "perform" in social forums. Writers also use a
postmodern or poststructural orientation to critique and deconstruct domi-
nant theories (a "radical deconstruction," Plummer, 2005, p. 359) related to
identity (Watson, 2005). They focus on how it is culturally and historically
constituted, linked to discourse, and ,overlaps gender and sexuality. The term
itself-"queer theory," rather than gay, lesbian, or homosexual theory-
alloWS for keeping open to question the elements of race, class, age, and
anything else (Turner, 2000). Most queer theorists work to challenge and
undercut identity as singular, fixed, or normal (Watson, 2005). They also
seek to challenge categorization processes and their deconstructions, rather
than focus on specific populations. The historical binary distinctions are
inadequate to describe sexual identity. Plummer (2005) provides a concise
overview of the queer theory stance:

• Both the heterosexuaVhomosexual binary and the sex/gender split are

challenged.
.. There is a decentering of identity.
.. All sexual categories (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, heterosexual) are
open, fluid, and nonfixed.
o Mainstream homosexuality is critiqued.
• Power is embodied discursively.
.. All normalizing strategies are shunned.
• Academic work may become ironic, and often comic and paradoxical.
.. Versions of homosexual subject positions are inscribed everywhere.
• Deviance is abandoned, and interest lies in insider and outsider perspectives
and transgressions.
• Common objects of study are films, videos, novels, poetry, and visual images.
.. The most frequent interests include the social worlds of the so-called radical
sexual fringe (e.g, drag kings and queens, sexual playfulness).

Although queer theory is less a methodology and more a focus of inquiry,

queer methods often find expression in a rereading of cultural texts (e.g.,
films, literature); ethnographies and case studies of sexual worlds that chal-
lenge assumptions; data sources that contain multiple texts; documentaries
that include performances; and projects that focus on individuals (Plummer,
2005). Queer theorists have engaged in research andlor political activities
such as ACT-UP and QUEER NATION around HIV/AIDS awareness, as
well as artistic and cultural representations of art and theater aimed at dis-
rupting or rendering unnatural and strange practices that are taken for
granted. These representations convey the voices and experiences of individ-
uals who have been suppressed (Gamson, 2000). Useful readings about
queer theory are found in the journal article overview provided by Watson
30 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

(2005) and the chapter by Plummer (2005), and in key books, such the book
by Tierney (1997).

Disability Theories
Disability inquiry addresses the meaning of inclusion in schools and
encompasses administrators, teachers, and parents who have children with
disabilities (Mertens, 1998). Mertens recounts how disability rese,arch has
moved through stages of development, from the medical model of disability
(sickness and the role of the medical community in threatening it) to an envi-
ronmental response to individuals with a disability. Now, researchers focus
more on disability as a dimension of human difference and not as a defect.
As a human difference, its meaning is derived from social construction (i.e.,
society's response to individuals) and it is simply one dimension of human
difference (Mertens, 2003). Viewing individuals with disabilities as different
is reflected in the research process, such as in the types of questions asked,
the labels applied to these individuals, considerations of how the data col-
lection will benefit the community, the appropriateness of communication
methods, and how the data are reported in a way that is respectful of power
relationships.

Summary

In this chapter, I situated qualitative research within the larger discussion

about philosophical, paradigmatic, and interpretive frameworks that inves-
tigators bring to their studies. It is a complex area, and one that I can only
begin to sketch with some clarity. I see, however, that the basic philosophi-
cal assumptions relate to ontology, epistemology, axiology, rhetoric, and
methodology as central features of all qualitative studies. Researchers take
a philosophical stance on each of these assumptions when they decide to
undertake a qualitative' study. They also bring to the research their para-
digms or worldviews, and those frequently used by qualitative researchers
consist of postpositivist, constructivist, advocacy/participatory, and pragma-
tist. These worldviews, in turn, narrow to interpretive or theoretical stances
taken by the researcher. These interpretive stances shape the individuals
studied; the types of questions and problems examined; the approaches to
data collection, data analysis, writing, and evaluation; and the use of the
information to change society or add to social justice. Some of the interpre-
tive stances used in qualitative research include postmodernism, feminist
research, critical theory and critical race theory, queer theory, and disability
Philosophical, Paradigm, and Interpretive Frameworks 31

theoq. Thinking related to the philosophical assumptions, paradigms or

worldview, and interpretive stances will be threaded throughout our explo·
ration ·of the five approaches.

Several writers, in addition to Guba and Lincoln (1988, 2005), discuss

the paradigm assumptions of qualitative research. In counseling psychology,
Hoshmand (1989) reviews these assumptions. In education, see Sparkes
(1992) or Cunningham and Fitzgerald (1996). In management, see Burrell
and Morgan (1979) or Gioia and Pitre (1990).

Burrell, G., & Morgan, G. (1979). Sociological paradigms and organizational analy-
sis. London: Heinemann.
'Cunningham, J. W., & Fitzgerald, J. (1996). Epistemology and reading. Reading
Research Quarterly, 31(1), 36-60.
Gioia, D. A., & Pitre, E. (1990). Multiparadigm perspectives on theory building.
Management Review, 15; 584-602.
Guba, E., & Lincoln, Y. S. (1988). Do inquiry paradigms imply inquiry methodolo·
gies? In D. M. Fetterman (Ed.), Qualitative approaches to evaluation in educa~
tion (pp. 89-115). New York: Praeger.
Guba, E., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2005). Paradigmatic controversies, contradictions, and
emerging confluences. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln, The Sage handbook of
qualitative research (3rd ed., pp. 191-215). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Hoshmand, L. L. S. T. (1989). Alternative research paradigms: A review and teaching
proposal. The Counseling Psychologist, 17(1),3-79.
Sparkes, A. C. (1992). The paradigms debate: An extended review and celebration of
differences. In A. C. Sparkes (Ed.), Research in physical education and sport:
Exploring alternative visions (pp. 9-60). London: Falmer Press.

For an introduction to postmodern thinking in the social sciences, see

Rosenau (1992), Slife aud Williams (1995), Clarke (2005), and the journal
article by Blolaud (1995).

Bloland, H. G. (1995). Postmodernism and higher education. Journal of Higher

Education, 66, 521-559.
Clarke, A. E. (2005). Situational analysis: Grounded theory after the postmodern
turn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Rosenau, P. M. (1992). Post-modernism and the social sciences: lnsights, inroads, and
intrusions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Slife, B. D., & Williams, R. N. (1995). What's behind the research? Discovering hid·
den assumptions in the behavioral sciences. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
32 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

For critical theory and critical race theory, see the following articles,
which provide an introduction to the subject: Bloland (1995), Agger (1991),
and Carspecken and Apple (1992). For book-length works, see Morrow and
Brown (1994), a useful book for drawing the connection between critical
theory and methodology. Other book-length works that take the critical
theory discussion into ethnography are Thomas (1993) and Madison (2005).
For critical race theory, examine Parker and Lynn (2002) and Solorzano and
Yosso (2002).

Agger, B. (1991). Critical theory, poststructuralism, postmodernism: Their sociological

relevance. In W. R. Scott &]. Blake (Eds.), Annual review of sociology (Vol. 17,
pp. 105-131). Palo Alto, CA: Annual Reviews.
Bloland, H. G. (1995). Postmodernism and higher education. Journal of Higher
Education, 66, 521-559.
Carspecken, P. F., & Apple, M. (1992). Critical qualitative research: Theory, method-
ology, and practice. In M. L. LeCompte, W. L. Millroy, & J. Preissle (Eds.), The
handbook of qualitative research in education (pp. 507-553). San Diego, CA:
Academic Press.
Madison, D. S. (2005). Critical ethnography: Method, ethics, and performance.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Morrow, R. A., & Brown, D. D. (1994). Critical theory and methodology. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Parker, L., & Lynn, M. (2002). What race got to do with it? Critical race theory's con-
flicts with and connections to qualitative research methodology and epistemol~
ogy. Qualitative Inquiry, 8(1), 7-22.
Solor2ano, D. G., & Yosso, T.]. (2002). Critical race methodology: Counter-story-
telling as an analytical framework for education research. Qualitative Inquiry~
8(1),23-44.
Thomas, J. (1993). Doing critical ethnography. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

For an introduction to feminist research and social science methods, see the
articles or chapters by Roman (1992), Olesen (1994, 2005), Stewart (1994),
and Moss (2006). For book-length works, examine Harding (1987), Nielsen
(1990), Lather (1991), Reinharz (1992), and Ferguson and Wicke (1994).

Ferguson, M., & Wicke, J. (1994). Feminism and postmodernism. Durham, NC:
Duke University Press.
Harding, S. (1987). Feminism and methodology. Bloommgmn: Indiana University Press.
Lather, P. (1991). Getting smart: Feminist research and pedagogy with/in the post-
modern. New York: Routledge.
Moss, P. (2006). Emergent methods in feminist research. In S. N. Hesse-Biber (Ed.),
Handbook of feminist research methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Philosophical, Paradigm,and Interpretive Frameworks 33

Nielsen, J. M. (Ed.). (1990). Feminist research methods: Exemplary readings in the

social sciences. Boulder, co: Westview Press.
Olesen, V. (1994). Feminisms and models of qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin
& Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The handbook of qualitative research (pp. 158-174).
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Olesen, V. (2005). Early millennial feminist qualitative research: Challenges and
contours. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage handbook of quali-
tative research (3rd ed., pp. 235-278). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Reinharz, 5'. (1992). Feminist methods in social research. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Roman, L. G. (1992). The political significance of other ways of narrating ethnog-
raphy: A feminist materialist approach. In M. L. LeCompte, W. L. Millroy,
& J. Preissle (Eds.), The handbook of qualitative research in education
(pp. 555-594). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Stewart, A. J. (1994). Toward a feminist strategy for studying women's lives. In C. E.
Franz & A. J. Stewart (Eds.), Women creating lives: Identities, resilience and
resistance (pp. 11-35). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

For a recent introduction to queer theory and its applications in the social
sciences and sociology, see:

Tierney, W. G. (1997). Academic outlaws: Queer theory and cultural studies in the
academy. London: Sage.
Valocchi, S. (2005). Not yet queer enough: The lessons of queer theory for the soci-
ology of gender and sexuality. Gender & Society, 19(6),750-770.
Watson, K. (2005). Queer theory. Group Analysis, 38(1), 67-81.

For an overview of disability theories, see:

Mertens, D. M. (2003). Mixed methods and the politics of human research: The
transformative-emancipatory perspective. In A. Tashakkori & C. Teddlie (Eds.),
Handbook of mixed methods in social and behavioral research (pp. 135-164).
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

1. In the study you are planning to conduct, you mayor may not use an inter-
pretive perspective. It is good practice to consider how you might design this
component into your proposed study. Take the study that you would like to
design, and select a postmodern, feminist, critical race theory, queer theory,
or disability perspective. Discuss how this interpretive stance will shape the
34 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

participants selected, the issues explored, the modes of data collection, and
the use of the study.
2. Take the five philosophical assumptions and design a matrix like Table 2.1
that includes a column for how you plan to address each assumption in your
proposed study.
3. Select a postpositivist, constructivist, advocacy/participatory, or pragmatic
worldview for your study. Discuss the ways that this worldview will inform
the design of your study.
3
Designing a Qualitative Study

I think metaphorically of qualitative research as an intricate fabric com-

posed of minute threads, many colors, different textures, and various
blends of material. This fabric is not explained easily or simply. Like the
loom on which fabric is woven, general worldviews and perspectives hold
qualitative research together. To describe these frameworks, qualitative
researchers use terms-constructivist, interpretivist, feminist, methodology,
postmodernist, and naturalistic research. Within these worldviews and
through these lenses are approaches to qualitative inquiry, such as narrative
research, phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography, and case studies.
This field has many different individuals with different perspectives who are
on their own looms creating the fabric of qualitative research. Aside from
these differences, the creative artists are all at work making a fabric. In other
words, there are characteristics common to all forms of qualitative research,
and the different characteristics will receive different emphases depending on
the qualitative project.
The basic intent of this chapter is to provide an overview of and intro-
duction to qualitative research so that we can see the common characteris-
tics of qualitative research before we explore the different threads of it. I
begin with a general definition of qualitative research and highlight the
essential characteristics of conducting this form of inquiry. I then discuss the
types of research problems and issues best suited for a qualitative study and
emphasize the requirements needed to conduct this rigorous, time-consuming
research. Given that you have the essentials (the problem, the time) to engage
in this inquiry, I then sketch out the overall process involved in designing
and planning a study. I end by suggesting several outlines that you might

35
36 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

consider as the overall structure for planning or proposing a qualitative

research study. The chapters to follow will then address the different types
of inquiry approaches. The general design features, outlined here, will be
refined for the five approaches emphasized in this book.

Questions for Discussion

" What are the key characteristics of qualitative research?
• Why do researchers conduct a qualitative study?
41 What is required to undertake this type of research?
o How do researchers design a qualitative study?
., What topics should be addressed in a plan or proposal for a qualitative study?

The Characteristics of Qualitative Research

I typically begin talking about qualitative research by posing a definition for
it. This seemingly uncomplicated approach has become more difficult in
recent years. I note that some extremely useful introductory books to quali-
tative research these days do not contain a definition that can be easily
located (Morse & Richards, 2002, 2007; Weis & Fine, 2000). Perhaps this
has less to do with the authors' decision to convey the nature of this inquiry
and more to do with a concern about advancing a "fixed" definition. It is
interesting, however, to look at the evolving definition by Denzin and
Lincoln (1994, 2000, 2005) as their Handbook of Qualitative Research has
moved through time. Their definition conveys the ever-changing nature of
qualitative inquiry from social construction, to interpretivist, and on to
social justice. I include their latest definition here:

Qualitative research is a situated activity that locates the observer in the world.
It consists of a set of interpretive, material practices that make the world visi~
bIe. These practices transform the world. They turn the world into a series of
representations, including fieldnotes, interviews, conversations, photographs,
recordings, and memos to the self. At this level, qualitative research involves
an interpretive, naturalistic approach to the world. This means that qualitative
researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of,
or interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them.
(Denzin & Lincoln, 2005, p. 3)

Although some of the traditional approaches to qualitative research, such

as the "interpretive, naturalistic approach" and "meanings," are evident in
Designing a Qualitative Study 37

this definition, the definition also has a strong orientation toward the impact
of qualitative research and in transforming the, world.
As an applied research methodologist, my working definition of qualita-
tive research emphasizes the design of research and the use of distinct
approaches to inquiry (e.g., ethnography, narrative). At this time, I provide
this definition:
Qualitative research begins with assumptions, a worldview, the possible
use of a theoretical lens, and the study of research problems inquiring into
the meaning individuals or groups ascribe to a social or human problem.
To study this problem, qualitative researchers use an emerging qualitative
approach to inquiry, the collection of data in a natural setting sensitive to
the people and places under study, and data analysis that is inductive and
establishes patterns or themes. The final written report or presentation
includes the voices of participants, the reflexivity of the researcher, and a
'complex description and interpretation of the problem, and it extends the lit-
erature or signals a call for action.
Notice in this definition that I place emphasis on the process of
research as flowing from' philosophical assumptions, to worldviews and
throngh a theoretical lens, and on to the procedures involved in studying
social or human problems. Then, a framework exists for the procedures-
the approach to inquiry, such as grounded theory, or case study research.
At a more micro level are the procedures that are common to all forms of
qualitative research.
Examine Table 3.1 for three recent introductory qualitative research books
and the characteristics they espouse for doing a qualitative study. As compared
to a similar table I designed almost 10 years ago in the first edition of this book
(drawing on other authors), qualitative research today involves closer atten-
tion to the interpretive nature of inquiry and situating the study within the
political, social, and cultural context of the researchers, the participants, and
the readers of a study. By examining Table 3.1, one can arrive at several
common characteristics of qualitative research. These are presented in no
specific order of importance:

• Natural setting-Qualitative researchers tend to collect data in the

field at the site where participants' experience the issue or problem under
study. They do not bring individuals into a lab (a contrived situation), nor
do they typically send out instruments for individuals to complete. This up-
close information gathered by actually talking directly to people and seeing
them behave and act within their context is a major characteristic of qual-
itative research. In the natural setting, the researchers have face-to-face
interaction over time.
38 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Table 3.1 Characteristics of Qualitative Research

LeCompte & Marshall &
Schensul Rossman Hatch
Characteristics (1999) (2006) (2002)

Natural setting (field focused), a source

of data for close interaction Yes Yes Yes
Researcher as key instrument of
data collection Yes
Multiple data sources in words
or images Yes Yes
Analysis of data inductively,
recursively, interactively Yes Yes Yes
Focus on participants' perspectives,
their meanings, their subjective views Yes Yes
Framing of human behavior and
belief within a social-politicaVhistorical
context or through a cultural lens Yes
Emergent rather than tightly
prefigured design Yes Yes
Fundamentally interpretive inquiry-
researcher reflects on her or his role, the
role of the reader, and the role of the
participants in shaping the study Yes
Holistic view of social phenomena Yes Yes

• Researcher as key instrument. The qualitative researchers collect data

themselves tlhrough examining documents, observing behavior, and interview-
ing participants. They may use a protocol-an instrument for collecting data-
but the researchers are the ones who actually gather the information. They do
not tend to use or rely on questionnaires or instruments developed by other
researchers.
• Multiple sources of data. Qualitative researchers typically gather mul-
ti pIe forms of dara, such as interviews, observations, and documents, rather
than rely on a single data source. Then the researchers review all of the data
and make sense of them, organizing them into categories or themes that cut
across all of the data sources.
• Inductive data analysis. Qualitative researchers build their patterns,
categories, and themes from the "bottom-up," by organizing the data into
increasingly more abstract units of information. This inductive process
Designing a Qualitative Study 39

involves researchers working back and forth between the themes and the
database until they establish a comprehensive set of themes. It may also
involve collaborating with the participants interactively, so that they have
a chance to shape the themes or abstractions that emerge from the process.
o Participants' meanings. In the entire qualitative research process, the
researchers keep a focus on learning the meaning that the participants hold
about the problem or issue, not the meaning that the researchers bring to
the research or writers from the literature.
• Emergent design. The research process for qualitative researchers is
emergent. This means that the initial plan for research cannot be tightly pre-
scribed, and that all phases of the process may change or shift after the
researchers enter the field and begin to collect data. For example, the ques-
tions may change, the forms of data collection may shift, 'and the individu-
,als studied and the sites visited may be modified. The key idea behind
qualitative research is to learn about the problem or issue from participants
and to address the research to obtain that information.
• Theoretical lens. Qualitative researchers often use a lens to view their
studies, such as the concept of culture, central to ethnography, or gendered,
racial, or class differences from the theoretical orientations discussed in
Chapter 2. Sometimes, the study may be organized around identifying the
social, political, or historical context of the problem under study.
• Interpretive inquiry. Qualitative research is a form of inquiry in which
researchers make an interpretation of what they see, hear, and understand.
The researchers' interpretations cannot be separated from their own back-
ground, history, context, and prior understandings. After a research report
is issued, the readers make an interpretation as well as the participants,
offering yet other interpretations of the study. With the readers, the partic-
ipants, and the researchers all making an interpretation, we can see how
multiple views of the problem can emerge.
• Holistic account. Qualitative researchers try to develop a complex
picture of the problem or issue under study. This involves reporting multi-
ple perspectives, identifying the many factors involved in a situation, and
generally sketching the larger picture that emerges. Researchers are bound
not by tight cause-and-effect relationships among factors, but rather by
identifying the complex interactions of factors in any situation.

When to Use Qualitative Research

When is it appropriate to use qualitative research? We conduct qualitative
research because a problem or issue needs to be explored. This exploration
40 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

is needed, in turn, because of a need to study a group or population,

identify variables that can then be measured, or hear silenced voices. These
are all good reasons to explore a problem rather than to use predetermined
information from the literature or rely on results from other research
studies. We also conduct qualitative research because we need a complex,
detailed understanding of the issue. This detail can only be established by
talking directly with people, going to their homes or places of work, and
allowing them to tell the stories unencumbered by what we expect to find or
what we have read in the literature. We conduct qualitative research when
we want to empower individuals to share their stories, hear their voices, and
minimize the power relationships that often exist between a researcher and
the participants in a study. To further de-emphasize a power relationship,
we may collaborate directly with participants by having them review our
research questions, or by having them collaborate with us during the
data analysis and interpretation phases of research. We conduct qualitative
research when we want to write in a literary, flexible style that conveys sto-
ries, Of theater, or poems, without the restrictions of formal academic'struc-
tures of writing. We conduct qualitative research because we want to
understand the contexts or settings in which participants in a study address
a problem or issue. We cannot separate what people say from the context in
which they say it-whether this context is their home, family, or work. We
use qualitative research to follow up quantitative research and help explain
the mechanisms or linkages in causal theories or models. These theories pro-
vide a general picture of trends, associations, and relationships, but they do
not tell us about why people responded as they did, the context in which
they responded, and their deeper thoughts and behaviors that governed their
responses. We use qualitative research to develop theories when partial or
inadequate theories exist for certain populations and samples or existing
theories do not adequately capture the complexity of the problem we are
examining. We also use qualitative research because quantitative measures
and the statistical analyses simply do not fit the problem. Interactions among
people, for example, are difficult to capture with existing measures, and
these measures may not be sensitive to issues such as gender differences, race,
economic status, and individual differences. To level all individuals to a sta-
tistical mean overlooks the uniqueness of individuals in our studies.
Qualitative approaches are simply a better fit for.our research problem.
What does it take to engage in this form of research? To undertake qual-
itative research requires a strong commitment to study a problem and
demands time and resources. Qualitative research keeps good company with
the most rigorous quantitative research, and it should not be viewed as an
Designing a Qualitative Study 41

easy substitute for a "statistical" or quantitative study. Qualitative inquiry is

for the researcher who is willing to do the following:

It Commit to extensive time in the field. The investigator spends many hours in
the field, collects extensive data, and labors over field issues of trying to gain
access, rapport, and an "insider" perspective.
Cl Engage in the complex, time-consuming process of data analysis through the
ambitious task, of sorting through large amounts of data and reducing them to
a few themes or categories. For a multidisciplinary team of qualitative
researchers, this task can be shared; for most researchers, it is a lonely, isolated
time of struggling with the data. The task is challenging, especially because the
database consists of complex texts and images.
e Write long passages, because the evidence must substantiate claims and the
writer needs to show multiple perspectives. The incorporation of quotes to
provide participants' perspectives also lengthens the study.
• Participate in a form of social and human science research that does not have
firm guidelines or specific procedures and is evolving and constantly changing.
This guideline complicates telling others how one plans to conduct a study and
how others might judge it when the study is completed.

The Process of Designing a Qualitative Study

At the outset, I need to say that there is no agreed upon structure for how to
design a qualitative study. Books on qualitative research vary. Some authors
believe that by reading about a study, discussing the procedures, and point-
ing out issues that emerged, the aspiring qualitative researcher will have a
sense of how to conduct this form of inquiry (see Weis & Fine, 2000). That
may be true for some individuals. For others, understanding the broader
issues may suffice (see Morse & Richards, 2002, 2007), or guidance from a
"how to" book may be better (see Hatch, 2002). I am not sure whether I
write from exactly a "how to" perspective; my approach is more in line with
creating options for qualitative researchers (hence, the five approaches),
weighing the options given my experiences, and then letting readers choose
for themselves.
There are certain design principles that I work from when I design my own
qualitative research studies. First, I do find that qualitative research generally
falls within the process of scientific research, with common phases whether
one is writing qualitatively or quantitatively. All researchers seem to start
with an issue or problem, examine the literature in some way related to the
problem, pose questions, gather data and then analyze them, and write up
42 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

their reports. Qualitative research fits within this structure, and I have accord-
ingly organized the chapters in this book to reflect this process. Second, sev-
eral aspects of a qualitative project vary from study to study as to the amount
of detail developed by researchers. For example, stances on the use of the lit-
erature vary widely, as do the stances on using an a priori theory. The litera-
ture may be fully reviewed and used to inform the questions actually asked,
it may be reviewed late in the process of research, or it may be used solely to
help document the importance of the research problem. Other options may
also exist, but these possibilities point to the varied uses of literature in qual-
itative research. Similarly, the use of theory varies extensively. For example,
cultural theories form the basic building blocks of a good qualitative ethnog-
raphy (LeCompte & Schensul, 1999), whereas in grounded theory, the
·theories are developed or generated during the process of research (Strauss &
Corbin, 1990). In health science research, I find the use of a priori theories
common practice, and a key element that must be included in a rigorous qual-
itative investigation (Barbour, 2000). Another consideration in qualitative
research is the writing format for the qualitative project. It varies considerably
from scientific-oriented approaches, to storytelling, and on to performances,
such as theater, plays, or poems. There is no one standard or accepted struc-
ture as one typically finds in quantitative research.
Given these differences, we still are left with the graduate student who
needs to organize a qualitative thesis or dissertation, researchers who need
to submit a proposal for state or federal funding, and the research team that
seeks to investigate a timely issue in the social, behavioral, or health sciences.
All of these individuals will probably profit from having some structure to
their qualitative writing. Thus, I would like to discuss a general approach to
designing a qualitative study and then begin to shape this design as we visit
the five approaches to qualitative research in this book. I like the concept
of "methodological congruence" advanced by Morse and Richards (2002,
2007)-that the purposes, questions, and methods of research are all inter-
connected and interrelated so that the study appears as a cohesive whole
rather than as fragmented, isolated parts.
The process of designing a qualitative study begins not with the meth-
ods-which is actually the easiest part of research, I believe-but instead
with the broad assumptions central to qualitative inquiry, a worldview con-
sistent with it, and in many cases, a theoretical lens that shapes the study. In
addition, the researcher arrives at the doorstep of qualitative research with a
topic or substantive area of investigation, and perhaps has reviewed the lit-
erature about the topic and knows that a problem or issue exists that needs
to be studied. This problem may be one in the "real world" or it may be a
deficiency in the literature or past investigations on a topic. Problems in
Designing a Qualitative Study 43

qualitative research span the topics in the social and human sciences, and a
hallmark of qualitative research today is the deep involvement in issues of
gender, culture, and marginalized groups. The topics about which we write
are emotion laden, close to people, and practical.
To study these topics, we ask open-ended research questions, wanting to
listen to the participants we are studying and shaping the questions after we
"explore," and we refrain from assuming the role of the expert researcher
with the "best"questions. Our questions change during the process of
research to reflect an increased understanding of the problem. Furthermore,
we take these questions out to the field to collect either "words" or
"images." I like to think in terms of four basic types of information: inter-
views, observations, documents, and audiovisual materials. Certainly, new
forms emerge that challenge this traditional categorization. Where do we
place sounds, e-mail messages, and computer software? Unquestionably, the
'backbone of qualitative research is extensive collection of data, typically
from multiple sources of information. After organizing and storing our data,
we analyze them by carefully masking the names of respondents, and we
engage in the perplexing (and "lonely" if we are the sole researcher) exercise
of trying to make sense of the data. We examine the qualitative data work-
ing inductively from particulars to more general perspectives, whether these
perspectives are called themes, dimensions, codes, or categories. One helpful
way to see this process is to 'recognize it as working through multiple levels
of abstraction, starting with the raw data and forming larger and larger cat-
egories. Recognizing the highly interrelated set of activities of data collec-
tion, analysis, and report writing, we do not always know clearly which
stage we are in. I remember working on a case study (Asmussen & Creswell,
1995) as interviewing, analyzing, and writing the case study-all intermin-
gled processes, not distinct phases in the process. Also, we experiment with
many forms of analysis-making metaphors, developing matrices and tables,
and using visuals-to convey simultaneously breaking down the data and
reconfiguring them into new forms. We (re)present our data, partly based on
participants' perspectives and partly based on our own interpretation, never
clearly escaping our own personal stamp on a study.
Throughout the slow process of collecting data and analyzing them, we
shape our narrative-a narrative with many forms in qualitative research.
We tell a story that unfolds over time. We present the study following the
traditional approach to scientific research (i.e., problem, question, method,
findings). We talk about our experiences in conducting the study, and how
they shape our interpretations of the results. We let the voices of our partic-
ipants speak and carry the story through dialogue, perhaps dialogue pre-
sented in Spanish with English subtitles.
44 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Throughout all phases of the research process we are sensitive to ethical

considerations. These are especially important as we negotiate entry to the
field site of the research; involve participants in our study; gather personal,
emotional data that reveal the details of life; and ask participants to give con-
siderable time to our projects. Hatch (2002) does a good job of summarizing
some of the major ethical issues that researchers need to anticipate and often
address in their studies. Giving back to participants for their time and efforts
in our projects-reciprocity-is important, and we need to review how par-
ticipants will gain from our studies. How to leave the scene of a research
study-through slow withdrawal and conveying information about our
departure-so that the participants do not feel abandoned is also important.
We always need to be sensitive to the potential of our research to disturb the
site and potentially (and often unintentionally) exploit the vulnerable popu-
lations we study, such as young children or underrepresented or marginalized
groups. Along with this comes a need to be sensitive to any power imbalances
our presence may establish at a site that could further marginalize the people
under study. We do not want to place the participants at further risk as a
result of our research. We need to anticipate how to address potential illegal
activities that we see or hear, and, in some cases, report them to authorities.
We need to honor who owns the account, and whether participants and
leaders at our research sites will be concerned about this issue. As we work
with individual participants, we need to respect them individually, such as
by not stereotyping them, using their language and names, and following
guidelines such as those found in the Publication Manual of the American
Psychological Association (APA, 2001) for nondiscriminatory language.
Most often our research is done within the context of a college or university
setting where we need to provide evidence to institutional review boards or
committees that we respect the privacy and right of participants to withdraw
from the study and do not place them at risk. At this stage, too, we con-
sciously consider ethical issues-seeking consent, avoiding the conundrum of
deception, maintaining confidentiality, and protecting the anonymity of indi-
viduals with whom we speak. Weis and Fine (2000) ask us to consider our
roles as insiders/outsiders to the participants; issues that we may be fearful of
disclosing; how we established supportive, respectful relationships without
stereotyping and using labels that participants do not embrace; whose voice
will be represented in our final study; and how we will write ourselves into
the study and reflect who we are as well as reflect the people we study (Weiss
& Fine, 2000). We need to be sensitive to vulnerable populations, imbalanced
power relations, and placing participants at risk (Hatch, 2002).
At some point we ask, "Did we get the story 'right'?" (Stake, 1995),
knowing that there are no "right" stories, only multiple stories. Perhaps
Designing a QuaUtative Study 45

qualitative studies do not have endings, only questions (Wolcott, 1994b).

But we seek to have our account resonate with the participants, to be an
accurate reflection of what they said. So we engage in validation strategies,
often using multiple strategies, which include confirming or triangulating
data from several sources, having our studies reviewed and corrected by the
participants, and having other researchers review our procedures.
In the end, individuals such as readers, participants, graduate commirtees,
editorial board members for journals, and reviewers of proposals for fund-
ing will apply some criteria to assess the quality of the study. Standards
for assessing the quality of qualitative research are available (Howe &
Eisenhardt, 1990; Lincoln, 1995; Marshall & Rossman, 2006). Here is my
short list of characteristics of a "good" qualitative study. You will see my
emphasis on rigorous methods present in this list,

• The researcher employs rigorous data collection procedures. This

means that the researcher collects multiple forms of data, adequately sum-
marizes-perhaps in tabled form-the forms of data and detail about them,
and spends adequate time in the field. It is not unusual for qualitative stud-
ies to include information about the specific amount of time in the field.
I especially like to see unusual forms of qualitative data collection, such as
using photographs to elicit responses, sounds, visual materials, or digital
text messages.
• The researcher frames the study within the assumptions and charac-
teristics of the qualitative approach to research. This includes fundamental
characteristics such as an evolviug design, the presentation of multiple real-
ities, the researcher as an instrument of data collection, and a focus on par-
ticipants' views-in short, all of the characteristics mentioned in Table 3.1.
• The researcher uses an approach to qualitative inquiry such as one of
the five approaches addressed in this book. Use of a recognized approach
to research enhances the rigor and sophistication of the research design.
This means that the researcher identifies and defines the approach, cites
studies that employ it, and follows the procedures outline in the approach.
Certainly, this approach need not be "pure," and one might mix procedures
from several approaches; however, for the beginning student of qualitative
research, I would recommend staying within one approach, becoming com-
fortable with it, learning it, and keeping a study concise and straightfor-
ward. Later, especially in long and complex studies, features from several
approaches may be useful.
• The researcher begins with a single focus. Although examples of qual-
itative research show a comparison of groups or of factors or themes, as in
46 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

case study projects or in ethnographies, I like to begin a qualitative study

focused on understanding a single concept or idea (e.g., What does it mean
to be a professional? A teacher? A painter? A single mother? A homeless
person?). As the study progresses, it can begin incorporating the compari-
son (e.g., How does the case of a professional teacher differ from a profes-
sional administrator?) or relating factors (e.g., What explains why painting
evokes feelings?). All too often qualitative researchers advance to the com-
parison or the relationship analysis without first understanding their core
concept or idea.
• The study includes detailed methods, a rigorous approach to data col-
lection, data analysis, and report writing. Rigor is seen when extensive data
collection in the field occurs, or when the researcher conducts multiple
levels of data analysis, from the narrow codes or themes to broader inter-
related themes to more abstract dimensions. Rigor means, too, that the
researcher validates the accuracy of the account using One or more of the
procedures for validation, such as member checking, triangulating sources
of data, or using peer or exte;nal auditors of the accounts.
• The researcher analyzes data using multiple levels of abstraction. I like
to see the active work of the researcher as he or she moves from particulars
to general levels of abstraction. Often, writers present their studies in stages
(e.g., the multiple themes that can be combined into larger themes or per-
spectives) or layer their analyses from the particular to the general. The
codes and themes derived from the data might show mundane, expected,
and surprising ideas. Often the best qualitative studies present themes that
explore the shadow side or unusual angles. I remember in one class project,
the student examined how students in a distance learning class reacted to
the camera focused on the class. Rather than looking at the students' reac-
tion when the camera was on them, the researcher sought to understand
what happened when the camera was off them. This approach led to the
author taking an unusual angle, one not expected by the readers.
• The researcher writes persuasively so that the reader experiences
"being there." The concept of "verisimilitude," a literary term, captures my
thinking (Richardson, 1994, p. 521). The writing is clear, engaging, and full
of unexpected ideas. The story and findings become believable and realis-
tic, accurately reflecting all the complexities that exist in real life. The best
qualitative studies engage the reader.
• The study reflects the history, culture, and personal experiences of
the researcher. This is more than simply an autobiography, with the writer
or the researcher telling about his or her background. It focuses on how
Designing a Qualitative Study 47

individuals' culture, gender, history, and experiences shape all aspects of

the qualitative project, from their choice of a ,question to address, to how
they collect' data, to how they make an interpretation of the situation. In
some way-such as discussing their role, interweaving themselves into the
text, or reflecting on the qnestions they have about the study-individuals
position themselves in the qualitative study.
• The qualitative research in a good study is ethical. This involves more
than simply the researcher seeking and obtaining the permission of institu-
tional review committees or boards. It means that the researcher is aware
of and addressing in the study all of the ethical issues mentioned earlier in
this chapter that thread through all phases of the research study.

The General Structure of a Plan or Proposal

Look at the diversity of final written products for qualitative research. No
set format exists. But several writers suggest general topics to be included in
a written plan or proposal for a qualitative study. I provide four examples
of formats for plans or proposals for qualitative studies. In the first exam-
ple, drawn from my own work (Creswell, 2003, pp. 50-51), I advance a
constructionistlinterpretivist form. This form (shown in Example 3.1 below)
might be seen as a traditional approach to planning qualitative research, and
it includes the standard introduction and procedures, including a passage in
the procedures about the role of the researcher. It also incorporates antici-
pated ethical issues, pilot findings, and expected outcomes.

Example 3.1 A Qualitative Constructivistl

Interpretivist Format

Introduction
Statement of the problem (including literature about the problem)
Purpose of the study
The research questions
Delimitations and limitations
Procedures
Characteristics of qualitative research (optional)
Qualitative research strategy
Role of the researcher
48 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Data collection procedures

Data analysis procedures

Strategies for validating findings

Narrative structure

Anticipated ethical issues

Significance of the study

Preliminary pilot findings
Expected outcomes

Appendices: Interview questions, observational forms, timeline, and proposed

budget

The second format provides for an advocacy perspective (Creswell, 2003,

pp. 51-52). This format (as shown in Example 3.2 below) makes explicit
the advocacy, transforrnative approach to qualitative research by stating
the advocacy issue at the beginning, by emphasizing collaboration during the
data collection, and by advancing the changes advocated for the group being
studied.

Example 3.2 A Qualitative Advocacy/Participatory Format

Introduction
Statement of the problem (including litetature about the problem)
The advocacy/participatory issue

Purpose of the study

The research questions

Delimitations and limitations

Procedures
Characteristics of qualitative research (optional)

Qualitative research strategy

Role of the researcher

Data collection procedures (including the collaborative approaches used

and sensitivity toward participants)

Data recording procedures

Designing a Qualitative Study 49

Data analysis procedures

Strategies for validating findings
Narrative structure of study
Anticipated ethical issues
Significance of the study
Preliminary pilot findings
Expected advocacy/participatory changes
Appendices: Interview questions, observational forms, timeline, and proposed
budget

The third format, Example 3.3, is similar to the advocacy format, but it
, advances the use of a theoretical lens (Marshal! & Rossman, 2006). Notice
that this format has a section for a theoretical lens (e.g., feminist, racial, eth-
nic) that informs the study in the literature review, "trustworthiness" in
place of what I have been calling "validation," a section for being reflexive
through personal biography, and both the ethical and political considera-
tions of the author.

Example 3.3 A Theoretical Lens Format

Introduction
Overview
Type and purpose
Potential significance
Framework and general research questions
Limitations
Review of related literature
Theoretical traditions
Essays by informed experts
Related research

Design and methodology

Overall approach and rationale
Site or population selection
Data·gathering methods
Data analysis procedures
50 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Trustworthiness
Personal biography
Ethics and political considerations
Appendices: Interview questions, observational forms, timeline, and proposed
budget

In the fourth and final format, Example 3.4, MaxweIl (2005) organizes the
structure around a series of nine arguments that he feels need to cohere and be
coherent when researchers design their qualitative proposals. I think that these
nine arguments represent the most important points to include in a proposal,
and MaxweIl provides in his book a complete example of a qualitative disser-
tation proposal written by Martha G. Regan-Smith at the Harvard Graduate
School of Education. My summary and adaptation of these arguments follow.

Example 3.4 Maxwell's Nine Arguments

for a Qualitative Proposal

We need to better understand ... (the topic).

We know little about ... (the topic).
I propose to study ... .
The setting and participants are appropriate for this study.
The methods I plan to use will provide the data I need to answer the research
questions.
Analysis will generate answers to these questions.
The findings will be validated by ....
The study poses no serious ethical problems.

Preliminary results support the practicability and value of the study.

These four examples speak only to designing a plan or proposal for a qual-
itative study. To the topics of these proposal formats, the complete study will
include additional data findings, interpretations, and a discussion of the over-
all results, limitations of the study, and future research needs.

Summary

The definitions for qualitative research vary, but I see it as an approach to

inquiry that begins with assumptions, worldviews, possibly a theoretical
Designing a QuaUtative Study 51

lens, and the study of research problems exploring the meaning individuals
or groups ascribe to a social or human problem. Researchers collect data in
natural settings with a sensitivity to the people under study, and they ana-
Iyze their data inductively to establish patterns or themes. The final repott
provides for the voices of participants, a reflexivity of the researchers, a com-
plex description and interpretation of the problem, and a study that adds to
the literature or provides a call for action. Recent introductory textbooks
underscore the characteristics embedded in this definition. Given this defin-
ition, a qualitative approach is appropriate to use to study a research prob-
lem when the problem needs to be explored; when a complex, detailed
understanding is needed; when the researcher wants to write in a literary,
flexible style; and when the researcher seeks to understand the context or set-
tings of participants. Qualitative research does take time, involves ambitious
data analysis, results in lengthy reporrs, and does not have firm guidelines.
The process of designing a qualitative study emerges during inquiry, but
it generally follows the partern of scientific research. It starts with broad
assumptions central to qualitative inquiry, worldview stances, and theore-
ticallens and a topic of inquiry. After stating a research problem or issue
about this topic, the inquirer asks several open-ended research questions,
gathers multiple forms of data to answer these questions, and makes sense
of the data by grouping information into codes, themes or categories, and
larger dimensions. The final narrative the researcher composes will have
diverse formats-from a scientific type of study to narrative stories. Ethical
decisions are threaded throughout the study. Several aspects will make the
study a good qualitative project: rigorous data collection and analysis; the
use of a qualitative approach (e.g., narrative, phenomenology, grounded
theory, ethnography, case study); a single focus; a persuasive account; a
reflection on the researcher's own history, culture, personal experiences, and
politics; and ethical practices.
Finally, the structure of a plan or proposal for a qualitative study will
vary. I include four models that differ in terms of their advocacy orientation,
inclusion of personal and political considerations, and focus on the essential
arguments that researchers need to address in proposals.

There are many introductory textbooks on qualitative research. At the begin-

ning of this chapter I introduced three books that differ in their approaches:
Marshal! and Rossman (2006), which takes a rigorous methods approach;
LeCompte and Schensul (1999), which is drawn from ethnography; and Hatch
(2002), a text that was created for educators but, because of the
52 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

clarity of writing and thoughts, would serve qualitative researchers well across
the social and human sciences. To these books, I add the introductory text by
Maxwell (2005) and my own book on research design from a qualitative, quan-
titative, and mixed methods approach (Creswell, 2003). The Weis and Fine
(2000) book, which takes as its launching point their own study of crime and
poverty, is a fascinating look at the technicalities, politics, and ethics surround-
ing qualitative research. Finally, rounding out my list is the Morse and Richards
(2002; 2nd ed., 2007) introductory text, which takes a refreshing view of the
methodological congruence of all aspects of the research process.

Creswell, J. W. (2003). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed meth-

ods approaches (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Hatch, J. A. (2002). Doing qualitative research in education settings. Albany: State
University of New York Press.
LeCompte, M. D., & Schensul, J. J. (1999). Designing and conducting ethnographic
research (Ethnographer's toolkit, Vo!. 1). Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira.
MarshaH, c., & Rossman, G. B. (2006). Designing qualitative research (4th ed.).
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Maxwell, J. (2005). Qualitative research design: An interactive approach (2nd ed.).
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Morse, J. M., & Richards, L. (2002). README FIRST for a user's guide to qualita-
tive methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Richards, L., & Morse, J. M. (2007). README FIRST for a user's guide to qualita-
tive methods (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Weis, L., & Fine, M. (2000). Speed bumps: A study-friendly guide to qualitative
research. New York: Teachers College Press.

1. Organize a two~page overview of a study you would like to conduct. At this

point, you need not be concerned about the specific approach to inquiry
unless you already have one selected. In your summary, include (a) the prob~
lem (or issue) you plan to study, (b) the major research question you plan to
ask, (c) the data you wish ro collect and anaIyze, (d) the significance of your
study, and (e) your relationship to the topic and participants being studied.
This preliminary plan will be modified later, after you have chosen an
approach to inquiry.

2. For individuals new to qualitative research, examine one of the introductory

texts I mentioned in the Additional Readings section and develop an outline
of key ideas.
4
Five Qualitative
Approaches to Inquiry

I n this chapter, we begin our detailed exploration of narrative research,

phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography, and case studies. For each
approach, I pose a definition, briefly trace its history, explore types of stud-
ies, introduce procedures involved in conducting a study, and indicate poten-
tial challenges in using the approach. I also review some of the similarities and
differences among the five approaches so that qualitative researchers can
decide which approach is best to use for their particular study.

Questions for Discussion

• What are a narrative study, a phenomenology, a grounded theory, an ethnog-
raphy, and a case study?
G What are the procedures and challenges to using each approach to qualitative
research?
• What are some similarities and differences among the five approaches?

Narrative Research

Definition and Background

Narrative research has many forms, uses a variety of analytic practices,
and is rooted in different social and humanities disciplines (Daiute &
53
54 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Lightfoot, 2004). "Narrative" might be the term assigned to any text or

discourse, or, it might be text used within the context of a mode of inquiry
in qualitative research (Chase, 2005), with a specific focus on the stories told
by individuals (Polkinghorne, 1995). As Pinnegar and Daynes (2006) sug-
gest, narrative can be both a method and the phenomenon of study. As a
method, it begins with the experiences as expressed in lived and told stories
of individuals. Writers have provided ways for analyzing and understanding
the stories lived and told. I will define it here as a specific type of qualitative
design in which "narrative is understood as a spoken or written text giving
an account of an event/action or series of events/actions, chronologically
connected" (Czarniawska, 2004, p. 17). The procedures for implementing
this research consist of focusing on studying one or two individuals, gather-
ing data through the collection of their stories, reporting individual experi-
ences, and chronologically ordering (or using life course stages) the meaning
of those experiences.
Although narrative research originated from literature, history, anthro-
pology, sociology, sociolinguistics, and education, different fields of study
have adopted their own approaches (Chase, 2005). I find a postmodern,
organizational orientation in Czarniawska (2004); a human developmental
perspective in Daiute and Lightfoot (2004); a psychological approach in
Lieblich, Tuval-Mashiach, and Zilber (1998); sociological approaches in
Cortazzi (1993) and Riessman (1993); and quantitative (e.g., statistical sto-
ries in event history modeling) and qualitative approaches in Elliott (2005).
Interdisciplinary efforts at narrative research have also been encouraged
by the Narrative Study of Lives annual series that began in 1993 (see,
e.g., Josselson & Lieblich, 1993), and the journal Narrative Inquiry. With
many recent books on narrative research, it is indeed a "field in the making"
(Chase, 2005, p. 651). In the discussion of narrative procedures, I rely on
an accessible book written for social scientists called Narrative Inquiry
(Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) that addresses "what narrative researchers
do" (p. 48).

Types of Narrative Studies

One approach to narrative research is to differentiate types of narrative
research by the analytic strategies used by authors. Polkinghorne (1995)
takes this approach and distinguishes between "analysis of narratives"
(p. 12), using paradigm thinking to create descriptions of themes that hold
across stories or taxonomies of types of stories, and "narrative analysis," in
which researchers collect descriptions of events or happenings and then con-
figure them into a story using a plot line. Polkinghorne (1995) goes on to
Five Qualitative Approaches to Inquiry 55

emphasize the second form in his writings. More recently, Chase (2005)
presents an approach closely allied with Polki\lghorne's "analysis of narra-
tives." Chase suggests that researchers may use paradigmatic reasons for a
narrative study, such as how individuals are enabled and constrained by
social resources, socially situated i~ interactive performances, and how nar-
rators develop interpretations.
A second approach is to emphasize the variety of forms found in narra-
tive research practices (see, e.g., Casey, 1995/1996). A biographical study is
a form of narrative study in which the researcher writes and records the
experiences of another person's life. Antobiography is written and recorded
by the individuals who are the subject of the study (Ellis, 2004). A life
history portrays an individual's entire life, while a personal experience story
is a narrative study of an individual's personal experience found in single or
multiple episodes, private situations, or communal folklore (Denzin, 1989a) .
•An oral history consists of gathering personal reflections of events and
their causes and effects from one individual or several individuals (Plummer,
1983). Narrative studies may have a specific contextual focus, such as
teachers or children in classrooms (Ollerenshaw & Creswell, 2002), or the
stories told about organizations (Czarniawska, 2004). Narratives may be
guided by a theoretical lens or perspective. The lens may be used to advocate
for Latin Americans through using testimonios (Beverly, 2005), or it may be
a feminist lens used to report the stories of women (see, e.g., Personal
Narratives Group, 1989), a lens that shows how women's voices are muted,
multiple, and contradictory (Chase, 2005).

Procedures for Conducting Narrative Research

Using the approach taken by Clandinin and Connelly (2000) as a general
procedural guide, the methods of conducting a narrative study do not follow
a lock-step approach, but instead represent an informal collection of topics.

1. Determine if the research problem or question best fits narrative

research. Narrative research is best for capturing the detailed stories or life
experiences of a single life or the lives of a small number of individuals.
2. Select one or more individuals who have stories or life experiences to
tell, and spend considerable time with them gathering their stories through
multiples types of information. Clandinin and Connelly (2000) refer to the
stories as "field texts." Research participants may record their stories in a jour-
nal or diary, or the researcher might observe the individuals and record field-
notes. Researchers may also collect letters sent by the individuals; assemble
56 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

stories about the individuals from family members; gather documents such
as memos or official correspondence about the individual; or obtain pho-
tographs, memory boxes (collection of items that trigger memories), and other
personal-family-social artifacts. After examining these sources, the researcher
records the individuals' life experiences.
3. Collect information about the context of these stories.. Narrative
researchers situate individual stories within participants' personal experi-
ences (their jobs, their homes), their culture (racial or ethnic), and their his-
torical contexts (time and place).
4. Analyze the participants' stories, and then "restori' them into a
framework that makes sense. Restorying is the process of reorganizing the
stories into some general type of framework. This framework may consist of
gathering stories, analyzing them for key elements of the story (e.g., time,
place, plot, and scene), and then rewriting the stories to place them within
a chronological sequence (Ollerenshaw & Creswell, 2000). Often when
individuals tell their stories, they do not present them in a chronological
sequence. During the process of restorying, the researcher provides a causal
link among ideas. Cortazzi (1993) suggests that the chronology of narrative
research, with an emphasis on sequence, sets narrative apart from other gen-
res of research. One aspect of the chronology is that the stories have a begin-
ning, a middle, and an end. Similar to basic elements found in good novels,
these aspects involve a predicament, conflict, or struggle; a protagonist, or
main character; and a sequence with implied causality (i.e., a plot) during
which the predicament is resolved in some fashion (Carter, 1993). A
chronology further may consist of past, present, and future ideas (Clandinin
& Connelly, 2000), based on the assumption that time has a unilinear direc-
tion (Polkinghorne, 1995). In a more general sense, the story might include
other elements typically found in novels, such as time, place, and scene
(Connelly & Clandinin, 1990). The plot, or story line, may also include
Clandinin and Connelly's (2000) three-dimensional narrative inquiry space:
the personal and social (the interaction); the past, present, and future (con-
tinuity); and the place (situation). This story line may include information
about the setting or context of the participants' experiences. Beyond the
chronology, researchers might detail themes that arise from the story to
provide a more detailed discussion of the meaning of the story (Huber &
Whelan, 1999). Thus, the qualitative data analysis may be a description of
both the story and themes that emerge from it. A postmodern narrative
writer, such as Czarniawska (2004), would add another element to the
analysis: a deconstruction of the stories, an unmaking of them by such ana-
lytic strategies as exposing dichotomies, examining silences, and attending
to disruptions and contractions.
Five Qualitative Approaches to Inquiry 57

5. Collaborate with participants by actively involving them in the

research (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). As re~earchers collect stories, they
negotiate relationships, smooth transitions, and provide ways to be useful to
the participants. In narrative research, a key theme has been the turn toward
the relationship between the researcher and the researched in which both
parties will learn and change in the encounter (Pinnegar & Daynes, 2006).
In this process, the parties negotiate the meaning of the stories, adding a val-
idation check to the analysis (Creswell & Miller, 2000). Within the partici-
pant's story may also be an interwoven story of the researcher gaining
insight into her or his own life (see Huber & Whelan, 1999). Also, within
the story may be epiphanies or turning points in which the story line changes
direction dramatically. In the end, the narrative study tells the story of indi-
viduals unfolding in a chronology of their experiences, set within their per-
sonal, social, and historical context, and including the important themes in
'those lived experiences. "Narrative inquiry is stories lived and told," said
Clandinin and Connolly (2000, p. 20).

Challenges
Given these procedures and the characteristics of narrative research, nar-
rative research is a challenging approach to use. The researcher needs to col-
lect extensive information about the participant, and needs to have a clear
understanding of the context of the individual's life. It takes a keen eye to
identify in the source material gathered the particular stories that capture
the individual's experiences. As Edel (1984) comments, it is important
to uncover the "figure under the carpet" that explains the multilayered con-
text of a life. Active collaboration with the participant is necessary, and
researchers need to discuss the participant's stories as well as be reflective
about their own personal and political background, which shapes how they
"restory" the account. Multiple issues arise in the collecting, analyzing, and
telling of individual stories. Pinnegar and Daynes (2006) raise these impor-
tant questions: Who owns the story? Who can tell it? Who can change it?
Whose version is convincing? What happens when narratives compete? As a
community, what do stories do among us?

Phenomenological Research

Definition and Background

Whereas a narrative study reports the life of a single individual, a phe-
nomenological study describes the meaning for several individuals of their
lived experiences of a concept or a phenomenon. Phenomenologists focus on
58 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

describing what all participants have in common as they experience a

phenomenon (e.g., grief is universally experienced). The basic purpose of
phenomenology is to reduce individual experiences with a phenomenon to a
description of the universal essence (a "grasp of the very nature of the thing,"
van Manen, 1990, p. 177). To this end, qualitative researchers identify a phe-
nomenon (an "object" of human experience; van Manen, 1990, p. 163). This
human experience may be phenomena such as insomnia, being left out, anger,
grief, or undergoing coronary artery bypass surgery (Moustakas, 1994). The
inquirer then collects data from persons who have experienced the phenom-
enon, and develops a composite description of the essence of the experience
for all of the individuals. This description consists of "what" they experienced
and "how" they experienced it (Moustakas, 1994).
Beyond these procedures, phenomenology has a strong philosophical com-
ponent to it. It draws heavily on the writings of the German mathematician
Edmund Hussed (1859-1938) and those who expanded on his views, such
as Heidegger, Sartre, and Medeau-Ponty (Spiegelberg, 1982). Phenomenol-
ogy is popular in the social and health sciences, especially in sociology
(Borgatta & Borgatta, 1992; Swingewood, 1991), psychology (Giorgi, 1985;
Polkinghorne, 1989), nursing and the health sciences (Nieswiadomy, 1993;
Oiler, 1986), and education (Tesch, 1988; van Manen, 1990). Hussed's ideas
are abstract, and, as late as 1945, Merleau-Ponty (1962) still raised the ques-
tion, "What is phenomenology?" In fact, Husserl was known to call any proj-
ect currently under way "phenomenology" (Natanson, 1973).
Writers following in the footsteps of Hussed also seem to point to differ-
ent philosophical arguments for the use of phenomenology today (contrast,
for example, the philosophical basis stated in Moutakas, 1994; in Stewart
and Mickunas, 1990; and in van Manen, 1990). Looking across all of these
perspectives, however, we see that the philosophical assumptions rest on
some common grounds: the study of the lived experiences of persons,
the view that these experiences are conscious ones (van Manen, 1990),
and the development of descriptions of the essences of these experiences, not
explanations or analyses (Moustakas, 1994). At a broader level, Stewart
and Mickunas (1990) emphasize four philosophical perspectives in
phenomenology:

• A return to the traditional tasks of philosophy. By the end of the 19th century,
philosophy had become limited to exploring a world by empirical means,
which was called "scientism." The return to the traditional tasks of philoso-
phy that existed before philosophy became enamored with empirical science is
a return to the Greek conception of philosophy as a search for wisdom.
• A philosophy without presuppositions. Phenomenology's approach is to sus-
pend all judgments about what is real-the "natural attitude" -until they are
Five Qualitative Approaches to Inquiry 59

founded on a more certain basis. This suspension is called "epoche" by

Husserl.
$ The intentionality of consciousness. This idea is that consciousness is always
directed toward an object. Reality of an object, then, is inextricably related to
one's consciousness of it. Thus, reality, according to Hussed, is not divided
into subjects and objects, but into the dual Cartesian nature of both subjects
and objects as they appear in consciousness.
• The refusal of the subject-object dichotomy. This theme flows naturally from
the intentionality of consciousness. The reality of all object is only perceived
within the meaning of the experience of an individual.

An individual writing a phenomenology would be remiss to not include

some discussion about the philosophical presuppositions of phenomenology
along with the methods in this form of inquiry. Moustakas (1994) devotes
over one hundred pages to the philosophical assumptions before he turns to
•
the methods.

Types of Phenomenology
Two approaches to phenomenology are highlighted in this discussion:
hermeneutic phenomenology (van Manen, 1990) and empirical, transcenden-
tal, or psychological phenomenology (Moustakas, 1994). Van Manen (1990)
is widely cited in the health literature (Morse & Field, 1995). An educator, van
Manen, has written an instructive book on hermeneutical phenomenology in
which he describes research as oriented toward lived experience (phenomenol-
ogy) and interpreting the "texts" of life (hermeneutics) (van Manen, 1990,
p. 4). Although van Manen does not approach phenomenology with a set of
rules or methods, he discusses phenomenology research as a dynamic interplay
among six research activities. Researchers first turn to a phenomenon, an
"abiding concern" (p. 31), which seriously interests them (e.g., reading, run-
ning, driving, mothering). In the process, they reflect on essential themes, what
constitutes the nature of this lived experience. They write a description of the
phenomenon, maintaining a strong relation to the topic of inquiry and bal-
ancing the parts of the writing to the whole. Phenomenology is not only a
description, but it is also seen as an interpretive process in which the researcher
makes an interpretation (i.e., the researcher "mediates" between different
meanings; van Manen, 1990, p. 26) of the meaning of the lived experiences.
Moustakas's (1994) transcendental or psychological phenomenology is
focused less on the interpretations of the researcher and more on a descrip-
tion of the experiences of participants. In addition, Moustakas focuses on one
of Hussed's concepts, epoche (or bracketing), in which investigators set aside
their experiences, as much as possible, to take a fresh perspective toward the
60 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

phenomenon under examination. Hence, '''transcendental'' means "in which

everything is perceived freshly, as if for the first time" (Moustakas, 1994,
p. 34). Moustakas admits that this state is seldom perfectly achieved.
However, I see researchers who embrace this idea when they begin a project
by describing their own experiences with the phenomenon and bracketing out
their views before proceeding with the experiences of others.
Besides bracketing, empirical, transcendental phenomenology draws on
the Duquesne Studies in Phenomenological Psychology (e.g., Giorgi, 1985)
and the data analysis procedures of Van Kaam (1966) and Colaizzi (1978).
The procedures, illustrated by Moustakas (1994), consist of identifying a
phenomenon to study, bracketing out one's experiences, and collecting data
from several persons who have experienced the phenomenon. The researcher
then analyzes the data by reducing the information to significant statements
or quotes and combines the statements into themes. Following that, the
researcher develops a textural description of the experiences of the persons
(what participants experienced), a structural description of their experiences
(how they experienced it in terms of the conditions, situations, or context),
and a combination of the textural and structural descriptions to convey an
overall essence of the experience.

Procedures for Conducting Phenomenological Research

I use the psychologist Moustakas's (1994) approach because it has sys-
tematic steps in the data analysis procedure and guidelines for assembling
the textual and structural descriptions. The conduct of psychological phe-
nomenology has been addressed in a number of writings, including Dukes
(1984), Tesch (1990), Giorgi (1985, 1994), Polkinghorne (1989), and, most
recently, Moustakas (1994). The major procedural steps in the process
would be as follows:

• The researcher determines if the research problem is best examined

using a phenomenological approach. The type of problem best suited for
this form of research is one in which it is important to understand several
individuals' common or shared experiences of a phenomenon. It would be
important to understand these common experiences in order to develop
practices or policies, or to develop a deeper understanding about the fea-
tures of the phenomenon.
• A phenomenon of interest to study, such as anger, professionalism,
what it means to be underweight, or what it means to be a wrestler, is iden-
tified. Moustakas (1994) provides numerous examples of phenomena that
have been studied.
Five Qualitative Approaches to Inquiry 61

• The researcher recognizes and specifies the broad philosophical

assumptions of phenomenology. For example, one could write about the
combination of objective reality and individual experiences. These lived
experiences are furthermore "conscious" and directed toward an object. To
fully describe how participants view the phenomenon, researchers must
bracket out, as much as possible, their own experiences.
• Data are collected from the individuals who have experienced the phe-
nomenon.Often data collection in phenomenological studies consists of in-
depth interviews and multiple interviews with participants. Polkinghorne
(1989) recommends that researchers interview from 5 to 25 individuals who
have all experienced the phenomenon. Other forms of data may also be col-
lected, such as observations, journals, art, poetry, music, and other forms
of art. Van Manen (1990) mentions taped conversations, formally written
. . responses, accounts of vicarious experiences of drama, films, poetry,
and novels.
• The participants are asked two broad, general questions (Moustakas,
1994): What have you experienced in terms of the phenomenon? What con-
texts or situations have typically influenced or affected your experiences of
the phenomenon? Other open-ended questions may also be asked, bnt these
two, especially, focus attention on gathering data that will lead to a textural
description and a structural description of the experiences, and ultimately
provide an understanding of the common experiences of the participants.

• Phenomenological data analysis steps are generally similar for all

psychological phenomenologists who discuss the methods (Moustakas,
1994; Polkinghorne, 1989). Building on the data from the first and second
research questions, data analysts go through the data (e.g., interview tran-
scriptions) and highlight "significant statements," sentences, or quotes that
provide an understanding of how the participants experienced the phe-
nomenon. Moustakas (1994) calls this step horizonalization. Next, the
researcher develops clusters of meaning from these significant statements
into themes.
• These significant statements and themes are then used to write a des-
cription of what the participants experienced (textural description). They are
also used to write a description of the context or setting that influenced how
the participants experienced the phenomenon, called imaginative variation
or structural description. Moustakas (1994) adds a further step: Researchers
also write abour their own experiences and the context and situations
that have influenced their experiences. I like to shorten Moustakas's pro-
cedures, and reflect these personal statements at the beginning of the
62 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

phenomenology or include them in a methods discussion of the role of the

researcher (Marshall & Rossman, 2006).
• From the structural and textural descriptions, the researcher then
writes a composite description that presents the "essence" of the phenome-
non, called the essential, invariant structure (or essence). Primarily this
passage focuses on the common experiences of the participants. For exam-
ple, it means that all experiences have an underlying structure (grief is the
same whether the loved one is a puppy, a parakeet, or a child). It is a
descriptive passage, a long paragraph or two, and the reader should come
away from the phenomenology with the feeling, "1 understand better what
it is like for someone to experience that" (Polkinghorne, 1989, p. 46).

Challenges
A phenomenology provides a deep understanding of a phenomenon as
experienced by several individuals. Knowing some common experiences can
be valuable for groups such as therapists, teachers, health personnel, and
policymakers. Phenomenology can involve a streamlined form of data col-
lection by including only single or multiple interviews with participants.
Using the Moustakas (1994) approach for analyzing the data helps provide
a structured approach for novice researchers. On the other hand, phenome-
nology requires at least some understanding of the broader philosophical
assumptions, and these should be identified by the researcher. The partici-
pants in the study need to be carefully chosen to be individuals who have all
experienced the phenomenon in question, so that the researcher, in the end,
can forge a common understanding. Bracketing personal experiences may be
difficult for the researcher to implement. An interpretive approach to phe-
nomenology would signal this as an impossibility (van Manen, 1990)-for
the researcher to become separated from the text. Perhaps we need a new
definition of epoche or bracketing, such as suspending our understandings in
a reflective move that -cultivates curiosity (LeVasseur, 2003). Thus, the
researcher needs to decide how and in what way his or her personal under-
standings will be introduced into the study.

Grounded Theory Research

Definition and Background

Although a phenomenology emphasizes the meaning of an experience for
a number of individuals, the intent of a grounded theory study is to move
Five Qualitative Approaches to Inquiry 63

beyond description and to generate or discover a theory, an abstract

analytical schema of a process (or action or int,eraction, Strauss & Corbin,
1998).,Parricipants in the study would all have experienced the process, and
the development of the theory might help explain practice or provide a
framework for further research. A key idea is that this theory-development
does not come "off the shelf," but rather is generated or "grounded" in data
from participants who have experienced the process (Strauss & Corbin,
1998). Thus, grounded theory is a qualitative research design in which the
inquirer generates a general explanation (a theory) of a process, action, or
interaction shaped by the views of a large number of participants (Strauss &
Corbin, 1998).
This qualitative design was developed in sociology in 1967 by two
researchers, Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss, who felt that theories used
in research were often inappropriate and ill-suited for participants under
study. They elaborated on their ideas through several books (Glaser, 1978;
Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss, 1987; Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1998). In
contrast to the a priori, theoretical orientations in sociology, grounded the-
orists held that theories should be "grounded" in data from'the field, espe-
cially in the actions, interactions, and social processes of people. Thus,
grounded theory provided for the generation of a theory (complete with a
diagram and hypotheses) of actions, interactions, or processes through inter-
relating categories of information based on data collected from individuals.
Despite the initial collaboration of Glaser and Strauss that produced such
works as Awareness of Dying (Glaser & Strauss, 1965) and Time for Dying
(Glaser & Strauss, 1968), the two authors ultimately disagreed about the
meaning and procedures of grounded theory. Glaser has criticized Strauss's
approach to grounded theory as too prescribed and structured (Glaser,
1992). More recently, Charmaz (2006) has advocated for a constructivist
grounded theory, thus introducing yet another perspective into the conver-
sation about procedures. Through these different interpretations, grounded
theory has gained popularity in fields such as sociology, nursing, education,
and psychology, as well as in other social science fields.
Another recent grounded theory perspective is that of Clarke (2005) who,
along with Charmaz, seeks to reclaim grounded theory from its "positivist
underpinnings" (p. xxiii). Clarke, however, goes further than Charmaz, sug-
gesting that social "situations" should form our unit of analysis in grounded
theory and that three sociological modes can be useful in analyzing these sit-
uations-situational, social world/arenas, and positional cartographic maps
for collecting and analyzing qualitative data. She further expands grounded
theory "after the postmodern turn" (p. xxiv) and relies on postmodern per-
spectives (i.e., the political nature of research and interpretation, reflexivity
64 QuaUtative Inquiry and Research Design

on the part of researchers, a recognition of problems of representing

information, questions of legitimacy and authoriry, and repositioning the
researcher away from the "all knowing analyst" to the "acknowledged par-
ticipant") (pp. xxvii, xxviii). Clarke frequently turns to the postmodern, post-
structural writer Michael Foucault (1972) to help turn the grounded theory
discourse.

Types of Grounded Theory Studies

The two popular approaches to grounded theory are the systematic pro-
cedures of Strauss and Corbin (1990, 1998) and the constructivist approach
of Charmaz (2005, 2006). In the more systematic, analytic procedures of
Strauss and Corbin (1990, 1998), the investigator seeks to systematically
develop a theory that explains process, action, or interaction on a topic (e.g.,
the process of developing a curriculum, the therapeutic benefits of sharing
psychological test results with clients). The researcher typically conducts
20 to 30 interviews based on several visits "to the field" to collect interview
data to saturate the categories (or find information that continues to add to
them until no more can be found). A category represents a unit of informa-
tion composed of events, happenings, and instances (Strauss & Corbin,
1990). The researcher also collects and analyzes observations and docu-
ments, but these data forms are often not used. While the researcher collects
data, she or he begins analysis. My image for data collection in a grounded
theory study is a "zigzag" process: out to the field to gather information,
into the office to analyze the data, back to the field to gather more informa-
tion, into the office, and so forth. The participants interviewed are theoreti-
cally chosen (called theoretical sampling) to help the researcher best form
the theory. How many passes one makes to the field depends on whether the
categories of information become saturated and whether the theory is elab-
orated in all of its complexity. This process of taking information from data
collection and comparing it to emerging categories is called the constant
comparative method of data analysis.
The researcher begins with open coding, coding the data for its major cat-
egories of information. From this coding, axial coding emerges in which the
researcher identifies one open coding category to focus on (called the "core"
phenomenon), and then goes back to the data and create categories around
this core phenomenon. Strauss and Corbin (1990) prescribe the types of cat-
egories identified around the core phenomenon. They consist of causal con-
ditions (what factors caused the core phenomenon), strategies (actions taken
in response to the core phenomenon), contextual and intervening conditions
(broad and specific situational factors that influence the strategies), and
Five Qualitative Approaches to Inquiry 65

consequences (outcomes from using the strategies). These categories relate

to and surround the core phenomenon in a visual model called the axial
coding paradigm. The final step, then, is selective coding, in which the
researcher takes the model and develops propositions (or hypotheses) that
interrelate the categories in the model or assembles a story that describes the
interrelationship of categories in the model. This theory, developed by the
researcher, is articulated toward the end of a study and can assume several
forms, such as a narrative statement (Strauss & Corbin, 1990), a visual pic-
ture (Morrow & Smith, 1995), or a series of hypotheses or propositions
(Creswell & Brown, 1992).
In their discussion of grounded theory, Strauss and Corbin (1998) take
the model one step further to develop a conditional matrix. They advance
the conditional matrix as a coding device to help the researcher make con-
nections between the macro and the micro conditions influencing the phe-
'nomenon. This matrix is a set of expanding concentric circles with labels
that build outward from the individual, group, and organization to the com-
munity, region, nation, and global world. In my experience, this matrix is
seldom used in grounded theory research, and researchers typicaily end their
studies with a theory developed in selective coding, a theory that might be
viewed as a substantive, low-level theory rather than an abstract, grand
theory (e.g., see Creswell & Brown, 1992). Although making connections
between the substantive theory and its larger implications for the commu-
nity, nation, and world in the conditional matrix is important (e.g., a model
of work flow in a hospital, the shortage of gloves, and the national guide-
lines on AIDS may all be connected; see this example provided by Strauss &
Corbin, 1998), grounded theorists seldom have the data, time, or resources
to employ the conditional matrix.
A second variant of grounded theory is found in the constructivist writing
of Charmaz (see Charmaz, 2005, 2006). Instead of embracing the study of a
single process or core category as in the Strauss and Corbin (1998) approach,
Charmaz advocates for a social constructivist perspective that includes
emphasizing diverse local worlds, multiple realities, and the complexities of
particular worlds, views, and actions. Constructivist grounded theory,
according to Charmaz (2006), lies squarely within the interpretive approach
to qualitative research with flexible guidelines, a focus on theory developed
that depends on the researcher's view, learning about the experience within
embedded, hidden networks, situations, and relationships, and making visi-
ble hierarchies of power, communication, and opportunity. Charmaz places
more emphasis on the views, values, beliefs, feelings, assumptions, and ide-
ologies of individuals than on the methods of research, although she does
describe the practices of gathering rich data, coding the data, memoing, and
66 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

using theoretical sampling (Charmaz, 2006). She suggests that complex terms
or jargon, diagrams, conceptual maps, and systematic approaches (such as
Strauss & Corbin, 1990) detract from grounded theory and represent an
attempt to gain power in their use. She advocates using active codes, such
as gerund-based phrases like "recasting life." Moreover, for Charmaz, a
grounded theory procedure does not minimize the role of the researcher in the
process. The researcher makes decisions about the categories throughout the
process, brings questions to the data, and advances personal values, experi-
ences, and priorities. Any conclusions developed by grounded theorisrs are,
according to Charmaz (2005), suggestive, incomplete, and inconclusive.

Procedures for Conducting Grounded Theory Research

Although Charmaz's interpretive approach has many attractive elements
(e.g., reflexivity, being flexible in strucrure, as discussed in Chapter 2), I rely
on Strauss and Corbin (1990, 1998) to illustrate grounded theory proce-
dures because their systematic approach is helpful to individuals learning
about and applying grounded theory research.

• The researcher needs to begin by determining if grounded theory is

best suited to study his or her research problem. Grounded theory is a good
design to use when a theory is not available to explain a process. The liter-
ature may have models available, but they were developed and tested on
samples and populations other than those of interest to the qualitative
researcher. Also, theories may be present, but they are incomplete because
they do not address potentially valuable variables of interest to the researcher.
On the practical side, a theory may be needed to explain how people are
experiencing a phenomenon, and the grounded theoty developed by the
researcher will provide such a general framework.
• The research questions that the inquirer asks of participants will focus
on understanding how' individuals experience the process and identifying
the steps in the process (What was the process? How did it unfold?). Aftet
initially exploring these issues, the researcher then returns to the partici-
pants and asks more detailed questions that help to shape the axial coding
phase, questions such as: What was central to the process? (the core phe-
nomenon); What influenced or caus~d this phenomenon to occur? (causal
conditions); What strategies were employed during the process? (strategies);
What effect occurred? (consequences).
• These questions are typically asked in interviews, although other
forms of data may also be collected, such as observations, documents, and
audiovisual materials. The point is to gather enough information to fully
Five Qualitative Approaches to Inquiry 67

develop (or saturate) the model. This may involve 20 to 30 interviews or

50 to 60 interviews.
• the analysis of the data proceeds in stages. In open coding, the
researcher forms categories of information about the phenomenon being
studied by segmenting information. Within each category, the investigator
finds several properties, or subcategories, and looks for data to dimension-
alize, or show the extreme possibilities on a continuum of, the property.
• In axial coding, the investigator assembles the data in new ways after
open coding. This is presented using a coding paradigm or logic diagram (i.e.,
a visual model) in which the researcher identifies a central phenomenon (i.e., a
central category about the phenomenon), explores causal conditions (i.e., cate-
gories of conditions that influence the phenomenon), specifies strategies (i.e., the
actions or interactions that result from the central phenomenon), identifies the
'context and intervening conditions (i.e., the narrow and broad conditions that
influence the strategies), and delineates the consequences (i.e., the outcomes of
the strategies) for this phenomenon.
• In selective coding, the researcher may write a ~'story line" that con-
nects the categories. Alternatively, propositions or hypotheses may be spec-
ified that state predicted relationships.
• Finally, the researcher may develop and visually portray a conditional
matrix that elucidates the social, historical, and economic conditions influ-
encing the central phenomenon. It is an optional step and one in which the
qualitative inquirer thinks about the model from the smallest to the broad-
est perspective.
• The result of this process of data collection and analysis is a theory, a
substantive-level theory, written by a researcher close to a specific problem
or population of people. The theory emerges with help from the process of
memoing, a process in which the researcher writes down ideas about the
evolving theory throughout the process of open, axial, and selective coding.
The substantive-level theory may be tested later for its empirical verification
with quantitative data to determine if it can be generalized to a sample and
population (see mixed methods design procedures, Creswell & PIano Clark,
2007). Alternatively, the study may end at this point with the generation of
a theory as the goal of the research.

Challenges
A grounded theory study challenges researchers for the following reasons.
The investigator needs to set aside, as much as possible, theoretical ideas or
68 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

notions so that the analytic, substantive theory can emerge. Despite the
evolving, inductive nature of this form of qualitative inquiry, the researcher
must recognize that this is a systematic approach to research with specific
steps in data analysis, if approached from the Strauss and Corbin (1990) per-
spective. The researcher faces the difficulty of determining when categories
are saturated or when the theory is sufficiently detailed. One strategy that
might be used to move toward saturation is to use discriminant sampling,
in which the researchers gathered additional information from individuals
similar to those people initially interviewed to determine if the theory holds
true for these additional participants. The researcher needs to recognize that
the primary outcome of this study is a theory with specific components: a
central phenomenon, causal conditions, strategies, conditIons and context,
and consequences. These are prescribed categories of information in the
theory, so the Strauss and Corbin (1990, 1998) approach may not have the
flexibility desired by some qualitative researchers. In this case, the Charmaz
(2006) approach, which is less structured and more adaptable, may be used.

Ethnographic Research

Definition and Background

Although a grounded theory researcher develops a theory from examin-
ing many individuals who share in the same process, action, or interaction,
the study participants are not likely to be located in the same place or inter-
acting on so frequent a basis that they develop shared patterns of behavior,
beliefs, and language. An ethnographer is interested in examining these
shared patterns, and the unit of analysis is larger than the 20 or so individ-
uals involved in a grounded theory study. An ethnography focuses on an
entire cultural group. Granted, sometimes this cultural group may be small
(a few teachers, a few social workers), but typically it is large, involving
many people who interact over time (teachers in an entire school, a commu-
nity social work group). Ethnography is a qualitative design in which the
researcher describes and interprets the shared and learned patterns of values,
behaviors, beliefs, and language of a culture-sharing group (Harris, 1968).
As both a process and an outcome of research (Agar, 1980), ethuography is
a way of studying a culture-sharing group as well as the final, written prod-
uct of that research. As a process, 'ethnography involves extended obser-
vations of the group, most often through participant observation, in which
the researcher is immersed in the day-to-day lives of the people and observes
and interviews the group participants. Ethnographers study the meaning of
Five Qualitative Approaches to Inquiry 69

the behavior, the language, and the interaction among members of the
culture-sharing group.
Ethnography had its beginning in the comparative cultural anthr()pology
conducted by early 20th-century anthropologists, such as Boas, Malinowski,
Radcliffe-Brown, and Mead. Although these researchers initially took the
natural sciences as a model for research, they differed from those using tra-
ditional scientific approaches through the firsthand collection of data con-
cerning existing "primitive" cultures (Atkinson & Hammersley, 1994). In
the 1920s and 1930s, sociologists such as Park, Dewey, and Mead at the
University of Chicago adapted anthropological field methods to the study of
cultural groups in the United States (Bogdan & Biklen, 1992). Recently, sci-
entific approaches to ethnography have expanded to include "schools" or
subtypes of ethnography with different theoretical orientations and aims,
such as structural functionalism, symbolic interactionism, cultural and cog-
ditive anthropology, feminism, Marxism, ethnomethodology, critical theory,
cultural studies, and postmodernism (Atkinson & Hammersley, 1994). This
has led to a lack of orthodoxy in ethnography and has resulted in pluralistic
approaches. Many excellent books are available on ethnography, including
Van Maanen (1988) on the many forms of ethnography; Woleott (1999) on
ways of "seeing" ethnography; LeCompte and Schensul (1999) on proce-
dures of ethnography presented in a toolkit of short books; Atkinson,
Coffey, and Delamont (2003)'on the practices of ethnography; and Madison
(2005) on critical ethnography.

Types of Ethnographies
There are many forms of ethnography, such as a confessional ethnogra-
phy, life history, autoethnography, feminist ethnography, ethnographic
novels, and the visual ethnography found in photography and video, and
electronic media (Denzin, 1989a; LeCompte, Millroy, & Preissle, 1992;
Pink, 2001; Van Maanen, 1988). Two popular forms of ethnography will be
emphasized here: the realist ethnography and the critical ethnography.
The realist ethnography is a traditional approach used by cultural anthro-
pologists. Characterized by Van Maanen (1988), it reflects a particular stance
taken by the researcher toward the individuals being studied. Realist ethnog-
raphy is an objective account of the situation, typically written in the third-
person point of view and reporting objectively on the information learned
from participants at a site. In this ethnographic approach, the realist ethnog-
rapher narrates the study in a third-person dispassionate voice and reports on
what is observed or heard from participants. The ethnographer remains in the
70 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

background as an omniscient reporter of the "facts." The realist also reports

objective data in a measured style uncontaminated by personal bias, political
goals, and judgment. The researcher may provide mundane details of every-
day life among the people studied. The ethnographer also uses standard cat-
egories for cultural description (e.g., family life, communication networks,
worklife, social networks, status systems). The ethnographer produces the
participants' views through closely edited quotations and has the final word
on how the culture is to be interpreted and presented.
For many researchers, ethnography today employs a "critical" approach
(Carspecken & Apple, 1992; Madison, 2005; Thomas, 1993) by includirig
in the research an advocacy perspective. This approach is in response to cur-
rent society, in which the systems of power, prestige, privilege, and author-
ity serve to marginalize individuals who are from different classes, races,
and genders. The critical ethnography is a type of ethnographic research in
which the authors advocate for the emancipation of groups marginalized in
society (Thomas, 1993). Critical researchers typically are politically minded
individuals who seek, through their research, to speak out against inequality
and domination (Carspecken & Apple, 1992). For example, critical ethnog-
raphers might study schools that provide privileges to certain types of
students, or counseling practices that serve to overlook the needs of under-
represented groups. The major components of a critical ethnography include
a value-laden orientation, empowering people by giving them more author-
ity, challenging the status quo, and addressing concerns about power and
control. A critical ethnographer will study issues of power, empowerment,
inequality, inequity, dominance, repression, hegemony, and victimization.

Procedures for Conducting an Ethnography

As with all qualitative inquiry, there is no single way to conduct the
research in an ethnography. Although current writings provide more guid-
ance to this approach than ever (for example, see the excellent overview
found in Wolcott, 1999), the approach taken here includes elements of both
realist ethnography and critical approaches. The steps I would use to con-
duct an ethnography are as follows:

• Determine if ethnography is the most appropriate design to use to study

the research problem. Ethnography is appropriate if the needs are to describe
how a cultural group works and to explore the beliefs, language, behaviors,
and issues such as power, resistance, and dominance. The literature may be
deficient in actually knowing how the group works because the group is not
in the mainstream, people may not be familiar with the group, or its ways are
so different that readers may not identify with the group.
Five Qualitative Approaches to Inquiry 71

• Identify and locate a culture-sharing group to study. Typically, this

group is one that has been together for an extet:tded period of time, so that
their shared language, patterns of behavior, and attitudes have merged into
a discernable pattern. This may also be a group that has been marginalized
by society. Because ethnographers spend time talking with and observing
this group, access may require finding one or more individuals in the group
who will allow the researcher in-a gatekeeper or key informants (or
participants).

• Select cultural themes or issues to study about the group. This involves
the analysis of the culture-sharing group. The themes may include such top-
ics as enculturation, socialization, learning, cognition, domination, inequal-
ity, or child and adult development (LeCompte, Millroy, & Preissle, 1992).
As discussed by Hammersley and Atkinson (1995), Woleott (1987, 1994b),
and Fetterman (1998), the ethnographer begins the study by examining
people in interaction in ordinary settings and by attempting to discern perva-
sive patterns such as life cycles, events, and cultural themes. Culture is an
amorphous term, not something "lying about" (Woleott, 1987, p. 41), but
something researchers attribute to a group when looking for patterns of their
social world. It is inferred from the words and actions of members of the
group, and it is assigned to this group by the researcher. It consists of what
people do (behaviors), what they say (language), the potential tension
between what they do and ought to do, and what they make and use, such
as artifacts (Spradley, 1980). Such themes are diverse, as illustrated in
Winthrop's (1991) Dictionary of Concepts in Cultural Anthropology.
Fetterman (1998) discusses how ethnographers describe a holistic perspective
of the group's history, religion, politics, economy, and environment. Within
this description, cultural concepts such as the social structure, kinship, the
political structure, and the social relations or function among members of the
group may be described.

• To study cultural concepts, determine which type of ethnography to

use. Perhaps how the group works needs to be described, or the critical
ethnography may need to expose issues such as power, hegemony, and to
advocate for certain groups. A critical ethnographer, for example, might
address an inequity in society or some part of it, use the research to advo-
cate and call for changes, and specify an issue to explore, such as inequal-
ity, dominance, oppression, or empowerment.

• Gather information where the group works and lives. This is called
fieldwork (Woleott, 1999). Gathering the types of information typically
needed in an ethnography involves going to the research site, respecting
the daily lives of individuals at the site, and collecting a wide variety of
72 QuaUtative Inquiry and Research Design

materials. Field issues of respect, reciprocity, deciding who owns the data,
and others are central to ethnography. Ethnographers bring a sensitivity to
fieldwork issues (Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995), such as attending to
how they gain access, giving back or reciprocity with the participants, and
being ethical in all aspects of the research, such as presenting themselves
and the study. LeCompte and Schensul (1999) organize types of ethno-
graphic data into observations, tests and measures, surveys, interviews, con-
tent analysis, interviews, elicitation methods, audiovisual methods, spatial
mapping, and network research. From the many sources collected, the
ethnographer analyzes the data for a description of the culture-sharing
group, themes that emerge from the group, and an overall interpretation
(Woleott, 1994b). The researcher begins by compiling a detailed description
of the culture-sharing group, focusing on a single event, on several activi-
ties, or on the group over a prolonged period of time. The ethnographer
moves into a theme analysis of patterns or topics that signifies how the cul-
tural group works and lives.
• Forge a working set of rules or patterns as the final product of this
analysis. The final product is a holistic cultural portrait of the group that
incorporates the views of the participants (emic) as well as the views of the
researcher (etic). It might also advocate for the needs of the group or sug-
gest changes in society to address needs of the group. As a result, the reader
learns about the culture-sharing group from both the participants and the
interpretation of the researcher. Other products may be more performance
based, such as theater productions, plays, or poems.

Challenges
Ethnography is challenging to use for the following reasons. The
researcher needs to have a grounding in cultural anthropology and the
meaning of a social-cultural system as well as the concepts typically explored
by ethnographers. The time to collect data is extensive, involving prolonged
time in the field. In many ethnographies, the narratives are written in a lit-
eraty, almost storytelling approach, an approach that may limit the audience
for the work and may be challenging for authors accustomed to traditional
approaches to writing social and human science research. There is a possi-
bility that the researcher will "go ,native" and be unable to complete the
study or be compromised in the study. This is but one issue in the complex
array of fieldwork issues facing ethnographers who venture into an unfa-
miliar cultural group or system. A sensitivity to the needs of individual stud-
ies is especially important, and the researcher needs to acknowledge his or
her impact on the people and the places being studied.
Five Qualitative Approaches to Inquiry 73

Case Study Research

Definition and Background

The entire culture-sharing group in ethnography may be considered a
case, but the intent in ethnography is to determine how the culture works
rather than to understand an issue or problem using the case as a specific
illustration. Thus, case study research involves the study of an issue explored
through one or more cases within a bounded system (i.e., a setting, a con-
text). Although Stake (2005) states that case study research is not a method-
ology but a choice of what is to be studied (Le., a case within a bounded
system), others present it as a strategy of inquiry, a methodology, or a com-
prehensive research strategy (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005; Merriam, 1998; Yin,
2003). I choose to view it as a methodology, a type of design in qualitative
research, or an object of study, as well as a product of the inquiry. Case
study research is a qualitative approach in which the investigator explores a
bounded system (a case) or multiple bounded systems (cases) over time,
through detailed, in-depth data collection involving multiple sources of
information (e.g., observations, interviews, audiovisual material, and docu-
ments and reports), and reports a case description and case-based themes.
For example, several programs (a multi-site study) or a single program (a
within-site study) may be selected for study.
The case study approach is familiar to social scientists because of its pop-
ularity in psychology (Freud), medicine (case analysis of a problem), law
(case law), and political science (case reports). Case study research has a
long, distinguished history across many disciplines. Hamel, Dufour, and
Fortin (1993) trace the origin of modern social science case studies through
anthropology and sociology. They cite anthropologist Malinowski's study of
the Trobriand Islands, French sociologist LePlay's study of families, and the
case studies of the Universiry of Chicago Department of Sociology from the
1920s and 30s through the 1950s (e.g., Thomas and Znaniecki's 1958 study
of Polish peasants in Europe and America) as antecedents of qualitative case
study research. Today, the case study writer has a large array of texts and
approaches from which to choose. Yin (2003), for example, espouses both
quantitative and qualitative approaches to case study development and dis-
cusses explanatory, exploratory, and descriptive qualitative case studies.
Merriam (1998) advocates a general approach to qualitative case studies in
the field of education. Stake (1995) systematically establishes procedures for
case study research and cites them extensively in his example of "Harper
School." Stake's most recent book on multiple case study analysis presents a
step-by-step approach and provides rich illustrations of multiple case studies
in the Ukraine, Slovakia, and Romania (Stake, 2006).
74 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Types of Case Studies

Types of qualitative case studies are distinguished by the size of the
bounded case, such as whether the case involves one individual, several indi-
viduals, a group, an entire program, or an activity. They may also be distin-
guished in terms of the intent of the case analysis. Three variations exist in
terms of intent: the single instrumental case study, the collective or multiple
case study, and the intrinsic case study. In a single instrumental case study
(Stake, 1995), the researcher focuses on an issue or concern, and then selects
one bounded case to illustrate this issue. In a collective case study (or mul-
tiple case study), the one issue or concern is again selected, but the inquirer
selects multiple case studies to illustrate the issue. The researcher might select
for study several programs from several research sites or multiple programs
within a single site. Often the inquirer purposefully selects multiple cases to
show different perspectives on the issue. Yin (2003) suggests that the multi-
ple case study design uses the logic of replication, in which the inquirer repli-
cates the procedures for each case. As a general rule, qualitative researchers
are reluctant to generalize from one case to another because the contexts of
cases differ. To best generalize, however, the inquirer needs to selectrepre-
sentative cases for inclusion in the qualitative study. The final type of case
study design is an intrinsic case study in which the focus is on the case itself
(e.g., evaluating a program, or studying a student having difficulty-see
Stake, 1995) because the case presents an unusual or unique situation. This
resembles the focus of narrative research, but the case study analytic proce-
dures of a detailed description of the case, set within its context or sur-
rouudings, still hold true.

Procedures for Conducting a Case Study

Several procedures are available for conducting case studies (see Merriam,
1998; Stake, 1995; Yin, 2003). This discussion will rely primarily on Stake's
(1995) approach to conducting a case study.

• First, researchers determine if a case study approach is appropriate to

the research problem. A case study is a good approach when the inquirer
has clearly identifiable cases with boundaries and seeks to provide an in-
depth understanding of the cases or a comparison of several cases.
• Researchers next need to identify their case or cases. These cases may
involve an individual, several individuals, a program, an event, or an activity.
In conducting case study research, I recommend that investigators first con-
sider what type of case study is most promising and useful. The case can be
single or collective, multi-sited or within-site, focused on a case or on an issue
,~

, '

Five QuaUtative Approaches to Inquiry 75

(intrinsic, instrumental) (Stake, 1995; Yin, 2003). In choosing which case to

study, ~an array of possibilities for purposeful sampling is available. I prefer
to select cases that show different perspectives on the problem, process, or
event I want to portray (called "purposeful maximal sampling,"; Creswell,
2005), but I also may select ordinary cases, accessible cases, or unusual cases.
• The data collection in case study research is typically extensive, draw-
ing on multiple sources of information, such as observations, interviews, doc-
uments, and audiovisual materials. For example, Yin (2003) recommends six
types of information to collect: documents, archival records, interviews,
direct observations, participant-observations, and physical artifacts.
• The type of analysis of these data can be a holistic analysis of the
entire case or an embedded analysis of a specific aspect of the case (Yin,
2003). Through this data collection, a detailed description of the case
(Stake, 1995) emerges in which the researcher details such aspects as the
history of the ~case, the chronology of events, or a day-by-day rendering of
the activities of the case. (The gunman case study in Appendix F involved
tracing the campus response to a gunman for 2 weeks immediately follow-
ing the near-tragedy on campus.) After this description ("relatively uncon-
tested data"; Stake, 1995, p. 123), the researcher might focus on a few key
issues (or analysis of themes), not for generalizing beyond the case, but for
understanding the complexity of the case. One analytic strategy would be
to identify issues within each case and then look for Common themes that
transcend the cases (Yin, 2003). This analysis is rich in the context of the
case or setting in which the case presents itself (Merriam, 1988). When mul-
tiple cases are chosen, a typical format is to first provide a detailed descrip-
tion of each case and themes within the case, called a within-case analysis,
followed by a thematic analysis across the cases, called a cross-case analy-
sis, as well as assertions or an interpretation of the meaning of the case.
• In the final interpretive phase, the researcher reports the meaning of
the case, whether that meaning comes from learning about the issue of the
case (an instrumental case) or learning about an unusual situation (an
intrinsic case). As Lincoln and Guba (1985) mention, this phase constitutes
the ~'lessons learned" from the case.

Challenges
One of the challenges inherent in qualitative case study development is
that the researcher must identify his or her case. I can pose no clear solution
to this challenge. The case study researcher must decide which bounded
system to study, recognizing that several might be possible candidates for
76 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

this selection and realizing that either the case itself or an issue, which a case
or cases are selected to illustrate, is worthy of study. The researcher must
consider whether to study a single case or multiple cases. The study of more.
than one case dilutes the overall analysis; the more cases an individual stud-
ies, the less the depth in any single case. When a researcher chooses multiple
cases, the issue becomes, "How many cases?" There is not a set number
of cases. Typically, however, the researcher chooses no more than four or
five cases. What motivates the researcher to consider a large number of cases
is the idea of "generalizability," a term that holds little meaning for most
qualitative researchers (Glesne & Peshkin, 1992). Selecting the case requires
that the researcher establish a rationale for his or her purposeful sampling
strategy for selecting the case and for gathering information about the case.
Having enough information to present an in-depth picture of the case limits
the value of some case studies. In planning a case study, I have individuals
develop a data collection matrix in which they specify the amount of infor-
mation they are likely to collect about the case. Deciding the "boundaries"
of a case-how it might be constrained in terms of time, events, and
processes-may be challenging. Some case studies may not have clean begin-
ning and ending points, and the researcher will need to set boundaries that
adequately surround the case.

The Five Approaches Compared

All five approaches have in common the general process of research that
begins with a research problem and proceeds to the questions, the data, the
data analysis, and the research report. They also employ similar data collec-
tion processes, including, in varying degrees, interviews, observations, docu-
ments, and audiovisual materials. Also, a couple of potential similarities
among the designs should be noted. Narrative research, ethnography, and
case study research may seem similar when the unit of analysis is a single
individual. True, one may approach the study of a single individual from any
of these three approaches; however, the types of data one would collect and
analyze would differ considerably. In narrative research, the inquirer focuses
on the stories told from the individual and arranges these stories in chrono-
logical order. In ethnography, the focus is on setting the individuals' stories
within the context of their culture· and culture-sharing group; in case study
research, the single case is typically selected to illustrate an issue, and the
researcher compiles a detailed description of the setting for the case. As Yin
(2003) comments, "You would use the case study method because you delib-
erately wanted to cover contextual conditions-believing that they might be
highly pertinent to your phenomenon of study" (p. 13). My approach is to
Five Qualitative Approaches to Inquiry 77

recommend, if the researcher wants to study a single individual, the narra-

tive approach or a single case study because ethnography is a much broader
picture of the culture. Then when comparing a narrative study and a single
case to study a single individual, I feel that the narrative approach is seen as
more scholarly because narrative studies tend to focus on single individual;
whereas, case studies often involve more than one case.
From these sketches of the five approaches, I can identify fundamental
differences among these types of qualitative research. As shown in Table 4.1,
I present several dimensions for distinguishing among the five approaches.
At a most fundamental level, the five differ in what they are trying to
accomplish-their foci or the primary objectives of the studies. Exploring a
life is different from generating a theory or describing the behavior of a cul-
tural group. Moreover, although overlaps exist in discipline origin, some
approaches have single-disciplinary traditions (e.g., grounded theory origi-
rlating in sociology, ethnography founded in anthropology or sociology) and
others have broad interdisciplinary backgrounds (e.g., narrative, case study).
The data collection varies in terms of emphasis (e.g., more observations in
ethnography, more interviews in grounded theory) and extent of data col-
lection (e.g., only interviews in phenomenology, multiple forms in case study
research to provide the in-depth case picture). At the data analysis stage, the
differences are most pronounced. Not only is the distinction one of speci-
ficity of the analysis phase (e.g., grounded theory most specific, narrative
research less defined), but the number of steps to be undertaken also varies
(e.g., extensive steps in phenomenology, few steps in ethnography). The
result of each approach, the written report, takes shape from all the
processes before it. A narrative about an individual's life forms narrative
research. A description of the essence of the experience of the phenomenon
becomes a phenomenology. A theory, often portrayed in a visual model,
emerges in grounded theory and a holistic view of how a culture-sharing
group works results in an ethnography. An in-depth study of a bounded sys-
tem or a case (or several cases) becomes a case study.
Relating the dimensions of Table 4.1 to research design within the five
approaches will be the focus of chapters to follow. Qualitative researchers
have found it helpful to see at this point a general sketch of the overall struc-
ture of each of the five approaches. Let's examine in Table 4.2 the structure
of each approach.
The outlines in Table 4.2 may be used in designing a journal-article-length
study; however, because of the numerous steps in each, they also have
applicability as chapters of a dissertation or a book-length work. I introduce
them here because the reader, with an introductory knowledge of each
approach, now can sketch the general "architecture" of a study. Certainly,
this architecture will emerge and be shaped differently by the conclusion of
"00 Table 4.1 Contrasting Characteristics of Five Qualitative Approaches

Characteristics Narrative Research Phenomenology Grounded Theory Ethnography Case Study

Focus Exploring the life Understanding the Developing a Describing and Developing an in-
of an individual essence of the theory grounded in interpreting a depth description
experience data from the field culture-sharing group and analysis of a
case or multiple cases
Type of Needing to tell Needing to describe Ground"ing a Describing and Providing an in-
Problem Best stories of the essence of a theory in the views interpreting the shared depth understanding
Suited for individual lived phenomenon of participants patterns of culture of a case or cases
Design experiences of a group

Discipline Drawing from Drawing from Drawing from Drawing from Drawing from
Background the humanities philosophy, sociology anthropology and psychology, law,
including psychology, and sociology political science,
anthropology, education medicine
literature, history,
psychology, and
sociology
Unit of Studying one or Studying several Studying a process, Studying a group that Studying an event, a
Analysis more individuals individuals that action, or shares the same program, an activity,
have shared the interaction culture more than one
experience involving many individual
individuals
Characteristics Narrative Research Phenomenology Grounded Theory Ethnography Case Study
Data Collection Using primarily Using primarily Using primarily Using primarily Using multiple
Forms interviews and interviews with interviews with observations and sources, such as
documents individuals, 20-60 individuals interviews, but interviews,
although perhaps collecting observations,
documents, other sources during documents,
observations, and extended time in field artifacts
art may also be
considered
Data Analysis Analyzing data for Analyzing data for Analyzing Anaiyzing data Analyzing data
Strategies stories, significant data through through description of through
"restorying" statements, meaning open coding, the culture-sharing description of the
stories, developing units, textural and axial coding, group; themes about case and themes
themes, often using structural selective coding the group of the case
a chronology description, as well as
description cross-case themes
of the "essence"
Written Report Developing a Describing the Generating a Describing how Developing a
narrative about the "essence" of the theory illustrated in a culture-sharing detailed analysis of
stories of an experience a figure group works one or more cases
individuaPs life
llM

"
\0
~
Table 4.2 Reporting Structures for Each Approach

Reporting
Approaches Narrative Phenomenology Grounded Theory Ethnography Case Study
General Introduction
III e Introduction e Introduction e Introduction III Entry vignette
Structure (problem, (problem, (problem, (problem, s Introduction
of Study questions) questions) questions) questions) (problem,
• Research procedures I» Research 5 Research III Research questions, case
(a narrative, procedures (a procedures procedures study, data
significance of phenomenology (grounded theory, (ethnography, collection,
individual, data and philosophical data collection, data collection, analysis,
collection, analysis assumptions, analysis, analysis, outcomes)
outcomes) data collection, outcomes) outcomes) III Description of
• Report of stories analysis, • Open coding • Description of the case/cases
• Individuals outcomes) $' Axial coding culture and its/their
theorize about e Significant e Selective coding o Analysis of context
their lives statements and theoretical cultural themes C!I Development
G Narrative segments • Meanings of propositions It Interpretation, of issues
identified statements and models lessons learned, El Detail about
• Patterns of e Themes of Cl Discussion of questions selected issues
meaning identified meanings theory and raised &- Assertions
{events, processes, • Exhaustive contrasts with o . Closing vignette
(Adapted from
epiphanies, themes) description of extant literature
Woleott, 1994b) (Adapted from
• Summary phenomenon
(Adapted from Stake, 1995)
(Adapted from (Adapted from Strauss & Corbin,
Denzin, 1989a, Moustakas, 1994) 1990)
1989b)
Five Qualitative Approaches to Inquiry 81

the study, but it provides a framework for the design issue to follow. I
recommend these outlines as general templates M this time. In Chapter 5, we
will examine five published journal articles, with each study illustrating one
of the five approaches, and explore the writing structure of each.

Summary
In this chapter, I described each of the five approaches to qualitative
research-narrative research, phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnogra-
phy, and case study. I provided a definition, some history of the development
of the approach, and the major forms it has assumed, and I detailed the
major procedures for conducting a qualitative study. I also discussed some
of the major challenges in conducting each approach. To highlight some of
,the differences among the approaches, I provided an overview table that con-
trasts the characteristics of focus, the type of research problem addressed,
the discipline background, the unit of analysis, the forms of data collection,
data analysis strategies, and the nature of the final, written report. I also pre-
sented outlines of the structure of each approach that might be useful in
designing a study within each of the five types. In the next chapter, we will
examine five studies that illustrate each approach and look more closely at
the compositional structure of each type of approach.

Several readings extend this brief overview of each of the five approaches of
inquiry. In Chapter 1, I presented the major books that will be used to craft
discussions about each approach. Here I provide a more expanded list of ref-
erences that also includes the major works.
In narrative research, I will rely on Denzin (1989a, 1989b), Czarniawska
(2004), and especially Clandinin and Connelly (2000). I add to this list books
on life history (Angrosino, 1989a), humanistic methods (Plummer, 1983),
and a comprehensive handbook on narrative research (Clandinin, 2006).

Angrosino, M. V. (1989a). Documents of interaction: Biography, autobiography, and

life history in social science perspective. Gainesville: University of Florida Press.
Clandinin, D. J. (Ed.). (2006). Handbook of narrative inquiry: Mapping a methodol-
ogy. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Clandinin, D. l., & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story
in qualitative research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Czarniawska, B. (2004). Narratives in social science research. London: Sage.
Denzin, N. K. (1989a). Interpretive biography. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
82 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Denzin, N. K. (1989b). Interpretive interactionism. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Elliot, j. (2005). Using narrative in social research: Qualitative and quantitative
approaches. London: Sage.
Plummer, K. (1983). Documents of life: An introduction to the problems and litera-
ture of a humanistic method. London: George Allen & Unwin.

For phenomenology, the books on phenomenological research methods by

Moustakas (1994) and the hermeneutical approach by van Manen (1990)
will provide a foundation for chapters to follow. Other procedural guides to
examine include Giorgi (1985), Polkinghorne (1989), Van Kaam (1966),
Colaizzi (1978), Spiegelberg (1982), Dukes (1984), Oiler (1986), and Tesch
(1990). For basic differences between hermeneutic and empirical or transcen-
dental phenomenology, see Lopez and Willis (2004) and for a discussion
about the problems of bracketing, see LeVasseur (2003). In addition, a solid
grounding in the philosophical assumptions is essential, and one might exam-
ine Husserl (1931, 1970), Merleau-Ponty (1962), Natanson (1973), and
Stewart and Mickunas (1990) for this background. '

Colaizzi, P. F. (1978). Psychological research as the phenomenologist views it. In

R. Vaile & M. King (Eds.), Existential phenomenological alternatives for psy-
chology (pp. 48-71). New York: Oxford University Press.
Dukes, S. (1984). Phenomenological methodology in the human sciences. Journal of
Religion and Health, 23, 197-203.
Giorgi, A. (Ed.). (1985). Phenomenology and psychological research. Pittsburgh, PA:
Duquesne University Press.
Husserl, E. (1931). Ideas: General introduction to pure phenomenology (D. Caff,
Trans). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
Husserl, E. (1970). The crisis of European sciences and transcendental phenomenol-
ogy (D. Carr, Trans). Evansron, IL: Northwestern University Press.
LeVasseur, j. j. (2003). The problem with bracketing in phenomenology. Qualitative
Health Research, 31(2), 408-420.
Lopez, K. A., & Willis, D. G. (2004). Descriptive versus interpretive phenomenology:
Their contributions to nursing knowledge. Qualitative Health Research, 14(5),
726-735.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962). Phenomenology of perception (e. Smith, Trans.). London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Moustakas, e. (1994). Phenomenological research methods. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage.
Natanson, M. (Ed.). (1973). Phenomenology and the social sciences. Evanston, IL:
Northwestern University Press.
Oiler, e. J. (1986). Phenomenology: The method. In P. L. Munhall & e. j. Oiler
(Eds.), Nursing research: A qualitative perspective (pp. 69-82). Norwalk, CT:
Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Five Qualitative Approaches to Inquiry 83

Polkinghorne, D. E. (1989). Phenomenological research methods. In R. S. Valle &

S. Hailing (Eds.), Existential-phenomenologi'ial perspectives in psychology
(pp. 41-60). New York: Plenum.
Spiegelberg, H. (1982). The phenomenological movement (3rd ed.). The Hague,
Netherlands: Mattinus Nijhoff.
Stewatt, D., & Mickunas, A. (1990). Exploring phenomenology: A guide to the field
and its literature (2nd ed.). Athens: Ohio University Ptess.
Tesch, R. (1990). Qualitative research: Analysis types and softwm'e tools. Bristol, PA:
Falmer Press.
Van Kaam, A. (1966). Existential foundations of psychology. Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne
University Press.
van Manen, M. (1990). Researching lived experience: Human science for an action
sensitive pedagogy. Albany: State University of New York Press.

On grounded theory research, consult the most recent and highly readable
.book, Strauss and Corbin (1990), before reviewing earlier works such as
Glaser and Strauss (1967), Glaser (1978), Strauss (1987), Glaser (1992), or the
latest edition of Strauss and Corbin (1998). The 1990 Strauss and Corbin
book provides, I believe, a better procedural guide than their 1998 book. For
brief methodological overviews of grounded theory, examine Charmaz (1983),
Strauss and Corbin (1994), and Chenitz and Swanson (1986). Especially help-
ful are Charmaz's (2006) book on grounded theory research from a construc-
tionist's perspective and Clarke's (2005) postmodern perspective.

Charmaz, K. (1983). The grounded theory method: An explication and interpretation.

In R. Emetson (Ed.), Contemporary field research (pp. 109-126). Boston: Little,
Brown.
Charmaz, K. (2006). Constructing grounded theory. London: Sage.
Chenitz, W. C., & Swanson, J. M. (1986). From practice to grounded theory:
Qualitative research in nursing. MenIo Park, CA: AddisoDMWesley.
Clarke, A. E. (2005). Situational analysis: Grounded theory after the postmodern
turn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Glaser, B. G. (1978). Theoretical sensitivity. Mill Valley, CA: Sociology Press.
Glaser, B. G. (1992). Basics of grounded theory analysis. Mill Valley, CA: Sociology
Press.
Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory. Chicago:
Aldine.
Strauss, A. (1987). Qualitative analysis for social scientists. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Strauss, A., & Corbin,]. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory pro-
cedures and techniques. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1994). Grounded theory methodology: An overview. In
N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp.
273-285). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
84 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

StrallSS, A., & Corbin, ]. (1998). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory
procedures and techniques (2nd ed.). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Several recent books on ethnography will provide the foundation for

the chapters to follow: Atkinson, Coffey, and Delamont (2003); the first vol-
ume in the Ethnographer's Toolkit series, Designing and Conducting Ethno-
graphic Research, as well as the other six volumes in the series by LeCompte and
Schensul (1999); and Wolcott (1994b, 1999). Other resources about ethnogra-
phy include Spradley (1979, 1980), Fetterman (1998), and Madison (2005).

Arkinson, P., Coffey, A., & Delamonr, S. (2003). Key themes in qualitative research:
Continuities and changes. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira.
Fetterman, D. M. (1998). Ethnography: Step by step (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage.
LeCompre, M. D., & Schensul,]. ]. (1999). Designing and conducting ethnographic
research (Ethnographer's toolkir, Vol. 1). Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira.
Madison, D. S. (2005). Critical ethnography: Method, ethics, and performance.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Spradley, J. P. (1979). The ethnographic interview. New York: Holt, Rinehart &
WinstOn.
Spradley, J. P. (1980). Participant observation. New York: Holr, Rinehart & Winston.
Wokott, H. F. (1994b). Transforming qualitative data: Description, analysis, and
interpretation. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Wokott, H. F. (1999). Ethnography: A way of seeing. Walnut Creek, CA: AlraMira.

Finally, for case study research, consult Stake (1995) or earlier books such
as Lincoln and Guba (1985), Merriam (1988), and Yin (2003).

Lincoln, Y. S., & Guba, E. G. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Merdam, S. (1988). Case study research in education: A qualitative approach. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Stake, R. (1995). The art of case study research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Yin, R. K. (2003). Case study research: Design and method (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage.

1. Select one of the five approaches for a proposed study. Write a brief descrip-
tion of the approach, including a definition, the history, and the procedures
associated with the approach. Include references to the literature.
2. Take a proposed qualitative study thar you would like to conducr. Begin with
presenting it as a narrative study, then shape it into a phenomenology, a
grounded theory, an ethnography, and finally a case study. Discus's for each
type of study rhe focus of the study, the types of data collection and analysis,
and the final written report.
5
Five Different
Qualitative Studies

T he characteristics of and steps in conducting research in the five

approaches in Chapter 4 help us to understand the major characteris-
tics of each of the five approaches. By examining published studies, we can
further our understanding. In this chapter, I present several examples of
qualitative research-examples that are reasonable models for a narrative
study, a phenomenology, a grounded theory, an ethnography, and a case
study. The entire published studies are found in Appendices B, C, D, E, and
F. The best way to proceed, I believe, is to first read the entire article in the
appendix, then return to my summary of the article to compare your under-
standing with mine. Next read my analysis of how the article illustrates a
good model of the approach to research. In my analysis, I review the study
and advance how it fits the characteristics of the particular approach to qual-
itative research taken in the study. At the conclusion of this chapter, I reflect
on why one might choose one approach over another when conducting a
qualitative study.
The first study, by Angrosino (1994), illustrates the broad genre of nar-
rative research, and more specifically a biographical-type of narrative study.
It is the life history of Vonnie Lee Hargrett, an individual with mental retar-
dation. The second article, a phenomenological study by Anderson and
Spencer (2002) is a study about individuals who have experienced AIDS and
the images and ways they think about their disease. The third article, by
Morrow and Smith (1995), is on a sensitive topic: how 11 women survived

85
86 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

and coped with childhood sexual abuse. It is a well-constructed grounded

theory study, and it provides an emotional, detailed view of the women's
lives. The fourth article is an ethnographic study by Haenfler (2004) about
the core values of the straight edge (sXe) movement that emerged on the East
Coast of the United States from the punk subculture of the early 1980s. The
sXers adopted a "clean living" ideology of abstaining for life from alcohol,
tobacco, illegal drugs, and casual sex. The final article is one of my own-a
qualitative case study by Asmussen and Creswell (1995)-about the reaction
of people at a large Midwestern university to a student who entered a class-
room in actuarial science with a machine gun and attempted to shoot at the
students.

Questions for Discussion

• What is the focus in the sample narrative study?
• What experience is examined in the sample phenomenological study?
It What concepts are the basis for a theory in the grounded theory study?
& What cultural group or people is studied in the sample ethnographic study?
• What is the "case" being examined in the case study?
• How do the five approaches differ?
.., How does a researcher choose among the five for his or her particular study?

A Narrative-Biographical Study
(Angrosino, 1994; see Appendix B)
This is the story of Vonnie Lee, a 29-year-old man the author met at
Opportunity House, an agency designed for the rehabilitation of adults with
mental retardation and psychiatric disorders. Most of the people at the
agency had criminal records. Vonnie Lee was no exception. He had experi-
enced a troubled childhood with an absent father and an alcoholic mother
who had relationships with many physically abusive men. Vonnie Lee lived
mostly on the streets in the company of an older man, Lucian, who made a
living by "loaning" Vonnie Lee to other men on the street. After Lucian was
beaten to death, Vonnie Lee found himself in and out of psychiatric facilities
until he landed at Opportunity Hoilse. When the researcher entered the
story, Vonnie Lee was in transition between Opportunity House and the
community through "supervised independent living." A key step in prepar-
ing individuals for this transition was to teach them how to use the public
transportation system-a city bus. .
Five Different Qualitative Studies 87

The author found Vonnie Lee open to talking about his life, but within
uarro;'" strictures. Vonnie Lee's stories were almost devoid of characters and
centered mainly on a description of the bus route. As Angrosino said, "He
was inclined only to offer what he seemed to feel were these deeply revelatory
bus itineraries" (p. 18). Following this lead, Angrosino took a bus trip with
Vonnie Lee to his place of work. This bus trip held special meaning for
Vonnie Lee, as he traveled for about an hour and a half to his destination with
three bus transfers. Vonnie Lee had set ways; he tried to find a seat under the
large red heart, the logo of the city's bus line. En route, he supplied the
researcher with the details about people, places, and events of the journey.
Arriving at his place of work, a plumbing supply warehouse, Vonnie Lee's
supervisor commented, "It's the bus he loves, coming here on the bus"
(p. 21). "Why do you like the bus so much?" asked Angrosino. Vonnie Lee
exclaimed, "If I was a big shot, I'd be on the bus right now!" From this, the
researcher concluded that the bus gave meaning to Vonnie Lee's life through
representing both escape and empowerment, and that meaning explained
why he told his life stories in the form of bus routes. Vonnie Lee's stable self-
image-the bus trip-helped him survive the vicissitudes of his life.
The study ended with the researcher reflecting on the use of the metaphor
as a useful framework for analyzing stories of participants in life history proj-
ects. Furthermore, the study illustrated the benefits of the "in-depth autobio-
graphical interview methodology" for establishing the human dimension of
persons with mental illness and for "contextualizing" the interview infor-
mation within the ongoing life experiences of Vonnie Lee.
This article presented the biographical approach to narrative research.
Written by an anthropologist, it fitted well within the cultural interpreta-
tions of anthropological life history research. Other forms of narrative
research (see examples at the end of this chapter) may not contain the strong
cultural issues of metaphors of self and self-images of cultural groups pre-
sented in this study. Still, this study also provided many useful "markings"
of biography and narrative research:

• The author told the story of a single individual as a central focus for the study.
• The data collection consisted of "conversations" or stories: the reconstruction
of life experiences through researcher participant observations.
• The individual recalled a special event of his life, an "epiphany" (e.g., the
bus ride).
• The author reported detailed information about the setting or historical con~
text of the bus trip, thus situating the epiphany within a social context.
• The author was present in the study, reflecting on his own experiences and
acknowledging that the study was his interpretation of the meaning of Vonnie
Lee's life.
88 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

The elements of focusing on a single individual, constructing a study out

of stories and epiphanies of special events, situating them within a broader
context, and evoking the presence of the author in the study all reflect the
interpretive biographical form of study discussed by Denzin (1989b) and
many core elements of narrative research.

A Phenomenological Study (Anderson &

Spencer, 2002; see Appendix C)
This study discusses the images or cognitive representations that AIDS
patients were found to hold about their disease. The researchers explored
this topic because understanding how individuals represented AIDS and
their emotional response to it influenced their therapy, reduced high-risk
behaviors, and enhanced their quality of life. Thus, the purpose of this study
was "to explore patients' experience and cognitive representations of AIDS
within the context of phenomenology" (p. 1339).
The authors introduced the study by referring to the millions of individu-
als infected by HN. They advanced a framework, the Self-Regulation Model
of lllness Representation, which suggested that patients were active problem
solvers whose behavior was a product of their cognitive and emotional
responses to a health threat. Patients formed illness representations that
shaped their understanding of their diseases. It was these illness representa-
tions (e.g., images) that the researchers needed to understand more thor-
oughly to help patients with their therapy, behaviors, and quality of life. The
authors turned to the literature on patients' experiences with AIDS. They
reviewed the literature on qualitative research, noting that several phenom-
enological studies on such topics as coping and living with HIV had already
been examined. However, how patients represented AIDS in images had not
been studied.
Their design involved the study of 58 men and women with a diagnosis
of AIDS. To study these individuals, they used phenomenology and the pro-
cedures advanced by Colaizzi (1978) and modified by Moustakas (1994).
For over 18 months, they conducted interviews with these 58 patients, and
asked them: "What is your experience with AIDS? Do you have a mental
image of HNIAIDS, or how would you descrihe HNIAIDS? What feeling
comes to mind? What meaning does it have in your life?" (Anderson &
Spencer, 2002, pp. 1341-1342). They also asked patients to draw pictures
of their disease. Although only 8 of the 58 drew pictures, the authors inte-
grated these pictures into the data analysis. Their data analysis of these inter-
views consisted of the following tasks:
Five Different Qualitative Studies 89

o reading through the written transcripts several times to obtain an overall feel-
. ing for them
Cl i.dentifYing significant phrases or sentences that pertained directly to the
experience
• formulating meanings and clustering them into themes common to all of the
participants' transcripts
• integrating the results into an in-depth, exhaustive description of the
phenomenon
fI validating the findings with the participants, and including participants'
remarks in the final description

This analysis led to 11 major themes based on 175 significant statements.

Themes such as "dreaded bodily destruction" and "devouring life" illus-
trated two of the themes. The results section of this study reported each of
the 11 themes and provided ample quotes and perspectives to illustrate the
'multiple perspectives on each theme.
The study ended with a discussion in which the authors described the
essence (i.e., the exhaustive description) of the patients' experiences and the
coping strategies (i.e., the contexts or conditions surrounding the experience)
patients used to regulate mood and disease. Finally, the authors compared
their 11 themes with results reported by other anthors in the literature, and
they discussed the results' implications for nursing and questions for future
research.
This study illustrated several aspects of a phenomenological study:

Cl The use of systematic data analysis procedures of significant statements, mean-

ings, themes, and an exhaustive description of the essence of the phenomenon
followed the procedures recommended by Moustakas (1994).
• The inclusion of tables illustrating the significant statements, meanings, and
theme clusters showed how the authors worked from the raw data to the
exhaustive description of the essence of the study in the final discussion
section.
• A central phenomenon-the "cognitive representations or images" of AIDS by
patients-was examined in the study.
• Rigorous data collection with 58 interviews and incorporation of patents'
drawings were used.
• The study ended by describing the essence of the experience for the 58 patients
and the context in which they experienced AIDS (e.g., coping mechanisms).

The authors only briefly mentioned the philosophical ideas behind phe-
nomenology. They referred to bracketing their personal experiences and
their need to explore lived experiences rather than to obtain theoretical
explanations.
90 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

A Grounded Theory Study (Morrow &

Smith, 1995; see Appendix D)
This was a grounded theory study about the survival and coping strategies
of 11 women who experienced childhood sexual abuse. The authors asked
the following two open-ended questions. "Tell me, as much as you are com-
fortable sharing with me right now, what happened to you when you were
sexually abused? What were the primary ways in which you survived?" Data
were collected primarily through one-on-one interviews, focus group inter-
views, and participant observation by one of the researchers. The authors
first formed categories of information and then reassembled the data
through systematically relating the categories into a visual model. At the cen-
ter of this model was the central phenomenon, the central category around
which the theory was developed: threatening or dangerous feelings along
with helplessness, powerlessness, and lack of control. Factors causing this
phenomenon were cultural norms and different forms of sexual abuse.
Individuals used the two strategies of avoiding being overwhelmed by feel-
ings and managing their helplessness, powerlessness, and lack of control.
These strategies were set within the context of perpetrator characteristics,
sensations, and frequency as well as within larger conditions such as family
dynamics, victims' ages, and rewards. The strategies were not without con-
sequences. These women talked about consequences such as surviving, cop-
ing, healing, and hoping. The article ended by relating the theoretical model
back to the literature on sexual ahuse.
The authors are both distinguished qualitative researchers, and Morrow
brought her expertise in counseling and psychology to the writing of the arti-
cle. They presented a visual model of their substantive theory, the theory that
explained the women's actions in response to feelings of threat, danger, help-
lessness, powerlessness, and lack of control. The authors used rigorous pro-
cedures, such as collaboration and the search for disconfirming evidence,
to verify their account. In this article, they also educated the reader about
grounded theory in an extensive passage on coding data into categories of
information and by memoing their thoughts throughout the project. In terms
of overall structure, probably because of space limitations, the study did not
address all facets of grounded theory procedures, such as open coding, form-
ing initial categories of information, developing propositions or hypotheses
specifying relations among categories, and the conditional matrix. However,
the authors advanced a study that models good grounded theory research:

(I The authors mentioned at the beginning that their purpose was to generate a
theory using a "construct~oriented" (or category) approach.
Five Different Qualitative Studies 91

• The procedure was thoroughly discussed and systematic .

• The'authors presented a visual model, a coding diagram of the theory.
e The language and feel of the article was scientific and objective while, at the
same time, it addressed a sensitive topic effusively.

An Ethnographic Study (Haenfler, 2004;

see Appendix E)
This ethnography study described the core values of the straight edge (sXe)
movement that emerged on the East Coast of the United States from the
punk subculture of the early 1980s. The movement arose as a response to
the punk subculture nihilistic tendencies of drug and alcohol abuse and
promiscuous sex. The sXers adopted a "clean living" ideology of abstaining
• for life from alcohol, tobacco, illegal drugs, and casual sex. Involving pri-
marily white, middle-class males from the age of 15 to 25, it has been linked
inseparably with the punk genre music scene, and straight edgers made a
large X on each hand before they entered punk concerts. As a study that
reconceptualizes resistance to opposition, this ethnography examined how
subculture group members expressed opposition individually and as a reac-
tion to other subcultures rather than against an ambiguous "adult" culture.
The author used ethnographic methods of data collection, including par-
ticipating in the movement for 14 years and attending more than 250 music
shows, interviewing 28 men and women, and gathering documents from
sources such as newspaper stories, music lyrics, World Wide Web pages, and
sXe magazines. From these data sources, the author first provided a detailed
description of the subculture (e.g., T-shirt slogans, song lyrics, and use of the
symbol "X"). The description also conveyed the curious blend of conserva-
tive perspectives from religious fundamentalism and progressive influences
of expressing personal values. Following this description, the author identi-
fied five themes: positivity/clean living (e.g., committed vegetarians), reserv-
ing sex for caring relationships (e.g., sex should be part of an emotional
relationship based on trust), self-realization (e.g., toxins such as drugs and
alcohol inhibit people from reaching their full potential), spreading the mes-
sage (e.g., sXers undertook a mission to convince their peers of their values),
and involvement in progressive causes (e.g., animal rights and environmen-
tal causes). The article concluded with the author conveying a broad under-
standing of the sXers' values. Participation in the youth subculture had
meaning both individually and collectively. Also, the sXers' resistance was
at the macro level when directed to a culture that marketed alcohol and
tobacco to youths; at the mesO level when aimed at other subcultures, such
92 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

as "punks"; and at the micro level when the sXers embraced personal
change, in part in defiance of family members' substance abuse or their own
addictive tendencies. Resistance was seen as personal in everyday activities
and in political resistance to youth culture. It short, resistance was found to
be multilayered, contradictory, and personally and socially transforming.
Haenfler's ethnography nicely illustrates both core elements of an ethno-
graphic study as well as aspects of a critical ethnography:

• It was the study of a culture~sharing group and their core values and beliefs.
o The author first described the group, then advanced five themes about, the
group, and ended with a broad level of abstraction beyond the themes to sug-
gest how the subculture worked.
• The author positioned himself by describing his involvement in the subculture
and his role as an observer of the group for many years.
.. From a critical ethnographic perspective, the author examined the issue of
resistance to opposition and studied a group of coumerculture youth .
., Consistent with many critical ethnographies, the article concluded with com-
ments about how a subculture resisted dominant culture, the complexity and
multilayered (e.g., macro, meso, and micro) forms resistance took, and the
personal and social transforming qualities of participating in the culture-
sharing group. Unlike other critical approac~es, it did not end with a call for
social transformation, but the overall study stood for reexamining subculture
resistance.

A Case Study (Asmussen & Creswell, 1995;

see Appendix F)
This qualitative case study describes a campus reaction to a gunman incident
in which a student attempted to fire a gun at his classmates. The case study
began with a detailed description of the gunman incident, a chronicle of the
first 2 weeks of events following the incident, and provided details about the
city, the campus, and the building in which the incident occurred. Data were
collected through the multiple sources of information, such as interviews,
observations, documents, and audiovisual materials. Kelly Asmussen and
I did not interview the gunman or the students who were in counseling
immediately following the incident, and our petition to the Institutional
Review Board for Human Subjects Research had guaranteed these restric-
tions. From the data analysis emerged themes of denial, fear, safety, retrig-
gering, and campus planning. Toward the end of the article we combined
these narrower themes into two overarching perspectives, an organizational
and a social-psychological response, and we related these to the literature,
Five Different Qualltative Studies 93

thus providing "layers" of analysis in the study and invoking broader inter-
pretations of the meaning of the case. We suggested that campuses plan for
their .responses to campus violence, and we advanced key questions to be
addressed in preparing these plans.
In this case study, we tried to follow Lincoln and Cnba's (1985) case
study structure-the problem, the context, the issues, and the "lessons
learned." We also added our own personal perspective by presenting tables
with information about the extent of our data collection and the questions
necessary to be addressed in planning a campus response to an incident. The
epilogue at the end of the study reflexively brought our personal experiences
into the discussion without disrupting the flow of the stndy. With our last
theme on the need for the campus to design a plan for responding to another
incident, we advanced practical and useful implications of the study for per-
sonnel on campuses.
Several features mark this project as a case study:

e We identified the «e.ase" for the study, the entire campus and its response to a
potentially violent crime.
e This "case" was a bounded system, bounded by time (6 months of data col-
lection) and place (situated on a single campus).
• We used extensive, multiple sources of information in data collection to pro-
vide the detailed in-depth picture of the campus response.
• We spent considerable time describing the context or setting for the case, situ-
ating the case within a peaceful Midwestern city, a tranquil campus, a build-
ing, and a classroom, along with the detailed events during a 2-week period
following the incident.

Differences Among the Approaches

A nseful perspective to begin the process of differentiating among the five
approaches is to assess the central purpose or focus of each approach. As
shown in Figure 5.1, the focus of a narrative is on the life of an individual,
and the focus of a phenomenology is a concept or phenomenon and the
"essence" of the lived experiences of persons about that phenomenon. In
grounded theory, the aim is to develop a theory, whereas in ethnography, it
is to describe a culture-sharing group. In a case study, a specific case is exam-
ined, often with the intent of examining an issue with the case illustratirig
the complexity of the issue. Turning to the five studies, the foci of the
approaches become more evident.
The story ofVonnie Lee (Angrosino, 1994) is a case in point-one decides
to write a biography or life history when the literature suggests that a single
94 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

A Portrait
Culture-Sharing
Group
Individual

Ethnography Case Study

Narrative Study

Phenomenology

A Phenomenon
Grounded Theory

Figure 5.1 Differentiating Approaches by Foci

individual needs to be studied, or when an individual can illuminate a spe-

cific issue, such as the issue of being intellectually challenged. Furthermore,
the researcher needs to make a case for the need to study this particular indi-
vidual-someone who illustrates a problem, someone who has had a distin-
guished career, someone in the national spotlight, or someone who lives an
ordinary life. The process of data collection involves gathering material
about the person, either historically or from present-day sources, such as
conversations or observations in the case of Vonnie Lee. A key consideration
is whether the material is available and accessible. In the case of Vonnie Lee,
Angrosino was able to win his confidence and encourage him to talk. This
occurred first when Angrosino helped him with his reading assignments, and
Angrosino made a mental note "to see if he would at some later time be
amenable to telling me the 'story of my life'" (p. 17).
The phenomenological study, on the other hand, focuses not on the life
of an individual but rather on a concept or phenomenon, such as how indi-
viduals represent their illnesses (Anderson & Spencer, 2002), and this form
of study seeks to understand the meaning of experiences of individuals about
this phenomenon. Furthermore, individuals are selected who have experi-
enced the phenomenon, and they are asked to provide data, often through
interviews. The researcher takes this data and, through several steps of
reducing the data, ultimately develops a description of the experiences about
the phenomenon that all individuals have in common-the essence of the
experience.
Five Different Qualitative Studies 95

Whereas the phenomenological project focuses on the meaning of people's

experience toward a phenomenon, researchers i)1 grounded theory have a dif-
ferent. objective-to generate a substantive theory, such as the model about
women surviving and coping with abuse in the Morrow and Smith study
(1995). In the introductory passages, the authors describe the need for a "the-
oretical framework." Thus, grounded theorists undertake research to develop
theory. The data collection method involves primarily interviewing (although
other data .collection procedures were used in the Morrow and Smith study).
Also, the researchers use systematic procedures for analyzing and developing
this theory, procedures such as open coding and axial coding, and they rep-
resent the relationship among categories with a visual model. The overall tone
of this study is one of rigor and scientific credibility.
An ethnographic design is chosen when one wants to study the behaviors
of a culture-sharing group, such as the sXers (Haenfler, 2004). Youths in
'this study were observed by the author over a prolonged period of time, and
Haenfler's intent was both to provide a detailed description of the culture of
the group and to identify themes about how the culture-sharing group
worked. Overlaying the ehtire cultural portrait was a critical theory per-
spective of subcultural resistance, the complexity of this resistance within the
group, and a contrast with other groups and adult subcultures.
Finally, a case study is chosen to study a case with clear boundaries, such
as the campus in our study (Asmussen & Creswell, 1995). It is important,
too, for the researcher to have contextual material available to describe the
setting for the case. Also, the researcher needs to have a wide array of infor-
mation about the case to provide an in-depth picture of it. In our gunman
case, we went to great lengths to paint this picture for the reader through our
table of information sources in the article and to illustrate our wide array of
data collection procedures. With these data, we constructed a picture of the
incident and the campus reaction to it through several themes.
Based now on a more thorough understanding of the five approaches,
how does one choose one approach over the other? I recommend that you
start with the outcome-what the approach is attempting to accomplish
(e.g., the study of an individual, the examination of the meaning of experi-
ences toward a phenomenon, the generation of a theory, the description and
interpretation of a culture-sharing group, the in-depth study of a single case).
In addition, other factors need also to be considered:

• The audience question: What approach is frequently used by gatekeepers in the

field (e.g., committee members, advisers, editorial boards of journals)?
• The background question: What training does the researcher have in the
inquiry approach?
• The scholarly literature question: What is needed most as contributing to the
scholarly literature in the field (e.g., a study of an individual, an exploration of
96 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

the meaning of a concept, a theory, a portrait of a culture~sharing group, an

in-depth case study)?
• The personal approach question: Are you more comfortable with a more struc-
tured approach to research or with a storytelling approach (e.g., narrative
research, ethnography)? Or are you more comfortable with a firmer, more
well-defined approach to research or with a flexible approach (e.g., grounded
theory, case study, phenomenology)?

Summary

This chapter examined five different short articles to illustrate good models for
writing a narrative biography, a phenomenology, a grounded theory study, an
ethnography, and a case study. These articles show basic characteristics of
each approach and should enable readers to see differences in composing and
writing varieties of qualitative studies. Choose a narrative study to examine the
life experiences of a single individual when material is available and accessible
and the individual is willing (assuming that he or she is living) to share stories.
Choose a phenomenology to examine a phenomenon and the meaning it holds
for individuals. Be prepared to interview the individuals, ground the study in
philosophical tenets of phenomenology, follow set procedures, and end with
the "essence" of the meaning. Choose a grounded theory study to generate or
develop a theory. Gather information through interviews (primarily), and use
systematic procedures of data gathering and analysis built on procedures such
as open, axial, and selective coding. Although the final report will be "scien-
tific," it can still address sensitive and emotional issues. Choose an ethnog-
raphy to study the behavior of a culture-sharing group (or individual). Be
prepared to observe and interview, and develop a description of the group and
explore themes that emerge from studying human behaviors. Choose a case
study to examine a "case," bounded in time or place, and look for contextual
material about the setting of the "case." Gather extensive material from mul-
tiple sources of information to provide an in-depth picture of the "case."
These are important distinctions among the five approaches to qualitative
inquiry. By studying each approach in detail, we can learn more about how
to proceed and how to narrow our choice of which approach to use.

The following are published journal articles that illustrate each of the
approaches of inquiry. For narrative research, 1 provide a range of studies
that illustrate different forms of conducting a narrative study. From
Five Different Qualitative Studies 97

biography, we learn about a recovering alcohol named Freddie (Angrosino,

1989b). Two autoethnographies provide insight into the researchers' per-
sonallives, one about a battered woman's identity (Olson, 2004) and the
second about the author's personal experiences in the aftermath of her
brother's death (Ellis, 1993). Women's experiences told through narratives
form the central theme of Geiger's (1986) and Karen's (1990) studies about
women's life histories, Nelson's (1990) oral life narrative of African
American women, and Huber and Whelan's (1999) account of a teacher
I. marginalized in her own school. Finally, I end with Smith's (1987) master-
ful telling of Darwin's experiences aboard the ship, the Beagle, a story told
with multiple layers of thought about Darwin as well as the author.

Angrosino, M. V. (1989b). Freddie: The personal narrative of a recovering alcoholic-

Autobiography as case history. In M. V. Angrosino, Documents of interaction:
Biography, autobiography, and life history in social science perspective (pp. 29-41).
Gainesville: University of Florida Press.
Ellis, C. (1993). "There are survivors": Telling a story of sudden death. The
Sociological Quarterly, 3:/, 711-730.
Geiger, S. N. G. (1986). Women's life histories: Method and content. Signs: Journal
of Women in Culture and Society, 11, 334-351.
Huber, J. & Whelan, K. (1999). A marginal story as a place of possibility: Negotiating
self on the professional knowledge landscape. Teaching and Teacher Education,
15,381-396. .
Karen, C. S. (1990, April). Personal development and the pursuit of higher education:
An exploration of interrelationships in the growth of self~identity in returning
women students-summary of research in progress. Paper presented at the
annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Boston.
Nelson, L. W. (1990). Code-switching in the orallile narratives 01 African-American
women: Challenges to linguistic hegemony. Journal of Education, 172, 142-155.
Olson, L. N. (2004). The role of voice in the (re)construction of a battered woman's
identity: An autoethnography of one woman's experiences of abuse. Women's
Studies in Communication, 27, 1-33.
Smith, L. M. (1987). The voyage of the Beagle: Fieldwork lessons from Charles
Darwin. Educational Administration Quarterly, 23(3), 5-30.

For phenomenological research journals, I have selected studies that tend

to reflect the phenomenological methods discussed in Moustakas (1994) and
that focus on different phenomena of interest. Brown, Sorrell, McClaren,
and Creswell (2006) address experiences of individuals waiting for a liver
transplant, Edwards (2006) looks at experiences of African American
women with HIV/AIDS medication, Riemen (1986) studies the caring inter-
action between patients and nurses, and Grigsby and Megel (1995) explore
the caring experiences between nurse faculty and students. In the study of
98 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

mothers' experiences with deaths of wished-for babies (Lauterbach, 1993),

we see the wide range of data sources that can be used in phenomenology.
In Padilla's (2003) account of Clara, who sustained a head injury, we see
how a phenomenology can be undertaken with the study of one individual
based on extensive interviews and email messages.

Brown, J., Sorrel!, J. H., McClaren, J., & Creswell, J. W. (2006). Waiting for a livet
transplant. Qualitative Health Research, 16(1), 119-136.
Edwards, L. V. (2006). Perceived social support and HlV/AlDS medication adherence
among Aftican American women. Qualitative Health Research, 16, 679-691.
Grigsby, K. A., & Megel, M. E. (1995). Caring experiences of nurse educators.
Journal of Nursing Research, 34, 411-418.
Lauterbach, S. S. (1993). In another world: A phenomenological perspective and dis·
covery of meaning in mothers' experience with death of a wished-for baby: Doing
phenomenology. In P. L. Munhall & C. O. Boyd (Eds.), Nursing research: A qual·
itative perspective (pp. 133-179). New York: National League for Nursing Press.
Padilla, R. (2003). Clara: A phenomenology of disability. The American Journal of
Occupational Therapy, 57(4), 413-423.
Riemen, D. J. (1986). The essential structure of a caring interaction: Doing phenom-
enology. In P. M. Munhall & C. J. Oiler (Eds.), Nursing research: A qualitative
perspective (pp. 85-105). Norwalk, CT: Appleton-Cenrury-Crofts.

Our exploration of approaches continues with published grounded theory

journal articles. The underlying theme of generating a theory of a process
is illustrated in Conrad's (1978) study of academic change in universities;
Creswell and Brown's (1992) analysis of how academic chairpersons enhance
faculty research; Leipert's (2005) study of how women develop resilience in
northern geographical isolated settings; Barlow and Cairns's (1997) study of
women's experiences of mothering; and Kearney, Murphy, and Rosenbaum's
(1994) study of mothering on crack cocaine. Also included is the construc-
tivist grounded theory perspective of Charmaz (1994), who explores the iden·
tity dilemmas of chronically ill men.

Barlow, C. A., & Cairns, K. V. (1997). Mothering as a psychological experience: A

grounded theory exploration. Canadian Journal of Counselling, 31, 232-247.
Charmaz, K. (1994). Identity dilemmas of chronically ill men. The Sociological
Quarterly, 35, 269-288.
Conrad, C. F. (1978). A grounded theory of academic change. Sociology of
Education, 51,101-112.
Creswell,]. W., & Brown, M. L. (1992). How chairpersons enhance faculty research:
A grounded theory study. Review of Higher Education, 16(1),41-62.
Kearney, M. H., Murphy, S., & Rosenbaum, M. (1994). Mothering on crack cocaine:
A grounded theory analysis. Social Science Medicine, 38(2), 351-361.
Five Different Qualitative Studies 99

Leipert, B. D., & Reutter, L. (2005). Developing resilience: How women maintain
. their health in northern geographically isolated settings. Qualitative Health
Research, 15, 49-65. .

For examples of Jlublished ethnographic studies, see the different culture-

sharing groups and the critical' and realist lenses used in ethnographic
research. Finders (1996) ethnography of adolescent females and their teen
magazine, Geertz's (1973) classic notes on the Balinese cockfight, Rhoads's
(1995) study of college fraternity life, and Trujillo's (1992) study of the cul-
ture of baseball all are set in different cultural settings. Wokott's (1983)
well-known study of the "sneaky kid" illustrates a realist ethnography,
and our ethnographic study (Miller, Creswell, & Olander, 1998) of a soup
kitchen for the homeless illustrates discussing the culture of the homeless
from realist, confessional, and critical perspectives.

Finders, M. J. (1996). Queens and teen zines: Early adolescent females reading their
way toward adulthood. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 27, 71-89.
Geertz, C. (1973). Deep play; Notes on the Balinese cockfight. In C. Geertz (Ed.), The
interpretation of cultures: Selected essays (pp. 412-435). New York: Basic Books.
Miller, D. L., Creswell, J. W., & Olander, L. S. (1998). Writing and retelling multiple
ethnographic tales of a soup kitchen for the homeless. Qualitative Inquiry, 4(4),
469-491.
Rhoads, R. A. (1995). Whales tales, dog piles, and beer goggles: An ethnographic case
study of fraternity life. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 26, 306-323.
Trujillo, N. (1992). Interpreting (the work and the talk of) baseball. Western Journal
of Communication, 56, 350-371.
Wolcott, H. F. (1983). Adequate schools and inadequate education: The life history
of a sneaky kid. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 14(1),2-32.

Finally, for specific case study research, I suggest the published journal
articles below that differ in the number of cases. The studies by Brickhous and
Bodner (1992) and Rex (2000) present single case studies, while the Padula
and Miller (1999) and the Hill, Vaughn, and Harrison (1995) studies exam-
ine five cases.

Brickhous, N., & Bodner, G. M. (1992). The beginning science teacher: Classroom
narratives of convictions and constraints. Journal of Research in Science
Teaching, 29, 471-485.
Hill, B., Vaughn, c., & Harrison, S. B. (1995, September/October). Living and work-
ing in two worlds: Case studies of five American Indian women teachers. The
Clearinghouse, 69(1),42-48.
100 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Padula, M. A., & Miller, D. L. (1999). Understanding graduate women's reentry

experiences: Case studies of four psychology doctoral students in a Midwestern
university. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 23, 327-343.
Rex, L. A. (2000). Judy constructs a genuine question: A case for interactional inclu~
sion. Teaching and Teacher Education, 16, 315-333.

1. Begin to sketch a qualitative study using one of the approaches. Answer the
questions here that apply to the approach you afe considering. For a narra-
tive study: What individual do you plan to study? And do you have access to
information about this individual's life experiences? For "a phenomenology:
What is the phenomenon of interest that you plan to study? And do you have
access to people who have experienced it? For a grounded theory: What
social science concept, action, or process do you plan to explore as the basis
for your theory? For an ethnography: What cultural group or people do you
plan to study? For a case study: What is the case you plan to examine?

2. Select one of the journal articles listed in the Additional Readings section.
Determine the characteristics of approach. being used by the author(~) and
discuss why the author(s) may have used the approach.
I:
I

6
Introducing and
Focusing the Study

T he design of a qualitative study begins before the researcher chooses a

qualitative approach. It begins by the researcher stating the problem or
issue leading to the study, formulating the central purpose of the study, and
providing the research questions. However, these components need to con-
nect or tie to the approach used in the study. It is not necessarily the case that
the research problem and questions precede the design of the research. Often
the logic is back and forth between these components in an integrated, con-
sistent manner so that all parts interrelate (Morse & Richards, 2002). Thus,
these introductory sections can foreshadow elements of the approach being
used, or they can be written after one of the approaches (narrative, phenome-
nology, grounded theory, ethnography, or case study) has been selected.
Regardless of the logic chosen, there are elements of writing a good qualitative
research problem statement, a purpose statement, and research questions tai-
lored to one of the approaches to qualitative research, and this chapter is
devoted to conveying these elements.

Questions for Discussion

• How can the problem statement be best written to reflect one of the
approaches to qualitative research?
• How can the purpose statement be best written to convey the orientation of an
approach to research?

101
102 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

• How can a central question be written so that it encodes and foreshadows an

approach to qualitative research?
., How can subquestions be presented so that they reflect the issues peing
explored in an approach to qualitative research?

The Research Problem

Qualitative studies begin with authors stating the research problem of the
study. In the first few paragraphs of a design for a study, the qualitative
researcher introduces the "problem" leading to the study. The term "prob-
lem" may be a misnomer, and individuals unfamiliar with writing research
may struggle with this writing passage. Rather than calling this passage the
"problem," it might be clearer if I call it the "need for the study." The intent
of a research problem in qualitative research is to provide a rationale or need
for studying a particular issue or "problem." Why is this study needed? In
the following paragraphs, I consider establishing the need by considering the
"source" for the problem, framing it within the literature, and encoding and
foreshadowing the text for one of the five qualitative approaches to inquiry.
Research methods books (e.g., Creswell, 2005; Marshall & Rossman,
2006) advance several sources for research problems. Research problems
are found in personal experience with an issue, a job-related problem, an
adviser's research agenda, or the scholarly literature. It is important in qual-
itative research to provide a rationale or reason for studying the problem.
The strongest and most scholarly rationale for a study, I believe, comes from
the scholarly literature: a need exists to add to or fill a gap in the literature
or to provide a voice for individuals not heard in the literature. As suggested
by Barritt (1986), the rationale

is not the discovery of new elements, as in natural scientific study, but rather
the heightening of awareness for experience which has been forgotten and
overlooked. By height,ening awareness and creating dialogue, it is hoped
research can lead to better understanding of the way things appear to someone
else and through that insight lead to improvements in practice. (p. 20)

Besides dialogue and understanding, a qualitative study may fill a void in

existing literature, establish a new line of thinking, or assess an issue with an
understudied group or population.
Although opinions differ about the extent of literature review needed
before a study begins, qualitative texts (e.g., Creswell, 2003; Marshall &
Rossman, 2006) refer to the need to review the literature so that one can
provide the rationale for the problem and position one's study within the
ongoing literature about the topic. I have found it helpful to visually depict
Introducing and Focusing the Study 103

where my study can be positioned into the larger literature. For example,
one might develop a figure-a research map .(Creswell, 1994)-of existing
literature and show in this figure the topics addressed in the literature and
how one's proposed research fits into or extends the literature.
In addition to determining the source of the research problem and fram-
ing it within the literature, qualitative researchers need to introduce the
problem in a way that the discussion foreshadows one of the five approaches
to inquiry. This can be done, I believe, by mentioning how the particular
choice of approach fills a need or gap in the literature about the research
problem. In a problem statement for a narrative study, for example, I would
expect the writer to mention how individual stories need to be told to gain
personal experiences about the research problem. In a phenomenological
study, I would like to hear from the author that we need to know more
about a particular phenomenon and the common experiences of individuals
, with the phenomenon. For a grounded theory study, I would expect to learn
how we need a theory that explains a process because existing theories are
inadequate, nonexistent for the population, or need to be modified. In an
ethnographic study, the problem statement might include thoughts about
why it is important to describe and to interpret the cultural behavior of a cer-
tain group of people or how a group is marginalized and kept silent by
others. For a case study, the researcher might discuss how the study of a case
or cases can help inform the' research problem. Thus, the need for the study,
or the problem leading to it, can be related to the specific focus of one of the
five approaches to research.

The Purpose Statement

This interrelationship between design and approach continues with the pur-
pose statement, a statement that provides the major objective or intent, or
"road map," to the study. As the most important statement in an entire qual-
itative study, the purpose statement needs to be carefully constructed and
written in clear and concise language. Unfortunately, all too many writers
leave this statement implicit, causing readers extra work in interpreting and
following a study. This need not be the case, so I created a "script" of this
statement (Creswell, 1994,2003), a statement containing several sentences
and blanks that an individual fills in:

The purpose of this (narrative, phenomenological, grounded

theory, ethnographic, case) study is (was? will be?) to _ _ _ _ __
(understand? describe? develop? discover?) the (central
phenomenon of the study) for (the participants) at
104 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

_ _ _ _ _ (the site). At this stage in the reseatch, the _ _ _~_ _

(central phenomenon) will be generally defined as _ _ _ _ _ _ (a general
definition of the central concept).

As I show in the script, several terms can be used to encode a passage for
a specific approach to qualitative research. In the purpose statement,

0& The writer identifies the specific qualitative approach used in the study by men~
tiarring the type. The name of the approach comes first in the passage, thus
foreshadowing the inquiry approach for data collection, analysis, and report
writing.
Cl The writer encodes the passage with words that indicate the action of the
researcher and the focus of the approach to research. For example, I associate
certain words with qualitative research, such <1;S "understand experiences"
(useful in narrative studies), "describe" (useful in case studies, ethnographies,
and phenomenologies), "meaning ascribed" (associated with phenomenolo~
gies), "develop or generate" (useful in grounded theory), and "discover" (use-
ful in all approaches).
e I identify several words that a researcher would include in a purpose statement
to encode the purpose statement for the approach chosen (see Table 6.1).
These words indicate not only researchers' actions but also the foci and out~
comes of the studies.
e The writer identifies the central phenomenon. The central phenomenon is the
one, central concept being explored or examined in the research study. I gen-
erally recommend that qualitative researchers focus on only one concept (e.g.,
the campus reaction to the gunman, or the values of the sXers) at the begin-
ning of a study. Comparing groups or looking fot linkages can be included in
the study as one gains experiences in the field and engages in initial exploration
of the central phenomenon.
$ The writer foreshadows the participants and the site for the study, whether the
participants are one individual (i.e., narrative or case study), several individu-
als (i.e., grounded theory or phenomenology), a group (i.e., ethnography), or
a site (Le., program, event, activity, or place in a case study).
e I include a general definition for the central phenomenon. This definition may
be difficult to determine with any specificity in advance. But, for example, in a
narrative study, a writer might define the types of stories to be collected (e.g.,
life stages, childhood memories, the transition from adolescence to adulthood,
attendance at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting). In a phenomenology, the
central phenomenon to be explored might be specified such as the meaning of
grief, anger, or even chess playing' (Aanstoos, 1985). In grounded theory, the
central phenomenon might be identified as a concept central to the process
being examined. In an ethnography, the writer might identify the key cultural
concepts being examined such as roles, behaviors, acculturation, communica-
tion, myths, stories, or other concepts that the researcher plans to take into the
Table 6.1 Words to Use in Encoding the Purpose Statement

Narrative Phenomenology Grounded Theory Ethnography Case Study

• Narrative study • Phenomenology o Grounded theory • Ethnography I) Case study

• Stories • Describe • Generate .. Culture-sharing • Bounded
• Epiphanies • Experiences .. Develop group I) Single or
• Lived experiences It Meaning • Propositions • Cultural behavior collective case
• Chronology • Essence • Process and language 00 Event, process,
o Substantive theory • Cultural portrait program,
• Cultural themes individual

-'"
o
106 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

field at the beginning of the study. Finally, in a case study such as. an "intrin-
sic" case study (Stake, 1995), the writer might define the boundaries of the
case, specifying how the case is bounded in time and place. If an "instru.rnen-
tal" case study is desired, then the researcher might specify and define gener-
ally the issue being examined in the case.

Several examples of purpose statements follow that illustrate the encod-

ing and foreshadowing of the five approaches to research:

Example 6.1. A Narrative Example

From a study about the ways in which theories of narrative might be
significant in the study of childbearing of 17 women:

In my research, which has involved collecting women's accounts of their expe-

riences of becoming mothers, I am seeking to understand how women make
sense of events throughout the process of childbearing, constructing these
events into episodes and thereby (apparently) maintaining unity within their
lives. (Miller, 2000, p. 309)

Example 6.2. A Phenomenological Example

From a study of doctoral advisement relationships between women:

Given the intricacies of power and gender in the academy, what are doctoral
advisement relationships between women advisors and women advisees really
like? Because there were few studies exploring women doctoral students' expe~
dences in the literature, a phenomenological study devoted to understanding
women's lived experiences as advisees best lent itself to examining this ques-
tion. (Heinrich, 1995, p. 449)

Example 6.3. A Grounded Theory Example

From a grounded theory study of academic change in higher education:

The primary purpose of this article is to present a groun4ed theory of acad-

emic change that is based upon research guided by two major research ques-
tions: What are the major sources of academic change? What are the major
processes through which academic change occurs? For purposes of this paper,
grounded theory is defined as theory generated from data systematically
obtained and analyzed through the constant comparative method. (Conraci,
1978, p. 101)
Introducing and Focusing the Study 107

Example 6.4. An Ethnographic Example

From an ethnography of "bal!park" culture:

This article examines how the work and the talk of stadium employees rein~
force certain meanings of baseball in society, and it reveals how this work and
talk create and maintain ballpark culture. (Trujillo, 1992, p. 351)

Example 6.5. A Case Study Example

From a case study using a feminist perspective to examine how men
exploit women's labor in the sport of lawn bowls at the "Roseville Club":

Although scholars have shown that sport is fundamental in constituting and

reproducing gender inequalities, little attention has been paid to sport and gen-
* def relations in later Hfe. In this article we demonstrate how men exploit
women's labor in the sport of lawn bowls, which is played predominately by
older people. (Boyle & McKay, 1995, p. 556)

The Research Questions

Several of these examples illilstrate the interweaving of problems, research
questions, and purpose statements. For purposes of this discussion, I sepa-
rate them out, although in practice some researchers combine them. But, in
many instances, the research questions are distinct and easily found in a
study. Once again, I find that these questions provide an opportunity to
encode and foreshadow an approach to inquiry.

The Central Question

Some writers offer suggestions for writing qualitative research questions
(e.g., Creswel!, 2003; Marshal! & Rossman, 2006). I especially like the con-
ceptualization of Marshal! and Rossman (2006) of research questions into
four types: exploratory (e.g., to investigate phenomenon little understood),
explanatory (e.g., to explain patterns related to phenomenon), descriptive
(e.g., to describe the phenomenon), and emancipatory (e.g., to engage in
social action about the phenomenon). Qualitative research questions are
open-ended, evolving, and nondirectional; restate the purpose of the study in
more specific terms; start with a word such as "what" or "how" rather than
"why"; and are few in number (five to seven). They are posed in various
108 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

forms, from the "grand tour" (Spradley, 1979, 1980) that asks, "Tell me
about yourself," to more specific questions.
I recommend that a researcher reduce her or his entire study to a single,
overarching question and several subquestions. Drafting this central ques-
tion often takes considerable work because of its breadth and the tendency
of some to form specific questions based on traditional training. To reach the
overarching question, I ask qualitative researchers to state the broadest ques-
tion they could possibly pose about the research problem.
This central question can be encoded with the language of one of the five
approaches to inquiry. Morse (1994) speaks directly to this issue as she
reviews the rypes of research questions. Although she does not refer to nar-
ratives or case studies, she mentions that one finds "descriptive" questions
of cultures in ethnographies, "process" questions in grounded theory stud-
ies, and "meaning" questions in phenomenological studies. For example, I
searched through the five studies presented in Chapter 5 to see if I could find
or imagine their central research questions.
In the life history of Vonnie Lee, Angrosino (1994) does not pose a cen-
tral question, but I can infer from statements about the purpose of the study
that the central question might be, "What. story does Vonnie Lee have to
te1!?" This question implies that the individual in the narrative has a story,
and that there will be some central element of interest (Le., travel on the bus)
that holds meaning for Vonnie Lee's life. In the phenomenological study of
how persons living with AIDS represent and image their disease, Anderson
and Spencer (2002) also did not pose a central question, but it might have
been: "What meaning do 41 men and 17 women with a diagnosis of AIDS
ascribe to their illness?" This central question in phenemonology implies
that all of the individuals diagnosed with AIDS have something in common
that provides meaning for their lives. In the grounded theory study of 11
women's survival and coping with childhood sexual abuse, Morrow and
Smith (1995) do not present a central question in the introduction, but they
mention several broad questions that guided their. interviewing of the
women: "Tell me, as much as you are comfortable sharing with me right
now, what happened to you when you were sexually abused?" and "What
are the primary ways in which you survived?" (p. 25). This question implies
that the researchers were first interested in understanding the women's expe-
rience and then shaping it into coping strategies used to survive their abuse
(as part of a theory of the process). In the ethnographic study of the sXe
movement by Haenfler (2004), again no research question is advanced, but
it might have been: "What are the core values of the straight edge movement,
and how do the members construct and understand their subjective experi-
ences of being a part of the subculture?" This question asks first for a
Introducing and Focusing the Study 109

description of the core values and then an understanding of experiences (that

are presented as themes in the study). Finally, ir our case study of a campus
response to it gunman incident (Asmussen & Creswell, 1995), we asked five
central guiding questions in our introduction: "What happened? Who was
involved in response to the incident? What themes of response emerged dur-
ing the eight-month period that followed this incident? What theoretical
constructs helped us understand the campus response, and what constructs
were unique to this case?" (p. 576). This example illustrates how we were
interested first in simply describing their experiences and then in developing
themes that repres!nted responses of individuals on the campuses.
As these examples illustrate, authors mayor may not pose a central ques-
tion, although one exists in all studies. For writing journal articles, central
questions may be used less than purpose statements to guide the research.
However, for individuals' graduate research, such as theses or dissertations,
'the trend is toward writing both purpose statements and central questions.

Subquestions
An author typically presents a small number of subquestions that follow
the central question. One model for conceptualizing these subquestions is to
use either issue questions or topical questions. According to Stake (1995),
issue subquestions address' the major concerns and perplexities to be
resolved. The issue-oriented questions, for example,

are not simple and dean, but intricately wired to political, social, historical,
and especially personal contexts .... Issues draw us toward observing, even
teasing out the problems of the case, the conflictual outpourings, the complex
backgrounds of human concern. (Stake, 1995, p. 17)

My understanding of issue-oriented subquestions is that they take the

phenomenon in the central research questions and break it down into
subtopics for examination. A central question such as "What does it mean
to be a college professor?" would be analyzed in subquestions on topics
like "What does it mean to be a college professor in the classroom? As a
researcher? As an advisor?" and so forth.
Topical subquestions, on the other hand, cover the anticipated needs for
information. These questions, "call for information needed for description
of the case .... A topical outline will be used by some researchers as the
primary conceptual structure and by others as subordinate to the issue
structure" (Stake, 1995, p. 25). I view topical subquestions as questions
that advance the procedural steps in the process of research, steps that are
110 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

typically conducted within one of the approaches to research (see Chapter 4

for the procedures of each approach). To be more descriptive, I would
change the name from "topical" to "procedural" suhquestions. For exam-
ple, in grounded theory, the steps involve identifying a central phenomenon,
the causal conditions, the intervening conditions, and the strategies and
consequences. By writing procedural subquestions, authors can mirror the
procedures they intend to use in one of the five approaches to inquiry and
foreshadow their choice of approach.
Several illustrations in the following examples represent both issue and
procedural subquestions.
In writing a biographical narrative, Denzin (1989b) suggests that research
questions follow an interpretive format and be formulated into a single state-
ment, beginning with how, not why, and starting with one's own personal
history and building on other information. From his own studies, Denzin illus-
trates types of issue questions: "How is emotion, as a form of consciousness,
lived, experienced, articulated and felt?"; "How do ordinary men and women
live and experience the alcoholic self active alcoholism produces?" (p. 50).
Then, one could pose procedural subquestions that relate to the manner
or procedure of narrative research. For example, these procedural questions
might be:

• What are the experiences in this individual's life?

o What are the stories that can be told from these experiences?
11 What are some "turning points" in the stories?
11 What are some theories that relate to this individual's life?

In an example of a phenomenological study, Riemen (1986) poses this

central question in her nursing-caring interaction study: "What is essential
for the experience to be described by the client as being a caring interac-
tion?" (p. 91). By adding a set of procedural questions related to the pro-
cedures in phenomenology, one emerges with subquestions. For example,
following Moustakas's'(1994) procedures, she might have asked the follow-
ing procedural subquestions related to phenomenology:

e What statements describe these experiences?

• What themes emerge from these experiences?
11 What are the contexts of and thoughts about the experiences?
e What is the overall essence of the 'experience?

To illustrate both issue and procedural subquestions in a study, Gritz

(1995, p. 4) studied "teacher professionalism" as it was understood by
practicing elementary classroom teachers in her phenomenology study. She
Introducing and Focusing the Study III

posed the following central question and two sets of subquestions, one issue
oriented and the other procedural.

Central question
" What does it mean (to practitioners) to be a professional teacher?

Issue subquestious
Cl! What 'do professional teachers do?
Cl What don't professional teachers do?
Cl What does a person do who exemplifies the term "teacher professionalism"?
Cl What is difficult or easy about being a professional educator?
Cl How or when did you first become aware of being a professional?

Procedural subquestions
e What are the structural meanings of teacher professionalism?
Cl What are the underlying themes and contexts that account for this view of
teacher professionalism?
e What are the universal 'structures that precipitate feelings and thoughts about
"teacher professionalism"?
" What are the invariant structural themes that facilitate a description of l'teacher
professionalism" as it is experienced by practicing elementary classroom
teachers?

For a grounded theory study, the procedural subquestions might be posed

as aspects of the coding steps, such as open coding, axial coding, selective
codiug, and the development of propositions:

• What are the general categories to emerge in a first review of the data? (open
coding)
• What is the phenomenon of interest?
• What caused the phenomenon of interest? What contextual and intervening
conditions influenced it? What strategies or outcomes resulted from it? What
were the consequences of these strategies? (axial coding)

For example, in Mastera's (1995) dissertation proposal, she advances

a study of the process of revising the general education curriculum in three
private baccalaureate colleges. Her plan calls for both issue and proce-
dural questions. The issue questions that guided her study were "What is the
theory that explains the change process in the revision of general education
curricula on three college campuses?" and "How does the chief academic
officer participate in the process on each campus?" She then poses several
procedural subquestions specifically related to open and axial coding:
112 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

• How did the process unfold?

• What were the major events or benchmarks in the process?
o What were the obstacles to change?
" Who were the important participants? How did they participate in the process?
(/ What were the outcomes?

In another study, Valerio (1995) uses procedural sub-questions directly

rounded theory questions directly related to the steps in grounded theory
data analysis:

The overarching question for my grounded theory research study is: What
theory explains why teenage girls become pregnant? The sub~questions follow
the paradigm for developing a theoretical model. The questions seek to explore
each of the interview coding steps and include: What are the general categories
to emerge in open coding? What central phenomenon emerges? What are its
causal conditions? What specific interaction issues and larger conditions
have been influential? What are the resulting associated strategies and out~
comes? (p, 3)

In an ethnography, one might present procedural subquestions that relate

to (a) a description of the context, (b) an analysis of the major themes,
and (c) the interpretation of cultural behavior (WoleOtt, 1994b), Using
Spradley's (1979, 1980) approach to ethnography, these procedural subques-
tions might reflect the 12 steps in his "decision research sequence," They
might be as follows:

• What is the social situation to be studied?

• How does one go about observing this situation?
• What is recorded about this situation?
OIl What is observed about this situation?
'" What cultural domains emerge from studying this situation?
• What more speciflc, focused observations can be made?
OIl What taxonomy emerges from these focused observations?
'" Looking more selectively, what observations can be made?
'" What components emerge from these observations?
'" What themes emerge?
• What is the emerging cultural inventory?
'" How does one write the ethnogr~phy?

In using good research question format for our gunman case study
(Asmussen & Creswell, 1995), I would redraft the questions presented in the
article, To foreshadow the case of a single campus and individuals on it,
Introducing and Focusing the Study 113

I would pose the central question-"What was the campus response to

the gunman incident at the Midwestern university?"-and then I would pre-
sent the issue subquestions guiding my study (although we presented these
questions more as central questions, as already noted):

1. What happened?
2. Who was involved in response to the incident?

3. What themes of response emerged during the 8-rnonth period that followed
this incident?
4. What theoretical constructs helped us understand the campus response?
5. What constructs were unique to this case? (p. 576)

Then, I would present the procedural subquestions:

1. How might the campus (case), and the events following the incident, be
described? (descriptioI). of the case)
2. What themes emerge from gathering information about the case? (analysis of
the case materials)
3. How would I interpret these themes within larger social and psychological
theories? (lessons learned from the case surrounded by the literature)

These illustrations show that, in a qualitative study, one can write sub-
questions that address issues on the topic being explored and use terms that
encode the work within an approach. Also, procedural subquestions can be
used that foreshadow the steps in the procedures of data collection, analysis,
and narrative format construction.

Summary

In this chapter, I addressed three topics related to introducing and focusing

a qualitative study: the problem statement, the purpose statement, and the
research questions. Although I discussed general features of designing each
section in a qualitative study, I related the topics to the five approaches
advanced in this book. The probJem statement should indicate the source of
the issue leading to the study, be framed in terms of existing literature, and
be related to one of the approaches to research using words that convey the
approach. The purpose statement also should include terms that encode
the statement for a specific approach. Including comments about the site

L
I 14 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

or people to be studied foreshadows the approach as well. The research

questions continue this encoding within an approach for the central ques-
tion, the overarching question being addressed in the study. Following the
central question are subquestions, and I expand a model presented by Stake
(1995) that groups subquestions into two sets: issue subquestions, which
divide the central phenomenon into subtopics of study, and procedural sub-
questions, which convey the steps in the research within an approach.
Procedural subquestions foreshadow how the researcher will be presenting
and analyzing the information.

For writing problem statements in general, examine Marshall and Rossman

(2006). For several basic principles in writing purpose statements, explore
Creswell (2003) and the references mentioned in my chapter on writing pur-
pose statements. For a good overview of writing research questions, I rec-
ommend Miles and Huberman (1994). Also, in standard qualitative texts,
most authors address qualitative research questions (e.g., Hatch, 2002;
Maxwell, 2005). I particularly like the conceptualization of issue and topi-
cal (procedural) questions by Stake (1995). Also, the reader should examine
qualitative journal articles and reports to find good illustrations of problem
statements, purpose statements, and research questions.

Creswell, J. W. (2003). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed meth-

ods approaches (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Marshall, C., & Rossman, G. B. (2006). Designing qualitative research (4th ed.).
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Maxwell, J. (2005). Qualitative research design: An interactive approach (2nd ed.).
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: A sourcebook of
new methods (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Stake, R. (1995). The art ~f case study research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

1. Consider how you would write ~bout the research problem or issue in your
study. State the issue in a couple of sentences, then discuss the research liter-
ature that will provide evidence for a need for studying the problem. Finally,
within the context of one of the five approaches to research, what rationale
exists for studying the problem that reflects your approach to res~arch?
Introducing and Focusing the Study 115

2. For the study you are designing, write a central question for your approach
, to research using the guidelines in this chapter for writing a good central
question and using the words that encode the' question within your approach
to research.
3. In this chapter, I have presente<;l a model for writing the subquestions in an
issue and procedural format. Write five to seven issue~oriented subquestions
and five to seven procedural subquestions in your approach to inquiry for
your proposed study.
i
I
. I

,1i
i .

I
I
I
. 1
7
Data Collection

D ata collection offers one more instance for assessing research design
within each approach: to inquiry. However, before exploring this idea,
I find it useful to visualize the phases of data collection common to all
approaches. A "circle" of interrelated activities best displays this process, a
process of engaging in activities that include but go beyond collecting data.
I begin this chapter by presenting this circle of activities, briefly iutroduc-
ing each activity. These activities are locating a site or an iudividual, gaining
access and making rapport, sampling purposefully, collecting data, record-
ing information, exploring field issues, and storiug data. Then I explore how
these activities differ in the five approaches to inquiry, and I end with a few
summary comments about comparing the data collection activities across the
five approaches.

Questions for Discussion

• What are the steps in the overall data collection process of qualitative research?
• What are typical access and rapport issues?
• How does one select people or places to study?
• What type of information typically is collected?
• How is information recorded?
• What are common issues in collecting data?
• How is information typically stored?
• How are the five approaches both similar and different during data collection?

117
118 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Locating
Site/
Individual

Storing Data

Resolving Field Purposefully

Issues Sampling

Recording Collecting
Information Data

Figure 7.1 Data Collection Activities

The Data Collection Circle

I visualize data collection as a series of interrelated activities aimed at gath-
ering good information to answer emerging research questions. As shown in
Figure 7.1, a qualitative researcher engages in a series of activities in the
process of collecting data. Although I start with locating a site or an indi-
vidual to study, an investigator may begin at another entry point in the cir-
cle. Most importantly, I want the researcher to consider the multiple phases
in collecting data, phases that extend beyond the typical reference point of
conducting interviews or making observations.
An important step in the process is to find people or places to study and
to gain access to and establish rapport with participants so that they will
provide good data. A closely interrelated step in the process involves deter-
mining a strategy for the purposeful sampling of individuals or sites. This is
not a probability sample that will enable a researcher to determine statisti-
cal inferences to a population; rather, it is purposeful sample that will inten-
tionally sample a group of people that can best inform the researcher about
the research problem under examination. Thus, the researcher needs to
determine which type of purposeful sampling will be best to use.
Once the inquirer selects the sites or people, decisions need to be made
about the most appropriate data collection approaches. Increasingly, a
Data Collection 119

qualitative researcher has more choices regarding data collection, such as

e-mail messages and online data gathering, and typically the researcher will col-
lect data from more than one source. To collect this information, the researcher
develops protocols or written forms for recording the information and needs to
develop some forms for recording tl1e data, such as interview or observational
protocols. Also, the researcher needs to anticipate issues of data collection,
called "field issues," which may be a problem, such as having inadequate data,
needing to prematurely leave the field or site, or contributing to lost informa-
tion. Finally, a qualitative researcher must decide how he or she will store data
so that they can easily be found and protected from damage or loss.
I now turn to each of these data collection activities, and I address each
for general procedures and within each approach to inquiry. As shown in
Table 7.1, these activities are both different and similar across the five
approaches to inquiry.

The Site or Individual

In a narrative study, one needs to find one or more individuals to study, indi-
viduals who are accessible, willing to provide information, and distinctive
for their accomplishments and ordinariness or who shed light on a specific
phenomenon or issue being. explored. Plummer (1983) recommends two
sources of individuals to study. The pragmatic approach is where individu-
als are met on a chance encounter, emerge from a wider study, or are vol-
unteers. Alternatively, one might identify a "marginal person" who lives in
conflicting cultures, a "great person" who impacts the age in which he or she
lives, or an "ordinary person" who provides an example of a large popula-
tion. An alternative perspective is available from Gergen (1994), who sug-
gests that narratives "come into existence" (p. 280) not as a product of an
individual, but as a facet of relationships, as a part of culture, as reflected in
social roles such as gender and age. Thus, to ask which individuals will par-
ticipate is not to focus on the right question. Instead, narrative researchers
need to focus on the stories to emerge, recognizing that all people have sto-
ries to tell. Also instructive in considering the individual in narrative research
is to consider whether first-order or second-order narratives are the focus of
inquiry (Elliot, 2005). In first-order narratives, individuals tell stories about
themselves and their own experiences, while in second-order narratives,
researchers construct a narrative about other people's experiences (e.g.,
biography) or present a collective story that represents the lives of many.
In a phenomenological study, the participants may be located at a single
site, although they need not be. Most importantly, they must be individuals
who have all experienced the phenomenon being explored and can articulate
-
N
0
ii Table 7.1
-'==~YP'TT"'" "'~, MM -.,~-"""''''''''''.

Data Collection Activities by Five Approaches

Data Collection
Activity Narrative Phenomenology Grounded Theory Ethnography Case Study
What is Single individual, Multiple Multiple Members of a A bounded system.
traditionally accessible and individuals who individuals who culture-sharing such as a process)
studied? (sites or distinctive have experienced have responded to group or an activity) an
individuals) the phenomenon an action or individuals event, a program,
participated in representative of or multiple
a process about the group individuals
a central
phenomenon
What are typical Gaining permission Finding people Locating a Gaining access Gaining access
access and from individuals, who have homogeneous through the through the
rapport issues? obtaining access to experienced the sample gatekeeper, gaining gatekeeper, gaining
(access and information in phenomenon the confidence of the confidence of
rapport) archives informants participants
How does one Several strategies, Finding individuals Finding a Finding a cultural Finding a "case"
select a site or depending on the who have homogeneous group to which one or "cases," an
individuals to person (e.g., experienced the sample, a "theory- is a "stranger," a "atypical" case, or
study? convenient, phenomenon, a based" sample, a "representative" a "maximum
(purposeful politically "criterion" sample "theoretical" sample variation" or
sampling important, typical, sample "extreme" case
strategies) a critical case)
Data Collection
Activity Narrative Phenomenology Grounded Theory Ethnography Case Study
What type of Documents and Interviews with 5 Primarily Participant Extensive forms,
information archival material, to 25 people interviews with observations, such as
typically is open~ended (Polkinghorne, 20 to 30 people to interviews, artifacts, documents and
collected? (forms interviews, subject 1989) achieve detail in and documents records,
of data) journaling, the theoty interviews,
participant observation, and
observation, casual physical artifacts
chatting
How is Notes, interview Interviews, often Interview protocol, Fieldnotes, interview Fieldnotes,
information protocol multiple interviews memoing and observational interview and
recorded? with the same protocols observational
(recording individuals protocols
information)

What are Access to Bracketing one's Interviewing issues Field issues (e.g., Interviewing and
common data materials, experiences, (e.g., logistics, reflexivity, reactivity, observing issues
collection issues? authenticity of logistics of openness) reciprocality, "going
(field issues) account and interviewing native," divulging
materials private information,
deception)
How is File folders, Transcriptions, Transcriptions, Fieldnotes, Fieldnotes,
information computer files computer files computer files transcriptions, transcriptions,
typically stored? computer files computer files
(storing data)
~

N
~
122 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

their lived experiences. The more diverse the characteristics of the individu-
als, the more difficult it will be for the researcher to find common experi-
ences, themes, and the overall essence of the experience for all participants.
In a grounded theory study, the individuals may not be located at a single
site; in fact, if they are dispersed, they can provide important contextual
information useful in developing categories in the axial coding phase of
research. They need to be individuals who have participated in the process
or action the researcher is studying in the grounded theory study. For exam-
ple, in Creswell and Brown (1992), we interviewed 32 department chairper-
sons located across the United States who had mentored faculty in their
departments. In an ethnographic study, a single site, in which an intact cul-
ture-sharing group has developed shared values, beliefs, and assumptions, is
often important. The researcher needs to identify a group (or an individual
or individuals representative of a group) to study, preferably one to which
the inquirer is a "stranger" (Agar, 1986) and can gain access. For a case
study, the researcher needs to select a site or sites to study, such as programs,
events, processes, activities, individuals, or several individuals. Although
Stake (1995) refers to an individual as an appropriate "case," I turn to the
narrative biographical approach or the life histoty approach in studying a
single individual. However, the study of multiple individuals, each defined as
a case and considered a collective case study, is acceptable practice.
A question that students often ask is whether they can study their own
organization, place of work, or themselves. Such a study may raise issues of
power and risk to the researcher, the participants, and to the site. To study
one's own workplace, for example, raises questions about whether good
I data can be collected when the act of data collection may introduce a power
I imbalance between the researcher and the individuals being studied.
Although studying one's own "backyard" is often convenient and eliminates
many obstacles to collecting data, researchers can jeopardize their jobs if
they report unfavorable data or if participants disclose private information
that might negatively influence the organization or workplace. A hallmark
of all good qualitative research is the report of multiple perspectives that
range over the entire spectrum of perspectives (see the section in Chapter 3
on the characteristics of qualitative research). I am not alone in sounding this
cautionary note about studying one's own organization or workplace.
Glesne and Peshkin (1992) question research that examines "your own
backyard-within your own institution or agency, or among friends or col-
leagues" (p. 21), and they suggest that such information is "dangerous
knowledge" that is political and risky for an "inside" investigator. When
it becomes important to study one's own organization or workplace,
I typically recommend that multiple strategies of validation (see Chapter 10)
be used to ensure that the account is accurate and insightful.
Data Collection 123

Studying yourself can be a different matter. There is an approach that has

gained prominence in qualitative research-autoethnography-an approach
championed by Ellis (2004) and others. For example, EIIis's (1993) story of
the experiences of her brother's sudden death illustrates the power of per-
sonal emotio.n and providing cultural perspectives around one's own experi-
ences. I recommend that individuals wariting to study themselves and their
own experiences turn to autoethnography or biographical memoir for schol-
arly procedures in how to conduct their studies.

Access and Rapport

Gaining access to sites and individuals also involves several steps. Regardless
of the approach to inquiry, permissions need to be sought from a human
spbjects review board, a process in which campus committees review
research studies for their potential harmful impact on and risk to partici-
pants. This process involves submitting to the board a proposal that details
the procedures in the proje't. Most qualitative studies are exempt from a
lengthy review (e.g., the expedited or full review), but studies involving indi-
viduals as minors (i.e., 18 years or under) or studies of high-risk, sensitive
populations (e.g., HIV-positive individuals) require a thorough review, a
process involving detailed, lengthy applications and an extended time for
review. Because many review boards are more familiar with the quantitative
approaches to social and human science research than they are with qualita-
tive approaches, the qualitative project description may need to conform to
some of the standard procedures and language of quantitative research (e.g.,
research questions, results) as well as provide information about the protec-
tion of human subjects. To the review board, it might be argued, qualitative
interviews, if unstructured, may actually provide participants considerable
control over the interview process (Corbin & Morse, 2003). It is helpful to
examine a sample consent form that participants need to review and sign in
a qualitative study. An example is shown in Figure 7.2.
This consent form often requires that specific elements be included, such as:

• the right of participants to voluntarily withdraw from the study at any time
• the central purpose of the study and the procedures to be used in data collection
• comments about protecting the confidentiality of the respondents
e a statement about known risks associated with participation in the study
• the expected benefits to accrue to the participants in the study
• the signature of the participant as well as the researcher

For a narrative study, inquirers gain information from individuals by obtain-

ing their permission to participate in the study. Study participants should be
124 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

"Experiences in Learning Qualitative Research: A Qualitative Case Study"

Dear Participant,
The following information, is provided for you to decide whether you wish to participate in
the present study. You should be aware that you are free to decide not to participate or
to withdraw at any time without affecting your relationship with this department, the
instructor, or the University of Nebraska~Lincoln.

The purpose of this study is to understand the process of learning qualitative research in
a doctoraHevel college course. The procedure will be a single, holistic case study design.
At this stage in the research, process will be generally defined as perceptions of the
course and making sense out of qualitative research at different phases in the course.

Data will be collected at three points-at the beginning of the course, at the midpoint,
and at the end of the course. Data collection will involve documents uournal entries made
by students and the instructor, student evaluations of the class and the research proce-
dure), audio-visual materia! (a videotape of the class), interviews (transcripts of inter-
views between students), and classroom observation fieldnotes (made by students and
the instructor). Individuals involved in the data collection will be the instructor and the
students in the class.

Do not hesitate to ask any questions about the study either before participating or dur-
ing the time that you are participating, We would be happy to share our findings with you
after the research is completed. However, your name will not be associated with the
research findings in any way, and your identity as a participant will be known only to the
researchers.

There are no known risks and/or discomforts associated with this study, The expected
benefits associated with your participation are the information about the experiences in
learning qualitative research, the opportunity to participate In a qualitative research
study, and co-authorship for those students who participate in the detailed analysis of the
data. If submitted for publication, a byline will indicate the participation of all students in
the class.

Please sign your consent with full knowledge of the nature and purpose of the proce-
dures. A copy of this consent form will be given to you to keep.

Signature of Participant Date

John W. Creswell, Ed, Psy., UNL, Prjncipallnvestjga~or

Figure 7.2 Sample Human Subjects Consent-to-Participate Form

appraised of the motivation of the researcher for their selection, granted

anonymity (if they desire it), and told by the researcher about the purpose
of the study. This disclosure helps build rapport. Access to biographical
documents and archives requires permission and perhaps travel to distant
libraries.
Data Collection 125

In a phenomenological study in which the sample includes individuals

who have experienced the phenomenon, it is als,O important to obtain par-
ticipants' written permission to be studied. In the Anderson and Spencer
(2002) study of the patients' images of AIDS, 58 men and women partici-
pated in the project at three sites dedicated to persons with HIV/AIDS: a hos-
pital clinic, a long-term care facility, and a residence. These were all
individuals with a diagnosis of AIDS, 18 years of age or older, able to com-
municate in English, and with a Mini-Mental Status score ahove 22. In such
a study, it was important to obtain permission to have access to the vulner-
able individuals participating in the study.
In a grounded theory study, the participants need to provide permission to
be studied, while the researcher should have established rapport with the par-
ticipants so that they will disclose detailed perspectives about responding to an
action or process. The grounded theorist starts with a homogeneous sample,
irldividuals who have commonly experienced the action or process. In an
ethnography, access typically begins with a "gatekeeper," an individual who is
a member of or has insider status with a cultural group. This gatekeeper is the
initial contact for the researcher and leads the researcher to other participants
(Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995). Approaching this gatekeeper and the cul-
tural system slowly is wise advice for "strangers" studying the culture. For
both ethnographies and case studies, gatekeepers require information about
the studies that often includes ·answers from the researchers to the following
questions, as Bogdan and Biklen (1992) suggest:

• Why was the site chosen for study?

• What will be done at the site during the research study? How much time will
be spent at the site by the researchers?
• Will the researcher's presence be disruptive?
• How will the results be reported?
• What will the gatekeeper, the participants, and the site gain from the study?
(reciprocity)

Purposeful Sampling Strategy

The concept of purposeful sampling is used in qualitative research. This
means that the inquirer selects individuals and sites for study because they
can purposefully inform an understanding of the research problem and cen-
tral phenomenon in the study. Decisions need to be made about who or what
should be sampled, what form the sampling will take, and how many people
or sites need to be sampled. Further, the researchers need to decide if the
sampling will be consistent with the information needed by one of the five
approaches to inquiry.
126 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

I will begin with some general remarks about sampling and then turn to
sampling within each of the five approaches. The decision about who or
what should be sampled can benefit from the conceptualization of Marshall
and Rossman (2006), who provide an example of sampling four aspects:
events, settings, actors, and artifacts. They also note that sampling can
change during a study and researchers need to be flexible, but despite this,
plan ahead as much as possible for their sampling strategy. I like to think as
well in terms of levels of sampling in qualitative research. Researchers can
sample at the site level, at the event or process level, and at the participant
level. In a good plan for a qualitative study, one or more of these levels might
be present and they each need to be identified.
On the question of what form the sampling will take, we need to note that
there are several qualitative sampling strategies available (see Table 7.2 for
a list of possibilities). These strategies have names and definitions, and they
can be described in research reports. Also, researchers might use one or more
of the strategies in a single study. Looking down the list, maximum variation
is listed first because it is a popular approach in qualitative studies. This
approach consists of determining in advance some criteria that differentiate
the sites or participants, and then selecting sites or participants that are quite
different on the criteria. This approach is often selected because when a
researcher maximizes differences at the beginning of the study, it increases
the likelihood that the findings will reflect differences or different perspec-
tives-an ideal in qualitative research. Other sampling strategies frequently
used are critical cases, which provide specific information about a problem,
and convenience cases, which represent sites or individuals from which the
researcher can access and easily collect data.
The size question is an equally important decision to sampling strategy in
the data collection process. One general guideline in qualitative research is
not only to study a few sites or individuals but also to collect extensive detail
about each site or individual studied. The intent in qualitative research is not
to generalize the information (except in some forms of case study research),
but to elucidate the particular, the specific (Pinnegar & Daynes, 2006).
Beyond these general suggestions, each of the five approaches to research
raises specific size considerations.
In narrative research, I have found many examples with one or two indi-
viduals, unless a larger pool of participants is used to develop a collective
story (Huber & Whelan, 1999). In phenomenology, I have seen the number
of participants range from 1 (Dukes, 1984) up to 325 (Polkinghorne, 1989).
Dukes (1984) recommends studying 3 to 10 subjects, and in one phenome-
nology, Riemen (1986) studied 10 individuals. In grounded theory, I recom-
mend including 20 to 30 individuals in order to develop a well-saturated
Data Collection 127

Table 7.2 Typology of Sampling Strategies in Qualitative Inquiry

.
Type of Sampling Purpose
Maximum variation Documents diverse variations and identifies
important common patterns
Homogeneous Focuses, reduces, simplifies, and facilitates group
interviewing
Critical case Permits logical generalization and maximum
application of information to other cases
Theory based Find examples of a theoretical construct and
thereby elaborate on and examine it
Confirming and Elaborate on initial analysis, seek exceptions,
disconfirming cases looking for variation
•Snowball or chain Identifies cases of interest from people who know
people who know what cases are information-rich
Extreme or deviant case Learn from highly unusual manifestations of the
phenomenon of interest
Typical case Highlights what is normal or average
Intensity Information-rich cases that manifest the
phenomenon intensely but not extremely
Politically important Attracts desired attention or avoids attracting
undesired attention
Random purposeful Adds credibility to sample when potential
purposeful sample is too large
Stratified purposeful Illustrates subgroups and facilitates comparisons
Criterion All cases that meet some criterion; useful for
quality assurance
Opportunistic Follow new leads; taking advantage of the
unexpected
Combination or mixed Triangulation, flexibility; meets multiple interests
and needs
Convenience Saves time, money, and effort, but at the expense
of information and credibility

SOURCE: Miles & Huberman (1994, p. 28). Reprinted with permission from Miles, M. B.,
& Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: A sourcebook of new methods,
(2nd ,d.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
128 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

theory, but this number may be much larger (Charmaz, 2006). In ethnogra-
phy, I like well-defined studies of single culture-sharing groups, with numer-
ous artifacts, interviews, and observations collected until the workings of the
cultural-group are clear. For case study research, I would not include more
than 4 or 5 case studies in a single study. This number should provide ample
opportunity to identify themes of the cases as well as conduct cross-case
theme analysis.
In a narrative study, the researcher reflects more on who to sample-the
individual may be convenient to study because she or he is available, a polit-
ically important individual who attracts attention or is marginalized, or a
typical, ordinary person. All of the individuals need to have stories to tell
about their lived experiences. Inquirers may select several options, depend-
ing on whether the person is marginal, great, or ordinary (Plummer, 1983).
Vonnie Lee, who consented to participate and provided insightful infor-
mation about individuals with mental retardation (Angrosino, 1994), was
convenient to study but also was a critical case to illustrate the types of chal-
lenges surrounding the issues of mental retardation in our society.
I have found, however, a much more narrow range of sampling strategies
for a phenomenological study. It is essential that all participants have expe-
rience of the phenomenon being studied. Criterion sampling works well
when all individuals studied represent people who have experienced the phe-
nomenon. In a grounded theory study, the researcher chooses participants
who can contribute to the development of the theory. Strauss and Corbin
(1998) refer to theoretical sampling, which is a process of sampling individ-
uals that can contribute to building the opening and axial coding of the
theory. This begins with selecting and studying a homogeneous sample of
individuals (e.g., all women who have experienced childhood abuse) and
then, after initially developing the theory, selecting and studying a heteroge-
neous sample (e.g., types of support groups other than women who have
experienced childhood abuse). The rationale for studying this heterogeneous
sample is to confirm or disconfirm the conditions, both contextual and inter-
vening, under which the model holds.
In ethnography, once the investigator selects a site with a cultural group,
the next decision is who and what will be studied. Thus, within-culture sam-
pling proceeds, and several authors offer suggestions for this procedure.
Fetterman (1998) recommends proceeding with the "big net approach"
(p. 32), where at first the researcher mingles with everyone. Ethnographers
rely on their judgment to select members of the subculture or unit based on
their research questions. They take advantage of opportunities (i.e., oppor-
tunistic sampling; Miles & Huberman, 1994) or establish criteria for study-
ing select individuals (criterion sampling). The criteria for selecting who and
Data Collection 129

what to study, according to Hammersley and Atkinson (1995), are based on

gaining some perspective on chronological time in the social life of the
group, people representative of the culture-sharing group in terms of demo-
graphics, and the contexts that lead to different forms of behavior.
In a case study, I prefer to sele,t uuusual cases in collective case studies
and employ maximum variation as a sampling strategy to represent diverse
cases and to fully describe multiple perspectives about the cases. Extreme
and deviant cases may comprise my collective case study, such as the study
of the unusual gunman incident on the university campus (Asmussen &
Creswell, 1995).

Forms of Data

'New forms of qualitative data continually emerge in the literature (see

Creswell, 2003), but all forms might be grouped into four basic types of infor-
mation: observations (ranging from nonparticipant to participant), interviews
(ranging from close-ended 'to open-ended), documents (ranging from private
to public), and audiovisual materials (including materials such as pho-
tographs, compact disks, and videotapes). Over the years, I have kept an
evolving list of data types, as shown in Figure 7.3.
I organize my list into the four basic types, although some forms may not
be easily placed into one category or the other. In recent years, new forms of
data have emerged, such as journaling in narrative story writing, using text
from e-mail messages, and observing through examining videotapes and pho-
tographs. Stewart and Williams (2005) discuss using online focus groups for
social research. They reviewed both synchronous (real-time) and asynchro-
nous (non-real-time) applications highlighting new developments such as vir-
tual reality applications as well as advantages (participants can be questioned
over long periods of time, larger numbers can be managed, and more heated
and open exchanges occur). Problems arise with online focus groups, such as
obtaining complete informed consent, recruiting individuals to participate,
and choosing times to convene given different international time zones.
Despite problems in innovative data collection such as these, I encourage
individuals designing qualitative projects to include new and creative data
collection methods that will encourage readers and editors to examine their
studies. Researchers need to consider visual ethnograpliy (Pink, 2001), or the
possibilities of narrative research to include living stories, metaphorical
visual narratives, and digital archives (see Clandinin, 2006). I like the tech-
nique of "photo elicitation" in which participants are shown pictures (their
own or those taken by the researcher) and asked by the researcher to discuss
130 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Observations
10 Gather fieldnotes by conducting an observation as a participant
Cl Gather fieldnotes by conducting an observation as an observer.
lit Gather fieldnotes by spending more time as a participant than as an observer.

• Gather fieldnotes by spending more time as an observer than as a participant.

e Gather fieldnotes first by observing as an "outsider" and then by moving into the setting
and observing as an "insider:'

Interviews
• Conduct an unstructured, open~ended interview and take interview notes.
• Conduct an unstructured, open~ended interview, audiotape the interview, and tran~
scribe the interview.
o Conduct a semistructured interview, audiotape the interview; and transcribe the
interview.
o Conduct a focus group interview, audiotape the interview, and transcribe the interview.
.., Conduct· different types of interviews: e-mail, face~to-face, focus group, online focus
group, telephone interviews.

Documents
.., Keep a journal during the research study.
o Have a participant keep a journal or diary during the research study.
e Collect personal letters from participants.
o Analyze public documents (e.g., official memos, minutes, records, archival material).
o Examine autobiographies and biographies.
o Have informants take photographs or videotapes (Le., photo elicitatlon).
G Conduct chart audits.
& Review medical records.

Audiovisual materials
.. Examine physical trace evidence (e.g., footprints in the snow).
.. Videotape or film a social situation or an individual or group.
.. Examine photographs or videotapes .
.. Collect sounds (e.g., musical sounds, a child's laughter, car horns honking) .
.., Collect e-mail or electronic messages.
.. Gather phone text messages.
.., Examine possessions or ritual objects.

Figure 7.3 A Compendium of Data Collection Approaches in

Qualitative Research

the contents of the pictures (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994). Ziller (1990), for
example, handed one loaded Polaroid camera each to 40 male and 40 female
4th graders in Florida and West Germany and asked them to take pictures
of images that represented war and peace.
The particular approach to research often directs a qualitative researchers'
II: attention toward preferred approaches to data collection, although these
i i

i i

J
Data Collection 131

pre,ferred approaches cannot be seen as rigid guidelines. For a narrative study,

Czarniawska (2004) mentioned three ways to 'collect data for stories: record-
ing spontaneous incidents of storytelling, eliciting stories through interviews,
and asking for stories through such mediums as the Internet. Clandinin and
Connelly (2000) suggest collecting field texts through a wide array of sources,
autobiography, journal, researcher fieldnotes, letters, conversations, inter-
views, stories of families, documents, photographs, and personal-family-
social artifacts. For a phenomenological study, the process of collecting
information involves primarily in-depth interviews (see, e.g., the discussion
about the long interview in McCracken, 1988) with as many as 10 individu-
als. The important point is to describe the meaning of the phenomenon for
a small number of individuals who have experienced it. Often multiple
interviews are conducted with the each of the research participants. Besides
interviewing and self-reflection, Polkinghorne (1989) advocates gathering
• information from depictions of the experience outside the context of the
research projects, such as descriptions drawn from novelists, poets, painters,
and choreographers. I recommend Lauterbach (1993), the study of wished-
for babies from mothers, ~s an especially rich example of phenomenological
research using diverse forms of data collection.
Interviews play a central role in the data collection in a grounded theory
study. In the study Brown and I conducted with academic chairpersons
(Creswell & Brown, 1992), each of our interviews with 33 individuals
lasted approximately an hour. Other data forms besides interviewing, such
as participant observation, researcher reflection or journaling (memoing),
participant journaling, and focus groups, may be used to help develop the
theory (see how Morrow and Smith, 1995, use these forms in their study
of women's childhood abuse). However, in my experience, these multiple
data forms often play a secondary role to interviewing in grounded theory
studies.
In an ethnographic study, the investigator collects descriptions of
behavior through observations, interviewing, documents, and artifacts
(Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995; Spradley, 1980), although observing and
interviewing appear to be the most popular forms of ethnographic data
collection. Ethnography has the distinction among the five approaches, I
believe, of advocating the use of quantitative surveys and tests and measures
as part of data collection. For example, examine the wide array of forms of
data in ethnography as advanced by LeCompte and Schensul (1999). They
reviewed ethnographic data collection techniques of observation, tests and
repeated measures, sample surveys, interviews, content analysis of secondary
or visual data, elicitation methods, audiovisual information, spatial map-
ping, and network research. Participant observation, for example, offers
possibilities for the researcher on a continuum from being a complete
132 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

outsider to being a complete insider (Jorgensen, 1989). The approach of

changing one's role from that of an outsider to that of an insider through
the course of the ethnographic study is well documented in field research
(Jorgensen, 1989). Wo!cott's (1994b) study of the Principal Selection Com-
mittee illustrates an outsider perspective, as he observed and recorded events
in the process of selecting a principal for a school without becoming an
active participant in the committee's conversations and activities.
Like ethnography, case study data collection involves a wide array of
procedures as the researcher builds an in-depth picture of the case. I am
reminded of the multiple forms of data collection recommended by Yin
(2003) in his book about case studies. He refers to six forms: documents,
archival records, interviews, direct observation, participant observation, and
physical artifacts. Because of the extensive data collection in the gunman
case study, Asmussen and I present a matrix of information sources for the
reader (Asmussen & Creswell, 1995). This matrix contains four types of
data (interviews, observations, documents, and audiovisual materials) in
the columns and specific forms of information (e.g., students at large,
central administration) in the rows. Our intent was to convey through this
matrix the depth and multiple forms of data collection, thus inferring
the complexity of our case. The use of a matrix, which is especially applica-
ble in an information-rich case study, might serve the inquirer equally well
in all approaches of inquiry.
Of all the data collection sources in Figure 7.3, interviewing and observ-
ing deserve special attention because they are frequently used in all five of
the approaches to research. Entire books are available on these two topics
(e.g., Kvale, 1996, on interviewing; Spradley, 1980, on observing), thus I
highlight only basic procedures that I recommend to prospective interview-
ers and observers.

Interviewing
One might view interviewing as a series of steps in a procedure:

• Identify interviewees based on one of the purposeful sampling proce-

dures mentioned in the preceding discussion (see Miles & Huberman,
1994).
• Determine what rype of interview is practical and will net the most use-
ful information to answer research questions. Assess the types available, such
as a telephone interview, a focus group interview, or a one-on-one interview.
A telephone interview provides the best source of information when the

,i
11.
Data Collection 133

rese~rcher does not have direct access to individuals. The drawbacks of this
approach are that the researcher cannot see the informal communication and
the phone expenses. Focus groups are advantageous when the interaction
among interviewees will likely yield the best information, when interviewees
are similar and cooperative with each other, when time to collect information
is limited, and when individuals interviewed one-on-one may be hesitant to
provide information (Krueger, 1994; Morgan, 1988; Stewart & Shamdasani,
1990). With this approach, however, care must be taken to encourage all par-
ticipants to talk and to monitor individuals who may dominate the conversa-
tion. For one-on-one interviewing, the researcher needs individuals who are
not hesitant to speak and share ideas, and needs to determine a setting in
which this is possible. The less articulate, shy interviewee may present the
researcher with a challenge and less than adequate data.
• Use adequate recording procedures when conducting one-on-one or
focus group interviews. I recommend equipment such as a lapel mike for
both the interviewer and interviewee or an adequate mike sensitive to the
acoustics of the room.
• Design and use an interview protocol, a form about four or five pages
in length, with approximately five open-ended questions and ample space
between the questions to write responses to the interviewee's comments (see
the sample protocol in Figure 7.4 below). How are questions developed?
The questions are a narrowing of the central question and subquestions in
the research study. These might be seen as the core of the interview proto-
col, bounded on the front end by questions to invite the interviewee to open
up and talk and located at the end by questions about "Who should I talk
to in order to learn more?" or comments thanking the participants for their
time for the interview.
• Refine the interview questions and the procedures further through
pilot testing. Sampson (2004), in an ethnographic study of boat pilots aboard
cargo vessels, recommends the use of a pilot test to refine and develop
research instruments, assess the degrees of observer bias, frame questions,
collect background information, and adapt research procedures. During
her pilot testing, Sampson participated at the site, kept detailed fieldnotes,
and conducted detailed tape-recorded, confidential interviews. In case study
research, Yin (2003) also recommends a pilot test to refine data collection
plans and develop relevant lines of questions. These pilot cases are selected on
the basis of convenience, access, and geographic proximity.
• Determine the place for conducting the interview. Find, if possible,
a quiet location free from distractions. Ascertain if the physical setting

l
134 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

lends itself to audiotaping, a necessity, I believe, in accurately recording

information.
• After arriving at the interview site, obtain consent from the interviewee
to participate in the study. Have the interviewee complete a consent form for
the human relations review board. Go over the purpose of the study, the
amount of time that will be needed to complete the interview, and plans for
using the results from the interview (offer a copy of the report or an
abstract of it to the interviewee).
• During the interview, stay to the questions, complete the interview
within the time specified (if possible), be respectful and courteous, and offer
few questions and advice. This last point may be the most important, and
it is a reminder of how a good interviewer is a good listener rather than a
frequent speaker during an interview. Also, record information on the inter-
view protocol in the event that the audio-recording does not work.
Recognize that quickly inscribed notes may be incomplete and partial
because of the difficulty of asking questions and writing answers at the
same time.

Observing
Observing in a setting is a special skill that requires addressing issues such
as the potential deception of the people being interviewed, impression man-
agement, and the potential marginality of the researcher in a strange setting
(Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995). Like interviewing, I also see observing as
a series of steps:

11/1 Select a site to be observed. Obtain the required permissions needed to gain
access to the site.
• At the site, identify who or what to observe, when, and for how long. A gate~
keeper helps in this process.
• Determine, initially, 'a role to be assumed as an observer. This role can range
from that of a complete participant (going native) to that of a complete obser~
ver. I especially like the procedure of being an outsider initially, followed by
becoming an insider over time.
o Design an observational protocol as a method for recording notes in the field.
Include in this protocol both descriptive and reflective notes (i.e., notes about
your experiences, hunches, and learnings).
e Record aspects such as portraits of the informant, the physical setting, partic~
ular events and activities, and your own reactions (Bogdan & Biklen, 1992).
• During the observation, have someone introduce you if you are an outsider, be
passive and friendly, and start with limited objectives in the first few sessions
Data Collection 135

of observation. The early observational sessions may be times in which to take

.few notes and simply observe.
e After observing, slowly withdraw from the site, thanking the participants and
informing them of the use of the data and their accessibility to the study.

Recording Procedures

In discussing observation and interviewing procedures, I meution the use of

a protocol, a predesigned form used to record information collected during
an observation or interview. The interview protocol enables a person to take
notes during the interview about the responses of the interviewee. It also
helps a researcher organize thoughts on items such as headings, information
about starting the interview, concluding ideas, information on ending the
Interview, and thanking the respondent. In Figure 7.4, I provide the inter-
view protocol used in the gunman case study (Asmussen & Creswell, 1995).
Besides the five open-ended questions in the study, this form contains sev-
eral features I recommend. The instructions for using the interview protocol
are as follows:

ClUse a header to record essential information about the project and as a

reminder to go over the purpose of the study with the interviewee. This headN
ing might also include information about confidentiality and address aspects
included in the consent form.
o Place space between the questions in the protocol form. Recognize that an indi-
vidual may not always respond directly to the questions being asked. For
example, a researcher may ask Question 2, but the interviewee's response may
be to Question 4. Be prepared to write notes on all of the questions as the inter~
viewee speaks.
• Memorize the questions and their order to minimize losing eye contact with
the participant. Provide appropriate verbal transitions from one question to
the next.
e Write Out the closing comments that thank the individual for the interview and
request follow-up information, if needed, from them.

During an observation, use an observational protocol to record informa-

tion. As shown in Figure 7.5, this protocol contains notes taken by one of
my students on a class visit by Harry Wolcott. I provide only one page of the
protocol, but this is sufficient for one to see what it includes. It has a header
giving information about the observational session, and then includes a
"descriptive notes" section for recording a description of activities. The section
with a box around it in the "descriptive notes" column indicates the observer's

l
136 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Interview Protocol Project: University Reaction to a Terrorist Incident

Time of interview:
Date:
Place:
Interviewer:
Interviewee:
Position of interviewee:

(Briefly describe the project)

Questions:
1. What has been your role in the incident?

2. What has happened since the event that you have been involved in?

3. What has been the impact on the university community of this incident?

4. What larger ramifications, if any, exist from the incident?

5. To whom should we talk to find out more about campus reaction to the incident?

(Thank the individual for participating in this interview. Assure him or her of confidentiality
of responses and potential future interviews.)

Figure 7.4 Sample Interview Protocol

Data Collection 137

Length of Activity: 90 Minutes

Desoriptive Notes Reflective Notes

General: What are the experiences of

graduate students as they learn qualitative
research in the classroom?
See classroom layout and comments about Overhead with flaps: I wonder if the back of
physical seWng at the bottom of this page. the room was able to read it.
Approximately 5:17 p.m., Dr. CresweU Overhead projector not plugged in at the
enters the filled room, introduces Dr. beginning of the class: I wonder if this was
worcett. Class members seem relieved. a distraction (when it took extra time to
plug it in).
Dr. CresweU gives brief background of Lateness of the arrival of Drs. Creswell and
guest, concentrating on his international Wo/cott: Students seemed a bit anxious.
experiences; features a comment about Maybe it had to do with the change in
• the educational ethnography "The Man in starting time to 5 p.m. (some may have had
the Principal's Office." 6:30 classes or appointments to get to).
Dr. Wolcott begins by telling the class he Drs, Creswell and Wo/cott seem to have a
now writes out educational ethnography good rapport between them, judging from
and highlights this primary occupation by many short exchanges that they had.
mentioning two books: Transferring
Qualitative Data and The Art of Fieldwork.
While Dr. Wolcott begins his pres~ntation
by apologizing for his weary voice (due to
talking all day, apparently), Dr. Creswell
leaves the classroom to retrieve the Chalkboard
guest's overhead transparencies. III
s/
chair

Seemed to be three parts to this

activity: (1) the speaker's challenge to
the class of detecting pure
ethnographical methodologies, (2) the
speaker's presentation of the "tree" that
portrays various strategies and
\
\
- ~
desk

overhead
projector
-
-
-
-
-
-
@ speakers

- -
-
-
-
~

-
-
substrategies for qualitative research in \ - - Seats for participants -
education, and (3) the relaxed "elder
\ - - - - -

statesman" fielding class questions,

\ - - - - - -
\ - - - - - - -
primarily about students' potential \ - - - - - - -
research projects and prior studies Dr.
WoJcott had written,
\ \
seats
- - - - - - - door

SKETCH OF CLASSROOM
The first question was "How do you look at
qualitative research?" followed by "How
does ethnography fit in?"

Figure 7,5 Sample Observational Protocol Length of Activity: 90 Minutes

138 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

attempt to summarize, in chronological fashion, the flow of activities in the

classroom. This can be useful information for developing a chronology of the
ways the activities unfolded during the class session. There is also a "reflective
notes" a section for notes about the process, reflections on activities, and sum-
mary conclusions about activities for later theme development. A line down
the center of the page divides descriptive notes from reflective notes. A visual
sketch of the setting and a label for it provide additional useful information.
Whether a researcher uses an observational or interview protQcol, the
essential process is recording information or, as Lofland and Lofland (1995)
state it, "logging data" (p. 66). This process involves recording information
through various forms, such as observational fieldnotes, interview write-ups,
mapping, census taking, photographing, sound recording, and documents.
An informal process may occur in recording information composed of initial
"jottings" (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 1995), daily logs or summaries, and
descriptive summaries (see Sanjek, 1990, for examples of fieldnotes). These
forms of recording information are popular in narrative research, ethnogra-
phies, and case studies.

Field Issues
Researchers engaged in studies within all five approaches face issues in the
field when gathering data that need to be anticipated. During the last several
years, the number of books and articles on field issues has expanded consid-
erably as interpretive issues (see Chapter 2) have been widely discussed.
Beginning researchers are often overwhelmed by the amount of time needed
to collect qualitative data and the richness of the data encountered. As a prac-
tical recommendation, I suggest that beginners start with limited data collec-
tion and engage in a pilot project to gain some initial experiences (Sampson,
2004). This limited data collection might consist of one or two interviews or
observations, so that researchers can estimate the time needed to collect data.
One way to think about and anticipate the types of issues that may arise
during data collection is to view the issues as they relate to several aspects of
data collection, such as entry and access, the types of information collected,
and potential ethical issues.

Access to the Organization

Gaining access to organizations, sites, and individuals to study has its
own challenges. Convincing individuals to participate in the study, building
trust and credibility at the field site, and getting people from a site to respond
Data Collection 139

are all important access challenges. Factors related to considering the appro-
priateness of a site need to be considered as well (see Weis & Fine, 2000).
For example, researchers may choose a site that is one in which they have a
vested interest (e.g., employed at the site, studying superiors or subordinates
at the site) that would limit ability. to develop diverse perspectives on coding
data or developing themes. A researcher's own particular "stance" within
the group may keep him or her from acknowledging all dimensions of the
experiences. The researchers may hear or see something uncomfortable
when they collect data. In addition, participants' may be fearful that their
issues will be exposed to people outside their community, and this may make
them unwilling to accept the researcher's interpretation of the situation.
Also related to access is the issue of working with an institutional review
board that may not be familiar with unstructured interviews in qualitative
research and the risks associated with these interviews (Corbin & Morse,
'2003). Weis and Fine (2000) raise the important question of whether the
response of the institutional review board to a project influences the
researcher's telling of the narrative story.

Observations
The types of challenges experienced during observations will closely relate
to the role of the inquirer in observation, such as whether the researcher
assumes a participant, nonparticipant, or middle-ground position. There are
challenges as well with the mechanics of observing, such as remembering to
take fieldnotes, recording quotes accurately for inclusion in fieldnotes, deter-
mining the best timing for moving from a nonparticipant to a participant
(if this role change is desired), and keeping from being overwhelmed at the
site with information, and learning how to funnel the observations from
the broad picture to a narrower one in time. Participaut observation has
attracted several commentaries by writers (Labaree, 2002; Ezeh, 2003).
Labaree (2002), who was a participant in an academic senate on a campus,
notes the advantages of this role but also discusses the dilemmas of entering
the field, disclosing oneself to the participants, sharing relationships with
other individuals, and attempting to disengage from the site. Ezeh (2003),
a Nigerian, studied the Orring, a little-known minority ethnic group in
Nigeria. Although his initial contact with the group was supportive, the
more the researcher became integrated into the host community, the more he
experienced human relations problems, such as being accused of spying,
pressured to be more generous in his material gifts, and suspected of trysts
with women. Ezeh concluded that being of the same nationality was no
guarantee of a lack of challenges at the site.
140 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Interviews
Challenges in qualitative interviewing often focus on the mechanics of
conducting the interview. Roulston, deMarrais, and Lewis (2003) chronicle
the challenges in interviewing by postgraduate students during a lS-day
intensive course. These challenges related to unexpected participant behav-
iors and students' ability to create good instructions, phrase and negotiate
questions, deal with sensitive issues, and do transcriptions. Suoninen and
Jokinen (2005), from the field of social work, ask whether the phrasing of
Ollr interview questions leads to subtle persuasive questions, responses, or
explanations.
Undoubtedly, conducting interviews is taxing, especially for inexperi-
enced researchers engaged in studies that require extensive interviewing,
such as phenomenology, grounded theory, and case study research.
Equipment issues loom large as a problem in interviewing, and both record-
ing equipment and transcribing equipment need to be organized in advance
of the interview. The process of questioning during an interview (e.g., saying
"little," handling "emotional outbursts," using "ice-breakers") includes
problems that an interviewer must address. Many inexperienced researchers
express surprise at the difficulty of conducting interviews and the lengthy
process involved in transcribing audiotapes from the interviews. In addition,
in phenomenological interviews, asking appropriate questions and relying
on participants to discuss the meaning of their experiences require patience
and skill on the part of the researcher.
Recent discussions about qualitative interviewing highlight the impor-
tance of reflecting about the relationship that exists between the interviewer
and interviewee (Kvale, 2006; Nunkoosing, 2005; Weis & Fine, 2000).
Kvale (2006), for example, questions the warm, caring, and empowering
dialogues in interviews, and states that rhe interview is actually a hierarchi-
cal relationship with an asymmetrical power distribution between the inter-
viewer and interviewee. Kvale discusses the interview as being "ruled" by the
interviewer, enacting a· one-way dialogue, serving the interviewer, contain-
ing hidden agendas, leading to the interviewer's monopoly over interpreta-
tion, enacting "counter control" by the interviewee who does not answer or
deflects questions, and leading to a false security when the researcher checks
the account (i.e., member checking, as discussed in Chapter 10 of this book)
with the participants. Nunkoosing (2005) extends the discussion by reflect-
ing on the problems of power and resistance, distinguishing truth from
authenticity, the impossibility of consent, and projection of the interviewers'
own self (their status, race, culture, and gender). Weiss and Fine (2000)
raise additional questions for consideration: Are your interviewees able to
Data Collection 141

articulate the forces that interrupt or suppress or oppress them? Do they

er~se their history, approaches, and cultural identity? Do they choose not to
expose their history or go on record about the difficult aspects of their lives?
These questions and the points raised about the nature of the interviewer-
interviewee relationship cannot be easily answered with pragmatic decisions
that encompass all interview situations. They do, however, sensitize us to
important challenges in qualitative interviewing that need to be anticipated.

Documents and Audiovisual Materials

In document research, the issues involve locating materials, often at sites
far away, and obtaining permission to use the materials. For biographers, the
primary form of data collection might be archival research from documents.
When researchers ask participants in a study to keep journals, additional
field issues emerge. Journaling is a popular data collection process in case
studies and narrative research. What instructions should be given to indi-
viduals prior to writing i.n their journals? Are all participants equally com-
fortable with journaling? Is it appropriate, for example, with small children
who express themselves weIl verbally but have limited writing skills? The
researcher also may have difficulty reading the handwriting of participants
who journal. Recording pn videotape raises issues for the qualitative
researcher such as keeping disturbing room sounds to a minimum, deciding
on the best location for the camera, and determining whether to provide
close-up shots or distant shots.

Ethical Issues
Regardless of the approach to qualitative inquiry, a qualitative researcher
faces many ethical issues that surface during data collection in the field and
in analysis and dissemination of qualitative reports. Lipson (1994) groups
ethical issues into informed consent procedures; deception or covert activities;
confidentiality toward participants, sponsors, and colleagues; benefits of
research to participants over risks; and participant requests that go beyond
social norms. The criteria of the American Anthropological Association (see
Glesne & Pesbkin, 1992) reflect appropriate standards. A researcher protects
the anonymity of the informants, for example, by assigning numbers or
aliases to individuals. A researcher develops case studies of individuals
that represent a composite picture rather than an individual picture.
Furthermore, to gain support from participants, a qualitative researcher
conveys to participants that they are participating in a study, explains the
142 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

purpose of the study, and does not engage in deception about the nature of
the study. What if the study is on a sensitive topic and the participants
decline to be involved if they are aware of the topic? This issue of disclosure
of the researcher, widely discussed in cultural anthropology (e.g.,
Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995), is handled by the researcher by presenting
general information, not specific information about the study. Another issue
likely to develop is participants sharing information "off the record."
Although in most instances this information is deleted from analysis by the
researcher, the issue becomes problematic when the information, if reported,
harms individuals. I am reminded of a researcher who studied incarcerated
Native Americans and learned about a potential "breakout" during one of
the interviews. This researcher concluded that it would be a breach of
faith with the participants if she reported the matter, and she kept quiet.
Fortunately, the breakout did not occur. A final ethical issue is whether the
researcher shares personal experiences with participants in an interview set-
ting such as in a case study, phenomenology, or ethnography. This sharing
minimizes the" bracketing" that is essential to construct the meaning of par-
ticipants in phenomenology and reduces information shared by participants
in case studies and ethnographies.

Storing Data
I am surprised at how little attention is given in books and articles to storing
qualitative data. The approach to storage will reflect the type of information
collected, which varies by approach to inquiry. In writing a narrative life
history, the researcher needs to develop a filing system for the "wad of hand-
written notes or a tape" (Plummer, 1983, p. 98). Davidson's (1996) sugges-
tions about backing up information collected and noting changes made
to the database is sound advice for all types of research studies. With extensive
use of computers in qualitative research, more attention will likely be given to
how qualitative data are organized and stored, whether the data are fieldnotes,
transcripts, or rough jottings. With extremely large databases being used by
some qualitative researchers, this aspect assumes major importance.
Some principles about data storage and handling that are especially well
suited for qualitative research include the following:

• Always develop backup copies of computer files (Davidson, 1996).

• Use high-quality tapes for audio-recording information during interviews.
Also, make sure that the size of the tapes fits the transcriber's machine.
• Develop a master list of types of information gathered.
Data Collection 143

• Protect the anonymity of participants by masking their names in the data .

• . Develop a data collection matrix as a visual I1leans of locating and identifying
information for a study.

Five Approaches Compared

Returning again to Table 7.1, there are both differences and similarities
among the activities of data collection for the five approaches to inquiry.
Turning to differences, certain approaches seem more directed toward spe-
cific types of data collection than others. For case studies and narrative stud-
ies, the researcher uses multiple forms of data to build the in-depth case or
the storied experiences. For grounded theory studies and phenomenological
projects, inquirers rely primarily on interviews as data. Ethnographers high-
.light the importance of participant observation and interviews, but, as noted
earlier, they may use many different sources of information. Unquestionably,
some mixing of forms occurs, but in general these patterns of collection by
approach hold true.
Second, the unit of analysis for data collection varies. Narrative researchers,
phenomenologists, and ground theorists study individuals; case study
researchers examine groups of individuals participating in an event or activity
or an organization; and ethnographers study entire cultural systems or some
subcultures of the systems.
Third, I found the amount of discussion about field issues to vary among
the five approaches. Ethnographers have written extensively about field
issues (e.g_, Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995)-even more so, it seems, than
those in other approaches to qualitative research. This may reflect historical
concerns about imbalanced power relationships, imposing objective, exter-
nal standards on participants, and failures to be sensitive to marginalized
groups. Narrative researchers are less specific about field issues, although
their concerns are mounting about how to conduct the interview (Elliot,
2005). Across all approaches, ethical issues are widely discussed.
Fourth, the approaches vary in their intrusiveness of data collection.
Conducting interviews seems less intrusive in phenomenological projects and
grounded theory studies than in the high level of access needed in personal
narratives, the prolonged stays in the field in ethnographies, and the immer-
sion into programs or events in case studies.
These differences do not lessen some important similarities that need
to be observed. All qualitative studies sponsored by public institutions need
to be approved by a human subjects review board. Also, the use of inter-
views and observations is central to many of the approaches. Furthermore,
the recording devices, such as observational and interview protocols, can be
144 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

similar regardless of approach (although specific questions on each protocol

will reflect the language of the approach). Finally, the issue of data storage
of information is closely related to the form of data collection, and the basic
objective of researchers, regardless of approach, is to develop some filing and
storing system for organized retrieval of information.

Summary

In this chapter, I addressed several components of the data collection process.

The researcher attends to locating a site or person to study; gaining access to
and building rapport at the site or with the individual; sampling purposefully
using one or more of the many approaches to sampling in qualitative research;
collecting information through many forms, such as interviews, observations,
documents, and audiovisual materials and newer forms emerging in the litera-
ture; establishing approaches for recording information such as the use of
interview or observational protocols; anticipating and addressing field issues
ranging from access to ethical concerns; and developing a system for storing
and handling the databases. The five approaches to inquiry differ in the diver-
sity of information collected, the unit of study being examined, the extent of
field issues discussed in the literature, and the intrusiveness of the data collec-
tion effort. Researchers, regardless of approach, need approval from review
boards, engage in similar data collection of interviews and observations, and
use similar recording protocols and forms for storing data.

For a discussion about purposeful sampling strategies, I recommend Miles

and Huberman (1994) and Creswell (2005).

Miles, M. B., & Huberman,.A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: A sourcebook of

new methods (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Creswell, J. W. (2005). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating
quantitative and qualitative research (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson
Education.

For interviewing, I direct researchers to Gubrium and Holstein (2003),

Kvale (1996), McCracken (1988), and Rubin and Rubin (1995).

Gubrium, J. F., & Holstein, J. A. (2003). Postmodern interviewing. Thousand Oaks,

CA: Sage.
Kvale, S. (1996). InterViews: An introduction to qualitative research interviewing.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Data Collection 145

McCracken, G. (1988). The long interview. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Rubin, H. l., & Rubin, I. S. (1995). Qualitative intervi'!Wing. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

For discussions about making observations and taking fieldnotes, I suggest

several writers: Bernard (1994), Bogdewic (1992), Emerson, Fritz, and Shaw
(1995), Hammersley and Atkinson (1995), Jorgensen (1989), and Sanjek (1990).

Bemard, H. R. (1994). Research methods in anthropology: Qualitative and quantita-

tive approaches (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Bogdewic, S. P. (1992). Participant observation. In B. F. Crabtree & W. L. Miller
(Eds.), Doing qualitative research (pp. 45-69). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Emerson, R. M., Fretz, R. I., & Shaw, L. L. (1995). Writing ethnographic fieldnotes.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hammersley, M., & Atkinson, P. (1995). Ethnography: Principles in practice
(2nd ed.). New York: Routledge .
•Jorgensen, D. L. (1989). Participant observation: A methodology for human studies.
Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Sanjek, R. (1990). Fieldnotes: The makings of anthropology. Ithaca, NY: Comell
University Press.

For information about the issues and use of documents, see:

Prior, L. (2003). Using documents in social research. London: Sage.

For a discussion of field relations and issues, see the books by Hammersley
and Atkinson (1995) and Lofland and Lofland (1995) and the two articles on
interviewing by Kvale (2006) and Nunkoosing ((2005).

Hammersley, M., & Atkinson, P. (1995). Ethnography: Principles in practice (2nd ed.).
New York: Routledge.
Lofland, J., & Lofland, L. H. (1995). Analyzing social settings: A guide to qualitative
observation and analysis (3rd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Kvale, S. (2006). Dominance through interviews and dialogues. Qualitative Inquiry,
12, 480-500.
Nunkoosing, K. (200S). The problems with interviews. Qualitative Health Research,
15, 698-706.

1. Gain some experience in collecting data for your project. Conduct either an
interview or an observation and record the information on a protocol form.
After this experience, identify issues that posed challenges in data collection.

2. It is helpful to design the data collection activities for a project. Examine

Figure 7.1 for the seven activities. Develop a matrix that describes data col-
lection for all seven activities for your project.
8
Data Analysis
and Representation

A nalyzing text and multiple other forms of data presents a challenging

task for qualitative researchers. Deciding how to represent the data in
tables, matrices, and narrative form adds to the challenge. In this chapter, I
first discuss several general procedures for qualitative data analysis and then
detail the analysis procedures often used in each of the five approaches to
inquiry.
I begin by summarizing three general approaches to analysis provided by
leading authors. I then present a visual model-a data analysis spiral-that
I find useful to conceptualize a larger picture of all steps in the data analysis
process in qualitative research. I use this spiral as a conceptualization to fur-
ther explore each of the five approaches to inquiry, and I examine specific
data analysis procedures within each approach and compare these procedures.
I end with the use of computers in qualitative analysis and introduce four soft-
ware programs-Adas.ti, NVivo, HyperRESEARCH, and Maxqda-and dis-
cuss the common features of using software programs in data analysis as well
as templates for coding data within each of the five approaches.

Questions for Discussion

• What are common data analysis strategies used in qualitative research?
• How might the overall data analysis process be conceptualized in qualitative
research?

147
148 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

.. What are specific data analysis procedures used within each of the approaches
to inquiry, and how do they differ?
e What are the procedures available in qualitative computer analysis programs)
and how would these procedures differ by approach to qualitative inquiry?·

Three Analysis Strategies

Data analysis in qualitative research consists of preparing and organizing the
data (i.e., text data as in transcripts, or image data as in photographs) for
analysis, then reducing the data into themes through a process of coding and
condensing the codes, and finally representing the data in figures, tables, or
a discussion. Across many books on qualitative research, this is the general
process that researchers use. Undoubtedly, there will be some variations in
this approach. Beyond these steps, the five approaches to inquiry have addi-
tional analysis steps. Before examining the specific analysis steps in the five
approaches, it is helpful to have in mind the general analysis procedures.
Table 8.1 presents typical general analysis procedures as illustrated
through the writings of three qualitative researchers. I have chosen these
three authors because they represent different perspectives. Madison (2005)
presents a perspective taken from critical ethnography, Huberman and Miles
(1994) adopt a systematic approach to analysis, and Wolcott (1994b) uses a
more traditional approach to research from ethnography and case study
analysis. These three sources, advocate many similar processes, as well as a
few different processes, in the analytic phase of qualitative research.
All three authors comment on the central steps of coding the data (reduc-
ing the data into meaningful segments and assigning names for the segments),
combining the codes into broader categories or themes, and displaying and
making comparisons in the data graphs, tables, and charts. These are the core
elements of qualitative data analysis.
Beyond these elements, the authors present different phases in the data
analysis process. Huberman and Miles (1994), for example, provide more
detailed steps in the process, such as writing marginal notes, drafting
summaries of fieldnotes, and noting relationships among the categories.
Madison (2005), however, introduces the need to create a point of view-
a stance that signals the theoretical perspective (e.g., critical, feminist)
taken in the study. This point of view is central to the analysis in critical,
theoretically oriented qualitative studies. Wolcott (1994b), on the other
hand, discusses the importance of forming a description from the data,
as well as relating the description to the literature and cultural themes in
cultural anthropology.
Data Analysis and Representation 149

Table 8.1 General Data Analysis Strategies, by Authors

Hubennan &
Analytic Strategy Madison (2005) Miles (1994) Wolcott (1994b)

Sketching ideas Write margin Highlight certain

notes in information in
fieldnotes description
Taking notes Write reflective
passages in notes
Summarizing Draft a summary
fieldnotes sheet on
fieldnotes
Working with Make metaphors
words
Identifying codes Do abstract Write codes,
coding or
concrete coding
memos
~
Reducing codes Identify salient Note patterns Identify patterned
to themes themes or patterns and themes regularities
Counting
frequency of codes
Relating categories
Count frequency
of codes
Factor, note
relations among
I
!
variables, build
a logical chain
of evidence
Relating categories Contextualize in
to analytic framework from
framework in literature
literature
Creating a point For scenes,
of view audience, readers
Displaying the data Create a graph or Make contrasts Display findings
picture of the and comparisons in tables, charts,
framework diagrams,
and figures;
compare cases;
compare with
a standard
-=
J50 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

The Data Analysis Spiral

Data analysis is not off-the-shelf; rather, it is custom-built, revised, and
"choreographed" (Huberman & Miles, 1994). The processes of data collec-
tion, data analysis, and report writing are not distinct steps in the process-
they are interrelated and often go on simultaneously in a research project.
Qualitative researchers often "learn by doing" (Dey, 1993, p. 6) data analy-
sis. This leads critics to claim that qualitative research is largely intuitive,
soft, and relativistic or that qualitative data analysts fall back on the three
"l's"-"insight, intuition, and impression" (Dey, 1995, p. 78). Undeniably,
qualitative researchers preserve the unusual and serendipitous, and writers
craft each study differently, using analytic procedures that evolve in the field.
But given this perspective, I believe that the analysis process conforms to a
general contour.
The contour is best represented in a spiral image, a data analysis spiral.
As shown in Figure 8.1, to analyze qualitative data, the researcher engages
in the process of moving in analytic circles rather than using a fixed linear
approach. One enters with data of text or images (e.g., photographs, video-
tapes) and exits with an account or a narrative. In between, the researcher
touches on several facets of analysis and circles around and around.
Data management, the first loop in the spiral, begins the process. At an
early stage in the analysis process, researchers organize their data into file
folders, index cards, or computer files. Besides organizing files, researchers
convert their files to appropriate text units (e.g., a word, a sentence, an entire
story) for analysis either by hand or by computer. Materials must be easily
located in large databases of text (or images). As Patton (1980) says,

The data generated by qualitative methods are voluminous. I have found no

way of preparing students for the sheer massive volumes of information with
which they will find themselves confronted when data collection has ended.
Sitting down to make sense out of pages of interviews and whole files of field
notes can be overwhelming. (p. 297)

Computer programs help with this phase of analysis, and their role in this
process will be addressed later in this chapter.
Following the organization of the data, researchers continue analysis by
getting a sense of the whole database.. Agar (1980), for example, suggests
that researchers " ... read the transcripts in their entirety several times.
Immerse yourself in the details, trying to get a sense of the interview as a
whole before breaking it into parts" (p. 103). Writing memos in the margins
of fieldnotes or transcripts or under photographs helps in this initial process
Data Analysis and Representation 151

Procedures Examples
_ _-~ Account

Representing, Matrix, Trees,

Visualizing Propositions

Describing, Context,
Classifying, Categories,
Interpreting Comparisons

Reflecting,
Reading,
Writing Notes
Memoing
Across Questions
Files,
Data Units,
Managing Organizing
Data
Collection(text, images)

Figure 8.1 The Data Analysis Spiral

of exploring a database. These memos are short phrases, ideas, or key

concepts that occur to the reader.
We used this procedure in our gunman case study (Asmussen & Creswell,
1995) (see Appendix F). We scanned all of our databases to identify major
organizing ideas. Looking over our fieldnotes from observations, interview
data, physical trace evidence, and audio and visual images, we disregarded
predetermined questions so we could "hear" what interviewees said. We
reflected on the larger thoughts presented in the data and formed initial cat-
egories. These categories were few in number (about 10), and we looked for
multiple forms of evidence to support each. Moreover, we found evidence
that portrayed multiple perspectives about each category (Stake, 1995).
This process consists of moving from the reading and memoing loop into
the spiral to the describing, classifying, and interpreting loop. In this loop, code
or category (and these two terms will be used interchangeably) formation rep-
resents the heart of qualitative data analysis. Here researchers describe in
detail, develop themes or dimensions through some classification system, and
provide an interpretation in light of their own views or views of perspectives
in the literature. Authors employ descriptive detail, classification, or interpre-
tation or some combination of these analysis procedures. Detailed description
means that authors describe what they see. This detail is provided in situ, that
is, within the context of the setting of the person, place, or event. Description
becomes a good place to start in a qualitative study (after reading and manag-
ing data), and it plays a central role in ethnographic and case studies.
152 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

During this process of describing, classifying and interpreting, qualitative

researchers develop codes or categories and to sort text or visual images into
categories. I think about "winnowing" the data here; not all information is
used in a qualitative study, and some may be discarded (Wolcott, 1994b).
Researchers develop a short list of tentative codes (e.g., 12 or so) that
match text segments, regardless of the length of the database. Beginning
researchers tend to develop elaborate lists of codes when they review their
data bases. I proceed differently. I begin with a short list, "lean coding" I call
it-five or six categories with shorthand labels or codes-and then I expand
the categories as I continue to review and re-review my database. Typically,
regardless of the size of the database, I do not develop more than 25-30 cat-
egories of information, and I find myself working to reduce and combine
them into the five or six themes that I will use in the end to write my narra-
tive. Those researchers who end up with 100 or 200 categories-and it is
easy to find this many in a complex database-struggle to reduce the picture
to the five or six themes that they must end with for most publications.
Several issues are important to address in this coding process. The first is
whether qualitative researchers should count codes. Huberman and Miles
(1994), for example, suggest that investigators make preliminary counts of
data codes and determine how frequently codes appear in the database.
Some (but not all) qualitative researchers feel comfottable counting and
reporting the number of times the codes appear in their data bases. It does
provide an indicator of frequency of occurrence, something typically associ-
ated with quantitative research or systematic approaches to qualitative
research. In my own work, I may look at the number of passages associated
with each code as an indicator of participant interest in a code, but I do
not report counts in my articles (see Asmussen & Creswell, 1995). This is
because counting conveys a quantitative orientation of magnitude and fre-
quency contrary to qualitative research. In addition, a count conveys that all
codes should be given equal emphasis and it disregards that the passages
coded may actually represent contradictory views.
Another issue is the use of pre-existing or a priori codes that guide my
coding process. Again, we have a mixed reaction to the use of this procedure.
Marshal! and Rossman (2006) and Crabtree and Miller (1992) discuss
a continuum of coding strategies that range from "prefigured" categories
to "emergent" categories (p. 151). Using "prefigured" codes or categories
(often from a theoretical model or the literature) are popular in the health
sciences (Crabtree & Miller, 1992), but they do serve to limit the analysis to
the "prefigured" codes rather than opening up the codes to reflect the views
of participants in a traditional qualitative way. If a "prefigured" coding
scheme is used in analysis, I typically encourage the researchers to be open
to additional codes emerging during the analysis.
Data Analysis and Representation 153

Another issue is the question as to the origin of the code names or labels.
Code labels emerge from several sources. They might be in vivo codes,
names. that are the exact words used by participants. They might also be
code names drawn from the social or health sciences (e.g., coping strategies),
or names the researcher composes that seem to best describe the informa-
tion. In the process of data analysIs, I encourage qualitative researchers to
look for code segments that can be used to describe information and develop
themes. These codes can:

• represent information that researchers expect to find before the study;

Cl represent surprising information that researchers did not expect to find;
• and represents information that is conceptually interesting or unusual to
researchers (and potentially participants and audiences)

• Moving beyond coding, classifying pertains to taking the text or qualita-

tive information apart, and looking for categories, themes, or dimensions of
information. As a popular form of analysis, classification involves identify-
ing 'five to seven general themes. These themes, in turn, I view as a "family"
of themes with children, or subthemes, and even grandchildren, sub-
subthemes represented by segments of data. It is difficult, especially in a large
database, to reduce the information down into five or seven "families," but
my process involves winnowing the data, reducing them to a small, man-
ageable set of themes to write into my final narrative.
A related topic is the types of information a qualitative researcher codes
and develops into themes. The researcher might look for stories (as in nar-
rative research), individual experiences and the context of those experiences
(in phenomenology), processes, actions, or interactions (in grounded
theory), cultural themes and how the culture-sharing group works that can
be described or categorized (in ethnography), or a detailed description of the
particular case or cases (in case study research). Another way of thinking
about the types of information would be to use a deconstructive stance,
a stance focused on issues of desire and power (Czarniawska, 2004).
Czarniawska identifies the data analysis strategies used in deconstruction,
adapted from Martin (1990, p. 355), that helps focus attention on types of
information to analyze from qualitative data in all approaches:

• Dismantling a dichotomy, exposing it as a false distinction (e.g., publidprivate,

naturelculture, etc.)
., Examining silences-what is not said (e.g., noting who Or what is excluded by
the use of pronouns such as "we")
• Attending to disruptions and contradictions; places where a texts fails to make
sense or does not continue
154 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

• Focusing on the element that is most alien or peculiar in the text-to find the
limits of what is conceivable or permissible
$ Interpreting metaphors as a rich source of multiple meanings
e Analyzing double entendres that may point to an unconscious subtext, often
sexual in content
El Separating group-specific and more general sources of bias by <reconstructing'
the text with substitution of its main elements

Researchers engage in interpreting the data when they conduct qualitative

research. Interpretation involves making sense of the data, the "lessons
learned," as described by Lincoln and Guba (1985). Several forms exist, such
as interpretation based on hunches, insights, and intuition. Interpretation also
might be within a social science construct or idea or a combination of per-
sonal views as contrasted with a social science construct or idea. In the
process of interpretation, researchers step back and form larger meanings of
what is going on in the situations or sites. For postmodern and interpretive
researchers, these interpretations are seen as tentative) inconclusive, and
questioning.
In the final phase of the spiral, researchers present the data, a packaging
of what was found in text, tabular, or figure form. For example, creating a
visual image of the information, a researcher may present a comparison table
(see Spradley, 1980) or a matrix-for example, a 2 x 2 table that compares
men and women in terms of one of the themes or categories in the study (see
Miles & Huberman, 1994). The cells contain text, not numbers. A hierar-
chical tree diagram represents another form of presentation. This shows
different levels of abstraction, with the boxes in the top of the tree repre-
senting the most abstract information and those at the bottom representing
the least abstract themes. Figure 8.2 illustrates the levels of abstraction that
we used in the gunman case (Asmussen & Creswell, 1995). Although I have
presented this figure at conferences, we did not include it in the published
journal article version of the study. This illustration shows inductive analy-
sis that begins with the raw data consisting of multiple sources of informa-
tion and then broadens to several specific themes (e.g., safety, denial) and on
to the most general themes represented by the two perspectives of social-
psychological and psychological factors.
Hypotheses or propositions that specify the relationship among categories
of information also represent information. In grounded theory, for example,
investigators advance propositions that' interrelate the causes of a phenome-
non with its context and strategies. Finally, authors present metaphors to
analyze the data, literary devices in which something borrowed from one
domain applies to another (Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995). Qualitative
writers may compose entire studies shaped by analyses of metaphors.
Data Analysis and Representation 155

Social w

Psychological
Psychological

I I
I I I
Campus
Denial Fear Safety Retriggering
Planning

l" I I

Data Base

• "

Figure 8.2 Layers of Analysis in Gunman Case

SOURCE, Asmussen & Creswell (1995).

At this point, the researcher might obtain feedback on the initial

summaries by taking information back to informants, a procedure to be
discussed in Chapter 10 as a key validation step in research.

Analysis Within Approaches to Inquiry

Beyond the general spiral analysis processes, I can now relate the procedures
to each of the five approaches to inquiry and highlight specific differences in
analysis and representing data. My organizing framework for this discussion
is found in Table 8.2. I address each approach and discuss specific analysis
and representing characteristics. At the end of this discussion, I return to
significant differences and similarities among the five approaches.

Narrative Research Analysis and Representation

The data collected in a narrative study need to be analyzed for the story
they have to tell, a chronology of unfolding events, and turning points or
epiphanies. Within this broad sketch of analysis, several options exist for the
narrative researcher. Using a story in science education told by four fourth
graders in one elementary school, Ollerenshaw and I (Ollerenshaw &
=,~

l
-'"
V>
Table 8.2 Data Analysis and Representation, by Research Approaches

Data Analysis and Grounded

Representation Narrative Phenomenology Theory Study Ethnography Case Study

Data managing • Create and It Create and organize • Create and • Create and • Create and
organize files files for data organize files organize files organize files
for data for data for data for data
Reading, • Read through ~ Read through text, • Read through text, eo Read through • Read through
memoing text, make make margin notes, make margin text, make text, make
margin notes, form initial codes notes, form margin notes, margin notes,
form in'irial codes initial codes form initial form initial
codes codes
Describing • Describe the • Describe personal • Describe open eo Describe the • Describe the
story or objective experiences through coding categories social setting, case and its
set of experiences epoche actors, events; context
and place it in a It Describe the essence draw picture of
chronology of the phenomenon setting

Classifying • Identify stories • Develop significant • Select one open • Analyze data • Use categorical
• Locate statements coding category for themes and aggregation to
epiphanies • Group statements for central patterned establish themes
• Identify into meaning units phenomenon regularities or patterns
contextual in process
materials • Engage in axial
coding--causal
condition, context,
intervening
conditions,
strategies,
consequences
Data Analysis and Grounded
Representation Narrative Phenomenology Theory Study Ethnography Case Study

Interpreting • Interpret the • Develop a textural • Engage in • Interpret and • Use direct
larger meaning description, "What selective coding make sense of the interpretation
of the story happened" and interrelate findings how " Develop
• Develop a structural the categories to the culture naturalistic
description, "How." develop "Story" "works" generalizations
the phenomenon or propositions
was experienced • Develop a
• Develop the conditional
«essence" matrix
Representing, • Present narration • Present narration • Present a visual • Present narrative • Present
visualizing focusing on of the "essence" model or theory presentation in-depth
processes, of the experience; • Present augmented by picture of
theories, and in tables, figures, propositions tables, figures, the case (or
unique and or discussion and sketches cases) using
general features narrative,
of the life tables, and
figures

-"
<n
158 QuaUtative Inquiry and Research Design

Creswell, 2002) related two approaches to narrative analysis. The first

approach was an analytic process advanced by Yussen and Ozcan (1997)
that involved analyzing text data for five elements of plot structure (i.e.,
characters, setting, problem, actions, and resolution). The secoud approach
was found in the three-dimensional space approach of Clandinin and
Connelly (2000) that involved analyzing the data for three elements: inter-
action (personal and social), continuity (past, present, and future), and situ-
ation (physical places or the storyteller's places). In these approaches, we
saw common elements of narrative analysis: collecting stories of personal
experiences in the form of field texts such as interviews or conversations,
retelling the stories based on narrative elements (e.g., three-dimensional
space approach or the five elements of plot), rewriting the stories into a
chronological sequence, and incorporating the setting or place of the partic-
ipants' experiences.
These common elements are found in biographical narrative writing.
Denzin (1989b) suggests that a researcher begin biographical analysis by
identifying an objective set of experiences in the subject's life. Having the
individual journal a sketch of his or her life may be a good beginning point
for analysis. In this sketch, the researcher looks for life-course stages or
experiences (e.g., childhood, marriage, employment) to develop a chronol-
ogy of the individual's life. Stories and epiphanies will emerge from the indi-
vidual's journal or from interviews. The researcher looks in the database
(typically interviews or documents) for concrete, contextual biographical
materials. During the interview, the researcher prompts the participant to
expand on various sections of the stories and asks the interviewee to theo-
rize about his or her life. These theories may relate to career models,
processes in the life course, models of the social world, relational models
of biography, and natural history models of the life course. Then, narra-
tive segments and categories within the interview-story are isolated by the
researcher, and larger patterns and meanings are determined. Finally, the
individual's biography is reconstructed, and the researcher identifies factors
that have shaped the life: This leads to the writing of an analytic abstrac-
tion of the case that highlights (a) the processes in the individual's life, (b) the
different theories that relate to these life experiences, and (c) the unique and
general features of the life.
In the life history of Vonnie Lee (Angrosino, 1994), for example, the
reader finds many of these forms of analysis in the chronology of the bus
trip, the specific stories such as the logo on the bus, and the theorizing (at
least by the author) about the meaning of the bus trip as a metaphor for
Vonnie Lee's experiences in life as an individual with mental retardation.
Data Analysis and Representation 159

Phenomenological Analysis and Representation

The suggestions for narrative analysis present' a general template for qual-
itative researchers. In contrast, in phenomenology, there have been specific,
structured methods of analysis advanced, especially by Moustakas (1994).
Moustakas reviews several approaches in his book, but I see his modifica-
tion of the Stevick-Colaizzi-Keen method as providing the most practical,
useful approach. My approach, a simplified version of the Steviek-Colaizzi-
Keen method discussed by Moustakas (1994), is as follows:

• First describe personal experiences with the phenomenon under study. The
researcher begins with a full description of his or her Own experience of the
phenomenon. This is an attempt to set aside the researcher's personal experi-
ences (which cannot be done entirely) so that the focus can be directed to the
participants in the study.
,. • Develop a list of significant statements. The researcher then finds statements
(in the interviews or other data sources) about how individuals are experienc-
ing the topic, lists these significant statements (horizonalization of the data)
and treats each statement as having equal worth, and works to develop a list
of nonrepetitive, nonoverlapping statements.
• Take the significant statements and then group them into larger units of infor-
mation, called "meaning units" or themes.
III Write a description of "wlIat" the participants in the study experienced with
the phenomenon. This is called a "textural description" of the experience-
what happened-and includes verbatim examples.
• Next write a description of "how" the experience happened. This is called
(~structural description," and the inquirer reflects on the setting and context in
which the phenomenon was experienced. For example, in a phenomenologi-
cal study of the smoking behavior of high school students (McVea, Harter,
McEntarffer, & Creswell, 1999), my colleagues and I provided a structural
description about where the phenomenon of smoking occurred, such as in the
parking lot, outside the school, by student lockers, in remote locations at the
school, and so forth.
o Finally, write a composite description of the phenomenon incorporating both
the textural and structural descriptions. This passage is the "essence" of the
experience and represents the culminating aspect of a phenomenological study.
It is typically a long paragraph that tells the reader "what" the participants
experienced with the phenomenon and nhow" they experienced it (Le., the
context).

The phenomenological study by Riemen (1986) tends to follow this

general analytic approach. In Riemen's study of caring by patients and
their nurses, she presented significant statements of caring and nonearing
160 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

interactions for both males and females. Furthermore, Riemen formulated

meaning statements from these significant statements and pre,ented them in
tables. Finally, Riemen advanced two "exhaustive" descriptions for the
essence of the experience-two short paragraphs-and sets them apart by
enclosing them in tables. In the phenomenological study of individuals
with AIDS by Anderson and Spencer (2002; see Appendix Cl reviewed in
Chapter 5, the authors used Colaizzi's (1978) method of analysis, one of the
approaches mentioned by Moustakas (1994). This approach followed the
general guideline of analyzing the data for significant phrases, developing
meanings and clustering them into themes, and presenting an exhaustive
description of the phenomenon.

Grounded Theory Analysis and Representation

Similar to phenomenology, grounded theory uses detailed procedures for
analysis. It consists of three phases of coding-open, axial, and selective-as
advanced by Strauss and Corbin (1990, 1998). Grounded theory provides a
procedure for developing categories of information (open coding), intercon-
necting the categories (axial coding), building a "story" that connects the
categories (selective coding), and ending with a discursive set of theoretical
propositions (Strauss & Corbin, 1990).
In the open coding phase, the researcher examines the text (e.g., tran-
scripts, fieldnotes, documents) for salient categories of information sup-
ported by the text. Using the constant comparative approach, the researcher
attempts to "saturate" the categories-to look for instances that represent
the category and to continue looking (and interviewing) until the new infor-
mation obtained does not further provide insight into the category. These
categories are composed of subcategories, called "properties," that represent
multiple perspectives about the categories. Properties, in turn, are dimen-
sionalized and presented on a continuum. Overall, this is the process of
red ucing the database to a smalI set of themes or categories that character-
ize the process or action being explored in the grounded theory study.
Once an initial set of categories has been developed, the researcher
identifies a single category from the open coding list as the central phe-
nomenon of interest. The open coding category selected for this purpose
is typically one which is extensively discussed by the participants or one
of particular conceptual interest because it seems central to the process
being studied in the grounded theory project. The inquirer selects this one
open coding category (a central phenomenon), positions it as the central
feature of the theory, and then returns to the database (or collects addi-
tional data) to understand the categories that relate to this central
Data Analysis and Representation 161

phenomenon. Specifically, the researcher engages in the coding process

called axial coding in which the database is reviewed (or new data are col-
lected) ·to provide insight into specific coding categories that relate or
explain the central phenomenon. These are causal conditions that influ-
ence the central phenomenon, the strategies for addressing the phenome-
non, the context and intervening conditions that shape the strategies, and
the consequences of undertaking the strategies. Information from this
coding phase are then organized into a figure, a coding paradigm, that
presents a theoretical model of the process under study. In this way, a
theory is built or generated. From this theory, the inquirer generates
propositions (or hypotheses) or statements that interrelate the categories
in the coding paradigm. This is called selective coding. Finally, at the
broadest level of analysis, the researcher can create a conditional matrix.
This matrix is an analytical aid-a diagram-that helps the researcher
~isualize the wide range of conditions and consequences (e.g., society,
world) related to the central phenomenon (Strauss & Corbin, 1990).
Seldom have I found the conditional matrix actually used in studies.
The specific form for presenting the theory differs. In our study of depart-
ment chairs, Brown and I present it as hypotheses (Creswell & Brown,
1992), and in their study of coping strategies of sexually abused women,
Morrow and Smith (1995) advance a visual model.
The grounded theory study of survival and coping from childhood abuse
by Morrow and Smith (1995) (see Appendix D) reflects several of these
phases of data analysis. Although they referred to open coding, they did not
present the results of this analysis, probably because of the space limitations
of the journal. They did present results of the axial coding by discussing
causal conditions that influenced the central phenomenon-threatening or
dangerous feelings as well as helplessness, powerlessness, and lack of con-
trol. They specified two groups of strategies the women in the study used
and indicated the narrower context in which these strategies occurred as well
as the broader intervening conditions such as family dynamics and the vic-
tim's age. Morrow and Smith detailed the consequences of using strategies
such as coping, healing, and empowerment. They also presented these cate-
gories in a visual model, called a "theoretical model for surviving and cop-
ing with childhood sexual abuse" (p. 27).

Ethnographic Analysis and Representation

For ethnographic research, I recommend the three aspects of data analy-
sis advanced by Wokott (1994b): description, analysis, and interpretation of
the culture-sharing group. Wolcott (1990b) believes that a good starting
162 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

point for writing an ethnography is to describe the culture-sharing group and

setting:

Description is the foundation upon which qualitative research is built ....

Here you become the storyteller, inviting the reader to see through your eyes
what you have seen .... Start by presenting a straightforward description of
the setting and events. No footnotes, no intrusive analysis-just the facts, care-
fully presented and interestingly related at an appropriate level of detail. (p. 28)

From an interpretive perspective, the researcher may only present one set
of facts; other facts and interpretations await the reading of the ethnography
by the participants and others. But this description may be artalyzed by pre-
senting information in chronological order. The writer describes through
progressively focusing the description or chronicling a "day in the life" of the
group or individual. Finally, other techniques involve focusing on a critical
or key event, developing a "story" complete with a plot and characters, writ-
ing it as a "mystery," examining groups in interaction, following an analyt-
ical framework, or showing different perspectives through the views of
informants.
Analysis for Woleott (1994b) is a sorting procedure-"the quantitative
side of qualitative research" (p. 26). This involves highlighting specific mate-
rial introduced in the descriptive phase or displaying findings through tables,
charts, diagrams, and figures. The researcher also analyzes through using
systematic procedures such as those advanced by Spradley (1979, 1980),
who calls for building taxonomies, generating comparison tables, and devel-
oping semantic tables. Perhaps the most popular analysis procedure, also
mentioned by Woleott (1994b), is the search for patterned regularities in the
data. Other forms of analysis consist of comparing the cultural group to
others, evaluating the group in terms of standards, and drawing connections
between the cnlture-sharing group and larger theoretical frameworks. Other
analysis steps include critiquing the research process and proposing a
redesign for the study.
Making an ethnographic interpretation of the culture-sharing group is a
data transformation step as well. Here the researcher goes beyond the data-
base and probes "what is to be made of them" (Woleott, 1994b, p. 36). The
researcher speculates outrageous, comparative interpretations that raise
doubts or questions for the reader. The researcher draws inferences from the
data or turns to theory to provide structure for his or her interpretations.
The researcher also personalizes the interpretation: "This is what I make of
it" or "This is how the research experience affected me" (p. 44). Finally,
the investigator forges an interpretation through expressions such as poetry,
fiction, or performance.
Data Analysis and Representation 163

The ethnography presented in Chapter 4 by Haenfler (2004) (and pre-

sented in Appendix E) applies a critical perspective to these analytic proce-
dures of ethnography. He provides a detailed description of the straight edge
core values of resistance to other cultures and then discussed five themes
related to these core values (e.g., positive, clean living). Then the conclusion
to the article includes broad interpretations of the group's core values, such
as the individualized and collective meanings for participation in the subcul-
ture. However, Haenfler began the methods discussion with a self-disclosing,
positioning statement about his background and participation in the straight
edge movement. This positioning is also presented as a chronology of his
experiences from 1989 to 2001.

Case Study Analysis and Representation

• For a case study, as in ethnography, analysis consists of making a detailed
description of the case and its setting. If the case presents a chronology of
events, I then recommend analyzing the multiple sources of data to deter-
mine evidence for each step or phase in the evolution of the case. Moreover,
the setting is particularly important. In our gunman case (Asmussen &
Creswell, 1995)(see Appendix F), Asmussen and I analyzed the information
to determine how the incident fit into the setting-in our situation, a tran-
quil, peaceful Midwestern community.
In addition, Stake (1995) advocates four forms of data analysis and inter-
pretation in case study research. In categorical aggregation, the researcher
seeks a collection of instances from the data, hoping that issue-relevant
meanings will emerge. In direct interpretation, on the other hand, the
case study researcher looks at a single instance and draws meaning from it
without looking for multiple instances. It is a process of pulling the data
apart and putting them back together in more meaningful ways. Also, the
researcher establishes patterns and looks for a correspondence between two
or more categories. This correspondence might take the form of a table, pos-
sibly a 2 x 2 table, showing the relationship between two categories. Yin
(2003) advances the cross-case synthesis as an analytic technique when the
researcher studies two or more cases. He suggests that a word table can be
created to display the data from individual cases according to some uniform
framework. The implication of this is that the researcher can then look for
similarities and differences among the cases. Finally, the researcher develops
naturalistic generalizations from analyzing the data, generalizations that
people can learn from the case either for themselves or to apply to a popu-
lation of cases.
To these analysis steps.! would add description of the case, a detailed view
of aspects about the case-the "facts." In our gunman case study (Asmussen
164 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

& Creswell, 1995), we describe the events following the incident for 2
weeks, highlighting the major players, the sites, and the activities. We then
aggregate the data into about 20 categories (categorical aggregation) and
collapse them into five themes. In the final section of the study, we develop
generalizations about the case in terms of the themes and how they compare
and contrast with published literature on campus violence.

Comparing the Five Approaches

Returning to Table 8.2, data analysis and representation in the five
approaches have several common and distinctive features. Across all five
approaches, the researcher typically begins by creating and organizing files
of information. Next, the process of a general reading and memoing of infor-
mation occurs to develop a sense of the data and to begin the process of
making sense of them. Then, all approaches have a phase of description,
with the exception of grounded theory, in which the inquirer seeks to begin
building toward a theory of the action or process.
However, several important differences exist in the five approaches.
Grounded theory and phenomenology have the most detailed, explicated
procedure for data analysis. Ethnography and case studies have analysis
procedures that are common, and narrative research represents the least
structured procedure. Also, the terms used in the phase of classifying show
distinct language among these approaches (see Appendix A for a glossary of
terms); what is called open coding in grounded theory is similar to the first
stage of identifying significant statements in phenomenology and to categor-
ical aggregation in case study research. The researcher needs to become
familiar with the definition of these terms of analysis and employ them cor-
rectly in the chosen approach to inquiry. Finally, the presentation of the
data, in turn, reflects the data analysis steps, and it varies from a narration
in narrative to tabled statements, meanings, and description in phenomenol-
ogy to a visual model or theory in grounded theory.

Computer Use in Qualitative Data Analysis

Qualitative computer programs have been available since the late 1980s,
and they have become more refined and. helpful in computerizing the process
of analyzing text and image data (see Weitzman and Miles, 1995, for a
review of 24 programs). The process used for qualitative data analysis is the
same for hand coding or using a computer: The inquirer identifies a text seg-
ment or image segment, assigns a code label, and then searches through the
Data Analysis and Representation 165

database for all text segments that have the same code label. In this process
the researcher, not the computer program, does the coding and categorizing.

Advantages and Disadvantages

The computer program simply provides a means for storing the data and
easily accessing the codes provided by the researcher. I feel that computer
programs are most helpful with large databases, such as 500 or more pages
of text. Although using a computer may not be of interest to all qualitative
researchers, there are advantages to using them:

• A computer program provides an organized storage file system so that the

researcher can quickly and easily locate material and store it in one place. This
aspect becomes especially important in locating entire cases or cases with spe-
cific characteristics.
• A computer program helps a researcher locate material easily, whether this
material is an idea, a statement, a phrase, or a word. No longer do we need to
"cut and paste" material, onto file cards and sort and resort the cards accord-
ing to themes. No longer do we need to develop an elaborate "color code" sys-
tem for text related to themes or topics. The search for text can be easily
accomplished with a computer program. Once researchers identify categories
in grounded theory, or themes in case studies, the names of the categories can
be searched using the computer program for other instances whert the names
occur in the database.
• A computer program encourages a researcher to look closely at the data, even
line by line, and think about the meaning of each sentence and idea. Sometimes,
without a program, the researcher is likely to casually read through the text
files or transcripts and not analyze each idea carefully.
• The concept mapping feature of computer programs enables the researcher to
visualize the relationship among codes and themes by drawing a visual model.
• A computer program allows the researcher to easily retrieve memos associated
with codes, themes, or documents.

The disadvantages of using computer programs go beyond their cost:

• Using a computer program requires that the researcher learn how to run the
program. This is sometimes a daunting task that is above and beyond learning
required for understanding the procedures of qualitative research. Granted,
some people learn computer programs more easily than do others, and prior
experience with programs shortens the learning time.
• A computer program may, to some individuals, put a machine between the
researcher and the actual data. This causes an uncomfortable distance between
the researcher and his or her data.
166 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

• Although individuals may believe that the data are fixed or set by the program
(Kelle, 1995), the categories and organization of the data may be changed by
the software user. Some individuals may find changing the categories or mov-
ing information around less desirable than others and find that the computer
program slows down or inhibits this process.
• Instructions for using computer programs vary in their ease of use and acces-
sibility. Many documents for computer programs do not provide information
about how to use the program to generate a qualitative study, or one of the
five approaches to research discussed in this book.
'11 A computer program may not have the features or capability that researchers
need, so researchers can shop comparatively to find a program that meets their
needs.

A Sampling of Computer Programs

There are many computer programs available for analysis; some have
been developed by individuals on campuses and some are available for com-
mercial purchase. I highlight four commercial programs that are popular and
that I have examined closely (see Creswell, 2005; Creswell & Maietta,
2002)-Atlas.ti, NVivo, Maxqda, and HyperRESEARCH. I have intention-
ally left out the version numbers because the developers are continually
upgrading the programs. Although the first three programs to be reviewed
are PC-based, HyperRESEARCH is the only program available for the
Macintosh or the PC. To use the other programs on a Macintosh, the user
must run virtual Pc.

Atlas.ti (http://www.atlasti.com)
This PC, Windows-based program enables you to organize your text,
graphic, audio, and visual data files, along with your coding, memos, and
findings, into a project. Further, you can code, annotate, and compare seg-
ments of information. You can drag and drop codes within an interactive
margin screen. You can rapidly search, retrieve, and browse all data seg-
ments and notes relevant to an idea and, importantly, build unique visual
networks that allow you to connect visually selected passages, memos, and
codes in a concept map. Data can be exported to SPSS, HTML, XML, and
CSV. Less computer memory is needed for this program as compared with
other programs because it directly links' data files to a project. This program
also allows for a group of researchers to work on the same project and make
comparisons of how each researcher coded the data. A demonstration soft-
ware package is available to test out this program, which is described by and
available from Scientific Software Development in Germany. .
Data Analysis and Representation 167

Q$R NVivo (http://www.qsrintemational.coml)

NVivo is the latest version of software from' QSR International. NVivo
combines the features of the popular software program N6 (or Nud.ist) and
NVivo 2.0. It is available for Windows PC only. NVivo helps analyze, man-
age, shape, and analyze qualitative data. Its streamlined look makes it easy
to use. It provides security by storing the database and files together in a sin-
gle file, it enables a researcher to use multiple languages, it has a merge func-
tion for team research, and it enables the researcher to easily manipulate the
data and conduct searches. Further, it can display graphically the codes and
categories. A good overview of the evolution of the software from N3
to Nvivo is available from Bazeley (2002). NVivo is distributed by QSR
International in Australia. A demonstration copy is available to see and try
out the features of this software program.

HyperRESEARCH (http://www.researchware.coml)
This program is available' for the Windows or Macintosh platform. It is an
easy-ta-use qualitative software package enabling you to code and retrieve,
build theories, and conduct analyses of the data. Now with advanced multi-
media capabilities, HyperRESEARCH allows the researcher to work with
text, graphics, audio, and video sources-making it a valuable research analy-
sis tool. HyperRESEARCH is a solid code-and-retrieve data analysis pro-
gram, with additional theory-building features provided by the Hypothesis
Tester. This program also allows the researcher to draw visual diagrams, and
it now has a module that can be added, called "Hyper-Transcriber" that will
allow researchers to create a transfer of video and audio data. This program,
developed by Research Ware, is available in the United States.

MAXqda (http://www.maxqda.coml)
MAXqda is a PC-based software program that helps the researcher to sys-
tematically evaluate and interpret qualitative texts. It is also a powerful tool
for developing theories and testing theoretical conclusions. The main menu
has four windows: the data, the code or category system, the text being ana-
lyzed, and the results of basic and complex searches. It uses a hierarchical
code system, and the researcher can attach a weight score to a text segment
to indicate the relevance of the segment. Memos can be easily written and
stored as different types of memos (e.g., theory memos or methodological
memos). Data can be exported to statistical programs, such as SPSS or Excel,
and the software can import Excel or SPSS programs as well. It is easily used
168 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

by multiple coders on research teams. Images and video segments can also
be stored and coded in this program. MAXqda is distributed by VERBI
Software in Germany. A demonstration program is available to learn mOre
about the unique features of this program.

Use of Computer Software Programs

With the Five Approaches
After reviewing all of these computer programs, I see several ways that
they can facilitate qualitative data analysis:

• Computer programs help store and organize qualitative data. The pro-
grams provide a convenient way to store qualitative data. Data are stored in
document files (files converted from a word processing program to DOS,
ASCII, or rich-text in some programs). These document files consist of infor-
mation from one discrete unit of information such as a transcript from one
interview, one set of observational notes, or one article scanned from a news-
paper. For all five of the approaches to qualitative inquiry, the document
could be one interview, one observation, or one document.

• Computer programs help locate text or image segments associated

with a code or theme. When using a computer program, the researcher goes
through the text or images one line or image at a time and asks, "What is
the person saying (or doing) in this passage?" Then the researcher assigns
a code label using the words of the participant, social or human science
terms, or composes a term that seems to relate to the situation. After
reviewing many pages or images, the researcher can use the search function
of the program to locate all the text or image segments that fit a code label.
In this way, the researcher can easily see how participants are discussing the
code in a similar or different way.
• Computer programs help locate common passages or segments that
relate to two or more code labels. The search process can be extended to
include two or more code labels. For example, the code label "two-parent
family" might be combined with "females" to yield text segments in which
women are discussing a "two-parent family." Alternatively, "two-parent
family" might be combined with "males" to generate text segments in
which men talk about the "two-parent family." One helpful code label is
"quotes," and researchers can assign interesting quotes to use in a qualita-
tive report into this code label and easily retrieve useful quotes for a report.
Computer programs also enable the user to search for specific words to see
how frequently they occur in the texts; in this way, specific words might be
Data Analysis and Representation 169

elevated to the status of code labels or possible themes based on the

frequency of their use. In another usage, a cod~ label may be created for
the "title" in the study, and the information in the label might change as the
author revises the title in the process of conducting the study.
• Computer programs help make comparisons among code labels. If
the researcher makes both of these requests about females and males in
the prior example, data then exist for making comparisons among the
responses of females and males on their views about the "two-parent
family." The computer program thus enables a researcher to interrogate the
database about the interrelationship among codes or categories.
• Computer programs help the researcher to conceptualize different
levels of abstraction in qualitative data analysis. The process of qualitative
data analysis, as discussed earlier in this chapter, starts with the researcher
ahalyzing the raw data (e.g., interviews), forming the raw data into codes,
and then combining the codes into broader themes. These themes can be
and often are "headings" used in a qualitative study. The software pro-
grams provide a means for 'organizing codes hierarchically so that smaller
units, such as codes, can be placed under larger units, such as themes. In
NVivo, the concept of children and parent codes illustrates two levels of
abstraction. In this way, the computer program helps the re~earcher to
build levels of analysis and see the relationship between the raw data and
the broader themes.
• Computer programs provide a visual picture of codes and themes.
Many computer programs contain the feature of concept mapping so that
the user can generate a visual diagram of the codes and themes and their
interrelationships. These codes and themes can be continually moved
around and reorganized under new categories of information as the project
progresses.
• Computer programs provide the capability to write memos and store
them as codes. In this way, the researcher can begin to create the qualita-
tive report during data analysis or simply record insights as they emerge
during the data analysis.
• With computer programs, the researcher can create a template for
coding data within each of the five approaches. The researcher can estab-
lish a preset list of codes that match the data analysis procedure within the
approach of choice. Then, as data are reviewed during computer analysis,
the researcher can identify information that fits into the codes or write
memos that become codes. As shown in Figure 8.3 through Figure 8.7,
I created templates for coding within each approach that fit the general
170 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

structure in analyzing data with the approach. I developed these codes as a

hierarchical picture, but they could be drawn as circles or in a less linear
fashion. Hierarchical organization of codes is the approach often used in
the concept-mapping feature of software programs.

In narrative research (see Figure 8.3), I created codes that relate to the
story, such as the chronology, the plot or the three-dimensional space model,
and the themes that might arise from the story. The analysis might proceed
usiug the plot structure approach or the three-dimensional model, but

Story

I
Chronology Plot Three- Themes

I Dimensional
Space

Epiphanies Events 2
I 3

•
Interaction Continuity Situation

Characters Setting Problem Action Resolution

Figure 8.3 Template for Coding a Narrative Study

Essence of
the Phenomenon

Epochs or Significant Meaning Textural Structural

Personal Statements Units Description Description
Bracketing

Figure 8.4 Template for Coding a Phenomological Study

Data Analysis and Representation 171

Theory Description or
Visual Mode!

Open Coding Axial Coding Selective Coding Conditional

Categories Categories Categories Matrix

#1 #2 #3 #4 Story Line Propositions

Causal Intervening Strategies Consequences

Condltion and Context

Figure 8.5 Template for Coding a Grounded Theory Study

Cultural Portrait
of Culture~Sharing Group-
"How It Works"

Theoretical Description Analysis of Field Interpretation

Lens of the Themes Issues
Culture

#1 #2 #3 #4

Figure 8.6 Template for Coding an Ethnography

I placed both in the figure to provide the most options for analysis. The
researcher will not know what approach to use until he or she actually starts
the data analysis process. The code "story" might be used by the researcher
to actually begin writing out the story based on the elements analyzed.
In the template for coding a phenomenological study (see Figure 8.4),
I used the categories mentioned earlier in data analysis. I placed codes for
epoche or bracketing (if this is used), significant statements, meaning
172 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

In-Depth Portrait
of Cases

Case Case Within-Case Cross-Case Assertions

Context Description Theme Analysis Theme Analysis and
~Generalization'

Case #1 Case #2 Case #3 Similarities Differences

Case #1 Case #2 Case #3

Themes Themes Themes

Figure 8.7 Template for Coding a Case Study (Using a Multiple or Collective
Case Approach)

units, and textural and structural descriptions (which both might be writ-
ten as memos). The code at the top, "essence of the phenomenon," is
written as a memo about the "essence" that will become the "essence"
description in the final written report. In the template for coding a
grounded theory study (see Figure 8.5), I included the three major coding
phases: open coding, axial coding, and selective coding. I also included a
code for the conditional matrix if that feature is used by the grounded the-
orist. The code at the top, "theory description or visual model," can be
used by the researcher to actually create a visual model of the process that
is linked to this code.
In the template for coding an ethnography (see Figure 8.6), I included a
code that might be a memo or reference to text about the theoretical lens
used in the ethnography, codes on the description of the culture and an
analysis of themes, a code on field issues, and a code on interpretation. The
code at the top, "cultural portrait of culture-sharing group-'how it works,'
can be a code in which the ethnographer writes a memo summarizing the
major cultural rules that pertain to the group. Finally, in the template for
coding a case study (see Figure 8.7), I chose a multiple case study to illustrate
the precode specification. For each case, codes exist for the context and
Data Analysis and Representation 173

description of the case. Also, I advanced codes for themes within each case,
and for themes that are similar and difference in ,ross-case analysis. Finally,
I included codes for assertions and generalizations across all cases.

How to Choose Among the Computer Programs

With different programs available, decisions need to be made about the
proper choice of a qualitative software program. Basically, all of the pro-
grams provide similar features, and some have more features than others.
Many of the programs have a demonstration copy available at their Web sites
so that you can examine and try out the program. Also, other researchers can
be approached who have used the program and you can determine their
views of the software. In 2002, I wrote a chapter with Maietta (Creswell &
Maietta, 2002) in which we assessed several computer programs using eight
criteria. As shown in Figure 8.8, the criteria for selecting a program were the
ease of using the program; the type of data it accepted; its capability to read
and review text; its provision of memo-writing functions; its processes of cat-
egorization; its analysis features, such as concept mapping; the ability of the
program to input quantitative data; and its support for multiple researchers
and merging different data bases. These criteria can be used to identify a
computer program that will meet a researcher's needs.

Summary

This chapter presented data analysis and representation. I began with a

review of data analysis procedures advanced by three authors and noted
the common features of coding, developing themes, and providing a visual
diagram of the data. I also noted some of the differences among their
approaches. Then I advanced a spiral of analysis that captured the general
process. This spiral contained aspects of data management; reading and
memoing; describing, classifying, and interpreting; and representing
and visualizing data. I next introduced each of the five approaches to inquiry
and discussed how they had unique data analysis steps beyond the concept
of the spiral. Finally, I described how computer programs aid in the analysis
and representation of data; discussed four programs, common features of
using computer software, and templates for coding each of the five
approaches to inquiry; and ended with information about criteria for choos-
ing a computer software program.
174 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

o Ease of Integration in Using the Program

Is it Windows or Macintosh compatible?
Is it easy to use in getting started?
Can you easily work through a document?

o Type of Data the Program Will Accept

Will it handle text data?
Will it handle multimedia (image) data?

• Reading and Reviewing Text

Can it highlight and connect quotations?
Can it search for specific text passages?

o Memo Writing
Does it have the capability for you to add notes or memos?
Can you easily access the memos you write?

.. Categorization
Can you develop codes?
Can you easily apply codes to text or images?
Can you easlly display codes?
Can you easily review and make changes In the codes?

• Analysis inventory and Assessment

Can you sort for specific codes?
Can you combine codes in a search?
Can you develop a concept map with the codes?
Can you make demographic comparisons with the codes?

It Quantitative Data
Can you import a quantitative database (e.g., SPSS)?
Can you export a word or image qualitative database to a quantitative program?

• Merging Project
Can two or more researchers analyze the data and can these analyses be merged?

Figure 8.8 Features to Consider When Comparing Qualitative Data Analysis

Software
SOURCE: Adapted from Creswell & Maietta (2002), Qualitative research. In D. C. Miller &
N.]. Salkind (Eds.), Handbook of social research (pp. 143-184). Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage.
Used with permission.
Data Analysis and Representation 175

The classical book on qualitative data analysis is Miles and Huberman (1994),
now in its second edition. Also, I recommend books that address the process
of conducting qualitative research, such as Marshall and Rossman (2006).

Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: A soureebook of

new methods (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
MarshaIl, C., & Rossman, G. B. (2006). Designing qualitative research (4th ed.).
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Specific data analysis strategies for each of the five approaches to inquiry
are available in Clandinin and Connelly (2000), Czarniawska (2004), and
Denzin (1989a) for narrative research; Moustakas (1994) for phenomenol-
ogy; Stake (1995) for case studies; Strauss and Corbin (1990) for grounded
theory; and Woleott (1994b) for ethnography.

Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story
in qualitative research. San Francisco: Jossey~Bass.
Czarniawska, B. (2004). Narratives in social science research. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage.
Denzin, N. K. (1989a). Interpretive biography. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Moustakas, C. (1994). Phenomenological research methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Stake, R. (1995). The art of case study research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory
procedures and techniques. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Woleott, H. F. (1994b). Transforming qualitative data: Description, analysis, and
interpretation. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

For a review of computer programs available for analyzing text data, I

recommend Creswell and Maieta (2002), Kelle (1995), and Weitzman and
Miles (1995).

Creswell, J. W., & Maietta, R. C. (2002). Qualitative research. In D. C. Miller &

N. J. Salkind (Eds.), Handbook of social research (pp. 143-184). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Kelle, E. (Ed.). (1995). Computer·aided qualitative data analysis. Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage.
Weitzman, E. A., & Miles, M. B. (1995). Computer programs for qualitative data
analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
176 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

1. Analyze data from your data collection in the Exercises in Chapter 7. Analyze
the data using the steps or phases for your approaches to inquiry. Present a
summary of findings.

2. Plan the data analysis steps for your project. Using Table 8.2 as a guide,
discuss how you plan to describe, classify, and interpret your information.
3. Gain some experience using a computer software program. Select one of the
computer programs mentioned in this chapter, go to its Web site, and find
the demonstration program. Tryout the program.
9
Writing a Qualitative Study

W riting and composing the narrative report brings the entire study
together. Borrowing a term from Strauss and Corbin (1990), I am
fascinated by the "architecture" of a study, how it is composed and orga-
nized by writers. I also like Strauss and Corbin's (1990) suggestion that writ-
ers use a "spatial metaphor" (p. 231) to visualize their full reports or studies.
To consider a study "spatially," they ask the following qu·estions. Is coming
away with an idea like walking slowly around a statue, studying it from a
variety of interrelated views? Like walking downhill step by step? Like walk-
ing through the rooms of a house?
In this chapter, I assess the general architecture of a qualitative study,
and then I invite the reader to enter specific rooms of the study to see
how they are composed. In this process, I begin with four rhetorical
issues in the rendering of a stndy regardless of approach: reflexivity and
representation, audience, encoding, and quotes. Then I take each of the
five approaches to inquiry and assess two rhetorical structures: the over-
all structure (Le., overall organization of the report or study) and the
embedded structnre (i.e., specific narrative devices and techniques that
the writer uses in the report). I return once again to the five examples
of studies in Chapter 5 to illustrate overall and embedded structures.
Finally, I compare the narrative structures for the five approaches in
terms of four dimensions. In this chapter I will not address the use of
grammar and syntax and will refer readers to books that provide a
detailed treatment of these subjects (e.g., Creswell, 2003).

177
178 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Questions fo!' Discussion

ID What are several broad rhetorical issues associated with writing a qualitative
study? What are the rhetorical structures for writing a study within each of the
five approaches of inquiry?
1& What are the embedded rhetorical structures for writing a study within each of
the five approaches of inquiry?
f!I How do the narrative structures for the five approaches differ?

Several Rhetorical Issues

Unquestionably, the narrative forms are extensive in qualitative research.
In reviewing the forms, Glesne and Peshkin (1992) note that narratives in
"storytelling" modes blur the lines between fiction, journalism, and schol-
arly studies. Other forms engage the reader through a chronological
approach as events unfold slowly over time, whether the subject is a study
of a culture-sharing group, the narrative story of the life of an individual, or
the evolution of a program or an organization. Another technique is to nare
row and expand the focus, evoking the metaphor of a camera lens that pans
out, zooms in, then zooms out again. Some reports rely heavily on descrip-
tion of events, whereas others advance a small number of "themes" or per-
spectives. A narrative might capture a "typical day in the life" of an individual
or a group. Some reports are heavily oriented toward theory, whereas others,
such as Stake's (1995) "Harper School," employ little literature and theory.
Since the publication of Clifford and Marcus's (1986) edited volume Writing
Culture in ethnography, qualitative writing has been shaped by a need for
researchers to be self-disclosing about their role in the writing, the impact of
it on participants, and how information conveyed is read by audiences.
Researcher reflexivity and representations is the first issue to which we turn.

Reflexivity and Representations in Writing

Qualitative researchers today are much more self-disclosing about their
qualitative writings than they were a few years ago. No longer is it accept-
able to be the omniscient, distanced qualit.tive writer. As Laurel Richardson
wrote, researchers "do not have to try to play God, writing as disembodied
omniscient narrators claiming universal and atemporal general knowledge"
(Richardson & St. Pierre, 2005, p. 961). Through these omniscient narra-
tors, postmodern thinkers "deconstruct" the narrative, challenging text as
Writing a Qualitative Study 179

conte.sted terrain that cannot be understood without references to ideas

being concealed by the author and contexts within the author's life (Agger,
1991) .. This theme was espoused by Denzin (1989a) in his "interpretive"
approach to biographical writing. As a response, qualitative research today
acknowledges the impact of the writing on the researcher, on the partici-
pants, and on the reader.
How we write is a reflection of our own interpretation based on the cul-
tural, social, gender, class, and personal politics that we bring to research.
All writing is "positioned" and within a stance. All researchers shape the
writing that emerges, and qualitative researchers need to accept this inter-
pretation and be open about it in their writings. According to Richardson
(1994), the best writing acknowledges its own "undecidability" forthrightly,
that all writing has "subtexts" that "situate" or "position" the material
within a particular historical and locally specific time and place. In this per-
spective, no writing has "privileged status" (Richardson, 1994, p. 518) or
superiority over other writings. Indeed, writings are co-constructions, repre-
sentations of interactive processes between researchers and the researched
(Gilgun, 2005). .
Also, there is increased concern about the impact of the writing on the par-
ticipants. How will they see the write up? Will they be marginalized because
of it? Will they be offended? Will they hide their true feelings and perspec-
tives? Have the participants reviewed the material, and interpreted, chal-
lenged, and dissented from the interpretation (Weis & Fine, 2000)? Perhaps
researchers' writing objectively, in a scientific way, has the impact of silenc-
ing the participants, and silencing the researchers as well (Czarniawska,
2004). Gilgun (2005) makes the point that this silence is contradictory to
qualitative research that seeks to hear all voices and perspectives.
Also, the writing has an impact on the reader, who also makes an inter-
pretation of the account and may form an entirely different interpretation
than the author or the participants. Should the researcher be afraid that
certain people will see the final report? Can the researcher give any kind of
definitive account when it is the reader who makes the ultimate interpreta-
tion of the events? Indeed, the writing may be a performance, and the stan-
dard writing of qualitative research into text has expanded to include
split-page writings, theater, poetry, photography, music, collage, drawing,
sculpture, quilting, stained glass, and dance (Gilgun, 2005). Language may
"kill" whatever it touches, and qualitative researchers understand that it is
impossible to truly "say" something (van Manen, 2006).
Weis and Fine (2000) discuss a "set of self-reflective points of critical con-
sciousness around the questions of how to represent responsibility" in qual-
itative writings (p. 33). There are questions that can be formed from their
180 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

major points and should be considered by all qualitative researchers about

their writings:

e Should I write about what people say or recognize that sometimes they cannot
remember or choose not to remember?
e What are my political reflexivities that need to come into my report?
• Has my writing connected the voices and stories of individuals back to the set
of historic, structural, and economic relations in which they are situated?
@ How far should I go in theorizing the words of participants?
$ Have I considered how my words could be used for progressive, conservative,
and repressive social policies?
o Have I backed into the passive voice and decoupled my responsibility from my
interpretation?
• To what extent has my analysis (and writing) offered an alternative to COID-
mon sense or the dominant discourse?

Audience for Our Writings

A basic axiom holds that all writers write for an audience. As Clandinin
and Connelly (2000) say, "A sense of an audience peering over the writer's
shoulder needs to pervade the writing and the written text" (p. 149). Thns,
writers consciously think about their audience or multiple audiences for their
studies (Richardson, 1990, 1994). Tierney (1995), for example, identifies
four potential audiences: colleagues, those involved in the interviews and
observations, policy makers, and the general public. In short, how the find-
ings are presented depends on the audience with whom one is communi-
cating (Giorgi, 1985). For example, because Fischer and Wertz (1979)
disseminated information about their phenomenological study at public
forums, they produced several expressions of their findings, all responding
to different audiences. They used a general structure, four paragraphs in
length, an approach that they admitted lost its richness and concreteness.
Another form consisted of case synopses, each reporting the experiences of
one individual and each two and a half pages in length.

Encoding Our Writings

A closely related topic is recognizing the importance of language in shaping
our qualitative texts. The words we use encode our report, revealing ourselves
and how we perceive the needs of our audiences. Earlier, in Chapter 6,
I presented encoding the problem, purpose, and research questions; now I
Writing a Qualitative Study ISI

consider encoding the entire narrative report. Richardson's (1990) study of

women in affairs with married men illustrates how a writer can shape a work
for a trade audience, an academic andience, or a moraVpolitical audience. For
a trade audience, she encoded her work with literary devices such as

jazzy titles, attractive covers, lack of specialized jargon, marginalization of

methodology, common-world metaphors and images, and book blurbs and
prefatory. material about the "lay" interest in the material. (Richardson, 1990,
p.32)

For the moraVpolitical audience, she encoded through devices such as,

in-group words in the title, for example, woman/women/feminist in feminist

writing; the moral or activist "credentials" of the author, for example, the
author's role in particular social movements; references to moral and
activist authorities; empowerment metaphors, and book blurbs and prefa-
tory material about how this work relates to real people's lives.
(Richardson, 1990, pp. 32-33)

Finally, for the academic publications (e.g., journals, conference papers,

academic books), she marked it by a

prominent display of academic credentials of author, references, footnotes,

methodology sections, use of familiar academic metaphors and images (such
as "exchange theory," "roles/' and "stratification"), and book blurbs and
prefatory material about the science or scholarship involved. (Richardson,
1990, p. 32)

Although I emphasize academic writing here, researchers encode qualita-

tive studies for audiences other than academics. For example, in the social
and human sciences, policy makers may be a primary audience, and this
necessitates writing with less methods, more parsimony, and a focus on prac-
tice and results.
Richardson's (1990) ideas triggered my own thoughts about how one might
encode a qualitative narrative. Such encoding might include the following:

o An overall structure that does not conform to the standard quantitative intro-
duction, methods, results, and discussion format. Instead, the methods might
be called l'procedures," and the results might be called "findings." In fact, the
researcher might phrase the heading in the words of participants in the study
as they discuss "denial," retriggering," and so forth, as I did in the gunman
{I

case. (Asmussen & Creswell, 1995)

182 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

• A writing style that is personal, familiar, perhaps "up-close," highly readable,

friendly, and applied for a broad audience. Our structures hope for a "persua-
sive" effect (Czarniaswka, 2004, p. 124). Readers should find the material
interesting and memorable, the "grab" in writing. (Gilgun, 2005)
G A level of detail that makes the work come alive-verisimilitude comes to
mind (Richardson, 1994, p. 521)-a criterion for a good literary study where
the writing seems 'lreal" and "alive," transporting the reader directly into the
world of the study, whether this world is the cultural setting of youths' resis-
tance to both the counterculture and the dominant culture (Haenfler, 2004) or
women expressing emotion about their abusive childhoods (Morrow & Smith,
1995). Still, we must recognize that the writing is only a representation of what
we see or understand.

Quotes in Our Writings

In addition to encoding text with the language of qualitative research,
authors bring in the voice of participants in the study. Writers use ample
quotes, and I find Richardson's (1990) discussion about three types of
quotes most useful. The first consists of short eye-catching quotations. These
are easy to read, take up little space, and stand out from the narrator's text
and are indented to signify different perspectives. For example, in the phe-
nomenological study of how persons live with AIDS, Anderson and Spencer
(2002) used paragraph-long quotes from men and women in the study to
convey the "magic of not thinking" theme:

It's a sickness, but in my mind I don't think that I got it. Because if you think
about having Hrv, it comes down more on you. It's more like a mind game.
To try and stay alive is that you don't even think about it. It's not in the mind.
(p.1347)

Dialogue, a variation of quotes, may be used, such as in the Principal

Selection Committee study by Wolcott (1994a) in which he states conversa-
tion between candidates (e.g., "Mr. Fifth") and the interviewing principals.
The second approach consists of embedded quotes, briefly quoted phra-
ses within the analyst's narrative. These quotes, according to Richardson
(1990), prepare a reader for a shift in emphasis or display a point and allow
the writer (and reader) to move on. Asmussen and I used embedded quotes
extensively in our gunman study (Asmussen & Creswell, 1995) because they
consume little space and provide specific concrete evidence, in the infor-
mants' words, to support a theme. Embedded quotes also are used exten-
sively in the childhood sexual abuse grounded theory study by Morrow and
Smith (1995).
Writing a Qualitative Study 183

A third type of quote is the longer quotation, used to convey more com-
plex understandings. These are difficult to use .because of space limitations
in publications and because longer quotes may contain many ideas and so
the reader needs to be guided both "into" the quote and "out of" the quote
to focus his or her attention on the controlling idea that the writer would like
the reader to see. In the Vonnie Lee biography, Angrosino (1994) states sev-
erallong quotes to provide complete answers to questions posed to Vonnie
Lee and to develop for the reader a sense of Vonnie Lee's voice, questions
such as "Why do you like the bus so much?" (p. 21).
In addition to these rhetorical issues, the writer needs to address how he
or she is going to compose the overall narrative structure of the report and
use embedded structures within the report to provide a narrative within the
approach of choice. I offer Table 9.1 as a guide to the discussion to follow,
in which I list many overall and embedded structural approaches as they
apply to the five approaches of inquiry.

Narrative Research Structure

As I read about the writing of studies in narrative research, I find authors

unwilling to prescribe a structure or specific writing strategies (Clandinin &
Connelly, 2000; Czarniawska, 2004). Instead, I find the authors suggesting
maximum flexibility in structure (see Ely, 2006), but· emphasizing core ele-
ments that might go into the narrative study.

Overall Rhetorical Structure

Narrative researchers encourage individuals to write narrative studies that
experiment with form (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). Researchers can come
to their narrative form by first looking to their own preferences in reading
(e.g., memoirs, novels), reading other narrative dissertations and books,
and viewing the narrative study as back-and-forth writing, as a process
(Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). Within these general guidelines, Clandinin
and Connelly (2000) review two doctoral dissertations that employ narra-
tive research. The two have different narrative structures: one provides nar-
ratives of a chronology of the lives of three women; the other adopts a more
classical approach to a dissertation including an introduction, a literature
review, and a methodology. For this second example, the remaining chapters
then go into a series of letters that tell the stories of the author's experiences
with the participants. Reading through these two examples, I am struck by
how they both reflect the three-dimensional inquiry space that Clandinin
184 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Table 9.1 Overall and Embedded Rhetorical Structures and the Five
Approaches

Approach to Overall Rhetorical Embedded Rhetorical

Inquiry Structures Structures

Narrative 6 Flexible and evolving as • Epiphany (Denzin, 1989b)

a process (Clandinin & • Theme, key event, or plot
Connelly,2000) (Czarniawska,2004;
Q Three~dimensional space Smith, 1994)
inquiry model (Clandinin o Metaphors and transitions
& Connelly, 2000) (Clandinin & Connelly,
• Chronology to the stories 2000; Lomask, 1986)
(Clandinin & Connelly, " Progressive-regressive
2000) method or zooming in and
out (Czarniawska, 2004;
Denzin, 1989b)
Phenomenology " Chapters in a "research Cl Figure or ta bie for essence
manuscript" (Moustakas, (Grigsby & Megel, 1995)
1994) Cl Discussion about
6)The" research report" philosophy (Harper, 1981)
(Polkinghorne, 1989) Cl Creative closing
(Mollstakas, 1994)
Grounded " Components of a Cl Extent of analysis
theory grounded theory study (Chenitz & Swanson, 1986)
(May, 1986) CD Form of propositions
" Parameters of a grounded (Strauss & Corbin, 1990)
theory study (Strauss & ., Use of visual diagram
Corbin, 1990) (Morrow & Smith, 1995)
Ethnography • Types of tales (Van • Tropes (Hammersley &
Maanen, 1988) Atkinson, 1995)
CfI Descriptioll 1 analysis, and \l "Thick" description
interpretation (Wokott, (Denzin, 1989b)
1994b) • Dialogue (Nelson, 1990)
& «Thematic narrative" Cl Scenes (Emerson, Fretz, &

(Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw,1995)

Shaw,1995) Cl LIterary devices
(Richardson, 1990)
Case study o Report format with • Funnel approach
vignettes (Stake, 1995) (Asmussen & Creswell,
" Substantive case report 1995)
format (Lincoln & Cl Amount of description

Guba,1985) (Merriam, 1988)

" Types of cases
(Yin,2003)
Writing a Qualitative Study 185

and Connelly (2000) discuss. This space, as mentioned earlier, is a text that
looks backward and forward, looks inward and outward, and situates the
experiences within place. For example, the dissertation of He, cited by
Clandinin, is a study about the lives of two participants and the author in
China and Canada. The story

looks backward to the past for her and her two participants and forward to
the puzzle of who they are and who they are becoming in their new land. She
looks inward to her personal reasons for doing this study and outward to the
social significance of the work. She paints landscapes of China and Canada
and the in~between places where she images herself to reside. (Clandinin &
ConneIly, 2000, p. 156)

Later in Clandinin and Connelly (2000), there is a story about Jean

, Clandinin's advising students about the narrative form of their studies. This
form again relates to the three-dimensional space model:

When they came to Jean for conversations about their emerging texts, she found
herself responding not so much with comments about preestablished and
accepted forms but with response that raised questions situated within the three-
dimensional narrative inquiry space. (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000, p. 165)

Notice in this passage how Clandinin "raised questions" rather than told
the student how to proceed, and how she returned to the larger rhetorical
structure of the three-dimensional inquiry space model as a framework for
thinking about the writing of a narrative study. This framework also sug-
gests a chronology to the narrative report.

Embedded Rhetorical Structure

Assuming that the larger writing structure proceeds with experimentation
and flexibility, the writing structure at the more micro level relates to several
elements of writing strategies that authors might use in composing a narra-
tive study. These were drawn from Czarniawska (2004) and Clandinin and
Connelly (2000):

• The writing of a narrative needs to not silence some of the voices, and it ulti-
mately gives more space to certain voices than others (Czarniawska, 2004).
• There can be a spatial element to the writing, such as in the progressive-
regressive method (Denzin, 1989b) whereby the biographer begins with a key
event in the participant's life and then works forward and backward from that
event, such as in Denzin's study of alcoholics. Alternatively, there can be a
186 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

"zooming in" and "zooming out," such as describing a large context to a con-
crete field of study (e.g., a site) and then telescoping out again (Czarniawska,
2004).
$ The writing may emphasize the "key event" or the "epiphany," defined as
interactional moments and experiences that mark people's lives (Denzin,
1989b). He distinguishes four types: the major event that touches the fabric of
the individual's life; the cumulative or representative events, experiences that
continue for some time; the minor epiphany, which represents a moment in an
individual's life; and episodes or relived epiphanies, which involve reliving the
experience. Czarniawska (2004) introduces the key element of the plot or
the emplotment, a means of introducing structure that allows making sense of
the events reported.
Cl Themes can be reported in narrative writing. Smith (1994) recommends find-
ing a theme to guide the development of the life to be written. This theme
emerges from preliminary knowledge or a review of the entire life, although
researchers often experience difficulty in distinguishing the major theme
from lesser or minor themes. Clandinin and Connelly (2000) refer to writing
research texts at the reductionistic boundary, an approach consisting of a
"reduction downward" (p. 143) to themes in which the researcher looks for
common threads or elements acrOSS participants.
Cl Other narrative rhetorical devices include the use of transitions, at which biog-
raphers excel. Lomask (1986) refers to these as built into the narratives in nat-
ural chronological linkages. Writers insert them through words or phrases,
questions (which Lomask calls being "lazy"), and time-and-place shifts mov-
ing the action forward or backward. In addition to transitions, biographers
employ foreshadowing, the frequent use of narrative hints of things to come
or of events or themes to be developed later. Narrative researchers also use
metaphors, and Clandinin and Connelly (2000) used the metaphor of a soup
(Le., with description of people, places, and things; arguments for understand-
ings, and richly textured narratives of people situated in place, time, scene, and
plot) within containers (i.e., dissertation, journal article) to describe their nar-
rative texts.

Angrosino's (1994) study of Vonnie Lee, for example, illustrates many

narrative writing structures. At the outset, we are told that "explorations
in life history and metaphor" (p. 14) is the type of biographical writing.
Although difficult to classify according to Clifford's (1970) taxonomy of
biographies, it has elements of the artistic and scholarly biography where
Angrosino retells Vonnie Lee's stories within the scholarly context of Vonnie
Lee's life, his bus ride, and the thematic meanings of this bus ride. Certainly,
Angrosino focuses on a key event, perhaps a minor epiphany in Vonnie Lee's
life of the bus ride. When Angrosino joins Vonnie Lee on his bus ride (and
hears Vonnie Lee's stories), the reader gains a sense of movement from one
Writing a Qualitative Study 187

bus stop to another until they reach Vonnie Lee's place of employment. The
transitions of this journey are natural, and his struggles in life are foreshad-
owed early in the story through the recapitulation of his abusive early life.
This bus journey, on several levels, becomes a metaphor for Vonnie Lee's life
of empowerment and stability.

PhenomenologicaI Structure
Those who write about phenomenology (e.g., Moustakas, 1994) provide more
extensive attention to overall writing structures than to embedded ones.
However, as in all forms of qualitative research, one can learn much from a
careful study of research reports in journal article, monograph, or book form.

Overall Rhetorical Structure

The highly structured approach to analysis by Moustakas (1994) presents
a detailed form for composing a phenomenological study. The analysis
steps-identifying significant statements, creating meaning units, clustering
themes, advancing textural and structural descriptions, and making a com-
posite description of textural.and structural descriptions into an exhaustive
description of the essential invariant structure (or essence) of the experi-
ence-provide a clearly articulated procedure for organizing a report
(Moustakas, 1994). In my experience, individuals are quite surprised to find
highly structured approaches to phenomenological studies on sensitive top-
ics (e.g., "being left out," "insomnia," "being criminally victimized," "life's
meaning," "voluntarily changing one's career during midlife," "longing,"
"adults being abused as children"; Moustakas, 1994, p. 153). But the
data analysis procedure, I think, guides a researcher in that direction and
presents an overall structure for analysis and ultimately the organization of
the report.
Consider the overall organization of a report as suggested by Moustakas
(1994). He recommends specific chapters in "creating a research
manuscript":

• Chapter 1: Introduction and statement of topic and outline. Topics include an

autobiographical statement about experiences of the author leading to the
topic, incidents that lead to a puzzlement or curiosity about the topic, the
sodal implications and relevance of the topic, new knowledge and contribu-
tion to the profession to emerge from studying the topic, knowledge to be
gained by the researcher, the research question, and the terms of the study.
188 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

• Chapter 2: Review of the relevant literature. Topics include a review of data~

bases searched, an introduction to the literature, a procedure for selecting stud-
ies the conduct of these studies and themes that emerged in them, a summary
of 'core findings and statements as to how the present research differs from
prior research (in question, model, methodology, and data collected),
'Ill Chapter 3: Conceptual framework of the model. Topics include the theory to
be used as well as the concepts and processes related to the research design
(Chapters 3 and 4 might be combined).
III Chapter 4: Methodology. Topics include the methods and procedures in
preparing to conduct the study, in collecting data, and in organizing, analyz-
ing, and synthesizing the data.
G Chapter 5: Presentation of data. Topics include verbatim examples of data col w

lection, data analysis, a synthesis of data, horizonalization, meaning units,

clustered themes, textural and structural descriptions, and a synthesis of mean-
ings and essences of the experience.
G Chapter 6: Summary, implications, and outcomes. Sections include a summary
of the study, statements about how the findings differ from those in the Htera w

ture review, recommendations for future studies, the identification of limita w

dons, a discussion about implications, and the inclusion of a creative closure

that speaks to the essence of the study and its inspiration for the researcher.

A second model, not as specific, is found in Polkinghorne (1989) where

he discusses the "research report." In this model, the researcher describes the
procedures to collect data and the steps to move from the raw data to a more
general description of the experience. Also, the investigator includes a review
of previous research, the theory pertaining to the topic, and implications for
psychological theory and application. I especially like Polkinghorne's com-
ment about the impact of such a report:

Produce a research report that gives an accurate, clear, and articulate descrip-
tion of an experience. The reader of the report should come away with the feel-
ing that 1'1 understand better what it is like for someone to experience that."
(Polkinghorne, 1989, p. 46)

Embedded Rhetorical Structure

Turning to embedded rhetorical structures, the literature provides the best
evidence. A writer presents the "essence" of the experience for participants
in a study through sketching a short paragraph about it in the narrative
or by enclosing this paragraph in a figure. This latter approach is used
effectively in a study of the caring experiences of nurses who teach
(Gdgsby & Megel, 1995). Another structural device is to "educate" the
reader through a discussion about phenomenology and its philosophical
Writing a Qualitative Study 189

assumptions. Harper (1981) uses this approach and describes several of

Hussed's major tenets as well as the advantages of studying the meaning of
"leisure" in a phenomenology.
Finally, I personally like Moustakas's (1994) suggestion: "Write a brief
creative close that speaks to the essence of the study and its inspiration to
you in terms of the value of the knowledge and future directions of your pro-
fessional-personallife" (p. 184). Despite the phenomenologist's inclination
to bracket .himself or herself out of the narrative, Moustakas introduces the
reflexivity that psychological phenomenologists can bring to a study, such as
casting their initial problem statement within an antobiographical context.
Anderson and Spencer's (2002) phenomenology of how persons living
with AIDS image their disease represents many of these overall and embed-
ded writing structures. The overall article has a structured organization, with
an introduction, a review of the literature, methods, and results. It follows
'Colaizzi's (1978) phenomenological methods by reporting a table of signifi-
cant statements and a table of meaning themes. Anderson and Spencer end
with an in-depth, exhaustive description of the phenomenon. They describe
this exhaustive description:

Results wefe integrated into an essential scheme of AIDS. The lived experience
of AIDS was initially frightening, with a dread of body wasting and personal
loss. Cognitive representations of AlDS included inescapable death, bodily
destruction, fighting a battle, and having a chronic disease. Coping methods
included searching for the "right drug," caring for oneself, accepting the diag-
nosis, wiping AIDS out of their thoughts, turning to God, and using vigilance.
With time, most people adjusted to living with AlDS. Feelings ranged from
"devastating," "sad/' and "angry" to being at "peace" and "not worrying."
(Anderson and Spencer, 2002, p. 1349)

Anderson and Spencer began the phenomenology with a quote from a

53-year-old man with AlDS, but did not mention themselves in a reflexive way.
They also did not discuss the philosophical tenets behind phenomenology.

Grounded Theory Structure

From reviewing grounded theory studies in journal article form, qualitative
researchers can deduce a general form (and variations) for composing the
narrative. The problem with journal articles is that the authors present trun-
cated versions of the studies to fit within the parameters of the. journals.
Thus, a reader emerges from a review of a particular study without a full
sense of the entire project.
190 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Overall Rhetorical Structure

Most importantly, authors need to present the theory in any grounded theory
narrative. As May (1986) comments, "In strict terms, the findings are the theory
itself, i.e., a set of concepts and propositions which link them" (p. 148). May
continues to describe the research procedures in grounded theory;

o The research questions are broad, and they will change several times during
data collection and analysis.
CII The literature review "neither provides key concepts nor suggests hypotheses"
(May, 1986, p. 149). Instead, the literature review in grounded theory shows
gaps or bias in existing knowledge, thus providing a rationale for this type of
qualitative study.
o The methodology evolves during the course of the study, so writing it early in
a study poses difficulties. However, the researcher begins somewhere, and she
or he describes preliminary ideas about the sample, the setting, and the data
collection procedures.
o The findings section presents the theoretical scheme. The writer includes refer-
ences from the literature to show outside support for the theoretical model.
Also, segments of actual data in the form of vignett~s and quotes provide use-
ful explanatory material. This material helps the reader form a judgment about
how well the theory is grounded in the data.
o The final discussion section discusses the relationship of the theory to other
existing knowledge and the implications of the theory for future research and
practice.

Strauss and Corbin (1990) also provide broad writing parameters for
their grounded theory studies. They suggest the following;

o Develop a clear analytic story. This is to be provided in the selective coding

phase of the study.
e Write on a conceptual level, with description kept secondary to concepts and
the analytic story. This means that one finds little description of the phenom-
enon being studied and more analytic theory at an abstract level.
• Specify the relationship among categories. This is the theorizing part of
grounded theory found in axial coding when the researcher tells the story and
advances propositions.
• Specify the variations and the relevant conditions, consequences, and so forth
for the relationships among categories. In a good theory, one finds variation
and different conditions under which the theory holds. This means that the
multiple perspectives or variations in each component of axial coding are
developed fully. For example, the consequences in the theory are multiple and
detailed.
Writing a Qualitative Study 191

Embedded Rhetorical Structure

In .grounded theory studies, the researcher varies the narrative report
based on the extent of data analysis. Chenitz and Swanson (1986), for exam-
ple, present six grounded theory studies that vary in the types of analysis
reported in the narrative. In a preface to these examples, they mention that
the analysis (and narrative) might address one or more of the following:
description; the generation of categories through opeu coding; linking cate-
gories around a core category in axial coding, thus developing a substantive,
low-level theory; and/or a substantive theory linked to a formal theory.
I have seen grounded theory studies that include one or more of these
analyses. For example, in a study of gays and their "coming out" process,
Kus (1986) used only open coding in the analysis and identified four stages
in the process of coming out: identification, in which a gay person undergoes
, a radical identity transformation; cognitive changes, in which the individual
changes negative views about gays into positive ideas; acceptance, a stage in
which the individual accepts being gay as a positive life force; and action, the
process of the individual's engaging in behavior that results from accepting
being gay, such as self-disclosure, expanding the circle of friends to include
gays, becoming politically involved in gay causes, and volunteering for gay
groups. Set in contrast to this focus on the process, Brown and I (Creswell
& Brown, 1992) followed the coding steps in Strauss and Corbin (1990). We
examined the faculty development practices of chairpersons who enhance
the research productivity of their faculties. We began with open coding,
moved to axial coding complete with a logic diagram, and stated a series of
explicit propositions in directional (as opposed to the null) form.
Another embedded narrative feature is to examine the form for stating
propositions or theoretical relationships in grounded theory studies.
Sometimes, these are presented in "discursive" form, or describing the theory
in narrative form. Strauss and Corbin (1990) present such a model in their
theory of "protective governing" (p. 134) in the health care setting. Another
example is seen in Conrad's (1978) formal propositions about academic
change in the academy.
A final embedded structure is the presentation of the" logic diagram," the
"mini-framework," Of the "integrative" diagram, where the researcher pre-
sents the actual theory in the form of a visual model. The elements of this
structure are identified by the researcher in the axial coding phase, and the
"story" in axial coding is a narrative version of it. How is this visual model
presented? A good example of this diagram is found in the Morrow and
Smith (1995) study of women who have survived childhood sexual abuse.
Their diagram shows a theoretical model that contains the axial coding
192 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

categories of causal conditions, the central phenomenon, the context, inter-

vening conditions, strategies, and consequences. It is presented with direc-
tional arrows indicating the flow of causality from left to right, from causal
conditions to consequences. Arrows also show that the context and inter-
vening conditions directly impact the strategies. Presented near the end of the
study, this visual form represents the culminating theory for the study.

Ethnographic Structure

Ethnographers write extensively about narrative construction, from how the

nature of the text shapes the subject matter to the "literary" conventions and
devices used by authors (Atkinson & Hammersley, 1994). The general shapes
of ethnographies and embedded structures are well detailed in the literature.

Overall Rhetorical Structure

For example, Van Maanen (1988) provides the alternative forms of an
ethnography. Many ethnographies are written as realist tales, reports that
provide direct, matter-of-fact portraits of studied cultures without much
information about how the ethnographers produced the portraits. In this type
of tale, a writer uses an impersonal point of view, conveying a "scientific"
and "objective" perspective. A confessional tale takes the opposite approach,
and the researcher focuses more on his or her fieldwork experiences than on
the culture. The final type, the impressionistic tale, is a personalized account
of "fieldwork case in dramatic form" (Van Maanen, 1988, p. 7). It has ele-
ments of both realist and confessional writing and, in my mind, presents a
compelling and persuasive stoty. In both the confessional and impressionistic
tales, the first-person point of view is used, conveying a personal style of writ-
ing. Van Maanen (1988) states that other, less frequently written tales also
exist-critical rales focusing on large social, political, symbolic, or economic
issues; formalist tales that build, test, generalize, and exhibit theory; literaty
tales in which the ethnographers write like journalists, borrowing fiction-
writing techniques from novelists; and jointly told tales in which the produc-
tion of the studies is jointly authored by the fieldworkers and the informants,
opening up shared and discursive narratives.
On a slightly different note, but yet related to the larger rhetorical struc-
ture, Wokott (1994b) provides three components of a good qualitative
inquiry that are a centerpiece of good ethnographic writing as well as steps
in data analysis. First, an ethnographer writes a "description" of the culture
that answers the question "What is going on here?" (p. 12). Wokott offers
Writing a Qualitative Study 193

useful techniques for wntmg this description: chronological order, the

researcher or narrator order, a progressive fo(using, a critical or key event,
plots 'and characters, groups in interaction, an analytical framework, and a
story told through several perspectives. Second, after describing the culture
using one of these approaches, the researcher "analyzes" the data. Analysis
includes highlighting findings, displaying findings, reporting fieldwork pro-
cedures, identifying patterned regularities in the data, comparing the case
with a known case, evaluating the information, contextualizing the infor-
mation within a broader analytic framework, critiquing the research process,
and proposing a redesign of the study. Of all these analytic techniques, the
identification of "patterns" or themes is central to much ethnographic writ-
ing. Third, interpretation should be involved in the rhetorical structure. This
means that the researcher can extend the analysis, make inferences from the
information, do as directed or as suggested by gatekeepers, turn to theory,
, refocus the interpretation itself, connect with personal experience, analyze or
interpret the interpretive process, or explore alternative formats. Of these
interpretive strategies, I personally like the approach of interpreting the find-
ings both within the context of the researcher's experiences and within the
larger body of scholarly research on the topic.
A more detailed, structured outline for an ethnography is found in
Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw (1995). They discuss developing an ethnographic
study as a "thematic narrative," a story "analytically thematized, but often
in relatively loose ways ... constructed out of a series of thematically orga-
nized units of fieldnote excerpts and analytic commentary" (p. 170). This
thematic narrative builds inductively from a main idea or thesis that incor-
porates several specific analytic themes and is elaborated throughout the
study. It is structured as follows:

• First is an introduction that engages the reader's attention and focuses the
study, then the researcher proceeds to link his or her interpretation to wider
issues of scholarly interest in the discipline.
• After this, the researcher introduces the setting and the methods for learning
about it. In this section, too, the ethnographer relates details about entry into
and participation in the setting as well as advantages and constraints of the
ethnographer's research role.
• The researcher presents analytic claims next, and Emerson and colleagues
(1995) indicate the utility of "excerpt commentary" units, whereby an author
incorporates an analytic point, provides orientation information about the
point, presents the excerpt or direct quote, and then advances analytic com-
mentary about the quote as it relates to the analytic point.
• In the conclusion, the researcher reflects and elaborates on the thesis advanced
at the beginning. This interpretation may extend or modify the thesis in light of
194 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

the materials examined, relate the thesis to general theory or a current issue, or
offer a metacommentary on the thesis, methods, or assumptions of the study.

Embedded Rhetorical Structure

Ethnographers use embedded rhetorical devices such as figures of speech
or "tropes" (Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995). Metaphors, for example, pro-
vide visual and spatial images or dramaturgical characterizations of social
actions as theater. Another trope is the synecdoche, in which ethnographers
present examples, illustrations, cases, and/or vignettes that form a part but
stand for the whole. Ethnographers present storytelling tropes examining
cause and sequence that follow grand narratives to smaller parabies. A final
trope is irony, in which researchers bring to light contrasts of competing
frames of reference and rationality.
More specific rhetorical devices depict scenes in an ethnography
(Emerson et aI., 1995). Writers can incorporate details or "write lushly"
(Goffman, 1989, p. 131) or "thickly," description that creates verisimilitude
and produces for readers the feeling that they experience, or perhaps could
experience, the events described (Denzin, 1989b). Denzin (1989b) talks
about the importance of using "thick description" in writing qualitative
research. By this, he means that the narrative "presents detail, context, emo-
tion, and the webs of social relationships ... [and] evokes emotionality and
self-feelings .... The voices, feelings, actions, and meanings of interacting
individuals are heard" (p. 83). As an example, Denzin (1989b) first refers to
an illustration of "thick" description from Sudnow (1978), and then pro-
vides his own version as if it were "thin" description.

IDThick description: ~'Sitting at the piano and moving into the production of a
chord, the chord as a whole was prepared for as the hand moved toward the
keyboard, and the terrain was seen as a field relative to the task .... There was
chord A and chord B, separated from one another. .. . A's production entailed
a tightly compressed hand, and B's ... an open and extended spread.... The
beginner gets from A to B disjointly" (Sudnow, 1978, pp. 9-10 )
• Thin description: "1 had trouble learning the piano keyboard" (Denzin, 1989b,
p.85).

Also, ethnographers present dialogue, and the dialogue becomes espe-

cially vivid when written in the dialect and 'natural language of the culture
(see, e.g., the articles on Black English vernacular or "code switching" in
Nelson, 1990). Writers also rely on characterization in which human beings
are shown talking, acting, and relating to others. Longer scenes take the
form of sketches, a "slice of life" (Emerson et aI., 1995, p. 85), or larger
episodes and tales.
Writing a Qualitative Study 195

Ethnographic writers tell "a good story" (Richardson, 1990). Thus, one
of the forms of "evocative" experimental qualitative writing for Richardson
(1990) is the fictional representation form in which writers draw on the lit-
erary devices such as flashback, flashforward, alternative points of view,
deep characterization, tone shifts, synecdoche, dialogue, interior monologue,
and sometimes the omniscient narrator.
Haenfler's (2004) ethnographic study of the core values of the straight edge
movement illustrate many of these writing conventions. It falls somewhere
between a realist tale, with its review of the literature and extensive method
discussion, and a critical tale, with its orientation toward examining closely
subculture resistance and the reflexivity of the author as he discusses his
involvement as a participant observer. It does follow Wolcott's (1994b) orien-
tation of description with a detailed discussion about the core values of the sXe
group, followed by analysis through themes, and ending with a conclusion that
• discusses an analytic framework for understanding the group. It tells a good,
persuasive story, with colorful elements (e.g., T-shirt slogans), "thick" descrip-
tion, and extensive quotes. It does not include some of the literary tropes, such
as dialogue, interior monologue, and the tone is one of an omniscient narrator
as typically found in the realist tales of Van Maanen (1988).

Case Study Structure

Turning to case studies, I am reminded by Merriam (1988) that "there is no
standard format for reporting case study research" (p. 193). Unquestionably,
some case studies generate theory, some are simply descriptions of cases, and
others are more analytical in nature and display cross-case or intersite com-
parisons. The overall intent of the case study undoubtedly shapes the larger
structure of the written narrative .. Still, I find it useful to conceptualize a gen-
eral form, and I turn to key texts on case studies to receive guidance.

Overall Rhetorical Structure

One can open and close the case study narrative with vignettes to draw
the reader into the case. This approach is suggested by Stake (1995), who
provides a complete outline for the flow of ideas in a case study. These ideas
are staged as follows:

ClThe writer opens with a vignette so that the reader can develop a vicarious
experience to get a feel for the time and place of the study.
• Next~ the researcher identifies the issue, the purpose, and the method of the
study so that the reader learns about how the study came to be, the back~
ground of the writer, and the issues surrounding the case.
196 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

& This is followed by an extensive description of the case and its context-a body
of relatively uncontested data-a description the reader might make if he or
she had been there.
III Issues are presented next, a few key issues, so that the reader can understand
the complexity of the case. This complexity builds through references to other
research or the writer's understanding of other cases.
€I Next, several of the issues are probed further. At this point, too, the writer
brings in both confirming and disconfirming evidence.
//) Assertions are presented, a summary of what the writer understands about the
case and whether the initial naturalistic generalizations, conclusions arrived at
through personal experience or offered as vicarious experiences for the reader,
have been changed conceptually or challenged.
e Finally, the writer ends with a closing vignette, an experiential note, reminding
the reader that this report is one person's encounter with a complex case.

I like this general outline because it provides description of the case; pre-
sents themes, assertions, or interpretations of the researcher; and begins and
ends with realistic scenarios.
A similar model is found in Lincoln and Guba's (1985) substantive case
report. They describe a need for the explication of the problem, a thorough
description of the context or setting, a description of the transactions or
processes observed in that context, saliences at the site (elements studied in
depth), and outcomes of the inquiry ("lessons learned").
At a more general level yet, I find Yin's (2003) 2 x 2 table of types of case
studies helpful. Case studies can be either single-case or multiple-case design
and either holistic (single unit of analysis) or embedded (multiple units of
analysis) design. He comments further that a single case is best when a need
exists to study a critical case, an extreme or unique case, or a revelatory case.
Whether the case is single or multiple, the researcher decides to study the
entire case, a holistic design, or multiple subunits within the case (the embed-
ded design). Although the holistic design may be more abstract, it captures
the entire case better than the embedded design does. However, the embed-
ded design starts with an examination of subunits and allows for the detailed
perspective should the questions begin to shift and change during fieldwork.

Embedded Rhetorical Structure

What specific narrative devices, embedded structures, do case study writ-
ers use to "mark" their studies? One might approach the description of the
context and setting for the case from a broader picture to a narrower one.
For example, in the gunman case (Asmussen & Creswell, 1995), we describe
the actual campus incident first in terms of the city in which the situation
developed, followed by the campus and, more narrow yet, the actual
Writing a Qualitative Study 197

classroom on campus. This funneling approach narrows the setting from

that of a calm city environment to a potentially volatile campus classroom
and seems to launch the study into a chronology of events that occur.
Researchers also need to be cognizant of the amount of description in
their case studies versus the amount of analysis and interpretation or
assertions. In comparing description and analysis, Merriam (1988) sug-
gests that the proper balance might be 60%/40% or 70%/30% in favor
of description. In the gunman case, Asmussen and I balanced the elements
in equal thirds (33%-33%-33%)-a concrete description of the setting
and the actual events (and those that occurred within 2 weeks after the
incident); the five themes; and our interpretation, the lessons learned,
reported in the discussion section. In our case study, the description of the
case and its context did not loom as large as in other case studies. But
these matters are up to writers to decide, and it is conceivable that a case
• study might contain mainly descriptive material, especially if the bounded
system, the case, is quite large and complex.
Our gunman study (Asmussen & Creswell, 1995) also represents a single-
case study (Yin, 2003), with a single narrative about the case, its themes, and
its interpretation. In another study, the case presentation might be that of
multiple cases, with each case discussed separately, or multiple case studies
with no separate discussions of each case but an overall cross-case analysis
(Yin, 2003). Another Yin (2003) narrative format is to pose a series of ques-
tions and answers based on the case study database.
Within any of these formats, one might consider structures for building
ideas. For example, in our gunman study (Asmussen & Creswell, 1995), we
descriptively present the chronology of the events during the incident and
immediately after it. The chronological approach seems to work best when
events unfold and follow a process; case studies often are bounded by time
and cover events over time (Yin, 2003). In addition to this approach, one
might build a theory composed of identifying variables (or themes) that are
interrelated; use a "suspense" structure with an "answer" to the outcome
of the case presented first, followed by the development of an explanation
for this outcome; or use an "unsequenced" structure consisting of events,
processes, or activities not necessarily presented in the order in which they
unfolded in the case (Yin, 2003).

A Comparison of Narrative Structures

Looking back over Table 9.1, we see many diverse structures for writing the
qualitative report. What major differences exist in the structures depending
on one's choice of approach?
198 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

First, I am struck by the diversity of discussions about narrative structures.

I found .little crossover or sharing of structures among the five approaches,
although, in practice, this undoubtedly occurs. The narrative tropes and the Iit-·
erary devices, discussed by ethnographers and narrative researchers, have
applicability regardless of approach. Second, the writing structures are highly
related to data analysis procedures. A phenomenological study and a grounded
theory study follow closely the data analysis steps. In short, I am reminded
once again that it is difficult to separate the activities of data collection, analy-
sis, and report writing in a qualitative study. Third, the emphasis given to writ-
ing the narrative, especially the embedded narrative structures, varies among
the approaches. Ethnographers lead the group in their extensive discussions
about narrative and text construction. Phenomenologists and grounded theory
writers spend little time on this topic. Fourth, the overall narrative structure is
clearly specified in some approaches (e.g., a grounded theory study, a phe-
nomenological study, and perhaps a case study), whereas it is flexible and
evolving in others (e.g., a narrative, an ethnography). Perhaps this conclusion
reflects the more structured approach versus the less structured approach,
overall, among the five approaches of inquiry.

Summary

In this chapter, I discussed writing the qualitative repott.1 began by discussing

several rhetorical issues the writer must address. These issues include writing
reflexively and with representation, the audience for the writing, the encoding
for that audience, and the use of quotes. Then I turned to each of the five
approaches of inquiry and presented overall rhetorical structures for organiz-
ing the entire study as well as specific embedded structures, writing devices,
and techniques that the researcher incorporates into the study. A table of these
structures shows the diversity of perspectives about structure that reflects
different data analysis procedures and discipline affiliations. I concluded
with observations about the differences in writing structures among the five
approaches, differences reflected in the variability of approaches, the relation-
ships between data analysis and report writing, the emphasis in the literature
of each approach on narrative construction, and the amount of structure in
the overall architecture of a stndy within each approach.

A good, thoughtful book on writing qualitative research is Wolcott's popu-

lar 2001 book. For examining the issues of reflexivity and representation,
Writing a Qualitative Study 199

I hi!;hly recommend Gilgun (2005), Richardson and St. Pierre (2005), Weis
and Fine (2000) and van Manen (2006). For specific applications in the five
approaches, see Clandinin and ConneIIy (2000), Czarniawska (2004), and
Denzin (1989b) for narrative research; Moustakas (1994) for phenomenol-
ogy; Strauss and Corbin (1990, 1998) for grounded theory; Clifford and
Marcus (1986), Wolcott (1994b), and Van Maanen (1988) for ethnography;
and Stake (1995) and Yin (2003) for case study research.

Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story
in qualitative research. San Francisco: Jossey~Bass.
Clifford, J., & Marcus, G. E. (Eds.). (1986). Writing culture: The poetics and politics
of ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Czarniawka, B. (2004). Narratives in social science research. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage.
J Denzin, N. K. (1989b). Interpretive interactionism. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Gilgun, J. F. (2005). "Grab" and good science: Writing up the results of qualitative
research. Qualitative Health Research, 15,256-262.
Moustakas, C. (1994). Phenomenological research methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Richardson, L., & St. Pierre,' E. A. (2005). Writing: A method of inquiry. In N. K.
Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed.,
pp. 959-978). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Stake, R. (1995). The art of case study research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory
procedures and techniques. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory
procedures and techniques (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Van Maanen, J. (1988). Tales of the field: On writing ethnography. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
van Manen, M. (2006). Writing qualitatively, or the demands of writing. Qualitative
Health Research, 16,713-722.
Weis, L., & Fine, M. (2000). Speed bumps: A student-friendly guide to qualitative
research. New York: Teachers College Press.
Woleott, H. F. (1994b). Transforming qualitative data: Description, analysis, and
interpretation. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Woleotr, H. F. (2001). Writing up qualitative research (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage.
Yin, R. K. (2003). Case study research: Design and method (2nd ed.). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.

1. Show that you understand the overall and embedded rhetorical structures for
writing within yout approach of inquiry by drafting a complete narrative for
200 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

your project. You might model your narrative after a journal article format
using your approach.
2. Develop a plan for the narrative structure for a study within your approach
of inquiry. To do this, design a matrix with two columns and seven rows. In
the first column, list several writing criteria: the overall writing approach, the
strategies to display reflexivity and representation, the intended audience for
the study, the encoding to be used in the narrative, the approach to using
quotes, the general outline of the flow of the ideas in the manuscript, and the
embedded rhetorical devices. In the second column, add information about'
how these criteria will be addressed in your project.
10
Standards of Validation
and Evaluation

g ualitative researchers strive for "understanding," that deep structure

of knowledge that comes from visiting personally with participants,
spen ing extensive time in ,he field, and probing to obtain detailed mean-
ings. During or after a study, qualitative researchers ask, "Did we get it
right?" (Stake, 1995, p. 107) or "Did we publish a 'wrong' or inaccurate
account?" (Thomas, 1993, p. 39). Is it possible to even have a "right"
answer? To answer these questions, researchers need to look to themselves,
to the participants, and to the readers. There are multi- or polyvocal dis-
courses at work here that provide insight into the validation and evaluation
of a qualitative narrative.
In this chapter, I address two interrelated questions: Is the account valid,
and by whose standards? How do we evaluate the quality of qualitative
research? Answers to these questions will take us into the many perspectives
on validation to emerge within the qualitative community and the multiple
standards for evaluation discussed by authors with procedural, interpretive,
emancipatory, and postmodern perspectives.

Questions for Discussion

• What are some qualitative perspectives on validation?
• What are some alternative procedures useful in establishing validation?

201
202 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

• How is reliability used in qualitative research?

• What are some alternative stances on evaluating the quality of qualitative
research?
" How do these stances differ by types of approaches to qualitative inquiry?

Validation and Reliability in Qualitative Research

Perspectives on Validation
Many perspectives exist regarding the importance of validation in qualita-
tive research, the definition of it, terms to describe it, and procedures for
establishing it. In Table 10.1, I illustrate several of the perspectives available
on validation in the qualitative literature. These perspectives are viewing qual-
itative validation in terms of quantitative equivalents, using qualitative terms
that are distinct from quantitative terms, employing postmodern and inter-
pretive perspectives, considering validation as unimportant, combining or syn-
thesizing many perspectives, or visualizing it metaphorically as a crystal.
Writers have searched for and found qualitative equivalents that parallel
traditional quantitative approaches to validation. LeCompte and Goetz
(1982) took this approach when they compared the issues of validation and
reliability to their counterparts in experimental design and survey research.
They contended that qualitative research has garnered much criticism in the
scientific ranks for its failure to "adhere to canons of reliability and valida-
tion" (p. 31) in the traditional sense. They applied threats to internal vali-
dation in experimental research to ethnographic research (e.g., history and
maturation, observer effects, selection and regression, mortality, spurious
conclusions). They further identified threats to external validation as "effects
that obstruct or reduce a study's comparability or translatability" (p. 51).
Some writers argue that authors who continue to use positivist terminol-
ogy facilitate the acceptance of qualitative research in a quantitative world.
Ely and colleagues (Ely, Anzul, Friedman, Garner, & Steinmetz, 1991)
asserted that using quantitative terms tends to be a defensive measure that
muddies the waters and that "the language of positivistic research is not con-
gruent with or adequate to qualitative work" (p. 95). Lincoln and Guba
(1985) have used alternative terms that, they contended, adhered more to
naturalistic research. To establish the "trustworthiness" of a study, Lincoln
and Guba (1985) used unique terms, such as "credibility," "authenticity,"
"transferability," "dependability," and ~'confirmability," as "the naturalist's
equivalents" for "internal validation," "external validation," "reliability,"
and "objectivity" (p. 300). To operationalize these new terms, they propose
techniques such as prolonged engagement in the field and the triangulation
Standards of Validation and Evaluation 203

Table 10.1 Perspectives and Terms Used in Qualitative Validation :

Study, Perspective Terms

LeCompte & Use of parallel, qualitative Internal validity ,
Goetz (1982) equivalents to their External validity
quantitative counterparts Reliability
in experimental and Objectivity
survey research

Lincoln & Use of alternative terms Credibility

I
Guba (1985) that apply more to Transferability
naturalistic axioms Dependability
Confirmability

Eisner (1991) Use of alternative terms that Structural corroboration

provide reasonable standards Consensual validation
for judging the credibility of Referential adequacy
qualitative research Ironic validity

Lather (1993) Use of reconceptualized Paralogic validity ,

validity in four types Rhizomatic validity
Situated/embedded
voluptuous validity

Wokott Use of terms other than Understanding better than

"validity," because it neither validity
(1994b) i
guides nor informs
qualitative research

Angen (2000) Use of validation within Two types: ethical and

the context of interpretive substantive
inquiry

Whittemore, Use of synthesized Primary criteria: credibility,

Chase, & perspectives of validity, authenticity, criticality, and
Mandle (2001) organized into primary integrity :
criteria and secondary Secondary criteria:
criteria Explicitness, vividness,
creativity, thoroughness,
congruence, and sensitivity
Richardson & Use of a metaphorical, Crystals: Grow, change,
St. Pierre reconceptualized form of alter, reflect externalities,
(2005) validity as a crystal refract within themselves
... . ·~~m-","~'c".", "~,,,,,,,,,,,,,~,,,,."-."
" .-
204 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

of data of sources, methods, and investigators to establish credibility. To

make sure that the findings are transferable between the researcher and those
being studied, thick description is necessary. Rather than reliability, orie
seeks dependability that the results will be subject to change and instability.
The naturalistic researcher looks for confirmability rather than objectivity in
establishing the value of the data. Both dependability and confirmability are
established through an auditing of the research process.
Rather than using the term "validation," Eisner (1991) discussed the
credibility of qualitative research. He constructed standards such as struc-
tural corroboration, consensual validation, and referential adequacy. In
structural corroboration, the researcher relates multiple types of data to sup-
port or contradict the interpretation. As Eisner (1991) stated, "We seek a
confluence of evidence that breeds credibility, that allows us to feel confident
about our observations, interpretations, and conclusions" (p. 110). He fur-
ther illustrated this point with an analogy drawn from detective work: The
researcher compiles bits and pieces of evidence to formulate a "compelling
whole." At this stage, the researcher looks for recurring behaviors or
actions and considers disconfirming evidence and contrary interpretations.
Moreover, Eisner (1991) recommended that to demonstrate credibility, the
weight of evidence should become persuasive. Consensual validation sought
the opinion of others, and Eisner referred to "an agreement among compe-
tent others that the description, interpretation, and evaluation and themat-
ics of an educational situation are right" (p. 112). Referential adequacy
suggested the importance of criticism, and Eisner described the goal of criti-
cism as illuminating the subject matter and bringing about more complex
and sensitive human perception and understanding.
Validation also has been reconceptualized by qualitative researchers with
a postmodern sensibility. Lather (1991) commented that current "paradig-
matic uncertainty in the human sciences is leading to the re-conceptualizing
of validation" and called for "new techniques and concepts for obtaining
and defining trustworthy data which avoids the pitfalls of orthodox notions
of validation" (p. 66). For Lather, the character of a social science report
changes from a closed narrative with a tight argument structure to a more
open narrative with holes and questions and an admission of situatedness
and partiality. In Getting Smart, Lather (1991) advanced a "reconceptual-
ization of validation." She identified four types of validation, including
triangulation (multiple data sources, methods, and theoretical schemes),
construct validation (recognizing the constructs that exist rather than impos-
ing theories/constructs on informants or the context), face validation (as "a
~click of recognition' and a 'yes, of course/ instead of 'yes, but' experience"
(Kidder, 1982, p. 56), and catalytic validation (which energizes participants
toward knowing reality to transform it).
Standards of Validation and Evaluation 205

In a later article, Lather's (1993) terms became more unique and closely
relat~d to feminist research in "four frame~ of validation." The first,
"ironic" validation, is where the researcher presents truth as a problem. The
second, "paralogic" validation, is concerned with undecidables, limits, para-
doxes, and complexities, a movement away from theorizing things and
toward providing direct exposure to other voices in an almost unmediated
way. The third, "rhizomatic" validation, pertains to questioning prolifera-
tions, crossings, and overlaps without underlying structures or deeply rooted
connections. The researcher also questions taxonomies, constructs, and
interconnected networks whereby the reader jumps from one assemblage to
another and consequently moves from judgment to understanding. The
fourth type is situated, embodied, or "voluptuous" validation, which means
that the researcher sets out to understand more than one can know and to
write toward what one does not understand.
Other writers, such as Wokott (1990a), have little use for validation. He
suggested that "validation neither guides nor informs" his work (p. 136). He
did not dismiss validation, but rather placed it in a broader perspective.
Wokott's goal was to identify "critical elements" and write "plausible inter-
pretations from them" (p. 146). He ultimately tried to understand rather
than convince, and he voiced the view that validation distracted from his
work of understanding what was really going on. Wokott claimed that the
term "validation" did not capture the essence of what he sought, adding that
perhaps someone would coin a term appropriate for the naturalistic para-
digm. But for now, he said, the term "understanding" seemed to encapsulate
the idea as well as any other.
Validation has also been cast within an interpretive approach to qualita-
tive research marked by a focus on the importance of the researcher, a lack
of truth iu validation, a form of validation based on negotiation and dia-
logue with participants, and interpretations that are temporal, located, and
always open to reinterpretation (Angen, 2000). Angen (2000) suggested that
within interpretative research, validation is "a judgment of the trustworthi-
ness or goodness of a piece of research" (p. 387). She espouses an ongoing
open dialogue on the topic of what makes interpretive research worthy of
our trust. Considerations of validation are not definitive as the final word on
the topic, nor should every study be required to address them. Further, she
advances two types of validation: ethical validation and substantive valida-
tion. Ethical validation means that all research agendas must questions their
underlying moral assumptions, their political and ethical implications, and
the equitable treatment of diverse voices. It also requires research to provide
some practical answers to questions. Our research should also have a "gen-
erative promise" (Angen, 2000, p. 389) and raise new possibilities, open
up new questions, and stimulate new dialogue. Our research must have
206 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

transformadve value leading to action and change. Our research should also
provide nondogmatic answers to the questions we pose.
Substantive validation means understanding one's own understandings of
the topic, understandings derived from other sources, and the documenta-
tion of this process in the written study. Self-reflection contributes to the val-
idation of the work. The researcher, as a sociohistorical interpreter, interacts
with the subject matter to co-create the interpretations derived. Under-
standings derived from previous research give substance to the inquiry.
Interpretive research also is a chain of interpretations that must be docu-
mented for others to judge the trustworthiness of the meanings arrived at the
end. Written accounts must resonate with their intended audiences, and
must be compelling, powerful, and convincing.
A synthesis of validation perspectives comes from Whittemore, Chase,
and Mandle (2001), who have analyzed 13 writings about validation, and
extracted from these studies key validation criteria. They organized these cri-
teria into primary and secondary criteria. They found four primary criteria:
credibiliry (Are the results an accurate interpretation of the participants'
meaning?); authenticity (Are different voices heard?); criticality (Is there a
critical appraisal of all aspects of the research?); and integrity (Are the inves-
tigators self-critical?). Secondary criteria related to explicitness, vividness, cre-
ativiry, thoroughness, congruence, and sensitiviry. In summary, with these
criteria, it seems like the validation standard has moved toward the inter-
pretive lens of qualitative research, with an emphasis on researcher reflexiv-
ity and on researcher challenges that include raising questions about the
ideas developed during a research study.
Finally, a recent postmodern perspective draws on the metaphorical
image of a crystal. Richardson (in Richardson & St. Pierre, 2005) describes
this image:

I propose that the central imaginary for "validation" for postmodern texts is
not the triangle-a rigid, fixed, two dimensional object. Rather the central
imaginary is the crystal, which combines symmetry and substance with an infi~
nite variety of shapes, substances, transmutations, multidimensionalities, and
angles of approach. Crystals grow, change, and are altered, but they are not
amorphous. Crystals are prisms that reflect externalities and refract within
themselves, creating different colors, patterns, and arrays casting off in differ-
ent directions. What we see depends on our angle of response-not triangula-
tion but rather crystallization. (p. 963)

Given these many perspectives, I will summarize my own stance:

• I consider ~'validation» in qualitative research to be an attempt to assess

the "accuracy" of the findings, as best described by the researcher and the
Standards of Validation and Evaluation 207

participants. This view also suggests that any report of research is a represen-
. ration by the author.
• I, also view validation as a distinct strength of qualitative research in that the
account made through extensive time spent in the field, the detailed thick
description, and the closeness of the researcher to participants in the study all
add to the value or accuracy of a study.
• I use the term "validation" to emphasize a process (see Angen, 2000), rather
than "verification" (which has quantitative overtones) or historical words such
as "trustworthiness" and "authenticity" (recognizing that many qualitative
writers do return to words such as "authenticity" and "credibility," suggesting
the "staying power" of Lincoln and Guba's 1985 standards; see Whittemore,
Chase, & Mandle, 2001). I acknowledge that there are many types of qualita-
tive validation and that authors need to choose the types and terms in which
they are comfortable. I recommend that writers reference their validation terms
and strategies.
• The subject of validation does arise in several of the approaches to qualitative
research (e.g., Stake, 1995; Strauss & Corbin, 1998), but I do not think that
distinct validation approaches exist for the five approaches to qualitative
research. At best, ther,e might be less emphasis on validation in narrative
research and more emphasis on it in grounded theory, case study, and ethnog~
raphy, especially when the authors talking about these approaches want to
employ systematic procedures. I would recommend using validation strategies
regardless of type of qualitative approach.
• My framework for thinking about validation in qualitative research is to sug-
gest that researchers employ accepted strategies to document the "accuracy" of
their studies. These I call "validation strategies."

Validation Strategies
It is not enough to gain perspectives and terms; ultimately, these ideas are
translated into practice as strategies or techniques. Whittemore, Chase, and
Mandle (2001) have organized the techniques into 29 forms that apply
to design consideration, data generating, analytic, and presentation. My
colleague and I (Creswell & Miller, 2000) have chosen to focus on eight
strategies that are frequently used by qualitative researchers. These are not
presented in any specific order of importance.

• Prolonged engagement and persistent observation in the field include

building trust with participants, learning the culture, and checking for
misinformation that stems from distortions introduced by the researcher
or informants (Ely et aI., 1991; Erlandson, Harris, Skipper, & Allen, 1993;
Glesne & Peshkin, 1992; Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Merriam, 1988). In the
field, the researcher makes decisions about what is salient to the study, rel-
evant to the purpose of the study, and of interest for focus. Fetterman
208 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

(1998) contends that "working with people day in and day out, for
long periods of time, is what gives ethnographic research its validation and
vitality" (p. 46).

• In triangulation, researchers make use of multiple and different

sources, methods, investigators, and theories to provide corroborating evi-
dence (Ely et aI., 1991; Erlandson et aI., 1993; Glesne & Peshkin, 1992;
Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Merriam, 1988; Miles & Huberman, 1994; Pattan,
1980, 1990). Typically, this process involves corroborating evidence from
different sources to shed light on a theme or perspective.

• Peer review or debriefing provides an external check of the research

process (Ely et aI., 1991; Erlandson et aI., 1993; Glesne & Peshkin, 1992;
Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Merriam, 1988), much in the same spirit as interrater
reliability in quantitative research. Lincoln and Guba (1985) define the role
of the peer debriefer as a "devil's advocate," an individual who keeps the
researcher honest; asks hard questions about methods, meanings, and inter-
pretations; and provides the researcher with the opportunity for catharsis by
sympathetically listening to the researcher's feelings. This reviewer may be a
peer, and both the peer and the researcher keep written accounts of the ses-
sions, called "peer debriefing sessions" (Lincoln & Guba, 1985).

• In negative case analysis, the researcher refines working hypotheses as

the inquiry advances (Ely et aI., 1991; Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Miles &
Huberman, 1994; Patton, 1980, 1990) in light of negative or disconfirming
evidence. The researcher revises initial hypotheses until all cases fit, com-
pleting this process late in data analysis and eliminating all outliers and
exceptions.

• Clarifying researcher bias from the outset of the study is important so

that the reader understands the researcher's position and any biases or
assumptions that impact the inquiry (Merriam, 1988). In this clarification,
the researcher comments on past experiences, biases, prejudices, and orien-
tations that have likely shaped the interpretation and approach to the study.
• In member checking, the researcher solicits participants' views of the
credibility of the findings and interpretations (Ely et aI., 1991; Erlandson
et aI., 1993; Glesne & Peshkin, 1992; Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Merriam,
1988; Miles & Huberman, 1994). This technique is considered by Lincoln
and Guba (1985) to be "the most critical technique for establishing credi-
bility" (p. 314). This approach, writ large in most qualitative studies,
involves taking data, analyses, interpretations, and conclusions back to the
participants so that they can judge the accuracy and credibility of the
account. According to Stake (1995), participants should "play a major role
Standards ofVaHdation and Evaluation 209

directing as well as acting in case study" research. They should be asked to

examine rough drafts of the researcher's work and to provide alternative
language, "critical observations or interpretations" (p. 115). For this vali-
dation strategy, I convene a focus group composed of participants in my
study and ask them to reflect on the accuracy of the account. I do not take
back to participants my transcripts or the raw data, but take them my pre-
liminary analyses consisting of description or themes. I am interested in
their views of these written analyses as well as what was missing.
• Rich, thick description allows readers to make decisions regarding
transferability (Erlandson et aI., 1993; Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Merriam,
1988) because the writer describes in detail the participants or setting under
study. With such detailed description, the researcher enables readers to
transfer information to other settings and to determine whether the findings
.an be transferred "because of shared characteristics" (Erlandson et aI.,
1993, p. 32) .
• External audits (Erlandson et aI., 1993; Lincoln & Guba, 1985;
Merriam, 1988; Miles & Huberman, 1994) allow an external consultant,
the auditor, to examine both the process and the product of the account,
assessing their accuracy. This auditor should have no connection to the study,
In assessing the product, the auditor examines whether or not the findings,
interpretations, and conclusions are supported by the data. Lincoln and Guba
(1985) compare this, metaphorically, with a fiscal audit, and the procedure
provides a sense of interrater reliability to a study.

Examining these eight procedures as a whole, I recommend that qualitative

researchers engage in at least two of them in any given study. Unquestionably,
procedures such as triangulating among different data sources (assuming that
the investigator collects more than one), writing with detailed and thick
description, and taking the entire written narrative back to participants in
member checking all are reasonably easy procedures to conduct. They also are
the most popular and cost-effective procedures. Other procedures, such as peer
audits and external audits, are more time consuming in their application and
may also involve substantial costs to the researcher.

Reliability Perspectives
Reliability can be addressed in qualitative research in several ways
(Silverman, 2005). Reliability can be enhanced if the researcher obtains
detailed fieldnotes by employing a good-quality tape for recording and by
transcribing the tape. Also, the tape needs to be transcribed to indicate the
trivial, but often crucial, pauses and overlaps. Further coding can be done
210 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

"blind" with the coding staff and the analysts conducting their research
without knowledge of the expectations and questions of the project direc-
tors, and by use of computer programs to assist in recording and analyzing
the data. Silverman also supports intercoder agreement.
Our focus on reliability here will be on intercoder agreement based on the
use of multiple coders to analyze transcript data. In qualitative research,
"reliability" often refers to the stability of responses to multiple coders of
data sets. I find this practice especially used in qualitative health science
research and within the form of qualitative research in which inquirers want
an external check on the highly interpretive coding process. What seems
to be largely missing in the literature (with the exception of Miles and
Huberman, 1994, and Armstrong, Gosling, Weinman, & Marteau, 1997) is
a discussion about the procedures of actually conducting intercoder agree-
ments checks. One of the key issues is determining what exactly the codings
are agreeing on, whether they seek agreement on codes names, the coded
passages, or the same passages coded the same way. We also need to decide
on whether to seek agreement based on codes, themes, or both codes and
themes (see Armstrong et a!., 1997).
Undoubtedly, there is flexibility in the process, and researchers need to
fashion an approach consistent with the resources. and time to engage in cod-
ing. At the VA HealthCare System, Ann Arbor, Michigan, I had an oppor-
tunity to help design an intercoder agreement process using data related to
the HIPPA privacy act (Damschroder, personal communication, March,
2006). In a project at the VA Ann Arbor Health Care System, we used the
following steps in our intercoder agreement process:

4'We sought to develop a codehook of codes that would be stable and represent
the coding analysis of four independent coders. We all used NVivo as a soft~
ware program to help in this coding.
o To achieve this goal, we read through several transcripts independently and
coded each manuscript.
e After coding, say, three to four transcripts, we then met and examined the
codes, their names, and the text segments that w~ coded. We began to develop
a preliminary qualitative code book of the major codes. This codebook con~
rained a definition of each code, and the text segments that we assigned to each
code. In this initial codebook, we had "parent" codes and "children" codes. In
our initial codebook, we were more interested in the major codes we were find~
ing in the database than in an exhaustive list. We felt that we could add to the
codes as the analyses proceeded.
• We then each independently coded three additional transcripts, say, transcripts
5, 6, and 7. Now we were ready to actually compare our codes. We felt that
it was more important to have agreement on the text segments we were
assigning to codes than to have the same, exact passages coded. Intercoder
Standards of Validation and Evaluation 211

agreement to us meant that we agreed that when we assigned a code word to

'a passage, that we all assigned this same code word to the passage. It did not
mean that we all coded the same passages-an ideal that I believe would be
hard to achieve because some people code short passages and others longer
passages. Nor did it mean that we all bracketed the same lines to include in our
code word, another ideal difficult to achieve.
.. So we took a realistic stance, and we looked at the passages that we all four
coded and asked ourselves whether we had all assigned the same code word to
the passage, based on our tentative definitions in the codebook. The decision
would be either a "yes" or "no" decision, and we could calculate the percent-
age of agreement among all four of us on this passage that we all coded. We
sought to establish an 80% agreement of coding on these passages (Miles and
Huberman, 1994, recommend an 80% agreement). Other researchers might
actually calculate a kappa reliability statistic on the agreement, but we felt that
a percentage would suffice to report on our published study.
A 0 After we collapsed codes into broader themes, we could conduct the same
process with themes, to see if the passages we all coded as themes were con-
sistent in the use of the same theme.
• After the process continued through several more transcripts, we then revised
the codebook, and conducted anew an assessment of passages that we all coded
and determined if we used the same or different codes or the same or different
themes. With each phase in the intercoder agreement process, we achieved a
higher percentage of agree~ upon codes and themes for text segments.

Evaluation Criteria

Qualitative Perspectives
In reviewing validation in the qualitative research literature, I am struck
by how validation is sometimes used in discussing the quality of a study (e.g.,
Angen, 2000). Although validation is certainly an aspect of evaluating the
quality of a study, other criteria are useful as well. In reviewing the criteria,
I find that here, too, the standards vary within the qualitative community
(see my contrast of three approaches to qualitative evaluation, Creswell,
2005). I will first review three general standards and then turn to specific cri-
teria within each of our five approaches to qualitative research.
A methodological perspective comes from Howe and Eisenhardt (1990),
who suggest that only broad, abstract standards are possible for qualitative
(and quantitative) research. Moreover, to determine, for example, whether
a study is a good ethnography cannot be answered apart from whether the
study contributes to our understanding of important questions. Howe and
Eisenhardt elaborate further, suggesting that five standards be applied to all
research. First, they assess a study in terms of whether the research questions
212 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

drive the data collection and analysis rather than the reverse being the
case. Second, they examine the extent to which the data collection and
analysis techniques are competently applied in a technical sense. Third, they
ask whether the researcher's assumptions are made explicit, such as the
researcher's own subjectivity. Fourth, they wonder whether the study has
overall warrant, such as whether it is robust, uses respected theoretical
explanations, and discusses disconfirmed theoretical explanations. Fifth, the
study must have "value" both in informing and improving practice (the "So
what?" question) and in protecting the confidentiality, privacy, and truth
telling of participants (the ethical question).
A postmodern, interpretive framework forms a second perspective, from
Lincoln (1995), who thinks about the quality issue in terms of emerging cri-
teria. She tracks her own thinking (and that of her colleague, Guba) from
early approaches of developing parallel methodological criteria (Lincoln &
Guba, 1985) to establishing the criteria of "fairness" (a balance of stake-
holder views), sharing knowledge, and fostering social action (Guba &
Lincoln, 1989) to her current stance. The new emerging approach to quality
is based on three new commitments: to emergent relations with respondents,
to a set of stances, and to a vision of research that enables and promotes jus-
tice. Based on these commitments, Lincoln (1995) then proceeds to identify
eight standards:·

G The standard set in the inquiry community, such as by guidelines for publi-
cation. These guidelines admit that within diverse approaches to research,
inquiry communities have developed their own traditions of rigor, communi-
cation, and ways of working toward consensus. These guidelines, she also
maintains, serve to exclude and legitimate research knowledge and social
science researchers.
It The standard of positionality guides interpretive or qualitative research.
Drawing on those concerned about standpoint epistemology, this means that
the "text" should display honesty or authenticity about its own stance and
about the position of the author.
• Another standard is under the rubric of community. This standard acknowl M

edges that all research takes place in, is addressed to, and serves the purposes of
the community in which it was carried out. Such communities might be femi-
nist thought, Black scholarship, Native American studies, or ecological studies.
• Interpretive or qualitative research must give voice to participants so that their
voice is not silenced, disengaged, or. marginalized. Moreover, this standard
requires that alternative or multiple voices be heard in a text.
• Critical subjectivity as a standard means that the researcher needs to have
heightened seIfHawareness in the research process and create personal and
social transformation. This "high-quality awareness" enables the researcher to
understand his or her psychological and emotional states before, during, and
after the research experience.
Standards of Validation and Evaluation 213

o High~quality interpretive or qualitative research involves a reciprocity between

.the researcher and those being researched. This standard requires tha t intense
sharing, trust, and mutuality exist. .
e The researcher should respect the sacredness of relationships in the research-
to-action continuum. This standard means that the researcher respects the
collaborative and egalitarian asp'eets of research and "make[s] spaces for the
lifeways of others" (Lincoln, 1995, p.284).
o Sharing of the privileges acknowledges that in good qualitative research,
researchers share their rewards with persons whose lives they portray. This
sharing may be in the form of royalties from books or the sharing of rights to
publication.

A final perspective utilizes interpretive standards of conducting qualita-

tive research. Richardson (in Richardson & St. Pierre, 2005) identifies four
criteria she uses when she reviews papers or monographs submitted for
social science publication:

• Substantive contribution. Does this piece contribute to our understanding of

social1ife? Demonstrate a deeply grounded social scientific perspective? Seem
"true?"
• Aesthetic merit. Does this piece succeed aesthetically? Does the use of creative
analytical practices open up the text and invite interpretive responses? Is the
text artistically shaped, satisfying, complex, and not boring?
e Reflexivity. How has the author's subjectivity been both a producer and a
product of this text? Is there self-awareness and self-exposure? Does the author
hold himself or herself accountable to the standards of knowing and telling of
the people he or she has studied?
• Impact. Does this piece affect 111e emotionally or intellectually? Generate new
questions or move me to write? Try new research practices or move me to
action? (p. 964)

As an applied research methodologist, I prefer the methodological stan-

dards of evaluation, but I can also support the postmodern and interpretive
perspectives. What seems to be missing in all of the approaches discussed
thus far is their connection to the five approaches of qualitative inquiry.
What standards of evaluation, beyond those already mentioned, would
signal a high quality narrative study, a phenomenology, a grounded theory
study, an ethnography, and a case study?

Narrative Research
Denzin (1989a) is primarily interested in the problem of "how to locate
and interpret the subject in biographical materials" (p. 26). He advances
several guidelines for writing an interpretive biography:
214 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

.. The lived experiences of interacting individuals are the proper subject matter
of sociology.
.. The meanings of these experiences are best given by the persons who exper~~
enee them; thus, a preoccupation with method, validation, reliability, general~
izability, and theoretical relevance of the biographical method must be set
aside in favor of a concern for meaning and interpretation.
\!)Students of the biographical method must learn how to use the strategies and
techniques of literary interpretation and criticism (Le., bring their method in
line with the concern about reading and writing of social texts, where texts are
seen as "narrative fictions"; Denzin, 1989a, p. 26),
o When an individual writes a biography, he or she writes himself or herself into
the life of the subject about whom the individual is writing; lik~wise, the reader
reads through her or his perspective.

Thus, within a humanistic, interpretive stance, Denzin (1989b) identifies

"criteria of interpretation" as a standard for judging the quality of a biog-
raphy. These criteria are based on respecting the researcher's perspective as
well as on thick description. Denzin (1989b) advocates for the ability of the
researcher to illuminate the phenomenon in a thickly contextualized manner
(i.e., thick description of developed context) so as to reveal the historical,
processual, and interactional features of the experience. Also, the researcher's
interpretation must engulf what is learned about the phenomenon and
incorporate prior understandings while always remaining incomplete and
unfinished.
This focus on interpretation and thick description is in contrast to crite-
ria established within the more traditional approach to biographical writing.
For example, Plummer (1983) asserts that three sets of questions related to
sampling, the sources, and the validation of the account should guide a
researcher to a good life history study:

QIs the individual representative? Edel (1984) asks a similar question: How has
the biographer distinguished between the reliable and unreliable witnesses?
e What are the sources of bias (about the informant, the researcher, and the
informant~researcher interaction)? Or, as Edel (1984) questions, how has the
researcher avoided making himself or herself simply the voice of the subject?
• Is the account valid when subjects are asked to read it, when it is compared to
official records, and when it is compared to accounts from other informants?

In a narrative study, I would look for the following aspects of a "good"

study. The author:

• Focuses on a single individual (or two or three individuals)

.. Collects stories about a significant issue related to this individual's life
Standards of Validation and Evaluation 215

Cl pevelops a chronology that connects different phases or aspects of a story

Cl Tells a 'story that testories the story of the partic;ipant in the study
• Tells a persuasive story told in a literary way
III Possibly reports themes that build from the story to tell a broader analysis
• Reflexively brings himself or herself into the study

Phenomenological Research
What criteria should be used to judge the quality of a phenomenological
study? From the many readings about phenomenology, one can infer criteria
from the discussions about steps (Giorgi, 1985) or the "core facets" of tran-
scendental phenomenology (Moustakas, 1994, p. 58). I have found direct dis-
cussions of the criteria to be missing, but perhaps Polkinghorne (1989) comes
the closest in my readings when he discusses whether the findings are "valid"
(I". 57). To him, validation refers to the notion that an idea is well grounded
and well supported. He asks, "Does the general structural description provide
an accurate portrait of the common features and structural connections that
are manifest in the examples collected?" (Polkinghorne, 1989, p. 57). He then
proceeds to identify five questions that researchers might ask themselves:

1. Did the interviewer influence the contents of the participants' descriptions in

such a way that the descriptions do not truly reflect the participarits' actual
experience?
2. Is the transcription accurate, and does it convey the meaning of the oral pre-
sentation in the interview?

3. In the anaiysis of the transcriptions, were there conclusions other than those
offered by the researcher that could have been derived? Has the researcher
identified these alterna dves?

4. Is it possible to go from the general structural description to the transcrip-

tions and to account for the specific contents and connections in the original
examples of the experience?
5. Is the structural description situation specific, or does it hold in general for
the experience in other situations? (Polkinghorne, 1989).

My own standards that I would use to assess the quality of a phenome-

nology would be:

• Does the author convey an understanding of the philosophical tenets of phe~

nomenology?
• Does the author have a clear "phenomenon)) to study that is articulated in a
concise way?
216 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

<& Does the author use procedures of data analysis in phenomenology, such as the
procedures recommended by Moustakas (1994)?
et Does the author convey the overall essence of the experience of the partici~
pants? Does this essence include a description of the experience and the con~
text in which it occurred?
o Is the author reflexive throughout the study?

Grounded Theory Research

Strauss and Corbin (1990) identify the criteria by which one judges the
quality of a grounded theory study. They advance seven criteria related to
the general research process:

Criterion #1: How was the original sample selected? What grounds?

Criterion #2: What major categories emerged?

Criterion #3: What were some of the events, incidents, actions, and so on (as
indicators) that pointed to some of these major categories?

Criterion #4: On the basis of what categories di4 theoretical sampling proceed?
Guide data collection? Was it representative of the categories?

Criterion #5: What were some of the hypotheses pertaining to conceptual rela-
tions (that is, among categories), and on what grounds were they formulated and
tested?

Criterion #6: Were there instances when hypotheses did not hold up against what
was actually seen? How were these discrepancies accounted for? How did they
affect the hypotheses?

Criterion #7: How and why was the core category selected (sudden, gradual,
difficult, easy)? On what grounds? (p. 253)

They also advance six criteria related to the empirical grounding of a study:

Criterion #1: Are concepts generated?

Criterion #2: Are the concepts systematically related?

Criterion #3: Are there many conceptual linkages, and are the categories well
developed? With density?

Criterion #4: Is much variation built into the theory?

Criterion #5: Are the broader conditions built into its explanation?

Criterion #6: Has process (change or movement) been taken into account?
(Strauss & Cotbin, 1990, pp. 254-256)
Standards of Validation and Evaluation 217

These criteria, related to the process of research and the grounding of the
study in the data, represent benchmarks for assessing the quality of a study
that the author can mention in his or her research. For example, in a grounded
theory dissertation, Landis (1993) not only presented these standards but also
assessed for her readers the extent to which her study met the criteria. When I
evaluate a grounded theory study, I, too, am looking for the general process
and a relationship among the concepts. Specifically, I look for:

• The study of a process, action, or interaction as the key element in the theory
• A coding process that works from the data to a larger theoretical model
• The presentation of the theoretical model in a figure or diagram
• A story line or proposition that connects categories in the theoretical model
and that presents further questions to be answered
• A reflexivity or self-disclosure by the researcher about his or her stance in the
study

Ethnographic Research
The ethnographers Spindler and Spindler (1987) emphasize that the most
important requirement for an ethnographic approach is to explain behavior
from the "native's point of view" (p. 20) and to be systematic in recording
this information using note. taking, tape recorders, and cameras. This
requires that the ethnographer be present in the situation and engage in con-
stant interaction between observation and interviews. These points are rein-
forced in Spindler and Spindler's nine criteria for a "good ethnography":

Criterion I. Observations are contextualized.

Criterion H. Hypotheses emerge in situ as the study goes on.

Criterion HI. Observation is prolonged and repetitive.

Criterion IV. Through interviews, observations, and other eliciting procedures,

the native view of reality is obtained.

Criterion V. Ethnographers elicit knowledge from informant-participants in a

systematic fashion.

Criterion VI. Instruments, codes, schedules, questionnaires, agenda for inter-

views, and so forth are generated in situ as a result of inquiry.

Criterion VII. A transcultural, comparative perspective is frequently an unstated

assumption.

Criterion VIII. The ethnographer makes explicit what is implicit and tacit to
informants.
218 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Criterion IX. The ethnographic interviewer must not predetermine responses by

the kinds of questions asked. (Spindler & Spindler, 1987, p. 18)

This list, grounded in fieldwork, leads to a strong ethnography.

Moreover, as Lofland (1974) contends, the study is located in wide concep-
tual frameworks; presents the novel but not necessarily new; provides evi-
dence for the framework(s); is endowed with concrete, eventful interactional
events, incidents, occurrences, episodes, anecdotes, scenes, and happenings
without being "hyper-eventful"; and shows an interplay between the con-
crete and analytical and the empirical and theoretical.
My criteria for a good ethnography would include:

e The clear identification of a culture-sharing group

It The specification of a cultural themes that will be examined in light of this cul-
ture-sharing group
It A detailed description of the cultural group
" Themes that derive from an understanding of the cultural group
It The identification of issues that arose '''in the field" that reflect on the rela-
tionship between the researcher and the participants, the interpretive nature of
reporting, and sensitivity and reciprocity in the cowcreating of the account
~ An explanation overall of how the culture~sharing group works
~ A self-disclosure and reflexivity by the researcher about her or his position in
the research

Case Study Research

Stake (1995) provides a rather extensive "critique checklist" (p. 131) for a
case study report and shares 20 criteria for assessing a good case study report:
1. Is the report easy to read?
2. Does it fit together, each sentence contributing to the whole?
3. Does the report have a conceptual structure (i.e., themes or issues)?
4. Are its issues developed in a serious and scholarly way?
5. Is the case adequately defined?
6. Is there a sense of story to the presentation?
7. Is the reader provided some vicarious experience?
8. Have quotations been used effectively?
9. Are headings, figures, artifacts, appendixes, and indexes used effectively?
10. Was it edited well, then again with a last-minute polish?
11. Has the writer made sound assertions, neither over wnor under-interpreting?
Standards of Validation and Evaluation ZJ9

12. ,Has adequate attention been paid to various contexts?

13. Were 'sufficient raw data presented?
14. Were data sources well chosen and in sufficient number?
15. Do observations and interpretations appear to have been triangulated?
16. Is the role and point of view of the researcher nicely apparent?
17. Is the nature of the intended audience apparent?
18. Is empathy shown for all sides?
19. Are personal intentions examined?
20. Does it appear that individuals were put at risk? (Stake, 1995, p. 131)

My own criteria for evaluating a "good" case study would include the
following:

• Is there a clear identification of the "case" or "cases" in the study?

• Is the "case" (or are the "cases~~) used to understand a research issue or used
because the "case" has (or "cases" have) intrinsic merit?
e Is there a clear description of the "case"?
• Are themes identified for the "case"?
e Are assertions or generalizations made from the "case" analysis?
• Is the researcher reflexive ~r self-disclosing about his or her position in the
study?

Comparing the Evaluation

Standards of the Five Approaches
The standards discussed for each approach differ slightly depending on the pro-
cedures of the approaches. Certainly less is mentioned about narrative research
and its standards of quality and more is available about the other approaches.
From within the major books used for each approach, I have attempted to
extract the evaluation standards recommended for their approach to research.
To these I have added my own standards that I use in my qualitative classes
when I evaluate a project or study presented within each of the five approaches.

Summary
In this chapter, I discuss validation, reliability, and standards of quality in
qualitative research. Validation approaches vary considerably, such as strate-
gies that emphasize using qualitative terms comparable to quantitative terms,
the use of distinct terms, perspectives from postmodern and interpretive lenses,
220 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

syntheses of different perspectives, or descriptions based on metaphorical

images. Reliability is used in several ways, one of the most popular being the
use of intercoder agreements when multiple coders analyze and then compare
their code segments to establish the reliability of the data analysis process.
A detailed procedure for establishing intercoder agreement is described in this
chapter. Also, diverse standards exist for establishing the quality of qualitative
research, and these criteria are based on procedural perspectives, postmodern
perspectives, and interpretive perspectives. Within each of the five approaches
to inquiry, specific standards also exist; these were reviewed in this chapter.
Finally, I advanced the criteria that I use to assess the quality of studies pre-
sented to me in classes in each of the five approaches.

Key reading on the issue of validation in qualitative research can be found in:

Angen, M. ]. (2000). Evaluating interpretive inquiry: Reviewing the validity debate

and opening the dialogue. Qualitative Health Research, 10, 378-395.
Lincoln, Y. S. (1995). Emerging criteria for quality in qualitative and interpretive
research. Qualitative Inquiry, 1,275-289.
Silverman, D. (1993). Interpreting qualitative data: Methods for analyzing talk, text,
and interaction. London: Sage.
Whittemore, R., Chase, S. K., & Mandle, C. L. (2001). Validity in qualitative
research. Qualitative Health Research, 11, 522-537.

For understanding further the issue of reliability in qualitative research,

look at:

Armstrong, D., Gosling, A., Weinman, ]., & Marteau, T. (1997). The place of
inter-rater reliability in qualitative resesearch: An empirical study. Sociology, 31,
597-606.
Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A.M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: A sourcebook of
new methods (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Silverman, D. (2005). Doing qualitative research: A practical handbook (2nd ed.).
London: Sage.

For evaluation standards, look at:

Lincoln, Y. S. (1995). Emerging criteria for quality in qualitative and interpretive

research. Qualitative Inquiry, 1,275-289.
Richardson, L., & St. Pierre, E. A. (2005). Writing: A method of inquity. In N. K.
Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed.,
pp. 959-978). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Standards of Validation and Evaluation 221

Also, look at specific standards used in the methods books in each of the
five approaches. In narrative research:

Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story
in qualitative research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Czarniawka, B. (2004). Narratives in social science research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Denzin, N. K. (1989a). Interpretive biography. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

In phenomenology:

Moustakas, C. (1994). Phenomenological research methods. Thousand Oaks, CA:

Sage.
van Manen, M. (1990). Researching lived experience: Human science for an action
sensitive pedagogy. Albany: State University of New York Press.

In grounded theory:

Charmaz, K. (2006). Constructing grounded theory. London: Sage.

Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory
procedures and techniques. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

In ethnography:

LeCompte, M. D., & Schensul, J.]. (1999). Designing and conducting ethnographic
research. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira.
Madison, D. S. (2005). Critical ethnography: Methods, ethics, and performance.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Woleott, H. F. (1999). Ethnography: A way of seeing. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira.

In case study:

Stake, R. (1995). The art of case study research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Yin, R. K. (2003). Case study research: Design and methods (2nd ed.). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.

1. Identify one of the procedures for validation mentioned in this chapter and
use it in your study. Also, indicate whether your study changed as a result of
its use or remained the same.

2. For the approach you used or are planning to use, identify the criteria for
assessing the quality of the study and present an argument for each criterion
as to how the study meets or will meet each standard.
11
tlTurning the Story"
and Conclusion

I n this book, I suggest that researchers be cognizant of the procedures of

qualitative research and of the differences in approaches of qualitative
inquiry. This is not to suggest a preoccupation with method or methodology;
indeed, I see two parallel tracks in a study: the substantive content of the
study and the methodology. With increased interest in qualitative research,
it is important that studies being conducted go forward with rigor and atten-
tion to the procedures developed within approaches of inquiry.
The approaches are many, and their procedures for research are well docu-
mented within books and articles. A few writers classify the approaches, and
some authors mention their favorites. Unquestionably, qualitative research
cannot be characterized as of one type, attested to by the multi vocal discourse
surrounding qualitative research today. Adding to this discourse are perspec-
tives about philosophical, theoretical, and ideological stances. To capture
the essence of a good qualitative study, I visualize such a study as comprised
of three interconnected circles. As shown in Figure 11.1, these circles
include the approach of inquiry, research design procedures, and philo-
sophical and theoretical frameworks and assumptions. The interplay of
these three factors contributes to a complex, rigorous study.

223
224 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Assumptions,
Worldviews,
Theories

Research
Design

Figure 11.1 Visual Diagram of the Three Components of Qualitative Research

Turning the Story

In this chapter, I again sharpen the distinctions among the approaches of
inquiry, but I depart from my side-by-side approach used in prior chapters.
I focus the lens in a new direction and "turn the story" of the gunman case
(Asmussen & Creswell, 1995) into a narrative study, a phenomenology,
a grounded theory, and an ethnography. Before continuing on with this
chapter, the reader is advised to reexamine the gunman case study as pre-
sented in Appendix F and reviewed in Chapter 5.
Turning the story through different approaches of inquiry raises the issue
of whether one should match a particular problem to a approach to inquiry.
Much emphasis is placed on this relationship in social and human science
research. I agree this needs to be done. But for the purposes of this book, my
way around this issue is to pose a general problem-"How did the campus
react?" -and then construct scenarios for specific problems. For instance,
the specific problem of studying a single individual's reaction to the gun inci-
dent is different from the specific problem of how several students as a cul-
ture-sharing gtoup reacted, but both scenarios are reactions to the general
issue of campus reaction to the incident. The general problem that I address
is that we know little about how campuses respond to violence and even less
about how different constituent groups on campus respond to a potentially
violent incident. Knowing this information would help us devise better plans
for reacting to this type of problem as well as add to the literature on vio-
lence in educational settings. This was the central problem in the gunman
case study (Asmussen & Creswell, 1995), and I briefly review the major
dimensions of this study.
Conclusion 225

A Case Study
This qualitative case study (Asmussen & Creswell, 1995) presented a cam-
pus reaction to a gunman incident in which a student attempted to fire a gun
at his classmates. Asmussen and Xtitled this study "Campus Response to a
Student Gunman," and we composed this case study with the "substantive
case report" format of Lincoln and Guba (1985) and Stake (1995) in mind.
These formats called for an explication of the problem, a thorough descrip-
tion of the context or setting and the processes observed, a discussion of
important themes, and, finally, "lessons to be learned" (Lincoln & Guba,
1985, p. 362). After introducing the case study with the problem of violence
on college campuses, we provided a detailed description of the setting and a
chronology of events immediately following the incident and events during
the following 2 weeks. Then we turned to important themes to emerge in this
• analysis-themes of denial, fear, safety, retriggering, and campus planning.
In a process of layering of themes, we combined these more specific themes
into two overarching themes: an organizational theme and a psychological
or social-psychological theme. We gathered data through interviews with
participants, observations, documents, and audiovisual materials. From the
case emerges a proposed plan for campuses, and the case ends with an
implied lesson for the specific Midwestern campus and a specifiC set of ques-
tions this campus or other campuses might use to design a plan for handling
future campus terrorist incidents.
Turning to specific research questions in this case, we asked the follow-
ing. What happened? Who was involved in response to the incident? What
themes of response emerged during an 8-month period? What theoretical
constructs helped us understand the campus response and what constructs
developed that were unique to this case? We entered the field 2 days after the
incident and did not use any a priori theoretical lens to guide our questions
or the results. The narrative first described the incident, analyzed it through
levels of abstraction, and provided some interpretation by relating the con-
text to larger theoretical frameworks. We validated our case analysis by
using multiple data sources for the themes and by checking the final account
with select participants or member checking.

A Narrative Study
How might I have approached this same general problem as an interpretive
biographical study with a narrative approach? Rather than identifying
responses from multiple campus constituents, I would have focused on one
individual such as the instructor of the class involved in the incident. I would
226 QuaUtative Inquiry and Research Design

have tentatively titled the project, "Confrontation of Brothers: An

Interpretive Biography of an African American Professor." This instructor,
like the gunman, was African American, and his response to such an incident
might be situated within racial and cultural contexts. Hence, as an interpre-
tive biographer, I might have asked the following research question: What
are the life experiences of the African American instructor of the class, and
how do these experiences form and shape his reaction to the incident? This
biographical approach would have relied on studying a single individual and
situating this individual within his historic background. I would have exam-
ined life events or "epiphanies" culled from stories he told me. My approach
would have been to restory the stories into an account of his experiences
of the gunman that followed a chronology of events. I might have relied
on the Clandinin and Connelly (2000) three-dimensional space model to
organize the story into the personal, social, and interactional components.
Alternatively, the story might have had a plot to tie it together, such as the
theoretical perspective. This plot might have spoken to the issues of race, dis-
crimination, and marginality and how these issues played out both within
the African American culture and between Black culture and other cultures.
These perspectives may have shaped how the instructor viewed the student
gunman in the class. I also might have composed this report by discussing
my own situated beliefs followed by those of the instructor and the changes
he brought about as a result of his experiences. For instance, did he continue
teaching? Did he talk with the class about his feelings? Did he see the situa-
tion as a confrontation within his racial group? For validation, my narrative
story about this instructor would have contained a detailed description of
the context to reveal the historical and interactional features of the experi-
ence (Denzin, 1989b). I also would have acknowledged that any interpreta-
tion of the instructor's reaction would be incomplete, unfinished, and a
rendering from my own perspective as a non-African-American.

A Phenomenology
Rather than study a single individual as in a biography, I would have studied
several individual students and examined a psychological concept in the tradi-
tion of psychological phenomenology (Moustakas, 1994). My working title
might have been: "The Meaning of Fear for Students Caught in a Near
Tragedy on Campus." My assumption would have been that this concept of
fear was expressed by students during the incident, immediately after it, and
several weeks later. I might have posed the following questions. What fear did
the students experience, and how did they experience it? What meirnings did
Conclusion 227

they ascribe to this experience? As a phenomenologist, I assume that human

experience makes sense to those who live it and tpat human experience can be
consciously expressed (Dukes, 1984). Thus, I would bring to the study a phe·
nomenon to explore (fear) and a philosophical orientation to use (I want to
study the meaning of the students' experiences). I would have engaged in
extensive interviews with up to 10 students, and I would have analyzed the
interviews using the steps described by Moustakas (1994). I would have begun
with a description of my own fears and experiences (epoche) with it as a means
to position myself, recognizing that I could not completely remove myself and
my interpretation from the situation. Then, after reading through all of the
students' statements, I would have located siguificant statements or quotes
about their meanings of fear. These significant statements would then be clus-
tered into broader themes. My final step would have been to write a long para-
graph providing a narrative description of what they experienced (textural
tlescription) and how they experienced it to (structural description) and
combine these two descriptions into a longer description that describes the
"essence" of their experiences. This would be the endpoint for the discussion.

A Grounded Theory Study

If a theory needed to be developed (or modified) to explain the campus reac-
tion to this incident, then I would have used a grounded theory approach.
For example, I might have developed a theory around a process-the "sur-
real" experiences of several students immediately following the incident,
experiences resulting in actions and reactions by students. The draft title of
my study might have been" A Grounded Theory Explanation of the Surreal
Experiences for Students in a Campus Gunman Incident." I might have
introduced the study with a specific quote about the surreal experiences:

In the debriefing by counselors, one female student commented, "I thought the
gunman would shoot out a little flag that would say 'bang.'" For her, the event
was like a dream.

My research questions might have been: What theory explains the phe-
nomenon of the "surreal" experiences of the students immediately following
the incident? What were these experiences? What caused them? What strate-
gies did they use to cope with them? What were the consequences of their
strategies? What specific interaction issues and larger conditions influenced
their strategies? Consistent with grounded theory, I would not bring into the
data collection and analysis a specific theoretical orientation other than to
228 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

see how the students interact and respond to the incident. Instead, my intent
would be to develop or generate a theory. In the results section of this study
I would have first identified the open coding categories that I found. Then,
I would have described how I narrowed the study to a central category (e.g.,
the dream element of the process), and made that category the major feature
of a theory of the process. This theory would have been presented as a visual
model, and in the model I would have included causal conditions that influ-
enced the central category, intervening and context factors surrounding it,
and specific strategies and consequences (axial coding) as a result of it occur-
ring. I would have advanced theoretical propositions or hypotheses that
explained the dream element of the surreal experiences of the students (selec-
tive coding). I would have validated my account by judging the thorough-
ness of the research process and whether the findings are empirically
grounded, two factors mentioned by Corbin and Strauss (1990).

An Ethnography
In grounded theory, my focus was on generating a theory grounded in the
data. In ethnography, I would turn the focus away from theory development
to a description and understanding of the workings of the campus commu-
nity as a culture-sharing group. To keep the study manageable, I might have
begun by looking at how the incident, although unpredictable, triggered
quite predictable responses among members of the campus community.
These community members might have responded according to their roles,
and thus I could have looked at some recognized campus microcultures.
Students constituted one such microculture, and they, in turn, comprised a
number of further microcultures or subcultures. Because the students in this
class were together for 16 weeks during the semester, they had enough time
to develop some shared patterns of behavior and could have been seen as a
culture-sharing group. Alternatively, I might have studied the entire campus
community composed of a constellation of groups each reacting differently.
Assuming that the entire campus comprised the culture-sharing group,
the title of the study might have been "Getting Back to Normal: An
Ethnography of a Campus Response to a Gunman Incident." Notice how
this title immediately invites a contrary perspective into the study. I would
have asked the following questions: How did this incident produce pre-
dictable role performance within affected groups? Using the entire campus
as a cultural system or culture-sharing group, in what roles did the individ-
uals and groups participate? One possibility would be that they wanted to
get the campus back to normal after the incident by engaging in predictable
Conclusion 229

patterns of behavior. Although no one anticipated the exact moment or

nature of the incident itself, its occurrence set.in motion rather predictable
role performances throughout the campus community. Administrators did
not close the campus and start warning, "The sky is falling." Campus police
did not offer counseling sessions, although the Counseling Center did.
However, the Counseling Center served the student population, not others
(who were marginalized), such as the police or groundskeepers, who also felt
unsafe on the campus. In short, predictable performances by campus con-
stituencies followed in the wake of this incident.
Indeed, campus administrators routinely held a news conference follow-
ing the incident. Also, predictably, police carried out their investigation, and
stndents ultimately and relnctantly contacted their parents. The campus
slowly returned to normal-an attempt to return to day-to-day business, to
steady state, or to homeostasis, as the systems thinkers say. In these pre-
'dictable role behaviors, one saw culture at work.
As I entered the field, I wonld seek to build rapport with the community
participants, to not further marginalize them or disturb the environment
more than necessary through my presence. It was a sensitive time on campus
with people who had nerves on edge. I would have explored the cultural
themes of the "organization of diversity" and "maintenance" activities of
individuals and groups withiu the culture-sharing campus. Wallace (1970)
defiues the "organizatiou of diversity" as "the actual diversity of habits, of
motives, of personalities, of customs that do, in fact, coexist within the
boundaries of any culturally organized society" (p. 23). My data collection
would have consisted of observations over time of predictable activities,
behaviors, and roles in which people engaged that help the campus return to
normal. This data collection would depend heavily on interviews and obser-
vations of the classroom where the incident occurred and newspaper
accounts. My ultimate narrative of the culture-sharing campus would be
consistent with Wolcott's (1994b) three parts: a detailed description of the
campus, an analysis of the cultural themes of "organizational diversity" and
maintenance (possibly with taxonomies or comparisons; Spradley, 1979,
1980), and interpretation. My interpretation would be counched not in
terms of a dispassionate, objective report of the facts, but rather positioned
within my own experiences of not feeling safe in a soup kitchen for the
homeless (Miller & Creswell, 1998) and my own personal life experiences
of having grown up in a "safe" small Midwestern city in Illinois. For an
ending to the study, I might have used the "canoe into the sunset" approach
(Woicott, personal communication, November 15, 1996) or the more
methodologically oriented ending of checking my account with participants.
Here is the "canoe into the sunset" approach:
230 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

The newsworthiness of the event will be long past before the ethnographic
study is ready, but the event itself is of rather little consequence if the ethnog~
rapher's focus is on campus culture. Still, without such an event, the ethnog-
rapher working in his or her own society (and perhaps own campus as well)
might have a difficult time "seeing" people performing in predictable everyday
ways simply because that is the way in which we expect them to act. The
ethnographer working "at home" has to find ways in which to make the famil-
iar seem strange. An upsetting event can make ordinary role behavior easier to
discern as people respond in predictable ways to unpredictable circumstances.
Those predictable patterns are the stuff of culture.

Here is the more methodological ending:

Some of my "facts" or hypotheses may need (and be amenable to) checking or

testing if I have carried my analysis in that direction. If I have tried to be more
interpretive, then perhaps I can l'try out" the account on some of the people
described, and the cautions and exceptions they express can be included in my
final account to suggest that things are even more complex than the way I have
presented them.

Conclusion
How have I answered my "compelling" question raised at the outset: How
does the approach to inquiry shape the design of a study? First, one of
the most pronounced ways is in the focus of the study. As discussed in
Chapter 4, a theory differs from the exploration of a phenomenon or concept,
from an in-depth case, and from the creation of an individual or group por-
trait. Please examine again Table 4.1 that establishes differences among the
five approaches, especially in terms of foci.
However, this is not as clear-cut as it appears. A single case study of
an individual can be approached either as a biography or as a case study. A
cultural system may be explored as an ethnography, whereas a smaller
"bounded" system, such as an event, a program, or an activity, may be stud-
ied as a case study. Both are systems, and the problem arises when one
undertakes a microethnography, which might be approached either as a case
study or as an ethnography. However, when one seeks to study cultural
behavior, language, or artifacts, then the study of a system might be under-
taken as an ethnography.
Second, an interpretive orientation flows throughout qualitative research.
We cannot step aside and be "objective" about what we see and write. Our
words flow from our own personal experiences, culture, history, and
Conclusion 231

backgrounds. When we go to the field to collect data, we need to approach

the task with care for the participants and sites ,and to be reflexive about our
role and how it shapes what we see, hear, and write. Ultimately, our writing
is an interpretation by us of events, people, and activities, and it is only our
interpretation. We must recognize that participants in the field, readers, and
other individuals reading our accounts will have their own interpretations.
Within this perspective, our writing can only be seen as a discourse, one with
tentative c()llclusions, and one that will be constantly changing and evolving.
Qualitative research truly has an interpretation element that flows through-
out the process of research.
Third, the approach to inquiry shapes the language of the research design
procedures in a study, especially the terms used in the introduction to a
study, the data collection, and the analysis phases of design. I incorporated
these terms into Chapter 6 as I discussed the wording of purpose statements
•and research questions for different approaches to qualitative research. My
theme continued on in Chapter 9 as I talked about encoding the text within
an approach to research. The glossary in Appendix A also reinforces this
theme as it presents a useful list of terms within each tradition that researchers
might incorporate into the language of their studies.
Fourth, the approach to research includes the participants who are stud-
ied, as discussed in Chapter 7. A study may consist of one or two individu-
als (i.e., narrative study), groups of people (i.e., phenomenology, grounded
theory), or a entire culture (i.e., ethnography). A case study might fit into all
three of these categories as Olle explores a single individual, an event, or a
large social setting. Also in Chapter 7, I highlighted how the approaches vary
in the extent of data collection, from the use of mainly single sources of
information (Le., narrative interviews, grounded theory interviews, phenom-
enological interviews) to those that involve multiple sources of information
(i.e., ethnographies consisting of observations, interviews, and documents;
case studies incorporating interviews, observations, documents, archival
material, and video). Although these forms of data collection are not fixed,
I see a general pattern that differentiates the approaches.
Fifth, the distinctions among the approaches are most pronounced in
the data analysis phase, as discussed in Chapter 8. Data analysis ranges
from unstructured to structured approaches. Among the less structured
approaches, I include ethnographies (with the exception of Spradley, 1979,
1980) and narratives (e.g., as suggested by Clandinin & Connelly, 2000, and
interpretive forms advanced by Denzin, 1989b). The more structured
approaches consist of grounded theory with a systematic procedure and phe-
nomenology (see Colaizzi's 1978 approach and those of Dukes, 1984, and
Moustakas, 1994) and case studies (Stake, 1995). These procedures provide
232 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

direction for the overall structure of the data analysis in the qualitative
report. Also, the approach shapes the amount of relative weight given to
description in the analysis of the data. In ethnographies, case studies, and
biographies, researchers employ substantial description; in phenomenolo-
gies, investigators use less description; and in grounded theory, researchers
seem not to use it at all, choosing to move directly into analysis of the data.
Sixth, the approach to inquiry shapes the final written product as well as
the embedded rhetorical structures used in the narrative. This explains why
qualitative studies look so different and are composed so differently, as dis-
cussed in Chapter 9. Take, for example, the presence of the researcher. The
presence of the researcher is found little in the more "objective" accounts
provided in grounded theory. Alternatively, the researcher is center stage in
ethnographies and possibly in case studies where "interpretation" plays a
major role.
Seventh, the criteria for assessing the quality of a study differ among the
approaches, as discussed in Chapter 10. Although some overlap exists in the
procedures for validation, the criteria for assessing the worth of a study are
available for each tradition.
In summary, when designing a qualitative study, I recommend that the
author design the study within one of the approaches of qualitative inquiry.
This means that components of the design process (e.g., theoretical frame-
work, research purpose and questions, data collection, data analysis, report
writing, verification) will reflect the procedures of the selected approach and
they will be composed with the encoding and composing features of that
approach. This is not to rigidly suggest that one cannot mix approaches and
employ, for example, a grounded theory analysis procedure within a case
study design. "Purity" is not my aim. But in this book, I suggested that the
reader sort out the approaches first before combining them and see each one
as a rigorous procedure in its own right.
I found distinctions as well as overlap among the five approaches, but
designing a study attuned to procedures found within one of the approaches
suggested in this book will enhance the sophistication of the project and con-
vey a level of methodological expertise for readers of qualitative research.

L Take the qualitative study you have completed and turn the story into one of
the other approaches of qualitative inquiry.

2. In this chapter, I presented the study of campus response to a gunman inci~

dent in five ways. Take each scenario and label the parts using the language
of each tradition and the terms found in the glossary in Appendix A.
Appendix A
An Annotated Glossary of Terms

T he definitions in this glossary represent key terms as they are used and
defined in this book. Many definitions exist for these terms, but the
most workable definitions for me (and I hope for the reader) are those that
reflect the content and references presented in this book. I group the terms by
approach to inquiry (narrative research, phenomenology, grounded theory,
ethnography, case study) and alphabetize them within the approach, and at
the end of the glossary I define additional terms that do not conveniently
relate to any specific approach.

Narrative Research

autobiography This form of biographical writing is the narrative account

of a person's life that he or she has personally written or otherwise
recorded (Angrosino, 1989a).
biographical study This is the study of a single individual and his or her
experiences as told to the researcher or as found in documents and
archival materials (Denzin, 1989a). I use the term to connotate the
broad genre of narrative writings that includes individual biographies,
autobiographies, life histories, and oral histories.
chronology This is a common approach for undertaking a narrative form of
writing in which the author presents the life in stages or steps accord-
ing to the age of the individual (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Denzin,
1989a).

233
234 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

epiphanies These are special events in an individual's life that represent turn-
ing points. They vary in their impact from minor epiphanies to major
epiphanies, and they may be positive or negative (Denzin, 1989a).
historical context This is the context in which the researcher presents the
life of the subject. The context may be the subject's family, the subject's
society, or the history, social, or political trends of the subject's times
(Denzin, 1989a).
life course stages and experiences These are stages in an. individual's life or
key events that become the focus for the biographer (Denzin, 1989a).
life history This is a form of biographical writing in which ·the researcher
reports an extensive record of a person's life as told to the researcher
(see Geiger, 1986). Thus, the individual being studied is alive and life
as lived in the present is influenced by personal, institutional, and social
histories (Cole, 1994). The investigator may use different disciplinary
perspectives (Smith, 1994), such as the exploration of an individual's
life as representative of a culture, as in an anthropological life history.

narrative research This is an approach to qualitative research that is both

a product and a method. It is a study of stories or narrative or descrip-
tions of a series of events that accounts for human experiences
(Pinnegar & Daynes, 2006).
oral history In this biographical approach, the researcher gathers personal
recollections of events and their causes and effects from an individual
or several individuals. This information may be collected through tape
recordings or through written works of individuals who have died or
are still living. It often is limited to the distinctly "modern" sphere and
to accessible people (Plummer, 1983).

progressive-regressive method This is an approach to writing a narrative in

which the researcher begins with a key event in the subject's life and
then works forward and backward from that event (Denzin, 1989a).

restorying This is an approach in narrative data analysis in which the

researchers retell the stories of individual experiences, and the new
story typically has a beginning, middle, and ending (Ollerenshaw &
Creswell,2002).

single individual This is the person studied in a narrative research. This

person may be an individual with great distinction or an ordinary per-
son. This person's life may be a lesser life, a great life, a thwarted life,
Appendix A: Glossary 235

a life cut short, or a life miraculous in its unapplauded achievement

(Heilbrun, 1988).
stories These are aspects that surface during an interview in which the par-
ticipant describes a situation, usually with a beginning, a middle, and
an end, so that the researcher can capture a complete idea and integrate
it, intact, into the qualitative narrative (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000;
Czarniawska, 2004; Denzin, 1989a).

Phenomenology

clusters of meanings This is the third step in phenomenological data analysis,

in which the researcher clusters the statements into themes or meaning
units, removing overlapping and repetitive statements (Moustakas, 1994).
epoche or bracketing This is the first step in "phenomenological reduc-
tion," the process of data analysis in which the researcher sets aside, as
far as is humanly possible, all preconceived experiences to best under-
stand the experiences of participants in the study (Moustakas, 1994).
essential, invariant structure (or essence) This is the goal of the phenome-
nologist, to reduce the textural (what) and structural (how) meanings
of experiences to a brief description that typifies the experiences of all
of the participants in a study. All individuals experience it; hence, it is
invariant, and it is a reduction to the "essentials" of the experiences
(Moustakas, 1994).
hermeneutical phenomenology A form of phenomenology in which
research is oriented toward interpreting the "texts" of life (hermeneu-
tical) and lived experiences (phenomenology) (van Manen, 1990).
horizonalization This is the second step in the phenomenological data
analysis, in which the researcher lists every significant statement rele-
vant to the topic and gives it equal value (Moustakas, 1994).
imaginative variation or structural description Following the textural
description, the researcher writes a "structural" description of an expe-
rience, addressing how the phenomenon was experienced. It involves
seeking all possible meanings, seeking divergent perspectives, and vary-
ing the frames of reference about the phenomenon or using imaginative
variation (Moustakas, 1994).
intentionality of consciousness Being conscious of objects always is inten-
tional. Thus, when perceiving a tree, "my intentional experience is a
236 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

combination of the outward appearance of the tree and the tree as con-
tained in my consciousness based on memory, imagy" and meaning"
(Moustakas, 1994, p. 55).
lived experiences This term is used in phenomenological studies to empha-
size the importance of individual experiences of people as conscious
human beings (Moustakas, 1994).
phenomenological data analysis Several approaches to analyzing phenom-
enological data are represented in the literature. Moustakas (1994)
reviews these approaches and then advances his own. I rely on the
Moustakas modification that includes the researcher bringing personal
experiences into the study, the recording of significant statements and
meanings, and the development of descriptions to arrive at the essences
of the experiences.
phenomenological study This type of study describes the meaning of expe-
riences of a phenomenon (or topic or concept) for several individuals.
In this study, the researcher reduces the experiences to a central mean-
ing or the "essence" of the experience (Moustakas, 1994).
the phenomenon This is the central concept being examined by the phe-
nomenologist. It is the concept being experienced by subjects in a study,
which may include psychological concepts such as grief, anger, or love.
philosophical perspectives Specific philosophical perspectives provide the
foundation for phenomenological studies. They originated in the
1930s writings of Husser!' These perspectives include the investi-
gator's conducting research with a broader perspective than that of
traditional empirical, quantitative science; suspending his or her own
preconceptions of experiences; experiencing an object through his or
her own senses (i.e., being conscious of an object) as well as seeing it
"out there" as real; and reporting the meaning individuals ascribe to
an experience in a few statements that capture the "essence" (Stewart
& Mickunas, 1990).

psychological approach This is the approach taken by psychologists who

discuss the inquiry procedures of phenomenology (e.g., Giorgi, 1994;
Moustakas, 1994; Polkinghorne, 1989). In their writings, they examine
psychological themes for meaning, and they may incorporate their own
selves into the studies.
structural description From the first three steps in phenomenological data
analysis, the researcher writes a description of "how" the phenomenon
was experienced by individuals in the study (Moustakas, 1994).
Appendix A: Glossary 237

textural description From the first three steps in phenomenological data

analysis, the researcher writes about what was experienced, a descrip-
tion of the meaning individuals have expe~ienced (Moustakas, 1994).
transcendental phenomenology According to Moustakas (1994), Hussed
espoused transcendental phenomenology, and it later became a guiding
concept for Moustakas as well. In this approach, the researcher sets aside
prejudgments regarding the phenomenon being investigated. Also, the
researcher relies on intuition, imagination, and universal structures to
obtain a picture of the experience and uses systematic methods of analy-
sis as advanced by Moustakas (1994).

Grounded Theory

,axial coding This step in the coding process follows open coding. The
researcher takes the categories of open coding, identifies one as a cen-
tral phenomenon, and then returns to the database to identify (a) what
caused this phenomenon to occur, (b) what strategies or actions actors
employed in response to it, (c) what context (specific context) and in-
tervening conditions (broad context) influenced the strategies, and
(d) what consequences resulted from these strategies. The overall
process is one of relating categories of information to the central phe-
nomenon category (Strauss & Corbin, 1990).
category This is a unit of information analyzed in grounded theory
research. It is composed of events, happenings, and instances of phe-
nomenon (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) and given a short label. When
researchers analyze grounded theory data, their analysis leads, initially,
to the formation of a number of categories during the process called
"open coding." Then, in "axial coding," the analyst interrelates the cat-
egories and forms a visual model.
causal conditions In axial coding, these are the categories of conditions I iden-
tify in my database that cause or influence the central phenomenon to
occur.
central phenomenon This is an aspect of axial coding and the formation of
the visual theory, model, or paradigm. In open coding, the researcher
chooses a central category around which to develop the theory by
examining his or her open coding categories and selecting one that
holds the most conceptual interest, is most frequently discussed by par-
ticipants in the study, and is most "saturated" with information. The
researcher then places it at the center of his or her grounded theory
model and labels it "central phenomenon."
238 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

coding paradigm or logic diagram In axial coding, the central phenome-

non, causal conditions, context, intervening conditions, strategies, and
consequences are portrayed in a visual diagram. This diagram is drawn
with boxes and arrows indicating the process or flow of activities. It is
helpful to view this diagram as more than axial coding; it is the theo-
retical model developed in a grounded theory study (see Morrow &
Smith, 1995).
conditional matrix This is a diagram, typically drawn late in a grounded
theory study, that presents the conditions and consequences related to
the phenomenon under study. It enables the researcher to both distin-
guish and link levels of conditions and consequences specified in the
axial coding model (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). It is a step seldom seen
in data analysis in grounded theory studies.
consequences In axial coding, these are the outcomes of strategies taken by
participants in the study. These outcomes may be positive, negative, or
neutral (Strauss & Corbin, 1990).
constant comparative This was an early term (Conrad, 1978) in grounded
theory research that referred to the researcher identifying incidents,
events, and activities and constantly comparing· them to an emerging
category to develop and saturate the category.
cconstructivist grounded theory This is a form of grounded theory squarely
in the interpretive tradition of qualitative research. As such, it is less
structured than traditional approaches to grounded theory. The con-
structivist approach incorporates the researcher's views; uncovers expe-
riences with embedded, hidden networks, situations, and relationships;
and makes visible hierarchies of power, communication, and opportu-
nity (Charmaz, 2006)
ontext In axial coding, this is the particular set of conditions within which
the strategies occur (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). These are specific in
nature and close to the actions and interactions.
dimensionalized This is the smallest unit of information analyzed in
grounded theory research. The researcher takes the properties and places
them on a continuum or dimensionalizes them to see the extreme possi-
bilities for the property. The dimensionalized information appears in the
"open coding" analysis (Strauss & Corbin, 1990).
discriminant sampling This is a form of sampling that occurs late in a
grounded theory project after the researcher has developed a model.
Appendix A: Glossary 239

The question becomes, at this point: How would the model hold if I
gathered more information from people si!1)ilar to those I initially inter-
viewed? thus, to verify the model, the researcher chooses sites, persons,
and/or documents that "will maximize opportunities for verifying the
story line, relationships between categories, and for filling in poorly
developed categories" (Strauss & Corbin, 1990, p. 187).
generate or discover a theory Grounded theory research is the process of
developing a theory, not testing a theory. Researchers might begin with
a tentative theory they want to modify or no theory at all with the
intent of "grounding" the study in views of participants. In either case,
an inductive model of theory development is at work here, and the
process is one of generating or discovering a theory grounded in views
from participants in the field.
grounded theory study In this type of study, the researcher generates
an abstract analytical schema of a phenomenon, a theory that explains
some action, interaction, or process. This is accomplished primarily
through collecting interview data, making multiple visits to the field
(theoretical sampling), attempting to develop and interrelate categories
(constant comparison) of information, and writing a substantive or
context-specific theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1990).
in vivo codes In grounded theory research, the investigator uses the exact
words of the interviewee to form the names for these codes or cate-
gories. The names are "catchy" and immediately draw the attention of
the reader (Strauss & Corbin, 1990, p. 69).
intervening conditions In axial coding, these are the broader conditions-
broader than the context-within which the strategies occur. They
might be social, economic, and political forces, for example, that influ-
ence the strategies in response to the central phenomenon (Strauss &
Corbin, 1990).
memoing This is the process in grounded theory research of the researcher
writing down ideas about the evolving theory. The writing could be in
the form of preliminary propositions (hypotheses), ideas about emerg-
ing categories, or some aspects of the connection of categories as in
axial coding. In general, these are written records of analysis that help
with the formulation of theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1990).
open coding This is the first step in the data analysis process for a grounded
theorist. It involves taking data (e.g., interview transcriptions) and
240 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

segmenting them into categories of information (Strauss & Corbin,

1990). I recommend that researchers try to develop a small number of
categories, slowly reducing the number from, say, 30 to 5 or 6 that
become major themes in a study.
properties These are other units of information analyzed in grounded theory
research. Each category in grounded theory research can be subdivided
into properties that provide the broad dimensions for the category. Strauss
and Corbin (1990) refer to them as "attributes or characteristics pertain-
ing to a category" (p. 61). They appear in "open coding" analysis.
propositions These are hypotheses, typically written in a directional form,
that relate categories in a study. They are written from the axial coding
model or paradigm and might, for example, suggest why a certain cause
influences the central phenomenon that, in turn, influences the use of a
specific strategy.
saturate, saturated, or saturation In the development of categories and data
analysis phase of grounded theory research, I want to find as many inci-
dents, events, or activities as possible to provide support for the Cate-
gories. In this process, I finally come to a point at which the categories
are "saturated"; I no longer find new information that adds to my.
understanding of the category.
selective coding This is the final phase of coding the information. The
researcher takes the central phenomenon and systematically relates it ro
other categories, validating the relationships and filling in categories
that need further refinement and development (Strauss & Corbin,
1990). I like to develop a "story" that narrates these categories and
shows their interrelationship (see Creswell & Brown, 1992).
strategies In axial coding, these are the specific actions or interactions that
occur as a result of the central phenomenon (Strauss & Corbin, 1990).
substantive-level theory This is a low-level theory that is applicable to imme-
diate situations. This theory evolves from the study of a phenomenon sit-
uated in "one particular situational context" (Strauss & Corbin, 1990,
p. 174). Researchers differentiate this form of theory from theories of
greater abstraction and applicability, called midlevel theories, grand
theories, or formal theories.
theoretical sampling In data collection for grounded theory research,
the investigator selects a sample of individuals to study based on their
contribution to the development of the theory. Often, this process
Appendix A: Glossary 241

begins with a homogeneous sample of individuals who are similar,

and, as the data collection proceeds and, the categories emerge, the
researcher turns to a heterogeneous sample to see under what condi-
tions the categories hold true.

Ethnography

analysis of the culture-sharing group In. this step in ethnography, the

ethnographer develops themes-cultural themes-in the data analysis.
It is a process of reviewing all of the data and segmenting them into a
small set of common themes, well supported by evidence in the data
(Woleott, 1994b).
artifacts This is the focus of attention for the ethnographer as he or she
determines what people make and use, such as clothes and tools (cul-
tural artifacts) (Spradley, 1980).
behaviors These are the foyuS of attention for the ethnographer as he or she
attempts to understand what people do (cultural behavior) (Spradley,
1980).
critical ethnography This type of ethnography examines cultural systems of
power, prestige, privilege, and authority in society. Critical ethnogra-
phers study marginalized groups from different classes, races, and gen-
ders, with an aim of advocating for the needs of these participants
(Madison, 2005; Thomas, 1993).
cultural portrait One key component of ethnographic research is compos-
ing a holistic view of the culture-sharing group or individual. The final
product of an ethnography should be this larger portrait, or overview
of the cultural scene, presented in all of its complexity (Spradley, 1979).
culture This term is an abstraction, something that one cannot study
directly. From observing and participating in a culture-sharing
group, an ethnographer can see "culture at work" and provide a
description and interpretation of it (H. F. Woleott, personal communi-
cation, October 10, 1996). It can be seen in behaviors, language, and
artifacts (Spradley, 1980).
culture-sharing group This is the unit of analysis for the ethnographer as
he or she attempts to understand and interpret the behavior, language,
and artifacts of people. The ethnographer typically focuses on an entire
group-one that shares learned, acquired behaviors-to make explicit
242 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

how the group "works." Some ethnographers will focus on part of the
social-cultural system for analysis and engage in a microethnography.
deception This is a field issue that has become less and less of a problem
since the ethical standards were published in 1967 by the American
Anthropological Association. It relates to the act of the researcher
intentionally deceiving the informants to gain information. This decep-
tion may involve masking the identify of the research, withholding
important information about the purpose of the study, or gathering
information secretively.
description of the culture-sharing group One of the first tasks of an ethnog-
rapher is to simply record a description of the culture-sharing group
and incidents and activities that illustrate the culture (Wolcott, 1994b).
For example, a factual account may be rendered, pictures of the setting'
may be drawn, or events may be chronicled.
emic This term refers to the type of information being reported and written
into an ethnography when the researcher reports the views of the infor-
mants. When the researcher reports his or her own personal views, the
term used is "etic" (Fetterman, 1998).
ethnography This is the study of an intact cultural or social group (or an indi-
vidual or individuals within the group) based primarily on observations
and a prolonged period of time spent by the researcher in the field. The
ethnographer listens and records the voices of informants with the intent
of generating a cultural portrait (Thomas, 1993; Wolcott, 1987).
etic This term refers to the type of information being reported and written
into an ethnography when the researcher reports his or her own per-
sonal views. When the researcher reports the views of the informants,
the term used is "emic" (Fetterman, 1998).
fieldwork In ethnographic data collection, the researcher conducts data
gathering in the "field" by going to the site or sites where the culture-
sharing group can be studied. Often, this involves a prolonged period
of time with varying degrees of immersion in activities, events, rituals,
and settings of the cultural group (Sanjek, 1990).
function This is a theme or concept about the social-cultural system or
group that the ethnographer studies. Function refers to the social rela-
tions among members of the group that help regulate behavior. For
example, the researcher might document patterns of behavior of fights
within and among various inner-city gangs (Fetterman, 1998).
Appendix A: Glossary 243

gatekeeper This is a data collection term and refers to the individual

the researcher must visit before entering ~ group or cultural site. To
gain access, the researcher must receive this individual's approval
(Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995).
holistic The ethnographer assumes this outlook in research to gain a com-
prehensive and complete picture of a social group. It might include the
group's history, religion, politics, economy, andlor environment. In this
way, the researcher places information about the group into a larger
perspective or "contextualizes" the study (Fetterman, 1998).
immersed The ethnographic researcher becomes immersed in the field
through a prolonged stay, often as long as 1 year. Whether the indi-
vidual loses perspective and "goes native" is a field issue much dis-
cussed in the ethnographic literature.
interpretation of the cultnre-sharing group The researcher makes an inter-
pretation of the meaning of the culture-sharing group. This interpreta-
tion may be inform~d by the literature, personal experiences, or
theoretical perspectives (Woleott, 1994b).
key informants (or participants) These are individuals with whom the
researcher begins in data collection because they are well informed, are
accessible, and can provide leads about other information (Gilchrist,
1992).
language This is the focus of attention for the ethnographer as he or she dis-
cerns what people say (speech messages) (Spradley, 1980).
participant observation The ethnographer gathers information in many
ways, but the primary approach is to observe the culture-sharing group
and become a participant in the cultural setting (Jorgensen, 1989).
realist ethnography A traditional approach to ethnography taken by cul-
tural anthropologists, this approach involves the researcher as an
"objective" observer, recording the facts and narrating the study with
a dispassionate, omniscient stance (Van Maaneu, 1988).
reciprocity This field issue addresses the need for the participants in the
study to receive something in return for their willingness to be observed
and provide information. The researcher needs to consider how he or
she will reimburse participants for being allowed to study them.
reflexivity This means that the writer is conscious of the biases, values,
and experiences that he or she brings to a qualitative research study.
244 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Typically, the writer makes this explicit in the text (Hammersley &
Atkinson, 1995).
structure This is a theme or concept about the social-cultural system or
group that the ethnographer attempts to learn. It refers to the social
structure or configuration of the group, such as the kinship or political
structure of the social-cultural group. This structure might be exempli-
fied, for example, by an organizational chart (Fetterman, 1998).

Case Study

analysis of themes Following description, the researcher analyzes the data

for specific themes, aggregating information into large clusters of ideas
and providing details that support the themes. Stake (1995) calls this
analysis "development of issues" (p. 123).

assertions This is the last step in the analysis, where the researcher makes
sense of the data and provides an interpretation of the data couched in
terms of personal views or in terms of theories or constructs ill the
literature.

bounded system The "case" selected for study has boundaries, often
bounded by time and place. It also has interrelated parts that form a
whole. Hence, the proper case to be studied is both "bounded" and a
"system" (Stake, 1995).

case This is the "bounded system" or the "object" of study. It might be an

event, a process, a program, or several people (Stake, 1995). If a single
individual is to be studied, then I generally refer the researcher to a nar-
rative research.

case study In qualitative research, this is the study of a "bounded system,"

with the focus being either the case or an issue that is illustrated by the
case (or cases) (Stake, 1995). A qualitative case study provides an in-
depth study of this "system," based on a diverse array of data collec-
tion materials, and the researcher situates this system or case within its
larger "context" or setting.

collective case study This type of case study consists of multiple cases. It
might be either intrinsic or instrumental, but its defining feature is that
the researcher examines several cases (e.g., multiple case study) (Stake,
1995).
Appendix A: Glossary 245

context of the case In analyzing and describing a case, the researcher sets
the case within its setting. This setting may. be broadly conceptualized
(e.g., large historical, social, political issues) or narrowly conceptual-
ized (e.g., the immediate family, the physical location, the time period
in which the study occurred) (Stake, 1995).

cross-case analysis This form of analysis applies to a collective caSe (Stake,

1995; Yin, 2003) in which the researcher examines more than one case.
It involves examining themes across cases to discern themes that are
common to all cases. It is an analysis step that typically follows within-
case analysis when the researcher studies multiple cases.

description This means simply stating the "facts" about the case as
recorded by the investigator. This is the first step in analysis of data in
a qualitative case study, and Stake (1995) calls it "narrative descrip-
tion" (p. 123).

direct interpretation This is an aspect of interpretation in case study

research where the researcher looks at a single instance and draws
meaniug from it without looking for multiple instances of it. It is a
process of pulling the data apart and putting them back together in
more meaningful ways (Stake, 1995).

embedded analysis In this approach to data analysis, the researcher selects

one analytic aspect of the case for presentation (Yin, 2003).

holistic analysis In this approach to data analysis, the researcher examines

the entire case (Yin, 2003) and presents description, themes, and inter-
pretations or assertions related to the whole case.

instrumental case study This is a type of case study with the focus on a
specific issue rather than on the case itself. The case then becomes a
vehicle to better understand the issue (Stake, 1995). I would consider
the gunman case study (Asmussen & Creswell, 1995) mentioned in
Chapter 5 of this book to be an instrumental case study.

intrinsic case study This is a type of case study with the focus of the study
on the case because it holds intrinsic or unusual interest (Stake, 1995).

multi-site When sites are selected for the "case," they might be located at
different geographical locations. This type of study is considered to be
"multi-site." Alternatively, the case might be at a single location and
considered a CCwithin-site~' study.
246 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

multiple sources of information One aspect that characterizes good case

study research is the use of many different sources of information to
provide "depth" to the case. Yin (2003), for example, recommends that
the researcher use as many as six different types of information in his
or her case study.
naturalistic generalizations In the interpretation of a case, an investigator
undertakes a case study to make the case understandable. This under-
standing may be what the reader learns from the case or its application
to other cases (Stake, 1995).
patterns This is an aspect of data analysis in case study research where the
researcher establishes patterns and looks for a correspondence between
two or more categories to establish a small number of categories (Stake,
1995).
purposeful sampling This is a major issue in case study research, and the
researcher needs to clearly specify the type of sampling strategy in
selecting the case (or cases) and a rationale for it. It applies to both the
selection of the case to study and the sampling of information used
within the case. I use Miles and Huberman's (1994) list of sampling
strategies and apply it in this book to case studies as well as to other
approaches of inquiry.
within-case analysis This type of analysis may apply to either a single case
or multiple collective case studies. In within-case analysis, the
researcher analyzes each case for themes. In the study of multiple cases,
the researcher may compare the within-case themes across multiple
cases in cross-case analysis.

within-site When a site is selected for the "case," it might be located at a

single geographical location. This is considered a "within-site" study.
Alternatively, the case might be different locations and considered to be
"multi-site. ')

Other Terms

approaches to inquiry This is an approach to qualitative research that

has a distinguished history in one of the social science disciplines and
that has spawned books, journals, and distinct methodologies. These
approaches, as I call them, are known in other books as "strategies of
inquiry" (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994) or "varieties" (Tesch, 1990).
Appendix A: Glossary 247

axiological This qualitative assumption holds that all research is value laden
and includes the value systems of the inquirer, the theory, the paradigm
used, and the social and cultural norms for either the inquirer or the
respondents (Creswell, 2003; Guba & Lincoln, 1988). Accordingly, the
researcher admits and discusses these values in his or her research.
critical race theory (CRT) This is a theoretical lens used in qualitative
research that focuses attention on race and how racism is deeply embed-
ded within the framework of American society (Parker & Lynn, 2002).
critical theory This is a theoretical lens used in qualitative research in which
a researcher examines the study of social institutions and their trans-
formations through interpreting the meanings of social life; the histor-
ical problems of domination, alienation, and social struggles; and a
critique of society and the envisioning of new possibilities (Fay, 1987;
Madison, 2005; Morrow & Brown, 1994).
encoding This term means that the writer places certain features in his or
her writing to help a ·reader know what to expect. These features not
only help the reader but also aid the writer, who can then draw on the
habits of thought, glosses, and specialized knowledge of the reader
(Richardson, 1990). Such features might be the overall organization,
code words, images, and other "signposts" for the reader. As applied in
this book, the features consist of terms and procedures of a tradition
that become part of the language of all facets of research design (e.g.,
purpose statement, research subquestions, methods);
epistemological This is another philosophical assumption for the qualita-
tive researcher. It addresses the relationship between the researcher and
that being studied as interrelated, not independent. Rather than "dis-
tance," as I call it, a "closeness" follows between the researcher and
that being researched. This closeness, for example, is manifest through
time in the field, collaboration, and the impact that that being
researched has on the researcher.
feminist research approaches In feminist research methods, the goals are to
establish collaborative and nonexploitative relationships, to place the
researcher within the study sO as to avoid objectification, and to con-
duct research that is transformative (Olesen, 2005; Stewart, 1994).
foreshadowing This term refers to the technique that writers use to portend
the development of ideas (Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995). The
wording of the problem statement, purpose statement, and research
248 Qualitative Inquiry and Resear.ch Design

subquestions foreshadow the methods-the data collection and data

analysis-used in the study.
interpretive qualitative research This is an approach to qualitative research
that has become interwoven into the core characteristics of qualitative
research. It recognizes the self-reflective nature of qualitative research
and emphasizes the role of the researcher as an interpreter of the data
and an individual who represents information. It also acknowledges the
importance of language and discourse in qualitative research, as well as
issues of power, authority, and domination in all facets of the qualita-
tive inquiry (see Denzin and Lincoln, 2005, and Clarke, 2005).
issue subquestions These are subquestions in a qualitative study that follow
the central underlying question. They are written to address the major
concerns and perplexities to be resolved, the "issue" of a study (Stake,
1995). They typically are few in number and are posed as questions.
methodological This assumption holds that a qualitative researcher con-
ceptualizes the research process in a certain way. For example, a qual-
itative inquirer relies on views of participants, and discusses their views
within the context in which they occur, to inductively develop ideas in
a study from particulars to abstractions (Creswell, 1994).
ontological This is a philosophical assumption about the nature of reality.
It addresses the question: When is something real? The answer pro-
vided is that something is real when it is constructed in the minds of the
actors involved in the situation (Guba & Lincoln, 1988). Thus, reality
is not ~'out there," apart from the minds of actors.

paradigm or worldview This is the philosophical stance taken by the

researcher that provides a basic set of beliefs that guides action (Denzin
& Lincoln, 1994). It defines, for its holder, "the nature of the world,
the individual's place in it, and the range of possible relationships
to that world" (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994, p. 107). Denzin and Lincoln
(1994) further call this the "net that contains the researcher's episte-
mological, ontological, and methodological premises" (p. 13). In rhis
discussion, I extend this "net" to also include the axiological and
rhetorical assumptions.
postmodernism This ideological perspective is considered a family of theo-
ries and perspectives that have something in common (Slife & Williams,
1995). Postmodernists advance a reaction or critique of the 19th-century
Enlightenment and early 20th-century emphasis on technology, rationality,
reason, universals, science, and the positivist, scientific method (Bloland,
Appendix A: Glossary 249

1995; Stringer, 1993). Postmodernists assert that knowledge claims must

be set within the conditions of the world today and in the multiple per-
spectives of class, race, gender, and other group affiliations.

procedural subquestions These are subquestions in a qualitative study

that follow the central underlying question. They cover the anticipated
needs for information, as Stake (1995) notes, and I have extended
Stake's idea to include anticipated procedures in the study for data
analysis and reporting the study. In this way, the procedural subques-
tions foreshadow the procedures to be used in the study.

qualitative research This is an inquiry process of understanding based on

a distinct methodological tradition of inquiry that explores a social or
human problem. The researcher builds a complex, holistic picture, ana-
Iyzes words, reports detailed views of informants, and conducts the
study in a natural setting.

queer theory This is a theoretical lens that may be used in qualitative

research that focuses on gay, lesbian, or homosexual identity and how
it is culturally and historically constituted, linked to discourse, and
overlaps gender and sexuality (Watson, 2005).

research design I use this term to refer to the entire process of research,
from conceptualizing a problem to writing the narrative, not simply the
methods such as data collection, analysis, and report writing (Bogdan
& Taylor, 1975).

rhetorical This assumption means that the qualitative investigator uses

terms and a narrative unique to the qualitative approach. The narrative
is personal and literary (Creswell, 1994). For example, the researcher
might use the first-person pronoun "I" instead of the impersonal third-
person voice.

social science theories These are the theoretical explanations that social
scientists use to explain the world (Slife & Williams, 1995). They are
based on empirical evidence that has accumulated in social science
fields such as sociology, psychology, education, economics, urban stud-
ies, and communication. As a set of interrelated concepts, variables,
and propositions, they serve to explain, predict, and provide general-
izations about phenomena in the world (Kerlinger, 1979). They may
have broad applicability (as in grand theories) or narrow applications
(as in minor working hypotheses) (Flinders & Mills, 1993).
250 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

verisimilitude This is a criterion for a good literary study, in which t4e

writing seems "real" and "alive," transporting the reader directly into
the world of the study (Richardson, 1994).
Appendix B
A Narrative Research Study

On the Bus With Vonnie Lee

Explorations in Life History and Metaphor

Michael V. Angrosino
University of South Florida

This article discusses the use of life history as a method of ethnographic research
among stigmatized, unempowered people. The author describes and anafyzes the
process of eliciting the life history of a man with mental retardation. To combine
life history intefViewing with the detaNed obsetvation of behavior in a naturalis-
tic setting is typical of the ethnographic tradition; interviews with people from
marginalized social groups (particularfy those who are considered mentally "dis-
abled") are, however, often decontextua/ized and conducted in quasi-clinical set-
tings that emphasize the retrospective reconstruction of a Me. By treating a
person with mental retardation as a contextualized participant in a world outside
the clinical setting and by eliciting the life narrative in the course of following

SOURCE: This article originally appeared in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnog-

raphy, 23, 14-28. Copyright 1994, Sage Publications, Inc.

251
252 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

that person as he attempts to make sense of life outside the insNtution, it;s pos-
sible to clarify the dynamic in the formation of a metaphor of personal identity.
This technique might not be appropriate for all persons with mental disability, but
when it can be used, it helps to demonstrate the proposWon that mental retar-
dation is not a monolithic condition whose victims are distinguished by arbitrary
gradations of standardized test scores. Rather, it is only one of many factors that
figure into a persons strategy for coping with the world.

A Life in Process

Vonnie Lee
Vonnie Lee Hargrett celebrated his 29th birthday while I was writing
this article in the summer of 1993 in the Florida city to which his parents
had migrated from a rural part of the state. The family was, in Vonnie
Lee's own words, "poor White trash-real crackers." His father was
mostly absent, supposedly shuttling around Florida, Georgia, and
Alabama seeking work; if he ever did work ("Not like I even· once
believed he did," Vonnie Lee told me), he never sent any money home,
and he disappeared for good ("real good," Vonnie Lee smirked) about 8
years ago. His mother is an alcoholic who has, over the course of the
years, taken up with countless men, most of whom were physically abu-
sive to everyone in the family, Several of them were apparently encour-
aged in their sexual abuse of Vonnie Lee's two sisters; at least two of them
also sexually abused Vonnie Lee. The children were sent to school on a
come-and-go basis as the mother moved from place to place around town
with her different boyfriends. All three children developed serious learn-
ing deficits, although only Vonnie Lee seems to have been tagged by a
counselor as mentally retarded. He was never in one school long enough
to benefit from any special education programs, however, and he stopped
going to school altogether by the time he was 12 years old.
During his teen years he lived mostly on the streets in the company of an
older man, Lucian, who made a living by "loaning" Vonnie Lee to other men
on the street. Vonnie Lee often says, "Lucian, he's like the only real father
I ever had-whatever he had he shared with me. I'd-a done anything for him.
Anything."
Lucian was found one morning beaten to death in an empty lot. Vonnie
Lee, who had been with one of Lucian's clients that night, discovered the
body upon his return to their campsite. The police found him, sobbing and
gesturing wildly over the body, and took him into custody. He was held
Appendix B: A Narrative Research Study 253

briefly on suspicion of murder, but there was no hard evidence linking him
to the crime and he was never charged. His disorderly behavior, however,
was sufficient to have him "Baker Acted" (involuntarily committed for
psychiatric observation under the provisions of the Florida Mental Health
Act). He spent the next few years.in and out of psychiatric facilities, devel-
oping the remarkable-and, to any number of clinicians, the thoroughly
frustrating-capacity to turn into the most level-headed, socially appropri-
ate, even intelligent youug gentleman after just a short time in treatment. He
would be released, make his way back to the streets, survive quite well for a
time, then "break up" (a term he explicitly and consistently prefers to "break
down") and be carted off to jail or the hospital.
Vonnie Lee was finally remanded to Opportunity House (OH), an agency
designed for the habilitation of adults with the dual diagnosis of mental
retardation and psychiatric disorder; most of them also have criminal
• records. There he made sustained academic, social, and vocational progress,
and in June 1992 he was deemed ready for "supervised independent living."
One of the key steps in preparing OH clients for independent living is to
teach them to use the public transportation system. I had been a member of
OH's board of directors since 1982 (a position I was asked to fill as a result
of my long-term research involvement with the program) and had also been
a frequent volunteer classroom tutor. I was, however, never directly involved
with the "social skills habilitation" aspect of the program until I was asked
to fill in for an ailing staff member who was supposed to show Vonnie Lee
the bus route from his new apartment to the warehouse where he was to
begin working. I was not entirely pleased with the prospect; our city, despite
its substantial size and pretensions to urban greatness, has a notoriously
inadequate bus system, and I knew that even the relatively simple trip from
Vonnie Lee's apartment to his work site involved several transfers and could
mean long, hot waits at unshaded bus stops.

Vonnie Lee and Me

I first met Vonnie Lee shortly after his arrival at OH in 1990. The teacher
asked me to help him with his reading assignment: a paragraph about some
children taking a walk with their dog. (The fact that reading materials for
adults with limited reading ability are almost always about children or about
topics that would typically engage the imaginations of children is a subtle
but nonetheless painful insult that merits at least a parenthetical complaint
here.) Vonnie Lee did not have any particular difficulty reading all the
words, but he was haviug trouble with comprehension. After reading the
254 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

paragraph, he was unable to answer questions requiring recall and synthesis

of information. He seemed more depressed than angry over his failure, and
so I said, "Let's put the book away for a minute. Why don't you tell me
about a time you remember when you took a walk." My intention was to
allow him to refocus on the elements constituting a simple narrative in his
own words instead of on the specific details about the unfamiliar Tom, Sally,
and Spot. Instead, he just said, with inexpressible and totally unexpected
sadness, "Yeah. Take a walk. Story of my life." I little realized the full
import of his remark but did make a mental note to see if he would at some
later time be amenable to telling me the "story of my life" along with the
other OH clients among whom I was conducting life history research.
We eventually got around to taping some conversations that would lead
to the production of his autobiography, but I frankly was stumped. The
problem was not that his discourse was jumbled; in fact, it proceeded in the
most nearly linear, chronological sequence of any of the stories I worked on
at OH. The problem was that even after numerous sessions I could form no
clear sense of who or what Vonnie Lee thought he was. Was Vonnie Lee per-
haps a person whose mental disorder was-despite his surface demeanor of
reasonable intelligence and even a sense of humor-so profound that he
couldn't be fitted into my emergent analytical scheme? •
Like my other OH life history collaborators, Vonnie Lee worked in an
anecdotal style of narrative. That is, rather than say, for example, "I was
born in this city. I lived with my mother and father. I remember the house
we lived in," he would say, "When I was a real little kid. Yeah. Let me tell
you about that." And he would go on to relate an encapsulated anecdote
that was meant to represent his life as a "real little kid." Then he would go
on and say, "So then I got a little older. Yeah. Here's what it was." And he
would launch into another encapsulated story. My problem, though, was
that in Vonnie Lee's case the stories were almost devoid of characters, except
in marginal scene-setting roles, and of plot, even of the most attenuated type.
For example:

So Hank [one of his mother's boyfriends] says, ~'Let's you and me go see
Ronnie [a dealer in stolen auto parts for whom Hank sometimes worked]," So
we're on the bus. It starts over there next to the mall, and it cuts across and
then it stops on the corner where ies that hospital. It stopped there a good long
while, you know. Then it goes on dow}122nd Street. Past the Majik Mart. Past
that gas station with the big yellow thing out front.

And on and on the story would go, except that it was essentially a descrip-
tion of the bus route. Vonnie Lee seemed to have a photographic memory of
Appendix B: A Narrative Research Study 255

every convenience store, gas station, apartment complex, newspaper

ma~hine,and frontyard basketball hoop along the way. But in the process, he
completely lost the point (or what I assumed was the point). There was no
word about his reaction to all these sights, nor was there any mention of what
Hank was doing. Indeed, they never got to Ronnie's place; the anecdote
ended when they got off the bus in front of a Salvation Army thrift shop,
apparently several blocks from their destination. When I asked him what hap-
pened when they got there, he shrugged and said, "Oh, nothing." I sensed
that he wasn't trying to cover anything up (he had already made it perfectly
clear that Hank was a thief), and I felt certain that he wasn't just goofing
around. He truly believed that the point of the story was the bus ride, not the
destination. Vonnie Lee was cooperative in responding to direct questions
aimed, on my part, at identifying key players in his life and the events that
linked them together. But on his own initiative, he was inclined only to offer
, what he seemed to feel were these deeply revelatory bus itineraries.

Bus Trip
On the day I picked up Vonnie Lee at OH to show him the bus routes,
we drove first to his new apartment complex. I parked my car and we
walked up to the corner bus. stop. Vonnie Lee was visibly excited, more ani-
mated and seemingly more happy than I had ever seen him. It was a crush-
ingly hot Florida summer day and thunderstorms threatened, but he seemed
so elated that my own spirits were lifted. "I bet you're really excited about
having your own place," I ventured (violating the first rule of life history
interviewing by putting words into the mouth of an informant). "Nah," he
replied, "I like the streets to live on-but they won't let me or else I go back
to lockup." Nothing daunted, I went on, "But it must be great to have a real
job." "In that old dump? Hell no!" he retorted. So what was he so happy
about? It dawned on me that the bus itself was the object of his joy, as I
watched him bounce into the vehicle when it finally lumbered to a stop. The
symbol of the city's bus line is a large red heart, and Vonnie Lee made a dash
for a seat directly under a poster bearing that logo; from time to time dur-
ing the ride, he would reach up and touch it lovingly.
Vonnie Lee seemed to be very familiar with the route we were taking.
"Yeah, I walked it about 13 million times," he said with contempt. But now
as we sat on the nearly empty bus, he kept swiveling from one side to the
other, calling out local landmarks with great glee. At one point, we passed
an elderly lady laboriously dragging several large plastic supermarket bags
across the street. "I know her type," he sneered. "Uses up every last damn
256 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

dime she got and she can't ride the bus back home, Drags her ass around like
some goddam retard."
We reached the junction where we needed to transfer. "Oh, here's where
I do it!" Vonnie Lee shouted ecstatically. "I love this street, but I never get
a chance to come here no more!" The street in question is one of the city's
shabbiest, lined with unpleasant-looking bars, secondhand clothing stores,
and unkempt, garagelike structures from which used furniture, carpeting
"seconds," rebuilt appliances, and sundry "recyclables" are deliver~d. The
place where Vonnie Lee was to work was on a street like this one but which
required a further transfer to reach; he was, I had to admit, quite right in
characterizing such a place as an "old dump," but his mood betrayed not the
slightest hint of regret.
We waited for a very long time at the transfer stop. Two heavily
made-up young women were lolling in front of one of the bars but were
making no real attempt to secure business; they seemed stunned by the
heat and shook their heads wearily at the spectacle of Vonnie Lee jump-
ing up and down to catch a glimpse of the approaching bus. When it
came at last, it was more crowded than the first had been, and Vonnie
Lee's face clouded briefly when he saw that the favored seat under the
heart was already taken. He resigned himself to a less desirable place but
kept turning his head toward the heart as if to reassure himself, even as
he resumed his practice of announcing every building on the street. He
was less familiar with this street than with the first, and his litany seemed
to be serving the purpose of fixing the sights in his own mind as well as
of enlightening me.
Vonnie Lee seemed sorry to get off when we reached our stop, but he
brightened immediately when he saw the street down which our third and
final lap would take us. It was a street very much like the second, although
it led off to a part of town he hardly knew at all; the thrill of the new gave
him added zest. It began to rain while we waited and waited for the third
bus, and we found only modest shelter in the boarded-up doorway of what
had once been a storefront church. Vonnie Lee's spirits didn't sag in the
least, even when the bus arrived, packed full of damp and irritable riders. He
managed to find a standing spot near enough the heart logo and immediately
set about his recitation of the sights. Some of the people nearby looked a
little annoyed, but no one said anything. The crowd was as thoroughly
depressed and defeated as Vonnie Lee was giddy.
It bears mentioning that the city's buses are very slow. Not only do they
run infrequently, but once they do arrive they appear to obey an unstated
mandate to stop at every marked stop, whether or not anyone wants to get
on or off. As a result, the trip from the apartment to the warehouse, which
Appendix B: A Narrative Research Study 257

might have taken at most 20 minutes by car, ended up consuming an hour

and ~ half by bus. The other anomaly in the bus system that I had ample time
to observe that day (and I had lived in the city for nearly two decades at that
time without ever having ridden a city bus) was that all the riders (including
my own wet and bedraggled self) looked like stereotyped versions of either
very poor or mentally/physically disabled people. I came to realize that no
bus route connected one "nice" part of town with another; all of them took
off into and covered most of their distance within "bad" sections. (Since my
trip with Vonnie Lee, the transit authority has added several routes con-
necting upscale residential neighborhoods with the downtown business and
government districts, but they are all "express" runs that zoom right through
the intervening "bad" spots.) It was clear that the bus system had been
designed primarily for domestic workers going to and from the posh homes
and business offices and for blue-collar workers traveling from low-rent dis-
'tricts to downscale factory zones. In many big cities, going to work by bus
is a perfectly appropriate thing for even the most affluent of business people
to do. But in our city, the bus is the very embodiment of stigma-the slow,
inconvenient transport of the poor, the powerless, and the socially marginal.
When we reached our stop, literally in front of the plumbing supply ware-
house where Vonnie Lee was to work, it began pouring again. We dashed
inside where Vonnie Lee's supervisor, Mr. Washington, was very gracious in
showing us around and then allowing us to wait out the storm. The ware-
house was cramped and dingy, but it seemed to be doing a brisk business
("People are going to need toilets, even during a recession," Mr. Washington
noted), and the supervisor and most of the other workmen showed a gen-
uine interest in Vonnie Lee's welfare. (Several other OH clients had been
employed there over the years; the owner of the business had a mentally
retarded brother who died young, and he looked on his employment pro-
gram as a way of honoring his memory.) "I love it!" Vonnie Lee shouted as
one of the other men took him through the back door to show him a tiny
commissary where they could buy soft drinks and snacks.
"It's the bus he loves-coming here on the bus," Mr. Washington said to
me when we were alone. I admitted that Vonnie Lee did seem to have had
an unaccountably good time on the ride. "Yeah. I've seen it before. Ask him
about it, why don't you?"
The return ride was a replay of the first; Vonnie Lee had already memo-
rized all the new landmarks. "Why do you like the bus so much?" I asked at
last-the question that had been obvious all day but had seemed too silly
and irrational to bring up. And, as he always did when I put a direct ques-
tion to him, he gave me a straightforward answer. He repeated his answer
on tape later on, telling me,
258 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Like I always said, we was dirt poor at home. Mama never had no car 0r noth-
ing. Most of them guys was even more worthlesser than Daddy. Why that
woman has a thing for big losers I'll never know! Now every once in a while
one of 'em took me on the bus. And poor old Lucian-he didn't like to get on
the bus because he said everybody looked at him funny, but still we did it now
and again just to show we could. I mean-it's only the lowdownest who can't
never do it.
Jeez! I'd walk a street and say, "If I was a bigshot, I'd be on the bus right
now!" The bad thing-a man just can't ride one end of the street to another
like he was some retard with no place to go. A man gotta go somewheres, and
I never knew how to get anywheres like from one to the other one. I nearly
peed my pants when they told me I could learn; they never thought I could
before now. I got kinda scared when they told me Ralph couldn't take me and
you was gonna do it; I thought, '(Hey, he don't really work at OH. Maybe he
don't know how and he'll screw me up." But then I figured you'd figure it out
and then you'd show me.

The Meaning of the Bus

It all became clear to me. The bus-to the "nice" people the symbol of
poverty, the despised underside of the glittery urban lifestyle touted by the
city's boosters-was for Vonnie Lee a potent symbol of empowerment.
Coming from a family that was too poor even to take the bus was a humil-
iation that had scarred his young life. He spent his years grimly walking,
walking, learning the details of the streets and yet yearning for the time when
he conld be chauffeured high above those streets in the style to which he felt
himself entitled. For Vonnie Lee, the payoff for all his hard work in over-
coming both his background and his numerons "break up" reversals was
neither the apartment nor the job but the fact that he was finally deemed
worthy to learn how to ride the bus between the two. So many of the OH
clients with whom I spoke longed to see themselves in positions of power,
and their dreams of driving fancy cars, although unrealistic, were at least rec-
ognizable ambitions. I had completely missed Vonnie Lee's ideal; because he
saw escape and empowerment in the bus (something to which anyone, even
a person with mental retardation, could reasonably aspire), I had ignored
the fact that it was a dream for him and that it gave shape and meaning to
his life.
r finally saw why, when telling his life story without specific prompts, he
did so in the form of bus routes. For Vonnie Lee, those rare rides were the
stuff of which his dreams were made; they embodied his values, his aspira-
tions, and even his self-image. My other informants' stories led me to con-
clude that they had developed stable self-images that survived all the
Appendix B: A Narrative Research Study 259

vicissitudes of their lives. Vonnie Lee's self-image, on the other hand, was
bound up not in who he was but in who he w~nted to be: a man on a bus,
going somewhere. Since his earlier rides had been dry runs, as it were, they
didn't add up to a consistent pattern, and he went along as someone else's
adjunct (and the someone else was, at best, only a temporarily significant
other); he never felt that they represented sort of defined closure. As a result,
he did not feel impelled to "finish" those stories, as the real finish-the point
at which he was ready to believe himself to be someone-was in the future.
Mr. Washington had indeed seen a number of his charges who liked to
ride the bus because it was so liberatingly different from the heavily super-
vised minivan that shuttled the OH clients around prior to their graduation.
But Vonnie Lee's fixation on the bus went even further than the supervisor
could have imagined. When we finally got back to OH, I took a careful look
around Vonnie Lee's room as I helped him pack up some of his belongings.
Ifaped to his mirror was an outline drawing of a heart; it had been cleanly
scissored out of a coloring book about seasons and holidays that one of his
"lower functioning" roommates was using in class. Vonnie Lee had carefully
colored the big valentine with a neon red marker. Before that day, I would
have assumed that he was, like some of my other informants, pretending to
have received at least one passionate proposal of marriage on Valentine's
Day. But now I knew immediately that it was not a valentine at all but the
closest thing he could find to the bus company logo.

Discussion
Vonnie Lee's autobiography, aud the story of my iuteraction with him, is
part of a long-term research project whose methodology and conceptual
framework were described in some detail in earlier writings (Angrosino
1989, 1992; Angrosino and Zagnoli 1992). That project was desigued to
demonstrate three points: that individual identity is conceptualized and
communicated as much through the form as through the content of autobi-
ographical material (Cracker 1977; Hankiss 1981; Howarth 1980; Olney
1972), that autobiographies are best interpreted as extended metaphors of
self (Fitzgerald 1993; Norton 1989), and that even persons with conditions
that interfere with their ability to construct conventionally coherent narra-
tives nevertheless sustain self-images (Zetlin and Turner 1984) and can com-
municate those images to others of the same culture by using culturally
recognizable metaphorical forms.
In earlier analyses based on this research, I relied essentially on literary
theory as applied to autobiography to define "metaphor." In accordance
260 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

with that view, I was less concerned with specific expressive metaphors
("The house I grew up in was a toilet") than with the way in which an entire
life was reconstructed in the narration around a master concept of self. The
informants profiled in the other studies had adopted clearly defined social
roles (the "blame attributor," the "tactical dependent," the "denier," the
"passer") and told their stories in ways that marshaled rhetorical devices
("antithesis)" "compensation," "allusion," "anecdote," "oratory," "dia-
logue") to buttress the presentation of those roles. In so doing, the roles
became a dominating metaphor of the stigmatization experienced by the
informants.
Although this perspective on metaphor was a useful framework for ana-
lyzing the stories of some informants who, in their various ways, perceived
a continuity between their early experiences and their current lives, it was
inadequate in Vonnie Lee's case. Although reasonably articulate about his
past, Vonnie Lee is a person who adamantly refuses to live in the past; his
orientation is so thoroughly toward the future that he resists characterizing
himself in terms of what he has always been. Far from operating on the
assumption that he is a product of his past (even if only in reaction to it),
Vonnie Lee sees his life as beginning only when he makes a definitive break
with that past. For Vonnie Lee, the past is not even prologue; it is, for all
intents and purposes, irrelevant as a predictor of his future.
The dominating metaphor of Vonnie Lee's life, then, emerges not out of
retrospective narrative but out of the actions he is currently taking to remake
himself into his desired new image. For this reason, it is important not to
limit the dialogue of discovery to retrospective interviews conducted in a
time and place of their own. Rather, it is crucial to conduct what amounts
to a personalized ethnography of this informant-to catch him in the act of
self-creation, as it were. He does not use metaphor to symbolize the asserted
continuities of his broken life as do the other informants; his metaphorical
image is created in the actions that define his trajectory of "becoming."
For an ethnographer who works in an applied field (such as the formula-
tion of policy for and the delivery of services to people with a defined disor-
der, such as mental retardation), this research demonstrates the benefits of
the in-depth autobiographical interview methodology for establishing the
human dimensions of mentally disordered persons, who are all too fre-
quently described in terms of deviations from standardized norms. Vonnie
Lee's story goes one step further: It demonstrates the desirability of contex-
tualizing the autobiographical interview within the ongoing life experience
of the subject rather than treating it as a retrospective review.
Such contextualization is, to be sure, an article of faith among anthropo-
logical ethnographers and is widely accepted by other social scientists
Appendix B: A Narrative Research Study 261

working in the ethnographic tradition. It is, however, a conclusion that has

rarely been applied to studies of "deviant," "~tigmatized," or "marginal-
ized" people.
There is a great deal of published material based on the life histories of
people with mental retardation, but, as Whittemore, Langness, and Koegel
(1986) point out in their critical survey of that literature, those materials are
almost entirely lacking in any sense of an insider's perspective. Much of that
literature is. more focused on the experiences of caregivers, the assumption
being that the person with retardation is unable to speak coherently on his or
her own behalf. It is true that retarded people in clinical settings are inter-
viewed with an eye to telling their life stories, but such accounts (which are
rarely published) presuppose a clinically defined disorder and focus on the
psychodynamics of the illness; the whole person is subsumed into the "disor-
der," and the interview itself is part of the process of correction and therapy.
• My work is more closely allied with the tradition pioneered at the
University of California, Los Angeles, by Edgerton and his colleagues in the
"sociobehavioral" group, who have made it a practice to study the lives of
their subjects in their entirety. "Because these lives change in response to var-
ious environmental demands, just as they develop in reaction to matura-
tional changes, we emphasize process" (Edgerton 1984, 1-2) rather than
retrospection; moreover, they do so by providing detailed descriptions of the
communities where the subjects live so as to situate the life histories outside
the strictly clinical milieu. Nevertheless, even this approach begins with the
acceptance of clinically defined disorder, such that the contextualized life
history serves mainly to illuminate the process of "adjustment" to a pre-
sumed mainstream norm.
My encounter with Vonnie Lee taught me that his worldview was not a
failed approximation of how a "normal" person would cope, nor was it,
when taken on its own terms, intrinsically disordered. His fixation on the bus
is only "disordered" or an ~'attempt at adjustment" if we assume that the rest
of us are not without our own idees fixes regarding the world and our place
in it. Were we to suffer the misfortune of being labeled "retarded," would all
of our ideas, attitudes, and practices stand up to scrutiny as being unim-
peachably "normal"? Once we start looking for evidence of "disorder," then
"disorder" is almost certainly what we find. If anything, Vonnie Lee's logic is
more clearly worked out and better integrated than that of more sophisticated
people; his "retardation" may, indeed, lie in the way he has purified his obses-
sion down to its basics rather than veiling it in varieties of symbolic discourse
as "normal" people do. Interviewing him in a way that arose out of a normal
activity did not merely "contextualize" his disorder, it removed the empha-
sis on disorder altogether. Like a conventional anthropologist conducting
262 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

participant observation in a community other than his or her own, I only

began to make progress when I stopped thinking that there was something
"exotic" in Vonnie Lee's approach to the world and started asking him
simply what things meant to him. This insight might not come as a surprise
to theoreticians who work in the autobiographical genre, or to anthropolog-
ically oriented ethnographers in general, but it is certainly a different point of
view from that typically seen among professional service providers in the
mental healthlmental retardation field.
It is certainly true that Vonnie Lee's is only one story. I have been asked
by several people who have read drafts of this article, "But is he typical of
retarded people in his ability to concentrate and integrate his life experi-
ences?" The honest answer is that I don't know. But in a larger sense, to ask
the question is to assume that "mental retardation" is a defined, bounded
category fixed within the parameters of clinical, statistical norms. Vonnie
Lee is "retarded" in the sense that he has been so labeled and has been dealt
with by "the system" as a retarded person for much of his life. And yet he
copes with the world around him in a way that, although out of the statisti-
cal "norm," is not entirely dysfunctional-as long as we stop trying to see
his experiences as illustrations of disorder. Mental retardation is a broad and
heterogeneous category; I do not doubt that many persons so diagnosed
would have great difficulty in expressing as coherent a worldview as Vonnie
Lee's. This kind of methodology would almost certainly not work with all
people so diagnosed.
What this fragment of a research project demonstrates is that for at least
some people with mental retardation, it is possible to do what anthropologi-
cal ethnographers have long done: get away from asking retrospective ques-
tionsthat only emphasize the "exoticism" of the subjects and, instead, allow
questions to flow naturally out of observations of the subjects in their ordinary
round of activities. That method has long been a way to see cultural differences
as variations in human responses to certain common problems; here it is a way
of seeing that a person like Vonnie Lee might be extreme in some of his
responses but is still pari: of the same continuum of experience. Perhaps in his
specialness and individual quirkiness, Vonnie Lee is typical after all-not of
"mentally retarded persons" but of human beings who learn how to use ele-
ments of the common culture to serve their individual purposes.

References
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Appendix C
A Phenomenological Study

Cognitive Representations of AIDS

Elizabeth H. Anderson

Margaret Hull Spencer

Cognitive representations of illness determine behavior. How persons living with AIDS
image their disease might be key to understanding medication adherence and other health
behaviors. The authors' purpose was to describe AIDS patients' cognitive representations of
their illness. A purposive sample of 58 men and women with AIDS were interviewed, Using
Colaizz;'s (1978) phenomenological method, rigor was established through application of
verification, validation, and validity From 175 significant statements, 11 themes emerged.
Cognitive representations included imaging AIDS as death, bodily destruction, and just

AUTHORS' NOTE: This study was funded in part by a University of Connecticut

Intramural Faculty Small Grants and School of Nursing Dean's Fund.
We wish to thank Cheryl Beck, D.N.Sc., and Deborah McDonald, Ph.D., for reading
an earlier draft. Special thanks go to Stephanie Lennon, BSN, for her research
assistance.
Address reprint requests to Elizabeth H. Anderson, Ph.D., A.P.R.N., Assistant
Professor, University of Connecticut School of Nursing, 231 Glenbrook Road,
U-2026, Storrs, CT 06269-2026, USA.
SOURCE: The material in this appendix originally appeared in Qualitative Health
Research, 12(10), 1338-1352. Copyright 2002, Sage Publications, Inc.

265
266 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

a disease. Coping focused on wiping AIDS out of the mind, hoping for the right drug, and
caring for oneselt Inquiring about a patients image of AIDS might help nurses assess cop·
ing processes and enhance nurse-patient relationships.

A 53-year-old man with a history of intravenous drug use, prison, shel-

ters, and methadone maintenance described AIDS as follows:

My image of the virus was one of total destruction. It might as well have killed
me, because it took just about everything out of my life. It w'as just as bad as
being locked up. You have everything taken away from you. The only thing to
do is to wait for death. I was afraid and I was mad. Mostly I didn't care about
myself anymore. I will start thinking about the disease, and I'll start wonder-
ing if these meds are really going to do it for me.

To date, 36 million people worldwide (Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention [CDC], 2001b) are infected with Human Immunodeficiency
Virus (HIV) that develops into end-stage Acquired Immunodeficiency
Syndrome (AIDS). In the United States, 448,060 have died of AIDS-related
illnesses, and more than 322,000 persons are living with AIDS, the highest
number ever reported (CDC, 2001a).With HN/AIDS, 95% adherence to
antiretroviral (ART) drug regimens is necessary for complete viral suppres-
sion and prevention of mutant strains (Bartlett & Gallant, 2001). Adherence
to ART regimens can slow the disease process but does not cure HIV or
AIDS. Persons with AIDS experience numerous side effects associated with
ART drugs, which can lead to missed doses, profound weight loss, and
decreased quality of life (Douaihy & Singh, 2001). The incidence of
HN/AIDS is reduced through prevention that is dependent on life-long com-
mitment to the reduction of high-risk drug and sexual behaviors. To achieve
maximum individual and public health benefits, it might be helpful to
explore patients' lived experience of AIDS within the framework of the self-
regulation model of illness.
In the Self-Regulation Model of Illness Representations, patients are
active problem solvers whose behavior is a product of their cognitive and
emotional responses to a health threat (Leventhal, Leventhal, & Cameron,
2001). In an ongoing process, people transform internal (e.g., symptoms)
or external (e.g., laboratory results) stimuli into cognitive representations
of threat and/or emotional reactions that they attempt to understand
and regulate. The meaning placed on a stimulus (internal or external) will
Appendix C: A Phenomenological Study 267

influence the selection and performance of one or more coping procedure

(Leventhal, Idler, & Leventhal, 1999). Emotions influence the formation of
illness representations and can motivate a person to action or dissuade him
or her from it. Appraisal of the consequences of coping efforts is the final
step in the model and provides feedback for further information processing.
Although very individual, illness representations are the central cognitive
constructs that guide coping and appraisal of outcomes. A patient's theory
of illness is based on many factors, including bodily experience, previous ill-
ness, and external information. An illness representation has five sets of
attributes: (a) identity (i.e., label, symptoms), (b) time line (i.e., onset, dura-
tion), (c) perceived cause (i.e., germs, stress, genetics), (d) consequences (i.e.,
death, disability, social loss), and (e) controllability (i.e., cured, controlled)
(Leventhal, Idler, et aI., 1999; Leventhal, Leventhal, et aI., 2001).
Attributes have both abstract and concrete form. For example, the
attribute "identity" can have an abstract disease label (e.g., AIDS) and
concrete physical symptoms (e.g., nausea and vomiting). Symptoms are
convenient and available cues or suggestions that can shape an illness
representation and help a person correctly or incorrectly interpret the
experience. Although symptoms are not medically associated with hyper-
tension, patients who believed medications reduced their symptoms
reported greater adherence and better blood pressure control (Leventhal,
Leventhal, et aI., 2001).
Understanding how individuals cognitively represent AIDS and their emo-
tional responses can facilitate adherence to therapeutic regimens, reduce
high-risk behaviors, and enhance quality of life. Phenomenology provides
the richest and most descriptive data (Streubert & Carpenter, 1999) and
thus is the ideal research process for eliciting cognitive representations.
Consequently, the purpose of this study was to explore patients' experience
and cognitive representations of AIDS within the context of phenomenology.

Review of the Literature

Vogl et aI. (1999), in a study of 504 ambulatory patients with AIDS who
were not taking protease inhibitor (PI) drugs, found the most prevalent
symptoms were worry, fatigue, sadness, and pain. Both the number of symp-
toms and the level of symptom distress was associated with psychological
distress and poorer quality of life. Persons with a history of intravenous drug
use reported more symptoms and greater symptom .distress. In contrast, a
telephone survey and chart review of 45 men and women with HIV/AIDS
suggested that PI therapy was associated with weight gain, improved CD4
268 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

counts, decreased HIV RNA viral loads, fewer opportunistic infections, and
better quality of life (Echeverria, Jonnalagadda, Hopkins, & Rosenbloom,
1999).
Reporting on pain from patients' perspective, Holzemer, Henry, and Reilly
(1998) noted that 249 AIDS patients reported experiencing moderate level of
pain, but only 80% had effective pain control. A higher level of pain was
associated with lower quality of life. In a phenomenological study focusing on
pain, persons with HNIAIDS viewed pain as not only physical but also an
experience of loss, not knowing, and social (Laschinger & Fothergill, 1999).
Turner (2000), in a hermeneutic study of HIV-infected men and women,
found that AIDS-related multiple loss was an intense, repetitive process of
grief. Two constitutive patterns emerged: Living with'Loss and Living
beyond Loss. Likewise, Brauhn (1999), in a phenomenological study of
12 men and 5 women, found that although persons with HNIAIDS experi-
enced their illness as a chronic disease, their illness had a profound and per-
vasive impact on their identity. Participants planned for their future with
cautious optimism but could identify positive aspects about their illness.
McCain and Gramling (1992), in a phenomenological study on coping
with HIV disease, reported three processes: Living with Dying, Fighting
the Sickness, and Getting Worn Out. Koopman et al. (2000) found that
among 147 HIV-positive persons, those with the greatest level of stress in
their daily lives had lower incomes, disengaged behaviorally/emotionally
in coping with their illness, and approached interpersonal relationships in
a less secure or more anxious manner. With somewhat similar results,
Farber, Schwartz, Schaper, Moonen, and McDaniel (2000) noted that
adaptation to HIV/AlDS was associated with lower psychological dis-
tress, higher quality of life, and more positive personal beliefs related to
the world, people, and self-worth. Fryback and Reinert (1999), in a qual-
itative study of women with cancer and men with HIVI AIDS, found spir-
ituality to be an essential component to health and well-being.
Respondents who found meaning in their disease reported a better qual-
ity of life than before diagnosis.
Dominguez (1996) summarized the essential structure of living with HNI
AIDS for women of Mexican heritage as struggling in despair to endure
a fatal, transmittable, and socially stigmatizing illness that threatens a
woman's very self and existence. Women were seen as suffering in silence
while experiencing shame, blame, and concern for children. In a phenome-
nological study of five HN-infected African American women, 12 themes
emerged, ranging from violence, shock, and denial to uncertainty and
survival (Russell & Smith, 1999). The researchers concluded that women
have complex experiences that need to be better understood before effective
health care interventions can be designed.
Appendix C: A Phenomenological Study 269

No studies reported AIDS patients' cognitive representations or images of

AIDS. Consequently, this study focused on how persons with AIDS cogni-
tively represented and imaged their disease.

Method
Sample
A purposive sample of 41 men and 17 women with a diagnosis of AIDS
participated in this phenomenological study. Participants were predomi-
nately Black (40%), White (29%), and Hispanic (28%). Average age was
42 years (SD = 8.2). The majority had less than high school education (52%)
and were never married (53%), although many reported being in a relation-
ship. Mean CD4 count was 153.4 (SD = 162.8) and mean viral load,
138,113 (SD = 270,564.9). Average time from HIV diagnosis to interview
was 106.4 months (SD = 64.2). Inclusion criteria were (a) diagnosis of AIDS,
(b) 18 years of age or older, (c) able to communicate in English, and
(d) Mini-Mental Status exain score> 22.

Research Design
In phenomenology, the researcher transcends or suspends past knowledge
and experience to understand a phenomenon at a deeper level (Merleau-
Ponty, 1956). It is an attempt to approach a lived experience with a sense of
"newness" to elicit rich and descriptive data. Bracketing is a process of set-
ting aside one's beliefs, feelings, and perceptions to be more open or faithful
to the phenomenon (Colaizzi, 1978; Streubert & Carpenter, 1999). As a
health care provider for and researcher with persons with HIV/AIDS, it was
necessary for the interviewer to acknowledge and attempt to bracket those
experiences. No participant had been a patient of the interviewer.
Colaizzi (1978) held that the success of phenomenological research ques-
tions depends on the extent to which the questions touch lived experiences
distinct from theoretical explanations. Exploring a person's image of AIDS
taps into a personal experience not previously studied or shared clinically
with health care providers.

Procedure
After approval from the university's Institutional Review Board and a city
hospital's Human Subject Review Committee, persons who met inclusion
criteria were approached and asked to participate. Interviews were con-
ducted over 18 months at three sites dedicated to persons with HIV/AIDS: a
hospital-based clinic, a longterm care facility, and a residence. All interviews
270 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Participants were involved in

multiple life situations and were unavailable for repeated interviews related
to personal plans, discharge, returning to life on the street, or progression of
the disease. One participant died within 4 weeks of the interview. Interviews
lasted between 10 and 40 minutes and proceeded until no new themes
emerged. Persons who reported not thinking about AIDS provided the
shortest interviews. Consequently, to obtain greater richness of data and
variation of images, we interviewed 58 participants (Morse, 2000). The first
researcher conducted all 58 interviews.
After obtaining informed consent, each participant was asked to verbally
respond to the following: "What is your experience with AIDS? Do you have
a mental image of HNIAIDS, or how would you describe HIV/AIDS? What
feelings come to mind? What meaning does it have in your life?" As the rich-
ness of cognitive representarions emerged, it became apparent that greater
depth could be achieved by asking participants to draw their image of AIDS
and provide an explanation of their drawing. Eight participants drew their
image of AIDS.
Background information was obtained through a paper-and-pencil ques-
tionnaire. Most recent CD4 and Viral Load laboratory values were obtained
from patient charts. Based on institution policy, participants at the long-term
care facility and residence received a $5.00 movie pass. Clinic participants
received $20.00.

Data Analysis
Colaizzi's (1978) phenomenological method was employed in analyzing
participants' transcripts. In this method, all written transcripts are read sev-
eral times to obtain an overall feeling for them. From each transcript, signif-
icant phrases or sentences that pertain directly to the lived experience of AIDS
are identified. Meanings are then formulated from the significant statements
and phrases. The formulated meanings are clustered into themes allowing for
the emergence of themes COmmon to all of the participants' transcripts. The
results are then integrated into an indepth, exhaustive description of the phe-
nomenon. Once descriptions and themes have been obtained, the researcher
in the final step may approach some participants a second time to validate
the findings. If new relevant data emerge, they are included iu the final
description.
Methodological rigor was attained through the application of verifica-
tion, validation, and validity (Meadows & Morse, 2001). Verification is the
first step in achieving validity of a research project. This standard was ful-
filled through literature searches, adhering to the phenomenological method,
bracketing past experiences, keeping field notes, using an adequate sample,
Appendix C: A Phenomenological Study Z71

identification of negative cases, and interviewing until saturation of data was

achieved (Frankel, 1999; Meadows & Morse,.2001). Validation, a within-
project evaluation, was accomplished by multiple methods of data collection
(observations, interviews, and drawings), data analysis and coding by the
more experienced researcher, member checks by participants and key infor-
mants, and audit trails. Validity is the outcome goal of research and is based
on trustworthiness and external reviews. Clinical application is suggested
through empathy and assessment of coping status (Kearney, 2001).

Results
From 58 verbatim transcripts, 175 significant statements were extracted.
Table 1 includes examples of significant statements with their formulated
'meanings. Arranging the formulated meanings into clusters resulted in

Table 1 Selected Examples of Significant Statements of Persons With AlDS

and Related Formulated Meanings

Significant Statement Formulated 'Meaning

In the beginning, I had a sense that I AIDS is such a traumatizing reality
did have it, so it wasn't an unexpected that people have difficulty verbalizing
thing although it did bother me. the word "AIDS."
I know it was a bad thing to let it
traumatize so.

[AIDS] a disease that has no cure. AIDS is a dangerous disease that

Meaning of dread and doom and you requires every fiber of your being to
got to fight it the best way you can. fight so you can live. ,
You got to fight it with everything
you can to keep going.
I see people go from somebody being As physical changes are experienced,
really healthy to just nothing-to skin an image of AIDS wasting dominates
and bones and deteriorate. I've lost a thoughts. I
lot of friends that way. It's nothing
pretty. I used to be a diesel mechanic.
I can't even carry groceries up a flight
of stairs anymore.
,
First image-death. Right away fear Overwhelming image of AlDS is one ,
and death. That's because I didn't of death and destruction, with no
know any better. Now it's destruction. hope of winning.
Pac-man eating all your immune cells
up and you have nothing to fight with.
=~~ ""-==' " .. ~
, . -,. ',= ~." ~

L
272 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

.'''' ,
," .. >"",.~"'r' .

Table 2 Example of Two Theme Clusters With Their Associated

Formulated Meanings

, Dreaded bodily destruction

Physical changes include dry mouth, weight loss, mental changes
Expects tiredness, loss of vision, marks all over the body
Holocaust victims
t!M.•: Confined to bed with sores all over
Extreme weight loss
Horrible way to die
Changes from being really healthy to skin and bones
Bodily deterioration

I
!
!
Devouring life
Whole perspective on life changed
~
I Never had a chance to have a family
i Life has stopped
i
I No longer able to work
Will never have normal relations with women
! Uncertain what's going to happen from day to day
I Worked
L -_ _ _ _hard
___ and
__ lost
__ everything
_ __________________
~
~
~
11 themes. Table 2 contains two examples of theme clusters that emerged
from their associated meanings.

Theme 1: Inescapable death. Focusing on negative consequences of their dis-

ease was the pervading image for many persons with AIDS. Responding
quickly and spontaneously, AIDS was described as "death, just death," "lep-
rosy," '~a nightmare," '.'a curse," "black cloud," and "an evil force getting
back at you." The sense of not being able to escape was evident in descrip-
tions of AIDS as "The blob. It's a big Jell-O thing that comes and swallows
you up" and ''It's like I'm in a hole and I can't get out." Another stated,
"AIDS, it's a killer and it will get you at any God-given time."
A sense of defeat was evident in a Hispanic man's explanation that with
AIDS you are a "goner." He stated, "With HIV you still have a chance to fight.
Once that word 'AIDS' starts coming up in your records, you bought a ticket
[to death]."
A 29-year-old woman, diagnosed wirh HIVand AIDS 9 months before the
interview, drew a picture of a grave with delicate red and yellow flowers and
Appendix C: A Phenomenological Study 273

wrote on the tomb stone "RIP Devoted Sister and Daughter." Over the grave,
she drew a black cloud with the sun peeking .around the edge, which she
described as symbolizing her family's sadness at her death.

Theme 2: Dreaded bodily destruction. In this cluster, respondents focused on

physical changes associated with their illness. AIDS was envisioned as people
who were skin and bones, extremely weak, in pain, losing their minds, and
lying in bed waiting for the end. Descriptions were physically consistent but
drawn froma variety of experiences, such as seeing a family member or
friend die from AIDS or from pictures of holocaust victims. It is an ending
that is feared and a thought that causes deep pain. Body image became a
marker for level of wellness or approach of death.
One woman described her image of AIDS as a skeleton crying. An
extremely tall, thin man awaiting a laryngectomy on the eve of his 44th
'birthday described his image of AIDS by saying, "Look at me." Another
recalled Tom Hanks in the movie Philadelphia (Saxon & Demme, 1993):
"The guy in the hospital and how he aged and how thin he got. You start
worrying about ... you don't want to end like that. I don't like the image
I see when I see AIDS." A 53-year-old man with a 10-year history of
HIV/AIDS drew his image of AIDS as a devil with multiple ragged horns,
bloodshot eyes, and a mouth with numerous sharp, pointed teeth. He
described the mouth as "teeth with blood dripping down and sucking you
dry." Another man drew AIDS as an angry purple animal with red teeth. He
stated the calor purple symbolized a "bruise" and the red teeth "destruc-
tion." The extensive physical and emotional devastation of AIDS was evi-
dent in the drawing by a 36-year-old Black woman, who pictured herself
lying on a bed surrounded by her husband and children. She wrote, "Pain
from head to toe, no hair, 75 pounds, can't move, can't eat, lonely and
scared. Family loving you and you can't love them back."
Theme 3: Devouring life. Persons grieved for their past lives. A 41-year-old
man described AIDS as, "It's not like I can walk around the corner or go to
the park with friends because it has devoured your life." Another man noted,
"My life has stopped." A 48-year-old woman stated, "I feel like I have no
life. It has changed my whole perspective."
With the diagnosis of AIDS, dreams of marrying, having children, or work-
ing were no longer perceived as possible. The impact on each one's life was
measured differently from loss of ability to work to loss of children, family,
possessions, and sense of oneself. The thought of leaving children, family,
and friends was extremely difficult but considered a reality. A woman with
four children aged 8 to 12 years stated,

L
274 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

It's not a disease that you woul4.want to hav:e ~ecause it's. really bad. I know
I get upset sometimes because I have it. You know you are going to die and
I have kids. I really don't want to leave them. I want to see them grow up 3l).d
everything. I know that's not going to happen.

Consistently, participants felt a deep rupture in life as illustrated in the

following statement: "It just took my whole life and turned it upside down.
I can't do a lot of the things I used to. I lost a house because of it. Everything
I worked for 1 lost." A 44-year-old Hispanic mother of two boys reported
with sadness,

It has affected my life. I have lost my children by not being able to take care of
them. It has changed my freedom and relationships. Being sick all the time and
I couldn't take care of my little one, so he was taken away from me.

A Black woman described the far-reaching effect AIDS had on her life as
follows:

Everything is different about me now. The way I look, the way I talk, the way
I walk, the way I feel on a daily basis. I miss my life before, I really do. I miss
it a lot. I don't think about it because it makes me sad.

Theme 4: Hoping for the right drug. In this theme, people focused on phar-
macological treatment/cure for AIDS. Hope was evident as participants
expressed anticipation that a medication recently started would help them or
a cure would be found in their lifetime. One person described it as "You
start becoming anxious and you're hoping that you get some kind of good
news today about a new pill or something that's going to help you with the
disease." Another, diagnosed within the last 3 years, wondered, "With all
the new meds and everything, they say you can live a normal life and a long
life. Time will tell, 1 guess."
Some participants had been told that there were no drugs available for
them. A 31-year-old woman, diagnosed for 16 years, reported, "They
haven't been able to find a medicine that won't keep me from being sick, so
I'm not taking any HIV meds." Others spoke of waiting to see how their
bodies responded to newly prescribed ART medications. Hispanic man artic-
ulated his search:

I try not to let it bother me because my viral load and everything is real low.
The meds are not working for me. We [health care provider and patient] are
still trying to find the iight one. As long as I'm still living, that's what I'm
happy about.
Appendix C: A Phenomenological Study 275

The hope of finding a cure was on the minds of many. A 53-year-old man
diagnosed for 10 years noted, "I'm just happy. to be here now and hope to
be here when they find something." Another stated, "Just hope [for a cure]
and hold on." In contrast, a 41-year-old man diagnosed for 9 years stated,
"There is no cure and I don't see any coming either." A 56-year-old man,
living 13 years with HIV/AIDS, expressed a similar view: "I don't think there
is a cure, not right around the corner anyhow. Not in my lifetime."

Theme 5: Caring for oneself. Persons with AIDS attempted to control the
progress of their disease by caring for themselves. This was evident in the
following responses: "If I don't take care of myself, I know I can die from
it [AIDS]" and ''It's a deadly disease if you don't take care of yourself."
A Hispanic man explained, "We never know how long we are going to live.
I have to take care of myself if I want to live a couple of years." One woman
'spoke of her fears and efforts to cope:

I'm scared-losing the weight and losing the mind and whatnot. I'm scared,
but I don't let it get me dClwn. I think about it and whatever is going to hap-
pen. I can't stop it. I try to take care of myself and go on.

How to take care of oneself was not always articulated. Eating and tak-
ing prescribed medications seemed to be a major focus. "When I get up
I know that my first priority is to eat and take my medication." This single-
ness of purpose is further illustrated in the statement, "I can't think of any-
thing else other than keeping myself healthy so that I can live a little longer.
Take my medications. Live a little longer."

Theme 6: Just a disease. In this cluster of images, people cognitively repre-

sented the cause of AIDS as "an unseen virus," "like any infection," I'a com-
mon cold," and "a little mini bug the size of a mite." Minimizing the external
cause, one participant viewed AIDS as an "inconvenience" and another as hav-
ing been dealt a "bad card."
Some normalized AIDS by imaging it as a chronic disease. Like people with
cancer or diabetes, persons with AIDS felt the need to get on with their lives
and not focus on their illness. The supposition was that if medications were
taken and treatments followed they could control their illness the same as per-
sons do with cancer or diabetes. The physical or psychological consequences
that occur with other chronic diseases were not mentioned. The following two
excerpts illustrate the disease image:

It's just a disease. Since I go to support groups and everything, they tell me to
look at it as if it were ca.ncer or diabetes and just do what you have to do. Take
your medicine, leave the drugs alone, and you will acquire a long life.
276 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

And

[AIDS is] a controllable disease, not a curse. I'm going to c~mtrol it for the rest
of my life. I feel lucky. There is nothing wrong with me. I'm insisting on see~
ing it that way. It may not be right, but it keeps me going good.

Sometimes, the explanations for AIDS were scientifically incorrect but

presented a means for coping. One man described AIDS: "It's just a disease.
It's a form of cancer and that's been going on for years and they just come
up with the diagnosis."

Theme 7: Holding a wildcat. In this theme, people focused on hypervigilance

during battle. While under permanent siege, every fiber of their being
was used to fight "a life-altering disease." A 48-year-old man diagnosed
6 months before the interview stated, "I have to pay attention to it. It's seri-
ous enough to put me out of work." Another man, diagnosed for 6 years,
was firm in his resolve: "I'm a fighter and I'm never going to give up until
they come up with a cure for this." These images were essentially positive as
can be seen in the following description of AIDS in which a scratch by a
wildcat is not "super serious."

To me HIV is sort of like you've gOt a wildcat by the head staring you in the
face, snapping and snarling. As long as you are attentive, you can keep it at
bay. If you lose your grip or don't maintain the attentiveness, it will reach out
and scratch you. Which in most cases is not a super serious thing, but it's some-
thing of a concern that it will put you in the hospital or something like that.
You got to follow the rules quite regimentally and don't let go. If you let go, it
will run you over.

Vigilance was used not only to control one's own disease progression but
also to protect others. A woman diagnosed for 3 years noted,

Just being conscious of it because when you got kids and when you got family
that you live with, you have to be extremely cautious. You got to realize it at
all times. It has to just be stuck in your mind that you have it and don't want
to share it. Even attending to one of your children's cuts.

Theme 8: Magic of not thinking. Some made a strong effort to forget their
disease and, at times, their need for treatment. A few reported no image of
AIDS. Thinking about AIDS caused anger, anxiety, sadness, and depression.
Not thinking about AIDS seemed to magically erase the reality, and it pro-
vided a means for controlling emotions and the disease. A 41-year-old man
who has lived with his disease 10 years describeq AIDS:
Appendix C: A Phenomenological Study 277

I~'s a sickness, but in my mind I don't think that I got it. Because if you think
about having HN, it comes down more on you, It's more like a mind game.
To try and stay alive is that you don't even think about it. It's not in the mind.

The extent to which some participants tried not to think about AIDS can
be seen in the following descriptions in which the word AIDS was not spo-
ken and only referred to as "it." A 44-year-old Hispanic woman stated, "It's
a painful thing. It's a sad thing. It's an angry thing. I don't think much of it.
I try to keep it out of my mind." Another woman asserted, "It's a terrible
experience. It's very bad, I can't even explain it. I never think about it. I try
not to think about it. I just don't think about it. That's it, just cross it out of
my mind."

Theme 9: Accepting AIDS. In this theme, cognitive representations centered

'on a general acceptance of the diagnosis of AIDS. Accepting the fact of hav-
ing AIDS was seen as vital to coping well. People with AIDS readily assessed
their coping efforts.
A Hispanic woman nOled, "I'm not in denial any more." A 39-year-old
Hispanic man who has had the disease for 8 years stated, "Like it or not you
have to deal with this disease." Another noted, "You have to live with it and
deal with it and that's what I'm trying to do." A 56-year-old man who has
had the disease for 13 year.-summarized his coping:

Either you adjust or you don't adjust. What are you going to do? That's life.
It's up to you. I'm happy. I eat well and I take care of myself. I go out. I don't
let this put me in a box. Sometimes you don't like it, but you have to accept it
because you really can't change it.

Individuals diagnosed more recently struggled to accept their disease. A

Black man diagnosed for 2 years vacillated in his acceptance: "I hate that
word. I'm still trying to accept it, I think. Yes, I am trying to accept it."
However, he stated that he avoids conversation about HIV/AIDS and is not
as open with his family. Another man diagnosed 3 years prior noted,

I still don't believe that it's happen to me and it's taken all this time to get a
grip on it or to deal with it. I still haven't got a grip on it, but I'm trying. It's
finally sinking in that I do have it and I'm starting to feel lousy about it.

Neither of these last participants mentioned the word "HIV" or "AIDS."

Theme 10: Turning to a higher power. In this theme, cognitive representa-

tions of AIDS were associated with "God," "prayer," "church," and "spir-
ituality." Some saw AIDS as a motivation to change their lives and reach for
278 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

God. An Hispanic man living with HlV/AIDS for 6 years stated, "If I didn't
have AIDS, I'd probably still be out there drinking, drugging, and hurting
people. I turned my life around. I gave myself over to the Lord and Jesus
Christ." Another noted, "It [AIDS] worries me. What I do is a lot of pray-
ing. It really makes me reach for God."
Others saw religion as a means to help them cope with AIDS. One person
expressed it as "I know I can make it from the grace of God. My Jesus Christ
is my Savior and that's what's keeping me going every day." One man
reported how his spirituality not only helped him cope but also made him a
better person:

At one point I just wanted to give up. If it wasn't for knowing the love of Jesus
I couldn't have the strength to keep going. I feel today that I'm a better person
spiritually. Maybe not healthwise, but more understanding of this disease.

In contrast, a man diagnosed in jail attributed AIDS to a punishment from

God: "Sometimes God punishes you. It's like I told my wife. I should have
cleaned up my act."

Theme 11: Recouping with time. Although the initial fear and shock was
overwhelming, time became a healer such that images, feelings, and pro-
cesses of coping changed. A sense of imminent doom hurled some into con-
stant preoccupation with their illness, despondency, and increased addiction.
Living with HIV/AIDS facilitated change. One woman noted, "When I first
found out, I wanted to kill myself and just get it over with. But now it's dif-
ferent. I want to live and just live out the rest of my life." Another described
her transition as "At first I thought I was going to be all messed up, all dried
up and looking weird and stuff like that, but I don't think of those things
anymore. I just keep living life."
As time passed, negative behaviors were replaced with knowledge about
their illness, efforts at medication adherence, and a journey of personal
growth facilitated by PNple who believed in them. One man reported that
his initial image changed from being in bed with tubes coming out of his
nose and Kaposi sarcoma over his body to living a normal life except for not
being able to work.
Change was evident in one man's image of AIDS as a time line. He drew
a wide vertical line beginning at the top with the first phase, diagnosis, col-
ored red because "it means things are not good, like a red light on a
machine." The next phase was shaded blue and labeled "medication, educa-
tion, and acceptance" to reflect the sky that he could see from his inpatient
bed. The final stage was calored bright yellow and labeled "hope."
A 40-year-old Hispanic man drew a chronicle of his life with five addic-
tive substances beginning with alcohol to the injection of heroin. He then
Appendix C: A Phenomenological Study 279

sketched four views of himself showing the eud stage of his disease: a stand-
ing skeleton without face, hair, clothes, or shoes; a sad-faced person without
hair lying in a hospital bed; and a grave with flowers. The final picture
drawn was of a drug-free person with a well-developed body, smiling face,
hair, shoes, shirt, and shorts, symbolizing his readiness for a vacation in
Florida. In contrast, a 53-year-old man reported that in 14 years he had no
change in his image of AiDS as a "black cloud."
Results were integrated into an essential schema of AIDS. The lived expe-
rience of AIDS was initially frightening, with a dread of body wasting and
personal loss.
Cognitive representations of AIDS included inescapable death, bodily
destruction, fighting a battle, and having a chronic disease. Coping methods
included searching for the "right drug," caring for oneself, accepting the diag-
nosis, wiping AIDS out of their thoughts, turning to God, and nsing vigilance .
• With time, most people adjnsted to living with AIDS. Feelings ranged from
"devastating,» "sad," and "angry" to being at "peace" and "not worrying."

Discussion
In this study, persons with AIDS focused on the end stage of wasting, weak-
ness, and mental incapacity as a painful, dreaded, inevitable outcome. An ini-
tial response was to ignore the disease, but symptoms pressed in on their reality
and forced a seeking of health care. Hope was manifested in waiting for a par-
ticular drug to work and holding on until a cure is found. Many participants
saw a connection between caring for themselves and the length of their lives.
Some participants focused on the final outcome of death, whereas others
spoke of the emotional and social consequences of AIDS in their lives.
Efforts were made to regulate mood and disease by increased attentiveness,
controlling thoughts, accepting their illness, and turning to spirituality. Some
coped by thinking of AIDS as a chronic illness like cancer or diabetes.
As noted earlier, McCain and Gramling (1992) identified three methods
of coping with HIV, namely, Living with Dying, Fighting the Sickness, and
Getting Worn Out. Images of Dying and Fighting were strong in Themes 1
(Inescapable Death) and 7 (Holding a Wildcat). Participants in this study
were well aware of whether they were coping. Many spoke about accepting
or dealing with AIDS, whereas others could not stand the word, tried to
wipe it out of their minds, or referred to AIDS as "it."
Consistent with Fryback and Reinert's study (1999), Theme 10, Turning
to a Higher Power, emerged as a means of coping as participants faced their
mortality. Like Turner's (2000) sample, participants in the current study
experienced many changes/losses in their lives and reflected on death and
280 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

dying. Similar to Turner's theme of Lessons Learned, some participants saw

AIDS as a turning point in their lives.
Aligned with Brauhn's (1999) study, chronic disease emerged as an image.
In COntrast to Brauhn's sample, these participants used the nomenclature of
chronic illness to minimize the negative aspects of AIDS. It can be posited
that the lack of cautious optimism in planning their future was not present
in this study because the entire sample had AIDS.

Theoretical Elements
As Diefenbach and Leventhal (1996) noted, cognitive representations
were highly individual and not always in accord with medical facts.
Consistent with research in other illnesses, persons with AIDS had cognitive
representations reflecting attributes of consequences, causes, disease time
line, and controllability (Leventhal, Leventhal, et aI., 2001). In particular, we
identified three themes that centered on anticipated or experienced conse-
quences associated with AIDS. Inescapable Death and Dreaded Bodily
Destruction involved negative physical consequences that are understand-
able at end stage in a disease with no known cure. The theme Devouring Life
focused on the far-reaching emotional, social, and economic consequences
experienced by participants. The Just a Disease theme reflected cognitive
representations of the cause of AIDS and Recouping with Time had elements
of a disease time line from diagnosis to burial.
Six themes (Hoping for the Right Drug, Caring for Oneself, Holding a
Wildcat, Magic of Not Thinking, Accepting AlDS, and Turning to a Higher
Power) were similar to the controllability attribute of illness representations.
Previous research centered on controlling a disease or condition through an
intervention by the individual or an expert, such as taking a medication or
having surgery (Leventhal, Leventhal, et aI., 2001). This finding was sub-
stantiated in the themes Hoping for the Right Drug and Caring for Oneself.
Unique to this study, persons with AlDS attempted to control not only their
emotions but also their disease through vigilance, avoidance, acceptance,
and spirituality coping methods. This is particularly evident in the statement
that "To tty and stay alive is that you don't even think about it." This study
extends previous research on illness representations to persons with AIDS
and contributes to the theory of Self-Regulation by suggesting that in AIDS
coping methods function like the attribute controllability. Of note is that
eight participants drew and described their dominant image of AIDS. These
drawings provide a unique revelation of participants' concerns, fears, and
beliefs. Having participants draw images of AIDS provides a new method of
assessing a person's dominant illness representation.
Appendix C: A Phenomenological Study 281

Implications for Nursing

Inquiring about a patient's image of AIDS might be an efficient, cost-
effective method for nurses to assess a patient's illness representation and
coping processes as well as enhance nurse-patient relationships. Patients who
respond that AIDS is "death" or' "they wipe it out of their minds" might
need more psychological support.
Many respondents used their image of AIDS as a starting poiut to share
their illness experiences. As persons with AIDS face their mortality, reminisc-
ing with someone who treasures their stories can be a priceless gift. Asking
patients about their image of AIDS might touch feelings not previously shared
and facilitate patients' self-discovery and acceptance of their illness.

Future Research
Cognitive representations have been identified with AIDS. From this
research, it can be posited that how a person images AIDS might influence
medication adherence, high-risk behavior, and quality of life. If persons with
AIDS believed that there is no hope for them, would they adhere to a diffi-
cult medication regimen or one with noxious side effects? Would a person
who experienced emotional and social consequences' of AIDS be more likely
to protect others from contracting the disease? Would it be reasonable to
expect that persons who focus on fighting AIDS or caring for themselves
would be more likely to adhere to medication regimens? Do persons who
turn to a higher power, accept their diagnosis, or minimize the disease have
a better quality of life? Further research combining images of AIDS and
objective measures of medication adherence, risk behaviors, and quality of
life is needed to determine if there is an association between specific illness
representations and adherence, risk behaviors, and/or quality of life.

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Appendix D
A Grounded Theory Study

Constructions of Survival and Coping by Women

Who Have Survived Childhood Sexual Abuse

Susan L. Morrow
University of Utah

Mary Lee Smith

Arizona State University

This qualitative study investigated personal canstructs of survival and coping by //

women who have survived childhood sexual abuse. In·depth interviews, a 7O·week focus
group, documentary evidence, and follow·up participant checks and collaborative

AUTHORS' NOTE: We thank Adene Metha, Gail Hackett, Carole Edelsky, B. J.

Moore, Lucille Pope, Helga Kansy, and the research collaborators for their
valuable input related to the structure and process of this research. Susan L.
Morrow conducted the research for this article while at Arizona State University,
and the design and analysis were the collaborative activities of bot~ Susan L.
Morrow and Mary Lee Smith. Correspondence concerning this article should be
addressed to Susan L Morrow, Department of Educational Psychology, 327 Milton
Bennion Hall, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112.
SOURCE: The material in this appendix is reprinted from Morrow, S. L, & Smith,
M. L. (1995). Constructions of survival and coping by women who have survived
childhood sexual abuse. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 42, 24-33. Copyright
1995, American Psychological Association. Used by permission.
285
286 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

analysis were used. Over 160 individual strategies were coded and anaJyzed, and a
theoretical model was developed describing (a) causal conditions that underlie the
development of survival and coping strategies, (b) phenomena that arose from those
causal conditions, (c) context that influenced strategy development, (d) intervening con·
ditions that influenced strategy development, (e) actual survival and coping strategies,
and (~ consequences of those strategies. Subcategories of each component of the theo·
retical model were identified and are illustrated by narrative data. Implications for coun·
seling psychology research and practice are addressed.

The sexual abuse of children appears to exist at epidemic levels, with esti·
mates that 20%-45% of women and 10%-18% of men in the United States
and Canada have been sexually abused as children; experts agree that these
figures are underestimates (Geffner, 1992; Wyatt & Newcomb, 1990).
Approximately one third of students seeking counseling in one university
counseling center reported having been sexually abused as children (Stinson
& Hendrick, 1992). Because of the breadth and severity of psychological and
physical symptoms consequent to childhood sexual abuse, the confusion sur-
rounding treatment methods, and the large number of "normal" individuals
seeking counseling who display severe psychological symptoms (Courtois,
1988; Geffner, 1992; Lundberg-Love, Marmion, Ford, Geffner, & Peacock,
1992; Russell, 1986), a theoretical framework is needed to better understand
the consequences of childhood sexual abuse.
Two primary modes of understanding and responding to consequences
of childhood sexual abuse are symptom and construct approaches (Briere,
1989). Researchers and practitioners alike have adopted a symptom-
oriented approach to childhood sexual abuse. It is characteristic of both
academic and lay literatures to portray consequences of sexual abuse in
lengthy lists of symptoms (Courtois, 1988; Russell, 1986). Briere (1989),
however, encouraged a broader perspective, advocating the identification of
overarching constructs and core effects-as opposed to symptoms-of sex-
ual victimization.
Mahoney (1991) explicated core ordering processes-tacit, deep-
structural processes of valence, reality, identity, and power-that underlie
personal meanings or constructions of reality. He emphasized the impor-
tance of understanding tacit theories of self and world that guide the devel-
opment of patterns of affect, thinking, and behavior. A construct-oriented
approach to the study of survival and coping offers the possibility of devel-
oping a conceptual framework that will bring order into the chaos of symp-
tomatology that currently characterizes the field, as well as relating those
symptoms to core ordering processes.
Appendix D: A Grounded Theory Study 287

A number of authors (Johnson & Kenkel, 1991; Long & Jackson, 1993;
Roth & Cohen, 1986) have related coping .theories (Horowitz, 1979;
Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) to sexual-abuse trauma. However, traditional
coping theories have tended to problematize emotion-focused and avoidant
coping styles commonly used by women and abuse survivors (Banyard &
Graham-Bermann, 1993). Strickland (1978) stressed the importance of prac-
titioners accurately assessing [an] individual's life situations in determining
the efficacy, of certain coping strategies. Banyard and Graham-Bermann
(1993) emphasized the need to examine power as a mediator in the coping
process. The child who is a victim of sexual abuse is inherently powerless;
therefore, particular attention must be paid to a reexamination of coping
strategies with this population.
The purpose of the present research Was to understand the lived experi-
ences of WOmen who had been sexually abused as children and to generate
a theoretical model for the ways in which they survived and coped with their
abuse. As Hoshmand (1989) noted, qualitative research strategies are par-
ticularly appropriate to address meanings and perspectives of participants.
In addition, she suggested' that naturalistic methods offer the researcher
access to deep-structural processes.
Considerable attention ,has been given to the truthfulness of claims of
childhood sexual abuse, particularly when alleged victims have forgotten or
repressed all or part of their 'abuse experiences. Loftus (1993) outlined the
difficulties inherent in determining the veridicality of retrieved memories,
urging caution on the part of psychologists working in the area of sexual
abuse and calling for ongoing research into the nature of true repressed
memories. While acknowledging the importance of Loftus's concerns, a
constructivist approach orients toward "assessing the viability (utility) as
opposed to the validity (truth) of an individual's unique worldview"
(Neimeyer & Neimeyer, 1993, p. 2). In accordance with this view, each vol-
unteer's self-identification as an abuse survivor was the criterion for inclu-
sion in the present investigation and her definition of survival and coping the
starting point for the investigation. We accepted the stories of participants at
face value as their phenomenological realities.
The primary method of investigating those realities was grounded theory
(Glaser & Strauss, 1967), a qualitative research method designed to aid in
the systematic collection and analysis of data and the construction of a the-
oretical model. The data analysis was based on transcriptions of semistruc-
tured, in-depth interviews; videotapes of a 10-week group that focused on
what survival and coping meant to the research participants; documentary
evidence, including participants' journals and other relevant writings; and
Susan L. Morrow's field notes and journals.
288 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Method
Qualitative research methods are particularly suited to uncovering meanings
people assign to their experiences (Hoshmand, 1989; Polkinghorne, 1991).
Chosen to clarify participants' understandings of their abuse experiences, the
methods used involved (a) developing codes, categories, and themes induc-
tively rather than imposing predetermined classifications on the data (Glaser,
1978), (b) generating working hypotheses or assertions (Erickson, 1986)
from the data, and (c) analyzing narratives of participants' experiences of
abuse, survival, and coping.

Participants
Research participants were 11 women, with ages ranging from 25 to 72,
who had been sexually abused as children. One woman was African
American, 1 was West Indian, and the remainder were Caucasian. Three
were lesbians, 1 was bisexual, and 7 were heterosexual. Three women were
physically disabled. Participants' educational levels ranged from completion
of the Graduate Equivalency Degree to having a master's degree. Abuse
experiences varied from a single incident of molestation by a family friend to
18 years of ongoing sadistic abuse by multiple perpetrators. Age of initial
abuse ranged from infancy to 12 years of age; abuse continued as late as age
19. All participants had been in counseling or recovery processes lasting
from one 12-step meeting to years of psychotherapy.

Procedure
Entry into the field. Research participants were recruited in a large south-
western metropolitan area through therapists known for expertise in their
work with the survivors of sexual abuse. Each therapist was sent a letter
describing the study in detail; a similar letter was enclosed to give to clients
who might benefit from or be interested in participating in the study.
Interested clients, in turn, called Susan L. Morrow, the investigator. Of the
12 respondents, 11 became research participants. The 12th declined to par-
ticipate for personal reasons.
When prospective participants contacted Morrow, the purpose and scope
of the study were reviewed and an appointment was made for an initial
interview. Informed consent was discussed in detail at the beginning of the
interview, with an emphasis on confidentiality and the potential emotional
consequences of participation. After a participant signed the consent, audio- or
videotaping commenced. Each participant chose her own pseudonym for the
Appendix D: A Grounded Theory Study 289

research and was promised the opportunity to review quotes and other infor-
mation about her before publication.

Data sources. Each of the 11 survivors of sexual abuse participated in a 60-

to 90-min in-depth, open-ended interview, during which two questions were
asked: "Tell me, as much as you are comfortable sharing with me right now,
what happened to you when you were sexually abused," and "What are the
primary ways in which you survived?" Morrow's responses included active
listening, empathic reflection, and minimal encouragers.
After the initial interviews, 7 of the 11 interviewees became focus-group
participants. Four were excluded from the group: 2 who were interviewed
after the group had started and 2 who had other commitments. The group
provided an interactive environment (Morgan, 1988) that focused on sur-
vival and coping. In the initial meeting, participants brainstormed about the
*,ords victim, survivor, and coping. Subsequent group sessions built on the
first, with participants exploring emerging categories from the data analysis
and their own research questions, which had been invited by Morrow.
Morrow took a participant-observer role, moving from less active involve-
ment in the beginning to a more fully participatory role toward the end
(Adler & Adler, 1987).
A central feature of the analysis was Morrow's self-reflectivity (Peshkin,
1988; Strauss, 1987). Morrow's own subjective experiences were logged,
examined for tacit biases and assumptions, and subsequently analyzed.
Documentary evidence completed the data set. These data consisted of
participants' journals, kept both in conjunction with and independent of the
project, artistic productions, and personal writings from earlier periods of
participants' lives.

Data collection, auaiysis, and writing. A central concern for rigor in qualita-
tive research is evidentiary adequacy-that is, sufficient time in the field and
extensiveness of the body of evidence used as data (Erickson, 1986). The data
consisted of over 220 hours of audio- and videotapes, which documented
more than 165 hours of interviews, 24 hours of group sessions, and 25 hours
of follow-up interactions with participants over a period of more than 16
months. All of the audiotapes and a portion of the videotapes were tran-
scribed verbatim by Morrow. In addition, there were over 16 hours of audio-
taped field notes and reflections. The data corpus consisted of over 2,000
pages of transcriptions, field notes, and documents shared by participants.
The analytic process was based on immersion in the data and repeated
sortings, codings, and comparisons that characterize the grounded theory
approach. Analysis began with open coding, which is the examination of
290 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

minute sections of text made up of individual words, phrases, and sentences.

Strauss and Corbin (1990) described open coding as that which "fractures
the data and allows one to identify some categories, their properties and
dimensional locations" (p. 97). The language of the participants guided the
development of code and category labels, which were identified with short
descriptors, known as in vivo codes, for survival and coping strategies. These
codes and categories were systematically compared and contrasted, yielding
increasingly complex and inclusive categories.
Morrow also wrote analytic and self-reflective memos to document and
enrich the analytic process, to make implicit thoughts explicit, and to expand
the data corpus. Analytic memos consisted of questions, musings, and spec-
ulations about the data and emerging theory. Self-reflective memos docu-
mented Morrow's personal reactions to participants' narratives. Both types
of memos were included in the data corpus for analysis. Analytic memos
were compiled and an analytic journal was kept for cross-referencing codes
and emerging categories. Large poster boards with movable tags were used
to facilitate the arranging and rearranging of codes within categories.
Open coding was followed by axial coding, which puts data "back
together in new ways by making connections between a category and its
subcategories" (italics in original, Strauss & Corbin, 1990, p. 97). From this
process, categories emerged and were assigned in vivo category labels.
Finally, selective coding ensued. Selective coding was the integrative process
of "selecting the core category, systematically relating it to other categories,
validating those relationships [by searching for confirming and disconfirm-
ing examples], and filling in categories that needled] further refinement and
development" (Strauss & Corbin, 1990, p. 116).
Codes and categories were sorted, compared, and contrasted until satu-
rated-that is, until analysis produced no new codes or categories and when
all of the data were accounted for in the core categories of the grounded
theory paradigm model. Criteria for core status were (a) a category's cen-
trality in relation to other categories, (b) frequency of a category's occur-
rence in the data, (c) 'its inclusiveness and the ease with which it related
to other categories, (d) clarity of its implications for a more general theory,
(e) its movement toward theoretical power as details of the category were
worked out, and (f) its allowance for maximum variation in terms of dimen-
sions, properties, conditions, consequences, and strategies (Strauss, 1987).
In keeping with Fine's (1992) recommendations that researchers move
beyond the stances of ventriloquists or mere vehicles for the voices of those
being researched, we sought to engage the participants as critical members of
the research team. Consequently, after completion of the group, the 7 group
members were invited to become coanalysts of d.ata from the focus group.
Four elected to do so. Not choosing to extend their original commitment,
Appendix 0: A Grounded Theory Study 291

2 terminated their participation at that point; a 3rd declined because of

physical problems. The 4 coanalysts (termed participant-coresearchers) con-
tinued to meet with Morrow for more than a year. They acted as the primary
source of participant verification, analyzing videotapes of the group sessions
in which they had participated, suggesting categories, and revising the emerg-
ing theory and model. Participant-~oresearchers used their natural intuitive
analytic skills as well as grounded theory principles and procedures that had
been taught to them by Morrow to collaborate in the data analysis.
Morrow met weekly with an interdisciplinary qualitative research collec-
tive throughout the data gathering, analysis, and writing of the research
account. The group provided peer examination of the analysis and writing, as
recommended by LeCompte and Goetz (1982), thereby enhancing researcher
and theoretical sensitivity, overcoming selective inattention, and enhancing
receptiveness to the setting (Glaser, 1978; Lincoln & Guba, 1985).
, Accountability was achieved. through ongoing consultations with partici-
pants and colleagues and by maintaining an audit trail that outlined the
research process and the evolution of codes, categories, and theory (Miles &
Huberman, 1984). The audit trail consisted of chronological narrative
entries of research activities, including pre-entry conceptualizations, entry
into the field, interviews, group activities, transcription, initial coding
efforts, analytic activities, and the evolution of the survival and coping the-
oretical model. The audit trail also included a complete list of the 166 in vivo
codes that formed the basis for the analysis.
Because of the human cognitive bias toward confirmation (Mahoney,
1991), an active search for disconfirming evidence was essential to achieving
rigor (Erickson, 1986). Data were combed to disconfirm various assertions
made as a result of the analysis. Discrepant case analysis, also advised by
Erickson (1986), was conducted, and participants were consulted to deter-
mine reasons for discrepancies.

Results
The grounded theory model for surviving and coping with childhood sexual
abuse, evolving from Strauss and Corbin's (1990) framework and developed
from the present investigation, is present in Figure 1.

Causal Conditions of Phenomena Related to Sexual Abuse

Two types of causal conditions emerged from the data, which ultimately
led to certain phenomel)ological experiences related to sexual abuse. These
causal conditions were (a) cultural norms and (b) forms of sexual abuse.
292 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Cultural norms of dominance and submission, violence, maltreatment of

women, denial of abuse, and powerlessness of children formed the bedrock
on which sexual abuse was perpetrated. Paula's (all names used are pseudo-
nyms) experiences reflected a number of these norms: Her father enforced his
dominance by physically and sexually abusing Paula's mother and calling
Paula and her mother "cunt," "whore," and "fat pig." He was an avid reader
of pornography and regularly invited Paula into the bathroom, where he
showed her pictures from his magazines. He took photographs of her in the
bathtub or sunbathing by the pool. She stated that most of his abuse of her
was" ... real, real physical. [He1beat the shit out of us." His sexual abuse of
her was "covert." Audre commented the following after disclosing that her
sexual abuser had beaten her "only" once; "You know, he never whipped me
like that again. Never again. And he never had to .... Whenever I would
resist him at any point, he'd just look at me." Dominance, violence, and the
powerlessness of children converged in Audre's life to set the stage for her
abuse, as did the denial of abuse or the potential for abuse by significant
people in her life and in the lives of other victims. After being sexually abused
by an elderly neighbor, Liz brought home a picture he had taken to show her
parents. Liz reported, "My mother got right down in my face and said, 'He
didn't do anything to you, did he?'" Frightened, Liz replied, "No, he didn't
do anything to me."
The second causal condition consisted of the various forms of sexual
abuse that had been perpetrated. Abuses ranged from innuendos and viola-
tions of privacy to rape and vaginal penetration with loaded guns. These
forms of abuse were classified through the data analysis into five categories:
(a) nonphysical sexual abuses, (b) physical molestation, (c) being forced to
perform sexual acts, (d) penetration, and (e) sexual torture. Nonphysical
sexual abuses, perpetrated on all of the victims, consisted of perpetrators
engaging in sexual talk, photographing the child in sexual poses or nude,
exposing the genitals to the child, engaging in sexual teasing and jokes,
performing sexual activities in front of the child, and inviting the child to
participate in sexual activity. Physical molestation, also experienced by all of
the participants, included sexual touching, pinching, poking, tickling, and
stroking the child with objects; removing the child's covers or clothes; hold-
ing the child in such a way that sexual contact was made; masturbating the
child; washing and examining the child's genitals in excess of actions neces-
sary for health and cleanliness; and performing cunnilingus on the child. Of
the participants, 7 had been forced to perform sexual acts, such as mastur-
bation, fellatio, or cunnilingus. At least 5 of the victims had been penetrated
vaginally, orally, or anally with fingers, hands, penises, guns, knives, or
other implements; four others were uncertain about penetration because of
.
Context
e Sensation
e Frequency

~
• Intensity
I) Duration
'" Perpetrator
Characteristics

. Strategies Consequences
Phenomena • Keeping From Being I)Paradoxes
Causal Threatening or Overwhelmed by !
I)
" Surviving
Conditions Dangerous Threatening and I)Coping ,
• Cultural Norms f----. Feelings Dangerous Feelings --> • U'{ing
• Forms of Sexual
Abuse
'" Helplessness,
Powerlesness,
Lack of Control
i" I) Managing
Helplessness,
Powerlessness,
and Lack of Control
~
., Healing
<) Wholeness

e Empowerment
I) Hope

/
Intervening
Conditions
e Cultural Values
.,. Family Dynamics
'" Other Abuses
• Resources
I) Victim Age
• Rewards
~

N
i;l Figure 1 Theoretical Model for Surviving and Coping With Childhood Sexual Abuse
294 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

amnesic episodes. Six remembered being subjected to sexual tortures of a

sadistic nature beyond those already described.

Phenomena Resulting From

Cultural Norms and Forms of Sexual Abuse
Causal conditions----<:ultural norms and the forms of sexual abuse to which
victims were subjected-resulted in two core categories of subjective phenom-
ena as reported by participants: (a) being overwhelmed by feelings victims
experienced as threatening or dangerous and (b) experiencing helplessness,
powerlessness, and lack of control. These categories support and extend
Herman's (1992) description of traumatic reactions, in which she found that
"the salient characteristic of the traumatic event is its power to inspire help-
lessness and terror" (p. 34). This research indicates that terror is but one of the
overwhelming emotions characteristic of trauma experienced by survivors of
sexual abuse. Most, but not all, of the survivors in the study experienced ter-
ror; all experienced overwhelming emotions of fear, pain, or rage.
Meghan foreshadowed one of these phenomena the first night of the
group, when she said, "To keep from feeling my feelings, I have become a
very skilled helper of other people." Throughout the data, others echoed her
words. The analytic moment in which this category emerged is illustrated in
the following analytic memo written by Morrow (in vivo codes are in italics):

I'm reaching a higher level of abstraction. Is the overarching category protec-

tion from feelings? Many categories are subsumed under it: One talks to get
out the stories; the feelings are less intense. Fake orgasm (sex) because you
don't have any physical feelings. Art was used to deal with feelings, express
anger~ release the pressure of the feelings, use chemicals to deal with feelings
(and a whole complex interaction here) ...

Existing and emergent codes and categories were compared and con-
trasted with this category; the category was modified to accommodate the
data, producing the phenomenon that was labeled being overwhelmed by
threatening or dangerous feelings-feelings that participants described as
subjectively threatening or dangerous.
In addition to being overwhelmed by feelings, participants experienced
what was termed helplessness, powerlessness, and lack of control. Lauren
provided an exemplar of the second category, illustrating the pervasiveness
of her perpetrator's power:

He stands there. A silhouette at first and then his face and body come into
view. He is small, but the backlighting intensifies his figure and he seems huge,
Appendix 0: A Grounded Theory Study 295

lik~ a prison guard. He is not always there but it feels like he might as well be.
When he's not there, I search the distance for him and he appears. He seems
to be standing there for hours. As if he's saying, you are weak, I am in control.

Not only did Lauren experience powerlessness during her abuse, but her
lack of control invaded her dreams and her moments alone.

Context in Which Survival and

Coping Strategies Developed
Strategies for survival and coping were developed in response to being
overwhelmed by threatening or dangerous feelings and experiencing help-
lessness, powerlessness, and lack of control. These strategies were influenced
by particular contextual markers related to both the causal conditions-
particularly the forms of sexual abuse-and the resultant phenomena.
These contextual markers included (a) sensations, (b) frequency, (c) intensity,
(d) duration, and (e) perpetrator characteristics.
Sensations experienced' by victims during sexual abuse ranged from
arousal to pain, varying from mild to severe intensity. The frequency and
duration of sexual abuse ranged from a single instance to years of ongoing
sexual abuse, which occurred as often as daily or as infrequently as once every
summer. Perpetrator characteristics varied from one to multiple perpetrators
of both genders, who were always older and larger than their victims and
ranged in relationship from blood relatives to strangers. The phenomena-
being overwhelmed "by threatening or dangerous feelings and experiencing
helplessness, powerlessness, and lack of control-also varied as to types of
physical and emotional sensations; ranged in intensity, frequency, and dura-
tion; and frequently continued for years after the original abuse had ended.

Intervening Conditions Influencing

Survival and Coping Strategies
In addition to context, there were also intervening conditions, which were
broad, general conditions that influenced participants' choices of survival
and coping strategies. Intervening conditions included (a) cultural values, (b)
family attitudes, values, beliefs, and dynamics, (c) other abuses present, (d)
age of the victim, (e) rewards that accompanied the abuse, and (f) outside
" resources. Cultural values that were particularly influential were those of a
religious nature related to sex and sexual abuse: "Guilt, I believe, is the dri-
ving force in Catholicism.... I felt guilt after I was molested .... I see the
Catholic stuff as running in tandem with the issues of being a sexual-abuse
survivor." One woman uncovered a family norm that condoned incest when
296 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

her uncle bragged, "We were one big fuckin' family .... Everybody screwed
everybody." Alcohol and alcoholic dynamics were part of almost every
family, and it was rare that emotional or physical abuse was not an accom-
paniment of sexual violation. When perpetrators provided rewards or favors
to their victims, victims were more likely to cooperate but expressed more
confusion than did those who were not rewarded.
The ages at which participants had been abused ranged from infancy
through 19 years of age. The data analysis revealed only one pattern related
to the age of the victim when she was a bused. In keeping with the literature
on dissociation (Kluft, 1985), all of the participants who had developed
severe dissociative patterns had been sexually abused in infancy or early
childhood.
Only one participant experienced outside intervention in her abuse,
although all had since turned to and found emotional support from friends,
partners, or therapists. As in Liz's case ("He didn't do anything to you, did
he?"), potential helpers were unwilling or unable to see that abuse was hap-
pening. However, in one case, a grandmother-who knew of and was pow-
erless to stop the abuse-provided the support that the survivor now believes
saved her life and sanity.

Strategies for Surviving and

Coping With Childhood Sexual Abuse
In the presence of the context and intervening conditions described above,
two overarching phenomena led to the development of two parallel core
strategies for survival and coping: (a) keeping from being overwhelmed by
threatening or dangerous feelings and (b) managing helplessness, powerless-
ness, and lack of control. Because so few resources were available for help,
most of the strategies described by participants were internally oriented and
emotion focused. The strategies within each core category are illustrated in
Figure 2.

Keeping from being overwhelmed by threatening or dangerous feelings.

Being sexually abused produced confusing and intense emotions in the child
victims. Lacking the cognitive skills to process overwhelming feelings of
grief, pain, and rage, these children developed strategies to keep from being
overwhelmed. These strategies were (a) reducing the intensity of troubling
feelings, (b) avoiding or escaping feelings, (c) exchanging the overwhelming
feelings for other, less threatening ones, (d) discharging or releasing feelings,
(e) not knowing or remembering experiences that generated threatening feel-
ings, and (f) dividing overwhelming feelings into manageable parts.
Appendix D: A Grounded Theory Study 297

I Survival and Coping Stragegies

I
/
Keeping from Being Overwhelmed by
~
Managing Helplessness,
Threatening and Dangerous Feelings Powerlessness, and lack of Control

• Reducing intensity of Feelings • Resistance Strategies

• Avoiding/Escaping Feelings • Reframing Abuse to Give illusion
• Exchanging More for Less of Control
Threatening Feelings • Attempting to master Trauma
• Discharging/Releasing Feelings • Controlling Other Areas of Life
• Not Knowing/Remembering • Seeking Confirmation or Evidence
Experiences Associated with Feelings of Abuse
• Dividing Feelings into Manageable Parts • Rejecting Power

Figure 2 Survival and Coping Strategies of Women Who Have Survived

Childhood Sexual Abuse

The first strategy used by participants in this research was reduciug the
intensity of the feelings. Participants used various methods to reframe their
abuse so that their resultant feelings were less intense; to dull, numb, or not
experience negative feelings that emerged or threatened to emerge; or to
comfort themselves. By mentally or verbally reframing their abuse, victims
found ways to excuse their perpetrators or to minimize the importance of
the trauma. Lis. reported, "1 never, never blamed him .... He was just a
boy.... He didn't know any better." To modify the intense feelings that
arose, participants dulled and numbed those feelings with substances such as
alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, and food and by sleeping or becoming depressed.
Liz became depressed to tone down the rage she did not allow herself to feel.
Participants kept feelings from emerging in a number of ways. Paula com-
mented," The feelings are in the words"; thus, one strategy for not feeling
was not to talk. Meghan analyzed her experiences instead: "I lived in my
head." As these emotions emerged, participants "stuffed" or consciously
repressed them. Liz said, "I didn't mind how much it bothered me, 1 learned
to repress the emotions," while Lisa swallowed her feelings with cinnamon
rolls. Participants used a variety of ways to find comfort. Amaya found
comfort outside herself: "The grandmother, she was a very spiritual
woman .... She used to rock and sing to us." Others, unable to find com-
fort from outside, nurtured themselves with animals or dolls. "1 used to play
with paper dolls .... They were my friends. They could never hurt me."
298 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Participants used a variety of means to meet unmet emotional needs: "1 used
sex for validation 'cause that makes me pretty and that means you love me."
Meghan became "mother hen" from the time she was little, receiving
approval, attention, and appreciation from her family. Participants coped
spiritually in a number of ways, some finding spiritual solace or relief by
praying to or raging against God, while others rejected religious systems that
they saw as being supportive of their abuse. Some sought alternative spiri-
tual paths. Kitty believed that God would not give her any more than she
could handle.
The second srrategy for keeping from being overwhelmed was avoiding or
escaping the threatening or dangerous feelings. In many instances, similar sub-
strategies (e.g., drugs or alcohol) facilitated different processes. In a previous
example, alcohol was used to dull and numb feelings as one way to reduce the
intensity of those feelings. In some of the examples that follow, alcohol was
used to escape. Strategies for escaping and leaving took both problem- and
emotion-focused directions (Folkman & Lazarus, 1980, 1985) and included
attempts to physically avoid or escape abuse, ignore the abuse, escape its real-
ity, or leave mentally or emotionally. In their attempts to physically escape
abuse, participants went to their rooms, ran away, moved out, married young,
or separated themselves from others: "I isolated forever." When physical
escape seemed impossible, some victims thought of dying or actually
attempted suicide when they were children to adolescents in an effort to escape
their abuse. To prevent either sexual abuse or related physical abuse, partici-
pants attempted to distract their perpetrators, tried talking them out of abus-
ing them, or told them to stop. Velvia remembered, "I kept wanting it to be
like it was and I kept asking him, 'Let's just read.' ... " They also reported hav-
ing developed heightened intuition about danger or having lied to others about
their abuse to avoid being punished or further abused. Participants attempted
to escape their abuse by hiding, both literally and figuratively. Ananda found
refuge in a canyon, while Meghan strove for invisibility by being very, very
good. Danu's conflict revealed itself in her poetry: "I didn't want to bel 'miss
smarty pants.'/ I tried to be quieter! more secret and private.! 1 knew it would
be safer/ if no one noticed me." Lauren and Kitty hid their bodies with over-
sized clothes. To ignore or escape the reality of their abuse, participants
wished, fantasized, denied, avoided, and minimized: "I avoid things ... the
other side of denial. I won't look at it." Lauren "left the story behind," and
the abuse gradually became less and less real in her mind until it was forgot-
ten. Sometimes victims simply left mentally or emotionally. Kirty said, "Mind,
take me outa there!" and it did. Some experienced tunnel vision, floating,
"spacing out," or separating from their bodies or other people. Ananda
described "a kind of spiritual leaving this planet."
Appendix D: A Grounded Theory Study 299

Another way that the research participants avoided being overwhelmed

was io exchange threatening or dangerous feelings for other, less distressing
ones. Overwhelming feelings could be exchanged by overriding the feelings
with other, more intense feelings; replacing them with less threatening, sub-
stitute feelings; or distracting themselves with activities that produced
innocuous feelings. Participants overrode dirty feelings by physically scrubbing
them away. Some used self-induced physical pain, such as self-mutilation, to
override emotional pain. Kitty commented, "Physical pain keeps me from
feeling my feelings. That's where my anorexia came from .... The physical
pain of not eating. I can't feel things when I'm in pain." The women who
experienced feelings of pain and grief as dangerous developed an ability to
switch immediately to anger or rage, substituting the latter emotions for the
pain that threatened to overwhelm them. Others bypassed the more threat-
ening feelings of anger or rape, switching to tears. "I have [anger] for about
two seconds, then I cry; it turns into sadness." Participants also distracted
themselves from their feelings by turning to activities that produced innocu-
ous or pleasant feelings: "The crunching kind of distracts me from the pain
inside"; "I looked at othenhings."
The fourth strategy for keeping from being overwhelmed was discharg-
ing or releasing feelings. Verbal activities included writing in journals or
talking to "get the feelings out." The use of humor was especially effective.
Mimicking her usual 12-step'meeting greeting ("My name is Paula, and I'm
an alcoholic"), one participant declared, "Hello, I'm Paula, and I'm sorry!"
They also shouted or screamed to release tension. Paula, a highly competi-
tive athlete, used physical strategies that ranged from athletics to self-harm.
She cut crosses in her skin and vomited to release her feelings: "I'll go purge
and, uh, I'll feel elated, and better, and I also got rid of some of the feelings
as a way of letting go." Artistic endeavors also facilitated release: "To this
day, if I get those feelings, I can draw, and not necessarily feel better, but less
pressure."
Not knowing or remembering experiences associated with threatening or
dangerous feelings was the fifth strategy-a complex category involving
head memories, head knowledge, clues or evidence, bodily sensations, intu-
ition, and feelings or emotions. Head memories were one of the most haunt-
ing and difficult aspects of having been sexually abused. Virtually every
participant had experienced some degree of memory loss surrounding her
abuse, as illustrated by Velvia's comments: "There are some things that
I remember, but only up to a certain point, and I don't know what happened
next .... [TJhe place where it stops sticks in my head .... " Some partici-
pants depended on head knowledge to know that they had been sexually
abused. Audre disclosed, "The only reason I know about [the abuse] is
300 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

because my abuser called me about a year ago to tell me." Detective work
was rampant in survivors' searches for outside evidence or clues of their
abuse. Some sought verification from siblings or nonoffending parents.
Others depended on feelings about places or photographs to cue them about
when their abuse had occurred: "We moved to a big huge house when I was
11. And that's when I think that it started, 'cause I don't remember anything
in the old house." Survivors experienced "body memories," or physical sen-
sations, frequently in the absence of head memories or knowledge. Kitty suf-
fered intense pelvic pain whenever she talked about abuse: "SomebodY'd be
talking about being attacked, and I would experience all this pain in my
stomach and in my female part of me." Others experienced nausea, trem-
bling, and abreactions as a result of talking about sexual abuse. Intuition
also contributed to a survivor's knowledge that she had been abused.
Participants reported that intuition-in the form of a sudden awareness or
hunch-was a powerful source of knowing at the moment of insight but that
it could quickly fade to disbelief. Feelings or emotions were experienced as
the least trustworthy of all evidence, particularly if unaccompanied by other
forms of knowing. Despite the intensity of feelings of terror, deep sadness,
and shame, women in the study were far more likely to believe they were
"crazy" than to trust their feelings or emotions as evidence of sexual abuse:
"I'm having all these feelings and all these symptoms ... but maybe it has to
with my mother dropped me on my head or she dressed me funny .... "
Dividing overwhelming feelings into manageable parts was a complex
process of partitioning emotions into different compartments or separating
them from cognitions, sensations, behaviors, or intuitions. Dividing was one
of the ways in which memories were lost and knowing was jeopardized.
Participants exercised three forms of dividing: "disassociating," dividing up
overwhelming emotions, and dividing up cognitive functions. Participants
typically used the lay term disassociate rather than dissociate to explain the
process of altering consciousness. Although disassociation was used to
escape feelings, it also provided the gateway for dividing. Dividing up over-
whelming emotions took place as overwhelming or disparate emotional
states were compartmentalized in order to make them more manageable. On
one end of a continuum were facades or masks that hid the more vulnerable
aspects of self. Participants had also developed different parts of themselves.
The more rigid divisions were characterized by some degree of amnesia or
distortion of behavior, motor coordination, self-perception, or time charac-
teristic of dissociative disorders (Braun, 1986):

I'm not sure that I really thought that I did survive ... going away and seeing
myself laying there on the bed-I can see my face, I can see the little girl
Appendix D: A Grounded Theory Study 301

laring there with her head kind of turned, her eyes closed, sweat or something,
you know. She's-her head's wet-me-I guess i~ must be me.

In addition to dividing emotional states, participants separated cognitive

functions such as actions, emotions, thoughts, bodily sensations, and intu-
itions, congruent with Braun's (1988) BASK (behavior, affect, sensation,
knowledge) model of dissociation. Kitty learued to crawl out of her body:
"I could see me screaming, but I couldn't hear." She "was actually frozen
and could do nothing .... I wondered at the time why couldn't I do some-
thing? Why couldn't I move?"

Managing helplessness, powerlessness, and lack of control. In addition to

developing strategies to keep from being overwhelmed by emotions, partici-
pants had developed strategies for managing powerlessness in the face of
their abuse. Six categories of survival and coping strategies were used to
manage helplessness, powerlessness, and lack of control: (a) creating resis-
tance strategies, (b) reframing abuse to create an illusion of control or
power, (c) attempting to master the trauma, (d) attempting to control other
areas of life besides the abuse, (e) seeking confirmation or evidence from
others, and (f) rejecting power.
One way in which participants managed their lack of power was to resist
or rebel. Meghan refused to eat. Kitty spoke of her resistance: "Those fuck-
ers aren't gonna get me. I'm not gonna kill myself.... [Tjhat's when they
win." Some reframed the abuse to create an illusion of control or power.
Meghan believed that she could control her abuse: "If somehow I could be
good enough and do things right enough, she wouldn't be like that any-
more." Survivors attempted to master the trauma, at times recapitulating
their abuse: "If I can create pain that I can feel, and I'm in control, it's dif-
ferent. It's totally different." Others turned to helping abused people.
Participants frequently tried to control other areas of life besides the abuse.
Barbara became" ... a savior. I ride a white horse, rescue." Meghan stated,
"I couldn't manage the abuse, but I could manage the household." All of the
participants sought confirmation or evidence from others in order to control
their own perceived reality. Only Liz rejected power. "I don't want to be like
her .... She was very powerful. ... I'm afraid of power in myself, even."

Consequences of Strategies for Survival and Coping

The strategies used by participants were not without consequences. In
every case, those strategies succeeded in keeping them from being over-
whelmed by feelings or aided them in managing helplessness, powerlessness,
302 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

and lack of control. However, while their strategies for survival and coping
were successful, that success was also costly.
Two women saw the creation of alter personalities-their primary
survival and coping strategy-as a sane alternative to psychosis, or "going
crazy." However, they both paid the price of living fragmented lives.
When asked what being overwhelmed by feelings meant to her, Meghan
responded, "Screaming metal ... pain and anguish that goes on and on and
on and never stops." She has continued to spiral back through depression,
pain, and anguish that, at times, feel as if they will never end. Paradoxically,
her strategies worked to keep overwhelming feelings at bay until she actively
began the therapy process. As she has faced the emotions she buried, she has
been overwhelmed many times. .
Participants had fears, wishes, or dreams of dying, yet all are alive today.
But while all still live, they did not feel they survived intact; as Barbara dis-
closed, "I'm not sure I survived," and as Liz said, "Part of me died."
Another paradox arose during the examination of the consequences of the
strategy to manage helplessness, powerlessness, and lack of control. Often,
the very strategies adopted by participants to exercise power or control
backfired, ultimately taking control of the survivors. One woman, whose
childhood refusal to eat resulted in her doctor prescribing crackers and
cream cheese for breakfast (the only food she would eat), found in adult-
hood that she turned repeatedly-and sometimes compulsively-to these
same foods.
Many times, participants commented that they were barely surviving-
that they were in pain, exhausted, or overwhelmed. However, surviving and
coping [were] what participants did best. Liz declared, "My will to survive
is strong, stronger than I realized." In a conversation among the participant-
coresearchers, Meghan said angrily, "I don't want to be surviving. I want to
be living. I want to have some fun. I want to be happy. And that's what's
not happening right now." Liz responded, "First you have to survive. You
have to survive it. And that's where I'm getting to, is the realization that I'm
surviving this stuff again."
Each of the survivors echoed Meghan's feelings. Four had become drug-
and alcohol-free in their efforts to move beyond mere survival to healing,
wholeness, and empowerment. Paula disclosed, "I'm just startin' to realize
that this is worth it. [My drawings are] more elaborate, they're bigger, I'm
using more mediums, they're more detailed." Velvia used the word "empow-
erment" to describe a process that went beyond survival. Amaya wrote,

Today I got in touch with mi olro yo [my other me] ....

She is so powerful, so sure of herself, so strong, so real, so alive.
Appendix D: A Grounded Theory Study 303

I did not die like I thought I would when I felt her.

Instead, I got in touch with the missing part of my inner power and wholeness.

The pain, grief, and terror that the survivors had experienced and contin-
ued to wrestle with are very real, and the healing process is long and ardu-
ous. However, throughout the research, participants expressed hope.
Despite her terror and pain, Kitty reflected, "I have hope in my
life.... There's just a little bit of sunlight coming in. There's a little bit of
heaven up there that comes inside of my soul and heals."

Discussion
Although the counseling literature is rich with descriptions of specific out-
'comes of childhood sexual abuse, this study is distinctive in its systematic
examination of the survival and coping strategies from the perspectives of
women who were sexually abused as children. A theoretical model of the
survival and coping strat~gies of 11 participants was constructed through
qualitative data analysis, which included engaging participants in the ana-
lytic process in order to ensure that the model reflected their personal con-
structs. This model establishes, from a multitude of strategies and symptoms,
a coherent, construct-focused framework for understanding the often-
confusing constellation of behavior patterns of the survivors of abuse.
Cultural norms set the stage for sexual abuse. As Banyard and Graham-
Bermann (1993) emphasized, it is important for researchers and practition-
ers to examine the social milieu in which particular stressors are experienced.
In relation to childhood sexual abuse, an examination of social forces helps
to shift the focus of coping from a purely individual analysis to an individ-
ual-in-context analysis, thereby normalizing the victim's experience and
reducing self-blame.
The powerlessness of girls, which can be attributed to the societal posi-
tioning of women and children, to their physical size, and to undependable
resources for intervention available to abuse victims, explains the over-
whelming predominance of emotion-focused over problem-focused coping
strategies used by the participants in this study. In addition, the context of
denial and secrecy surrounding sexual abuse in the lives of girls and women
may further exacerbate a preference for emotion-focused coping.
The present analysis is congruent with Long and Jackson's (1993) find-
ings that victims of childhood sexual abuse attempted to have an impact
on the actual abuse situation by using problem-focused strategies, while
they managed their distress through emotion-focused coping. The two core
304 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

strategies-keeping from being overwhelmed by threatening and dangerous

feelings and managing helplessness, powerlessness, and lack of control-
parallel Long and Jackson's emotion-focused and problem-focused strate-
gies. Long and Jackson found that few victims attempted problem-focused
strategies and speculated that resources may not have been available, either
in fact or in the cognitive appraisals of victims. The present research demon-
strated that options for problem-focused coping were, in fact, not readily
available. In addition, specific cultural and family norms served to convince
children of the limited efficacy of problem-focused solutions. .
Researchers and practitioners may need to think beyond the categories
of emotion- and problem-focused coping strategies (Banyard & Graham-
Bermann, 1993). L. Benishek proposed that certain so-called emotion-focused
strategies, such as dissociation, may, in fact, be problem focused (personal
communication, December 1, 1993). Indeed, according to Banyard and
Graham-Bermann (1993), "There are times when emotion-focused strategies
may be used as problem-focused solutions to a stressful dilemma" (p. 132).
Additional qualitative research in this area may prove fruitful.
Mahoney (1991) described core ordering processes as deep-structure
processes that" lie at the core of every person's lifelong efforts to organize
and reorganize their experience" (p. 179). Of his four proposed core order-
ing processes (valence, realiry, identiry, and power), the present analysis
yielded two: valence, which encompasses processes of motivation and emo-
tion, and power, which is characterized by processes of control and ability.
These two processes correspond, respectively, to the core strategies found in
this research related to participants' keeping from being overwhelmed with
feelings and managing helplessness, powerlessness, and lack of control.
Because this research was pursued inductively without imposing preexisting
categories on the data, the core ordering processes of identity and reality did
not emerge. However, it would be appropriate to reanalyze the data with
these categories in mind. The process of identity, for example, can be seen
in Liz's statement about seeing herself lying on the bed during her abuse.
"Sbe ... I guess it must be me." Although the present research did not
address identity or reality, it provided a more detailed understanding of the
processes of valence and power, particularly as they were experienced by the
survivors of sexual abuse in this investigation.
The emergent theoretical model of survival and coping was, in effect,
Morrow's interpretation of 11 participants' constructions of their survival
and coping. As is frequently the case in qualitative research, the results of
this analysis are unique to the parricular investigator, participants, and con-
text of this study. The transferability of this theoretical model for survival
and coping takes place as the reader examines these results in the context of
specific circumstances of interest.
Appendix D: A Grounded Theory Study 305

Feminist researchers have expressed concern about the potential for the
exploitation of women and other margin~lized groups in academic
research and have urged investigators to examine closely what partici-
pants receive in exchange for their contributions (Landrine, Klonoff, &
Brown-CoIlins, 1992). Their recommendations have influenced the pres-
ent investigation in two ways. First, the categories that emerged from this
research made sense to and were useful, in a practical sense, to the par-
ticipants themselves. When the developing model for survival and
coping was presented to the participant-coresearchers, one woman took
the information home to her husband, with whom she had experienced
painful and confusing dynamics surrounding her abuse. Her response
endorsed the applicability of this model in practice, not only for spouses
or partners, but for families and the therapeutic relationship as well:
" ... [Ilt felt like months and months ... of stuff that just felt so
'hard ... trudging through this sludge-it was like the clarity! It was just
unbelievable ... the closeness between us." It appears that presenting this
model to clients and significant others has potential, as a psychoeduca-
tional tool, to ease the difficult and perilous journey that individuals must
travel as they work through abuse trauma and its consequences.
In addition, the collaborative research process itself has implications for
research with the survivors of sexual abuse. Participant-coresearchers
described their experiences of collaborative meaning-making as "important"
and "empowered." Coparticipatory data analysis therefore holds promise as
an empowering model for researchers and participants alike.
Finally, from a standpoint of the "psychology of human effectiveness"
(Gelso & Fassinger, 1992, p. 293), the resilience and resourcefulness of the
participants in this investigation cannot be overstated. What appears at first
glance to be a profusion of dysfunctional symptoms becomes, upon closer
examination, rational and reasonable coping strategies given the extremity
of the stressors to which these women, as children, were subjected. For
example, dividing various aspects of the self into alter personalities enabled
victims to disperse trauma among various parts of the self, thereby decreas-
ing the potential for being ovetwhelmed. In addition, multiplicity provided
for self-nurturing and furnished a cognitive structure in which valuable func-
tions and personality characteristics were preserved until they could be safely
reintegrated. This investigation focused on the strengths of the survivors of
sexual abuse and encourages practitioners to view clients who have been sex-
ually abused in light of those strengths, rather than from a perspective that
emphasizes pathology (Adams & Betz, 1993; Hill, 1993; Howard, 1992).
Given the prevalence of sexual abuse, adaptation to childhood trauma must
be considered a part of the process of normal development for a large
number of individuals. The present findings may facilitate a reevaluation of
306 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

that adaptation and offer clients and their therapists a conceptual frame-
work to facilitate healing.

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Appendix E
An Ethnography

Rethinking Subcultural Resistance

Core Values of the Straight Edge Movement

Ross Haenfler
University of Colorado-Boulder

"By focusing their message at their families, subcultural peers, mainstream

youth, and the larger society, sXe created a multilayered resistance that individ-
uals could customize to their own interests,"

This article reconceptualizes subcultural resistance based on an ethnographic examina-

tion of the straight edge movement. USing the core volues of stroight edge, the authors
analysis builds on new subcultural theories and suggests a framework for how members
construct and understand their subjective experiences of being a part of a subculture. He
suggests that adherents hold both individual and collective meanings of resistance and
express their resistance via personal and political methods, Furthermore, they consciously
enact resistance at the micro, meso, and macro levels, not solely against an ambiguous

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I would like to thank Patti Adler for her support and guidance.
I would also like to thank the reviewers for their helpful comments.
SOURCE: This article originally appeared in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnog-
raphy, 33(4), 406-436. Copyright 2004, Sage Publications, Inc.

309
3!O Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

"adult" culture. Resistance can no longer be conceptualized in neo·Marxist terms of

changing the political or economic structure, as a rejection only of mainstream culture,
or as symbolic stylistic expression. Resistance is contextual and many layered rather than
static and uniform.

Keywords: resistance; straight edge; subculture; youth; punk

R esistance has been a core theme among both subcultural participants

and the scholars who study them. Early subcultural theorists associ-
ated with Birmingham University's Centre for Contemporary Cultural
Studies (CCCS) concentrated on the ways youth symbolically resisted
mainstream or "hegemonic" society through style, including clothing,
demeanor, and vernacular (Hebdige 1979). Subcultures emerged in resis-
tance to dominant culture, reacting against blocked economic opportuni-
ties, lack of social mobility, alienation, adult authority, and the "banality
of suburban life"(Wooden and Blazak 2001, 20). Theorists found that
young working-class white men joined dev.iant groups to resist conform-
ing to what they saw as an oppressive society (Hebdige 1979; Hall and
Jefferson 1976). Scholars have given a great deal of attention to whether
these youth subcultures resist or reinforce dominant values and social
structure (Hebdige 1979; Willis 1977; Brake 1985; Clarke, Hall,
Jefferson, and Roberts 1975). The CCCS emphasized that while subcul-
tural style was a form of resistance to subordination, ultimately resistance
merely reinforced class relations (Cohen 1980; Willis 1977). Therefore,
any such resistance was illusory; it gave subculture members a feeling of
resistance while not significantly changing social or political relations
(Clarke et al. 1975). In fact, according to this view, subcultures often
inadvertently reinforce rather than subvert mainstream values, recasting
dominant relationships in a subversive style (see Young and Craig 1997).
The CCCS has drawn substantial criticism for ignoring participants' sub-
jectivity, failing to empirically study the groups they sought to explain, focus-
ing too much on Marxist/class-based explanations and grand theories,
reifying the concept of subculture, and overemphasizing style (Muggleton
2000; Clarke [1981] 1997; Blackman 1995; Widdicombe and Wooffitt
1995). Based on solid ethnographic work, contemporary theorists have
acknowledged the fluidity of subcultures and retooled the notion of resistance
to include the subjective understandings of participants. Leblanc (1999),
studying female punks, found that resistance included both a subjective and
Appendix E: An Ethnography 311

objective component. Leblanc redefined resistance broadly as political behav-

ior, including discursive and symbolic acts. PostI)1odern theorists have further
questioned CCCS ideas of resistance, suggesting that many narratives can
simultaneously be true, contingent on one's perspective. They encourage us to
examine subcultural quests for authenticity from the participants' points of
view, paying particular attention to the individualistic, fragmented, and het-
erogeneous natures of subcultures (Muggleton 2000; Rose 1994; Grossberg
. 1992). Viewed in this way, subcultural involvement is more a personal quest
for individuality, an expression of a "true self," rather than a collective chal-
lenge. In fact, most members have an "anti-structural subcultural sensibility"
(Muggleton 2000, 151), view organized movements with suspicion, and
instead criticize "mainstream society" in individualized ways (Gottschalk
1993,369).
Each of these critiques demands a broader understanding of resistance
that accounts for members' individualistic orientations. Resistance may be
"political behavior" broadly defined, but how individuals express and
understand their involvement needs further attention. My analysis builds
on new subcultural theories and suggests a framework for how members
construct and understand their subjective subcultural experiences. I suggest
that adherents hold both individual and collective meanings of resistance
and express their resistance via personal and political methods.
Furthermore, they consciously enact resistance at the micro, meso, and
macro levels, emerging at least partly in reaction to other subcultures
instead of solely against an ambiguous "adult" culture. Resistance can no
longer be conceptualized in neo-Marxist terms of changing the political or
economic structure, as a rejection only of mainstream culture, or as sym-
bolic stylistic expression. A conceptualization of resistance must account
for individual opposition to domination, "the politicization of the self and
daily life" (Taylor and Whittier 1992, 117) in which social actors practice
the future they envision (Scott 1985; Melucci 1989, 1996). Resistance is
contextual and many layered rather than static and uniform.
As a relatively unstudied movement, straight edge (sXe) provides an
opportunity to rethink and expand notions of resistance. The straight edge!
movement emerged on the East Coast of the United States from the punk
subculture of the early 1980s. The movement arose primarily as a response
to the punk scene's nihilistic tendencies, including drug and alcohol abuse,
casual sex, violence, and self-destructive "live-for-the-moment" attitudes. Its
founding members adopted a "clean-living" ideology, abstaining from alco-
hol, tobacco, illegal drugs, and promiscuous sex. Early sXe youth viewed
punk's self-indulgent rebellion as no rebellion at all, suggesting that in many
312 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

ways punks reinforced mainstream culture's intoxicated lifestyle in a

mohawked, leatherjacketed guise.
Straight edge remains inseparable from the hardcore' (a punk genre)
music scene. Straight edge bands serve as the primary shapers of the group's
ideology and collective identity. Hardcore "shows'" (small concerts) are an
important place for sXers' to congregate, share ideas, and build solidarity.
Since its beginnings, the movement has expanded around the globe, count-
ing tens of thousands of young people among its members. In the United
States, the typical sXer is a white, middle-class male, aged fifteen to twenty-
five. Straight edgers clearly distinguish themselves ftom their peers by mark-
ing a large X, the movement's symbol, on each hand before attending punk
concerts. While scholars have thoroughly researched other postwar youth
subcultures such as hippies, punks, mods, skinheads, and rockers (e.g., Hall
and Jefferson 1976; Hebdige 1979; Brake 1985), we know little about sXe,
despite its twenty-year history.
The basic tenets of sXe are quite simple: members abstain, completely,
from drug, alcohol, and tobacco use and usually reserve sexual activity for
caring relationships, rejecting casual sex. These sXe "rules" are absolute;
there are no exceptions, and a single lapse means an adherent loses any claim
to the sXe identity. Members commit to a lifetime of clean living. They inter-
pret their abstention in a variety of ways centered on resistance, self-
realization, and social transformation. Clean living is symbolic of a deeper
resistance to mainstream values, and abstinence fosters a broader ideology
that shapes sXers' gender relationships, sense of self, involvement in social
change, and sense of community.
This article fills a gap in the literature by giving an empirical account of the
sXe movement centered on a description of the group's core values. I begin
by providing a very brief overview of several previous subcultures, to place
sXe in a historical context. I then discuss my involvement in the sXe scene and
the methods I employed throughout my research. Next, I examine the group's
core values, focusing on how members understand their involvement.'
Finally, I provide a new'framework for analyzing members' experiences that
encompasses the multitude of meanings, sites, and methods of resistance.

Previous Youth Subcultures

Studies of hippies, skinheads, and punks demonstrate both similarities and
profound differences between these groups and the sXe movement. Hippies
evolved in the mid-1960s from the old beatnik and folknik subcultures (Irwin
1977; Miller 1999). Their lifestyle was a reaction to the stifling homogeneity
Appendix E: An Ethnography 313

of the 1950s, emphasizing communalism over conformity and deliberate

hedonism over reserve (Miller 1991). "If it feels,good, then do it so long as it
doesn't hurt anyone else" was the scene's credo. Hippie core values included
peace, racial harmony, equality, liberated sexuality, love, and communalliv-
ing (Miller 1991). They rejected compulsive consumerism, delayed gratifica-
tion, and material success (Davis 1967). "Dope," however, was one of the
group's most visible characteristics (Miller 1991; Irwin 1977). Dope differed
from drugs; dope, such as LSD and marijuana, was good, while drugs, such
as speed and downers, were bad. For hippies, dope expanded the mind,
released inhibitions, boosted creativity, and was part of the revolution. It
was the means to discovering a new ethic, heightening awareness, and
"understanding and coping with the evils of American culture" (Miller
1991, 34). LSD "gave the mind more power to choose, to evaluate, even,
perhaps, to reason" (Earisman 1968, 31). Like dope, sex, in its own way,
'Was revolutionary. "Free love" rejected the responsibilities normally assod-
ated with sexual relationships: marriage, commitment, and children
(Earisman 1968). By practidng what most at the time would call promiscu-
ous sex, the hippies deliberately threw their irreverence for middle-class val-
ues in the face of dominant society (Irwin 1977).
Skinheads received a great deal of attention during the 1990s, as reports
of their growing membership in neo-Nazi groups infiltrated both popular
media and scholarly work (Bjorgo and Wilte 1993; Moore 1994; Young and
Craig 1997). Skinheads emerged in late-1960s Britain as an offshoot of the
mod subculture (Cohen 1972; Hebdige 1979). While most of the fashion-
conscious mods listened to soul music, frequented discotheques, and dressed
in impeccably pressed trousers and jackets, the "hard mods," who eventu-
ally became the skinheads, favored ska and reggae, local pubs, and a work-
ing-class "uniform" of heavy boots, close-cropped hair, Levi jeans, plain
shirts, and braces (suspenders) (Brake 1985). While the mods attempted
to emulate the middle-class, hip 1960s style, the skins were ardently work-
ing class. Nearly everything about skinheads revolved around their working-
class roots. Hard work and independence were among their core values; they
abhorred people, such as some hippies, who they believed "live off the sys-
tern." Skinheads were extremely nationalistic and patriotic, adorning them-
selves with tattoos, T-shirts, and patches of their country's flag. After a long
day at work, they enjoyed drinking beer with their friends at the local pub,
Although there were some women skins, males dominated the subculture
and often reinforced traditional patriarchal ideals of masculinity.
The original skinheads borrowed heavily from the West Indian culture,
adopting their music, mannerisms, and style, including among their number
a variety of races. While they were not violently radst at the level of the
314 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

current neo-Nazi groups, these skins, both black and white, engaged in vio-
lence against Pakistani immigrants ("Pakibashing") (Hebdige 1979, 56).
Eventually, with reggae's turn to Rastafarianism and black pride, many
white skinheads became increasingly racist. At the turn of the century, three
main types of skinheads prevailed: neo-Nazis (racist), skinheads against
racism (e.g., Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice), and nonpolitical skin-
heads, who took neither a racist nor an antiracist stand (Young and Craig
1997). Skinheads were quite visible at punk, ska, and Oil music shows,
though the nonpolitical and antiracist skins were more prevalent. Very
rarely, a skinhead was also sXe.'
In many ways, punk was a reaction to "hippie romanticism" and mid-
dle-class culture; punk celebrated decline and chaos (Brake 1985, 78; Fox
1987; O'Hara 1999). In mid-1970s Britain, youth faced a lack of job
opportunities or, at best, the prospect of entering a mainstream world they
found abhorrent (Henry 1989). They attempted to repulse dominant society
by valuing anarchy, hedonism, and life in the moment. Early punks bor-
rowed heavily from the styles of Lou Reed, David Bowie ("Ziggy
Stardust"), and other glam-rock and new-wave artists. Adorned with safety
pins, bondage gear, heavy bright makeup, torn clothing, flamboyant hair-
styles, and spiked leather jackets, punks lived by their motto "No Future,"
celebrating rather than lamenting the world's decline. They embraced alien-
ation, and their "nihilist aesthetic" included "polymorphous, often willfully
perverse sexuality, obsessive individualism, a fragmented sense of self"
(Hebdige 1979, 28).
Like the skinheads, punks disdained hippies; the preeminent punk band
the Sex Pistols titled one of their live recordings "Kill the Hippies" (Heylin
1998, 117). Unlike the skins, and like the hippies, however, punks chose to
reject society, conventional work, and patriotism. Many used dangerous
drugs to symbolize "life in the moment" and their self-destructive, nihilistic
attitude (Fox 1987). Straight edge emerged relatively early in the punk scene
and has shared certain values and styles with punks, hippies, and skins ever
since. While some punks today are sXe, the two scenes have become rela-
tively distinct, and the sXe movement has replaced many of the original anti-
social punk values with prosocial ideals.

Method
My first encounter with sXe occurred in 1989 at the age of fifteen through
my involvement in a Midwest punk rock scene. As I attended punk shows and
socialized with the members, I noticed that many kids scrawled large XS on
Appendix E: An Ethnography 315

their hands with magic marker before they went to a concert. I eventually
learned that the X symbolized the clean-living, sXe lifestyle and that many
punks in ~ur scene had taken o~ a totally drug- and alcohol~freew~y of life.
flaving tried the alcohol-laden hfe of most of my peers, I qUlckly dIscovered
't was not for me. I despised feeling. I had to "prove" myself (and my man-
I
hood) again and again by drinking excessively. I could not understand why
the "coolest," the most highly regarded men were often the ones who most
degraded women. Furthermore, given my family's history of alcoholism,
I wanted to avoid my relatives' destructive patterns. Finally, the local sXers'
involvement in progressive politics and activist organizations connected with
mY interest in social justice and environmentalism. My association with sXers
jed me to adopt the sXe ideology as what I viewed, at the time, to be an alter-
native to peer pressure and a proactive avenue to social change. After a period
of careful consideration (like many punks, I was suspicious of "rules"),
f made known my commitment to avoid consuming alcohol, drugs, and
tobacco, and the group accepted me as one of their own. Since then, I have
attended more than 250 hardcore shows, maintained the lifestyle, and asso-
ciated with many sXers on a fairly regular basis. The data I present result
from more than fourteen years of observing the sXe movement in a variety of
settings and roles and interviewing members of the scene.
During college, my involvement with sXe waned, and for several years
I had little contact with the group. After completing my undergraduate
career, I moved to "Clearweather," a metropolitan area in the western
United States, to begin graduate training. I lived in a predominantly white
university town of approximately ninety thousand people, attending a
large research university with twenty-five thousand students. Soon after
arriving, I sought out the local hardcore scene and began attending
shows. The setting's richness and my interests led me to take advantage
of this opportunistic research situation (Riemer 1977). My four-year
absence from the scene allowed me to approach the setting with a rela-
tively fresh perspective, while my personal involvement and knowledge of
the sXe ideology enabled me to gain entnie into the local scene very
quickly. Since fall 1996, I have participated in the sXe scene as a complete
member (Adler and Adler 1987).
I gathered data primarily through longitudinal participant observation
(Agar 1996) with sXers from 1996 to 2001. The sXers I studied were mostly
area high school or university students from middle-class backgrounds. My
contacts grew to include approximately sixty sXers in the local area and
another thirty sXe and non-sXe acquaintances associated with the larger
metropolitan hardcore scene. My interaction with the group occurred pri-
marily at hardcore shows and simply socializing at sXers' houses.
316 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

To supplement my participant observation, I conducted unstructured,

in-depth interviews with seventeen sXe men and eleven women between
the ages of seventeen and thirty. To learn from a variety of individuals,
I selected sXers with differing levels of involvement in the scene, includ-
ing new and old adherents, and individuals who had made the movement
central or peripheral to their lives. I conducted in-depth interviews at
sXers' homes or at public places free from disturbances, recording and
later transcribing each session. Though I organized the sessions around
particular themes, I left the interviews unstructured enough that individ-
uals could share exactly what sXe meant to them. I sometimes asked fot
referrals in a snowball fashion (Biernacki and Waldorf 1981), though I
knew most participants well enough to approach them on my own. The
variety of participants allowed me continually to cross-check reports and
seek out evidence disconfirming my findings (Campbell 1975; Stewart
1998; see also Douglas 1976). Through participant observation, I waS able
to examine how participants' behaviors differed from their stated intentions.
I consciously distanced myself from the setting to maintain a critical outlook
by continually questioning my observations and consulting with colleagues to
gain an outsider perspective. I was especially attentive to variations on the
patterns I discovered.
In an effort to expand my knowledge of sXe beyond my primary circle of
contacts, I sought interviews with adherents from outside of the local scene,
including individuals from other cities and members of touring out-of-state
bands who played in Clearweather. I sometimes contacted other individuals
around the country via e-mail with specific questions. I also spent several
days in New York City, Los Angeles, and Connecticut to experience the
scenes there, taking field notes and conducting informal interviews. In addi-
tion to participant observation, casual conversation, and interviews, I exam~
ined a variety of other sources including newspaper stories, music lyrics,
World Wide Web pages, and sXe 'zines,1 coding relevant snippets of infor-
mation into my field notes.
To record and organize my data, I took brief notes at shows and other
events that I immediately afterward expanded into more full field notes on
computer. Using headings and subheadings, I coded data according to par-
ticular topics of interest, beginning the process of organizing data into use-
ful and interesting categories (Charmaz 1983). Throughout my research, I
sought patterns and emerging typologies of data (Lofland and Lofland
1995). Reexamining the coded field notes and transcribed interviews led me
to analyze several themes, including the subculture's core values. I continu-
ally refined these themes as I gathered more data through emergent, induc-
tive analysis (Becker and Geer 1960).
Appendix E: An Ethnography 317

Straight Edge Core Values

A core' set of sXe values and ideals guided and gave meaning to members'
behavior: positivity/clean living, reserving sex for caring relationships, self-
realization, spreading the message" and involvement in progressive causes.
Adherents maintained that sXe meant something different to each person
assuming the identity, and as with any group, individual members' dedica-
tion to these ideals varied. However, while individuals were free to follow
the philosophy in various ways, often adding their own interpretations, these
fundamental values underlay the entire movement.
T-shirt slogans, song lyrics, tattoos, and other symbols constantly
reminded sXers of their mission and dedication: "It's OK Not to Drink,"
"True till Death," and "One Life Drug Free" were among the more popular
messages. The "X," sXe's universal symbol, emerged in the early 1980s,
when music club owners marked the hands of underage concertgoers with
an X to ensure that bartenders would not serve them alcohol (see Lahickey
1997, 99). Soon, the kids intentionally marked their own hands both to sig-
nal club workers of their intention not to drink and, more importantly, to
make a statement of pride and defiance to other kids at the shows. The
movement appropriated the X, a symbol meant to be negative, transforming
its meaning into discipline and commitment to a drug-free lifestyle.' Youth
wore Xs on their backpacks~ shirts, and necklaces; they tattooed them on
their bodies and drew them on their school folders, skateboards, cars, and
other possessions. The X united youth around the world, communicating a
common set of values and experiences. Straight edgers found strength, cama-
raderie, loyalty, and encouragement in their sXe friends, valuing them above
all else.' For many, sXe became a "family," a "brotherhood," a supportive
space to be different together. A powerful sense of community, based in
large part on the hardcore music scene, was the glue that held sXe and its
values together for twenty years.
Like the other youth movements, sXe was a product of the times and cul-
ture that it resisted; oppositional subcultures do not emerge in a vacuum
(Kaplan and Uiiiw 2002). The lifestyle reflects the group's emergence dur-
ing a time of increasing conservatism and religious fundamentalism, an esca-
lating drug war, and Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" campaign. The rise of
the New Christian Right in the late 1970s and early 1980s contributed to a
more conservative national climate that influenced youth values (Liebman
and Wuthnow 1983). Fundamentalism gained appeal among populations
who felt they were losing control of their way of life (Hunter 1987). The
unyielding, black-and-white strictures on behavior of sXe were similar to
fundamentalist religion's rigid, clear-cut beliefs (Marty and Appleby 1993).
318 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

In particular, sXe's emphasis on deau living, sexual purity, lifetime commit-

ment, and meaningful community was reminiscent of youth evangelical
movements, while the focus on self-control suggested Puritanical roots. In
addition to these conservative influences, sXe was, in many ways, a contin-
uation of New Left middle-dass radicalism oriented toward "issues of a
moral or humanitarian nature," a radicalism whose payoff is "in the emo-
tional satisfaction derived from expressing personal values in action"
(Parkin 1968,41). The movement's core values reflecr this curious blend of
conservative and progressive influences.

Positive, Clean Living

The foundation underlying the sXe identity was positive, clean living. It was,
as Darrell Irwin (1999) suggested, fundamentally about subverting the drug
scene and creating an alternative, drug-free environment. Clean living was the
key precursor to a positive life. Many sXers shunned caffeine and medicinal
drugs, and most members were committed vegetarians or vegans. 1O Positive
living had broad meaning, including questioning and resisting society's norms,
having a positive attitude, being an individual, treating people with respect
and dignity, and taking action to make the world a better place. Straight
edgers claimed that one could not fully question dominant society while
under the influence of drugs, and once one questioned social convention, sub-
stance use, eating meat, and promiscuous sex were no longer appealing.
Therefore, clean living and positivity were inseparable; they reinforced one
another and constituted the foundation for all other sXe values. "Joe,"11 an
eighteen-year-old high school senior, explained how the "positivity" he
gained from sXe shaped his life:

To me, I guess what I've gotten from [sXe] is living a more positive lifestyle.
Striving to be more positive in the way you live. Because where I was at when
I found it was really (laughs) I was really negative myself. I was negative
around people and influenced them to be negative. I was surrounded by nega-
tivity. Then I found this and it was like something really positive to be a part
of. Also, like the ethics, drug free, alcohol free, no promiscuous sex. It's just
saying no to things that are such a challenge for people my age, growing up at
that time. It's a big thing for some people to say "No."

Refusing drugs and alcohol had a variety of meanings for individual sXers,
including purification, control, and breaking abusive family patterns.
Purification literally meant being free from toxins that threatened one's
health and potentially ruined lives. Popular T-shirt slogans proclaimed
Appendix E: An Ethnography 319

"Purification-vegan straight edge" and "Straight edge-my commitment

against society's poisons." Straight edgers believed that drugs and alcohol
influenced people to do things they would normally not do, such as have
casual sex, fight, and harm themselves. By labeling themselves as more
"authentic" than their peers who used alcohol and drugs, sXers created an
easy way to distinguish themselves. They experienced a feeling of uniqueness,
self-confidence, and sometimes superiority by rejecting the typical teenage
life. Refusing alcohol and drugs symbolized refusing the "popular" clique
altogether as well as the perceived nihilism of punks, hippies, and skinheads.
The movement provided young people a way to feel more in control of
their lives. Many youth felt peer pressure to drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes,
or try illegal drugs. For some, this pressure created feelings of helplessness and
lack of control; acceptance often hinged on substance use. Straight edgers
reported that the group gave them a way to feel accepted without using and
helped them maintain control over their personal situations. Many sXers cel-
ebrated the fact that they would never wake up after a night of binge drink-
ing wondering what had happened the previous evening. Adherents reported
that sXe allowed them to have a "clear" mind and be free to make choices
without artificial influence. Waiter, a reserved twenty-one-year-old university
student, explained,

I don't make any stupid decisions .... I like to have complete control of my
mind, my body, my soul. I like to be the driver of my body, not some foreign
substance that has a tendency to control other people. I get a sense of pride from
telling other people, "I don't need that stuff. It might be for you but I don'f need
that stuff.)' And people are like, "Whoa! I respect that. That's cool."

In addition to the personalized meanings the identity held for adherents,

sXers viewed their abstinence as a collective challenge. The group offered a
visible means of separating oneself from most youth and taking a collective
stand against youth culture and previous youth subcultures, including
punks, skinheads, and hippies. Furthermore, for many positivity and refus-
ing drugs and alcohol were symbolic of a larger resistance to other societal
problems including racism, sexism, and greed.
Straight edgers made a lifetime commitment to positive, clean living. They
treated their abstinence and adoption of the sXe identity as a sacred vow,
calling it an "oath," "pledge," or "promise." Members made no exceptions
to this rule. Patrick, an easy-going twenty-year-old musician and ex-football
player, said, "If you just sip a beer, or take a drag off of a cigarette, you can
never call yourself straight edge again. There's nO slipping up in straight
edge." Ray, raised in an alcoholic family and already heavily tattooed at age
320 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

nineteen, compared the sXe vow to vows of matrimony: "It's true till death.
Once you put the X on your hand, it's not like a wedding ring. You can
always take a wedding ring off, but you can't wash the ink from your
bands." Ray proceeded to show me a tattoo on his chest depicting a heart
with "True till Death" written across it. Many sXe youth had similar tat-
toos, signifying the permanence of their commitment.
Some sXers took their commitment so seriously they labeled people who
broke their vows of abstinence as traitors or "sellouts." Despite their vehe-
·,1 ment insistence they would "stay true" forever, relatively few sXers main-
tained the identity beyond their early to midtwenties. Many maintained the
values and rarely used alcohol or drugs, but "adult" responsibilities and rela-
tionships infringed on their involvement in the scene. When formerly sXe
individuals began drinking, smoking, or using drugs, adherents claimed they
had "sold out" or "lost the edge." While at times losing the edge caused
great conflict, I observed that more often the youth's bonds of friendship
superseded resentment and disappointment, and they remained friends.
However, a former sXer's sXe friends often expressed deep regret and
refused to allow the transgressor to claim the identity ever again. Brent, a
serious and outspoken twenty-two-year-old vegan, said, ''It's frustrating to
see people who you think are your friends make such heavy decisions with-
out consulting you .... It's not a betrayal like turning around. It's just that
you feel abandoned .... It's demoralizing." Kate, a twenty-two-year-old
activist, explained her frustration with sellouts:

It was hard for me at first because I think when people do that it takes away
the power of sXe. When people are like, "I'm sXe" and then the next day
theY're not. It-not delegitimizes completely-in away it takes away some of
the legitimacy of the movement .... It definitely upset me a little bit. How can
you go from claiming sXe one day and the next day just forget about it com~
pletely? That was the main thing, I just didn't understand it.

When particularly outspoken or well-known members of the scene sold out,

sXers spoke as if another hero had fallen. A vety small minority of individuals
did base their friendships on adherence to the movement and almost practiced
"shunning," the religious equivalent of casting someone out. It was this type
of action, despite its rarity, that contributed to outsiders' conceptions of sXe
as a judgmental, dogmatic group. Straight edge youth were less likely to social-
ize regularly with people who used simply because of the incompatibility of the
lifestyles. Straight edgers rarely openly criticized friends who had sold out, but
during interviews participants expressed to me a deeper frustration and sense
of betrayal than they would ever publicly show.
Appendix E: An Ethnography 32 J

Reserving Sex for Caring Relationships

Reserving sex for caring relationships was an extension of the positive, clean
lifestyle. Straight edgers viewed casual sex as yet another downfall of domi-
nant society, their counterparts in,other youth subcultures, and their more
mainstream peers. It carried the possibility of sexually transmitted diseases
and feelings of degradation and shame. Whereas hippies viewed liberated sex
as revolutionary, punks saw it as just another pleasure, and skinheads val-
ued sex as a supreme expression of masculinity, sXers saw abstinence from
"promiscuous" sex as a powerful form of resistance. Rejecting the casual-
ness of many youth sexual encounters, they believed that sexual relation-
ships entailed much more than physical pleasure. They were particularly
critical of their image of the "predatory," insatiable male, searching for sex
wherever he could get it. Kent, a twenty-one-year-old university student with
'several colorfnl tattoos, said, "My personal views have to do with self-
respect, with knowing that I'm going to make love with someone I'm really
into, not a piece of meat." Kyle, a twenty-three-year-old senior architecture
major at Clearweather University, said, "For me personally, I won't sleep
around with a bunch of people just for health's sake. A good positive influ-
ence. [Sex] doesn't mean anything if you don't care about a person." Waiter,
the university student, said,

For me it's just choosing how I want to treat my body. It's not something I'm
just going to throw around. I'm not going to smoke or use drugs. My body is
something that I honor. It's something we should respect. I think sex, if you're
gonna do it you should do it, but you shouldn't throw your body around and
do it with as many people as you want. If you love your body so much as to
not do those things to your body you should have enough respect to treat
women and sex how they deserve to be treated.

Though sXe values regarding sexuality appeared conservative when

compared to many other youth subcultures, sXers were neither antisex
nor homophobic as a group. Premarital sex was not wrong or "dirty" in the
sense of some traditional religious views, and numerous sXers and sXe
bands took a strong stance against homophobia." Sex could be a positive
element of a caring relationship. Believing that sex entailed power and emo-
tional vulnerability, sXers strove to minimize potentially negative experi-
ences by rejecting casual sex. Kevin, a twenty-seven-year-old martial artist
who had dropped out of high school, said,

To this day I'm by no means celibate; however ... in the last eight years I've
had sex with three girls. I'm not celibate by any means but I also don!r believe
322 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

in fuckin' bullshit meaningless sex. So those tenets kind of took place -in my life
even though I didn't take it to the actual celibacy extreme .... It should be on
an emotional level. It's an addiction like everything else. My first understaqd-
ing of sXe was to not be addicted.

There was no direct religious basis for sXe views on sex. In fact, many of
the sXers I associated with grew up with no formal religious involvement,
and almost none of them were presently involved in formal religion. While
a fewsXers connected their sXe and Christian identities, the group advocated
no form of religion, and most adherents were deeply suspicious or critical of
organized faiths.
Most sXers also believed that objectifying women Was pervasive and
wrong, rejecting the stereotypical image of high school males. A local sXe
band (five male members) decried sexual abuse and rape: "This song is the
most important song we play. It's about the millions of women who have
suffered rape. One out of four women will be the victim of a sexual assault
in her lifetime. We've got to make it stop." The movement's "rule" against
promiscuous sex was more difficult for members to enforce, and thus there
was greater variation in belief regarding sex than substance use. Several of
my participants, both males and females aged twenty-one to twenty-three,
had consciously decided to postpone sex because they had not found some-
one with whom they felt an intimate emotional attachment. Most of the
young women believed not drinking reduced their risk of being sexually
assaulted or otherwise put in a compromising situation. Jenny, an eighteen-
year-old college freshman and activist, said,

Like I said, it's all about control over your own body, over your own life. It's
about reclaiming, claiming your dignity and self-respect. Saying I'm not going
to put this stuff into my body. I'm not going to have you inside of my body if
I don't want you in there. It all just very much ties together. I like sXe because
it allows me to make very rational, intelligent decisions. That's one of the deci-
sions I think it's really important to think through very carefully. I'm not
against premarital sex at alL But personally, I've got to be in love.

Some adherents insisted that sex should be reserved for married couples,
while a few believed sXe placed no strictures on sexual activity. Only one
young man with relatively little connection to the Clearweather scene had
a reputation as a "player." A minority of sXe men were little different than
the hypermasculine stereotype they sought to reject. Most insisted that sex
between strangers or near strangers was potentially destructive, emotionally
and possibly physically, and that positivity demanded that sex should be part
of an emotional relationship based on trust.
Appendix E: An Ethnography 323

Self-Realization

Like members of other subcultures, sXers sought to create and express a

"true" or "authentic" identity amid a world that they felt encouraged con-
formity and mediocrity. Straight edgers claimed that resisting social stan-
dards and expectations allowed them to follow their own, more meaningful
path in life toward greater self-realization. Like punks, they abhorred con-
formity and insisted on being "true to themselves." Similar to hippies, sXers
believed that as children we have incredible potential that is "slowly crushed
and destroyed by a standardized society and mechanical teaching" (Berger
1967, 19). Subcultures, like social movements, engage in conflict over cul-
tural reproduction, social integration, and socialization; they are often espe-
cially concerned with quality of life, self-realization, and identity formation
(Habermas 1984-87; Buechler 1995). Straight edgers believed toxins such as
. drugs and alcohol inhibited people from reaching their full potential. This
view sharply contrasted with the hip version of self-realization through dope
(Davis 1968). For sXers, drugs of any kind inhibited rather than enabled
self-discovery; they believed people were less genuine and true to themselves
while high. A clear, focused mind helped sXers achieve their highest goals.
Kate, the activist, said, "If you have a clear mind you're more likely to
be aware of who you are aud what things around you really are rather
than what somebody might want you to think they are. A little bit more of
an honest life, being true to yourself." Elizabeth, a twenty-six-year·old with
an advanced degree who had been sXe and vegetarian for many years, said,

You're not screwed up on drugs and alcohol and you can make conscientious
decisions about things. You're not letting some drug or alcohol subdue your
emotions and thoughts. You're not desensitizing yourself to your life. And if
you're not desensitizing your life, then yeah, you're gonna feel more things.
The more you feel, the more you move, the more that you grow .... I truly
believe [sXersJ are living and feeling and growing, and it's all natural growth.
It's not put off. That's a unique characteristic.

Like adherents of previous subculrures, sXers constructed a view of the

world as mediocre and unfulfilling, believing society encouraged people to
medicate themselves with crutches such as drugs, alcohol, and sex to forget
their unhappiness. Straight edgers felt the punks', skinheads', and hippies'
associations with these things blunted their opportunities to offer meaning-
ful resistance. Substances and social pressures clouded clear thought and
individual expression. Claiming that many people used substances as a
means to escape their problems, the movement encouraged members to
324 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

avoid escapism, confront problems with a clear mind, and create their own
positive, fulfilling lives. Brent emphatically insisted that self-realization did
not require drugs:

There are ways to open your mind without drinking and smoking .... You
definitely don't have to take mushrooms and sit out in the desert to have a spir-
itual awakening or a catharsis of any sort. People don't accept that. People
think you're uptight .... There is a spiritual absence in the world I know right
now, in America. To be money driven is the goal. It's one of the emptiest, leas!
fulfilling ways to live your life .... The way people relieve themselves of the
burdens of their spiritual emptiness is through drugs and alcohol. The way
people see escape is sometimes even through a shorter Hfespan,. through smok-
ing. To be sXe and to understand and believe that means you have opened the
door for yourself to find out why we're really on this earth, or what I want to
get out of a relationship with a person, or what I want my kids to think of me
down the line.

Straight edgers rarely spoke openly about self-realization, and they would
likely scoff at anything that suggested mysticism or enlightenment (which
they would connect to hippies and therefore drugs). Nevertheless, for many,
underlying the ideology was an almost spiritual quest for a genuine self, a
"truth." Some connected sXe to other identities: "queer edge," feminism,
and activism, for example. For others, sXe offered a means of overcoming
abusive family experiences. Mark, a quiet sixteen-year-old new to the scene,
claimed sXe as a protest: "Straight edge to me, yeah, it's a commitment to
myself, but to me it's also a protest. I don't want to give my kids the same
life I had from my father."

Spreading the Message

Straight edge efforts at resistance transcended members' simple abstention.
Straight edgers often actively encouraged other young people to become
drug and alcohol free. Some hippies believed their "ultimate social mission
is to 'turn the world on'-i.e. Make everyone aware of the potential virtues
of LSD for ushering in an era of universal peace, freedom, brotherhood and
love" (Davis 1968, 157). Likewise, many sXers undertook a mission to con-
vince their peers that resisting drugs, rather than using them, would help cre-
ate a better world. A minority of sXers, labeled "militant" or "hardline" by
other sXers, were very outspoken, donning Xs and sXe messages at nearly
all times and confronting their peers who used. While sXe promoted indi-
viduality and clear, free thought, for some adherents the rigid lifestyle
Appendix E: An Ethnography 325

requirements created conformity, close-mindedness, and intolerance, a far

cry from the "positivity" the movement promulgated. There was an ongoing
tension within the movement over how much members should promote their
lifestyle. At one extreme was the "live and let live" faction- individuals
should make their own choices, and sXers have no right to infringe on that
choice. At the other end was the more militant branch, often composed of
new adherents, who believed sXers' duty lay in showing users the possibili-
ties of a drug-free lifestyle. Most sXers maintained that their example was
enough. Jenny, the student-activist, said,

I wanna show people there's a community out there that it doesn't make you
a fucking dork to be sXe. There are other people out there who are really,
really into it. There's a whole group of people you can belong to. You don't
have to belong to just them obviously. I just think it can be a really positive
thing for people. I go to a dorm where you walk down every fucking hall and
the smell of pot knocks you upside the head. I just think that in that case it's
really important to get your message out there .... I think the best political,
social, personal statement ypu can make is to live by example. That's definitely
what I try to do. .

Cory, an artist and veteran of the scene at age twenty-one, explained why
sXers should set an example for others:

It's all about calling yourself straight edge. You could be drug free and you can
not drink and not smoke and go to parties and do whatever, but you're no.t
helping out. There's a pendulum in society and it's tilted one way so far, and
sitting in the middle of the pendulum isn't going to help it swing back. There
needs to be more straight edgers on the other side to help even it out, at the
least.

Thus, while adherents maintained that sXe was a personal lifestyle choice
rather than a movement directed toward others, many members "wore their
politics on their sleeves" in a not-so-subtle attempt to encourage others to fol-
low their path. Wearing a shirt with an sXe message may be a personal styl-
istic decision, but when an entire group of people wears such shirts that so
clearly defy the norm, style has the potential to become collective challenge.
Straight edge resistance also targeted the corporate interests of alcohol
and tobacco, which adherents claimed profit from people's addictions and
suffering. Kate, who clearly connected sXe with her activism, said, "By
rejecting Miller Lite and Coors, they have less control over me and my life
because I'm not giving them my money; I'm not supporting them." Brent,
the outspoken vegan, said,
326 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Each individual in society is connected to one another. When you hurt your~
self, you're hurting your society. You're leading by example; your kids will see
what you're doing and they'll pick it up .... Resisting temptation, resisting
what's thrown at you day after day, by your peers, by your parents, by their
generation, by businesspeople, by what's hip and cool on MTV. Resistance is
huge. That's why sXe is a movement .... It's all connected: resisting drugs,
resisting rampant consumerism, resisting voting Democrat when you can vote
third party.

By focusing their message at their families, subcultural peers, mainstream

youth, and the larger society, sXe created a multilayered resistance that indi-
viduals could customize to their own interests.

Involvement in Social Change

Like members of the other subcultures, sXers often became involved in a
variety of social causes. The sXe youth with whom I associated insisted that
working for social change was not a prerequisite of sXe. Indeed, only a few
belonged to the substantial activist community in our city. However, many
viewed involvement in social change as a logical progression from clean liv-
ing that led them to embrace progressive concerns and become directly
involved at some level. Clean living and positivity led to clear thinking,
which in turn created a desire to resist and self-realize. This entire process
opened them up to the world's problems, and their concerns grew." Tim,
twenty-seven, the singer of a very popular sXe band, explained,

The reasoning behind [sXe] is to have a clear mind and to use that clear mind
to reach out to other people and do what you can to start thinking about fair~
ness, thinking about how to make things more just in society and the world as
a whole .... It's about freedom. It's about using that freedom rhat clarity of
mind that we have as a vehicle for progression, to make ourselves more peace-
ful people. And by making ourselves more peaceful people we make the world
a more just place. (Sersen 1999)

Jenny considered sXe central to her activism:

I think every element of my life philosophy is very much interconnected. They

all Sort of fit together like a puzzle piece. The connection I make between sXe
and political activism is sort of that whole attitude like you see something
wrong, fix it. I don't like the things that drugs and drinking bring about in
society so I fix it by fixing myself. When I see other problems in society as well,
I have the same drive to fix it by doing everything that I can do. It's all about
Appendix E: An Ethnography 327

claiming power, saying, "All right, I'm in charge of my life. I can do as much
good as I want to do."

Kevin, the martial artist, believed that sXe was fundamentally about
becoming a strong person in every aspect of life. Strength included rejecting
stereotypes and prejudices:

Technically, according to the "rules," you can be homophobic and racist and
fuckin' sexist and shit like that and still technically be sXe. You're not drink-
ing; you're not smoking; you're not doing drugs. But I don't personally, on
a personal level, I wouldn't consider that person sXe. Because they're weak.
I don't think you can be sXe and weak.

Again contrasting against the hippies, punks, and skinheads, for sXers, a
clear, drug-free mind was pivotal to developing a consciousness of resis-
tance. The movement provided a general opening up or expansion of social
awareness. Kent, the rather quiet young man with many tattoos, said, "I
would never have even cOIlsidered being vegetarian or vegan if it wasn't for
sXe. Once you go sXe, I don't reaily think you're supposed to stop there. It's
supposed to open you up to more possibilities .... It just makes me think
differently. It makes you not so complacent."
In the mid-1980s to late 1980s, sXe became increasingly concerned with
animal rights and environmental causes. Inf1uentialleaders in bands called for
an end to cruelty against animals and a general awareness of eco-destruction.
At least three out of four sXers were vegetarian, and many adopted com-
pletely cruelty-free, or vegan, lifestyles. Among the approximately sixty
sXers I associated with regularly, only fifteen ate meat. Several individuals
had "vegan" tattooed on their bodies. Others led or actively participated in
a campus animal defense organization. Essentially; the movement framed
(see Snow, Rochford, Worden, and Benford 1986) animal rights as a logical
extension of the positivity frame underpinning the entire lifestyle, much
like reserving sex for caring relationships and self-realization. Brian, an
extremely positive and fun-loving twenty-one-year-old, explained vegetari-
anism's connection to sXe: "sXe kids open their minds a lot more. They're
more conscious of what's around them .... Some people think it's healthier
and other people like me are more on the animal liberation thing."
Elizabeth, the older veteran, said,

If you are conscientious and care about the environment or the world, which
perhaps more sXe people are than your average population, then [animal
rights isJ just going to be a factor. You're going to consider "How can I make
the world a better place?" Well, being vegetarian is another place you can
328 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

start.... I'm glad it's usually a part of the sXe scene because it just goes along
with awareness and choices. What kind of things are you doing to yourself and
how is that impacting the world and the environment? The big corporate~
owned beef lots and cutting down the rainforests ... the most impactful thing
you can do for the environment is to Stop eating meat.

Some sXe youth involved themselves in social justice causes such as home-
lessness, human rights, and women's rights. They organized benefit concerts
to raise money for local homeless shelters, and often the price of admission
to shows included a canned good for the local food pantry or a donation to
a women's shelter. I observed several sXers participating in local protests
against the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in conjunction
with the large 1999-2000 protests in Seattle and Washington, D.e., and
others took part in a campus antisweatshop campaign. Similar to progres-
sive punks, some sXe youth printed 'zines on prisoners' rights, fighting
neo-Nazism, challenging police brutality, and various human rights and
environmental issues.
Many sXe women disdained more traditional female roles and appreci-
ated the scene as a space in which they felt less pressure to live up to gender
expectations, and the movement encouraged men to reject certain hyper-
masculine traits and challenge sexism on a personal level. A majority of
bands wrote songs against sexism, and many young sXe men demonstrated
an exceptional understanding of gender oppression given their ages and
experiences. However, despite the movement's claims of communiry and
inclnsivity, some sXe women felt isolated and unwelcome in the scene. Men
significantly outnumbered women, often creating a "boys club" mentaliry
exemplified by the masculine call for "brotherhood." The almost complete
lack of female musicians in bands, the hypermasculine dancing at shows,
and the male cliques reinforced the movement's own unspoken gender
assumptions that women were not as important to the scene as men and
ensured that many women would never feel completely at home.
While some sXers joined animal rights, women's rights, environmental,
and other groups, most strove to live out their values in everyday life rather
than engage in more conventional "political" protest (e.g., picketing, civil
disobedience, petitioning). Instead of challenging tobacco, beer, or beef com-
panies directly, for example, a sXer refuses their products and might boycott
Kraft (parent company of cigarette manufacturer Phillip Morris), adopt a
vegetarian lifesryle, or wear a shirt to school reading "It's OK not to drink.
Straight Edge" or "Go Vegan!" In sXe and other youth movements, the per-
sonal Was political. Subcultures are themselves politically meaningful, and
they often serve as a bridge to further political involvement.
Appendix E: An Ethnography 329

Conclusion
Straight edgers' understandings of the group's core values show that resis-
tance is much more complex than a stylistic reaction to mainstream culture.
I conclude by discussing an analytical framework for understanding the indi-
vidual and collective meanings, m~ltiple sites, and personal and political
methods of resistance of any subculture.
Members of youth subcultures construct both individualized and collec-
tive meanings for their participation. Participants may hold individualized
meanings that are not central to the group's ideology while simultaneously
maintaining collective understandings of the subculture's significance.
Widdicombe and Wooffitt (1995), for example, found that "punk may be
constituted both through shared goals, values and so on, and through indi-
vidual members" (p. 204). Subcultures help define "who I am" during the
uncertainty of coming of age (p. 25). They offer a space for experimentation
and a place to wrestle with questions about the world, creating a "home"
for identity in a modern era when personal identity suffers a homelessness
brought about by the forces of modernity (Melucci 1989; Giddens 1991).
Thus, at the individual level, resistance entails staking out an individual iden-
tity and asserting subjectivity in an adversarial context. In addition, for most
participants, individualized resistance is symbolic of a larger collective oppo-
sitional consciousness. The collective meanings central to the sXe identity
included defying the stereotypical "jock" image, setting a collective example
for other youth, supporting a drug-free social setting, and avoiding society's
"poisons" that dull the mind. Youth claimed the sXe label rather than
simply remaining "drug free" specifically because they believed their indi-
vidual choices would add up to a collective challenge. Here, resistance
involves collectively showing disapproval for some aspect of culture, ques-
tioning dominant goals, making an invisible ideology visible, and creating an
alternative.
Members of youth subcultures understand their resistance at the macro,
meso, and micro levels.14 Past theorizing on resistance has privileged main-
stream hegemonic adult culture, the class structure, or the state as the macro-
level target of subcultural resistance (Hall 1972). Indeed, sXers rejected
aspects of a culture they believed marketed alcohol and tobacco products to
youth, established alcohol use as the norm, promoted conformity, and glo-
rified casual sexual encounters. In addition to challenging culture at the
macro level, youth movements offer resistance at the meso level. Straight
edgers focused much, if not most, of their message toward their fellow
youth, reacting against mainstream youth and perceived contradictions in
other subcultures. Overall, sXe illustrates that subcultures form in reaction
330 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

to other subcultures as well as the larger social structure. Members resisted

what they saw as youth culture's fixation on substance use and sex; punks'
"no future') and nihilistic tendencies; skinheads' patriotism, sexism, and
working-class ideology, as well as some members' racism; and hippies' drug
use, passivity, and escapism-believing that these undermine the resistance
potential each of these groups share. However, despite its insistence on coun-
tering counterculture, sXe co-opted many values of the previous youth
movements, clearly owing its "question everything" mentality and. aggres-
sive music to punk, its intimation of self-realization and cultural challenge to
hippies, and its clean-cut image, personal accountability, and sense of pride
to skinheads. Analyzing youth movements at the meso level in terms of their
relationship to other youth cultures is vital to an accurate ~nderstanding of
these groups, as is recognizing the identity battles within the group. Youth
reflexively examine their own groups and often attempt to resolve intra-
group contradicrions. Leblanc (1999, 160) noted, for example, that female
punks "subvert the punks' subversion" just as some sXers resisted militant
"tough guys" within their scene. All youth movements share disdain for the
mainstream; how they express their contempt and challenge existing struc-
tures depends in large part on current and previous youth subcultures that
often become meso-Ievel targets for change. No doubt the contradictions in
sXe will provoke new innovations both within sXe and from other subcul-
tures seeking to transcend sXe's limitations.
Finally, sXers also reported resistance at the micro level as they rejected
the substance abuse within their families and made changes in their individ-
uallives. Many sXers claimed that they abstained from drugs and alcohol at
least in part in defiance of family members' substance abuse or their own
addictive tendencies. Clearly, meanings of subcultural involvement extend
beyond contradictions in adult culture and the class structure.
Furthermore, sXe demonstrated that subcultures use many methods of
resistance, both personal and political. Distrustful of political challenges and
organized social activism, subcultures often embody a more individualistic
opposition. Many sXers did seek to change youth culture, but their primary
methods were very personal: leading by example, personally living the
changes they sought, expressing a personal style, and creating a space to be
"free" from their perceived constraints of peer pressure and conformity to
mainstream culture." As Widdicombe and Wooffitt (1995) noted in their
study of punk identity, "We observed in particular that these oppositional
narratives do not invoke radical activities or public displays of resistance;
rather, they are fashioned around the routine, the personal and the every-
day" (p. 204). Everyday resistance has political consequences (Scott 1985),
and (collective) resistance and (individual) authenticity/realization are not
Appendix E: An Ethnography 331

mutually exclusive (Muggleton 2000). Buechler (1999, 151) wrote, "In the
case 'of life politics, the politicized self and the self-actualizing self become
one and the same. The microphysics of power also points to identity as the
battleground in contemporary forms of resistance" (see also Giddens 1991).
Though focused on personal methods of resistance, sXers understood
their involvement in political terms as well.1' Their abstinence from drugs,
alcohol, and casual sex was an essential component of a broader resistance
to dominant society and mainstream youth culture. As Buechler (1999)
pointed out, "Although this form of politics originates on the microlevel of
personal identity, its effects are not likely to remain confined to this level"
(p. 150). The movement engages in what Giddens (1991, 214-15) called "life
politics"-a "politics of choice," a "politics of lifestyle," a "politics of self-
actualization," and a "politics of life decisions." Through their individual
actions, sXers seek a "remoralizing of social life" (Buechler 1999, 150). For
example, becoming a vegetarian or vegan may be an individualistic dietary
choice, but when a subculture does so and advocates their choice, it opens
up possibilities for other youth. As Leblanc (1999) noted, the intent to influ-
ence others is an important component of resistance: "Accounts of resistance
must detail not only resistant acts, but the subjective intent motivating these
as well. ... Such resistance includes not only behaviors, but discursive and
symbolic acts" (p. 18).
Looking at resistance thrbugh the lens of meanings, sites, and methods
forces us to reexamine the ~'success" of subcultural resistance. Analyzing
sXe's core values shows that members' understandings of resistance are
many layered and contextual. The issue of resistance goes beyond whether a
subculture resists dominant culture to how members construct resistance in
particular situations and contexts. Certainly, sXe, like other subcultures, has
illusory tendencies; the movement's contradictions include its antisexist yet
male-centered ideology. However, examining sXe with the framework I sug-
gest shows that involvement has real consequences for the lives of its
members, other peer groups, and possibly mainstream society. Personal real-
ization and social transformation are not mutually exclusive (Calhoun
1994). Although sXe has not created a revolution in either youth or main-
stream culture, it has for more than twenty years, however, provided a haven
for youth to contest these cultures and create alternatives.

Notes
1. Straight edgers abbreviate straight edge as sXe. The 5 and the e stand for
straight edge, and the X is the straight edge symbol.
332 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

2. Hardcore is a more aggressive, faster style of punk. Though punk and hard-
core overlap, in the 19905 the two scenes increasingly became distinct. While pres-
ent in both scenes, sXe is considerably more prevalent in the hardcore scene. The
hardcore style is more clean-cut than punk.
3. Punks and sXers draw a sharp distinction between "shows" and "concerts."
Shows attract a much smaller crowd, are less expensive, feature underground bands,
often showcase local bands, and are set up by local kids in the scene at little or no
profit. Concerts are large, commercialized, for-profit ventures typically featuring
more mainstream bands.
4. Straight edge individuals never refer to themselves as straight edgers and
find the term quite funny. It likely comes from media portrayals of the group.
Adherents call themselves sXe "kids," no matter their ages. I use straight edger in
this article simply for ease of communication.
S. See Muggleton (2000) for a discussion on the importance of grounding any
subcultural analysis in members' subjective experiences.
6. I encountered one antiracist skinhead who also claimed to be sXe. He even-
tually dropped out of both groups, however. An older Latino sXer I knew, a veteran
of the scene, claimed he was a skinhead many years ago.
7, Individuals or small groups produce 'zines filled with artwork, stories,
record and concert reviews, band interviews, and columns on everything from police
brutality and animal rights to homelessness and freeing journalist and former Black
Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal from prison. 'Zines, like concerts, are generally DIY;
that is, kids create them at home, distribute them, and rarely make any money off
of them (in fact, 'zines often cost the producers a great deal of money),
8. Movements often appropriate and modify their oppressors' symbols. The
gay and lesbian liberation movement changed the pink triangle from a Nazi death
camp label for homosexuals into a symbol for unity and pride, The American Indian
movement turned the American flag upside down to demonstrate its disgust with the
V.S. government,
9. The community in Clearweather was very tight knit. In addition to shows,
frequent potlucks, movie nights, parties, hanging out at popular campus locations,
involvement in local animal rights activism, and even the occasional sleepover kept
members in regular contact. Many sXe youth lived together, With the advent of
e-mail and the Internet, sXe. kids communicated via a virtual community around the
country and sometimes the globe,
10. Veganism had become such a significant part of sXe by the late 1990s that
many sXers gave it equal importance to living drug and alcohol free. Thus, many
sXe vegans would self-identify as "vegan straight edge,» and some bands identify
as "vegan straight edge" rather than simply "straight edge," Veganism, while still
widely practiced, had a declining presence after 2000,
11, All names are pseudonyms.
12. The popular bands Earth Crisis, Outspoken, and Good Clean Fun encout-
aged listeners to challenge homophobia. At one time, there was even a Web site ded-
icated to "Queer Edge."
Appendix E: An Ethnography 333

13. Earth Crisis, one of the most popular sXe bands, sings, "An effective revo~
lution'ary, with the clarity of mind that I've attained."
14. Leblanc's (1999) work with punk girls illustrates multiple sites of resistance
to hegemonic gender constructions. At the macro level, these young women resist
society's dominant constructions of femininity; at the meso level, they resist gender
roles in punk; and at the micro level, they challenge gender constructions in their
families and focus on personal empowerment and self-esteem.
15. Leblanc (1999, 17) wrote, "Whereas subculture theorists conceptualize
resistance as 'stylistic, and feminist theorists consider discursive accounts, recent crit-
ics of resistance theorizing have begun to examine the behavioral forms of resistance
constructed by oppressed individuals in their everyday lives."
16. "To an increasing degree, problems of individual identity and collective
action become meshed together: the solidarity of the group is inseparable from the
personal quest" (Melucci 1996, 115).

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Appendix F
A Case Study

Campus Response to a Student Gunman

Kelly J. Asmussen

John W. Creswell

W ith increasingly frequent incidents of campus violence, a small, grow-

ing scholarly literature about the subject is emerging. For instance,
authors have reported on racial [12J, courtship and sexually coercive [3,
7, 8J, and hazing violence [24J. For the American College Personnel
Association, Roark [24J and Roark and Roark [25J reviewed the forms of
physical, sexual, and psychological violence on college campuses and sug-
gested guidelines for prevention strategies. Roark [23J has also suggested cri-
teria that high-school students might use to assess the level of violence on
college campuses they seek to attend. At the national level, President Bush,
in November 1989, signed into law the "Student Right-ta-Know and
Campus Security Act" (P.L 101-542), which requires colleges and universi-
ties to make available to students, employees, and applicants an annual
report on security policies and campus crime statistics [13J.
One form of escalating campus violence that has received little attention
is student gun violence. Recent campus reports indicate that violent crimes
from thefts and burglaries to assaults and homicides are on the rise at

SOURCE: The material in this appendix is reprinted from the Journal of Higher
Education, 66, 575-591. Copyright 1995, the Ohio State University Press. Used by
permission.

337
338 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

colleges and universities [13]. College campuses have been shocked by

killings such as those at The University of Iowa [16], The University of
Florida [13], Concordia University in Montreal, and the University of
Montreal-Ecole Poly technique [22]. Incidents such as these raise critical con-
cerns, such as psychological trauma, campus safety, and disruption of cam-
pus life. Aside from an occasional newspaper report, the postsecondary
literature is silent on campus reactions to these tragedies; to understand them
one must turn to studies about gun violence in the public school literature.
This literature addresses strategies for school intervention [21, 23], provides
case studies of incidents in individual schools [6, 14, 15], and discusses the
problem of students who carry weapons to school [1] and the psychological
trauma that results from homicides [32].
A need exists to study campus reactions to violence in order to build con-
ceptual models for future study as well as to identify campus strategies and pro-
tocols for reaction. We need to understand better the psychological dimensions
and organizational issnes of constituents involved in and affected by these inci-
dents. An in-depth qualitative case study exploring the context of an incident
can illuminate such conceptual and pragmatic understandings. The study pre-
sented in this article is a qualitative case analysis [31] that describes and inter-
prets a campus response to a gun incident. We asked the following exploratory
research questions: What happened? Who was involved in response to the inci-
dent? What themes of response emerged during the eight-month period that
followed this incident? What theoretical constructs helped us understand the
campus response, and what constructs were unique to this case?

The Incident and Response

The incident occurred on the campus of a large public university in a
Midwestern city. A decade ago, this city had been designated an "all-
American city," but more recently, its normally tranquil environment has
been disturbed by an increasing number of assaults and homicides. Some of
these violent incidents have involved students at the university.
The incident that provoked this study occurred on a Monday in October.
A forty-three-year-old graduate student, enrolled in a senior-level actuarial
science class, arrived a few minutes before class, armed with a vintage
Korean War military semiautomatic rifle loaded with a thirty-round clip
of thirty caliber ammunition. He carried another thirty-round clip in his
pocket. Twenty of the thirty-four students in the class had already gathered
for class, and most of them were quietly reading the student newspaper. The
instructor was en route to class.
Appendix F: A Case Study 339

The gunman pointed the rifle at the students, swept it across the room,
and pulled the trigger. The gun jammed. Tryingto unlock the rifle, he hit the
butt of it on the instructor's desk and quickly tried firing it again. Again it
did not fire. By this time, most students realized what was happening and
dropped to the floor, overturned their desks, and tried to hide behind them.
at
After about twenty seconds, one the students shoved a desk into the gun-
man, and students ran past him out into the hall and out of the building. The
gunman hastily departed the room and went out of the building to his
parked car, which he had left running. He was captured by police within the
hour in a nearby small town, where he lived. Although he remains incarcer-
ated at this time, awaiting trial, the motivations for his actions are unknown.
Campus police and campus administrators were the first to react to the
incident. Campus police arrived within three minutes after they had received
a telephone call for help. They spent several anxious minutes outside the
building interviewing students to obtain an accurate description of the gun-
man. Campus administrators responded by calling a news conference for
4:00 P.M. the same day, approximately four hours after the incident. The
police chief as well as the vice-chancellor of Student Affairs and two students
described the incident at the news conference. That same afternoon, the
Student Affairs office contacted Student Health and Employee Assistance
Program (EAP) counselors and instructed them to be available for any
students or staff requesting assistance. The Student Affairs office also
arranged for a new location, where this class could meet for the rest of the
semester. The Office of Judicial Affairs suspended the gunman from the uni-
versity. The next day, the incident was discussed by campus administrators
at a regularly scheduled campuswide cabinet meeting. Throughout the week,
Student Affairs received several calls from students and from a faculty
member about "disturbed" students or unsettling student relations. A coun-
selor of the Employee Assistance Program consulted a psychologist with a
specialty in dealing with trauma and responding to educational crises. Only
one student immediately set up an appointment with the student health
counselors. The campus and local newspapers continued to carry stories
about the incident.
When the actuarial science class met for regularly scheduled classes two
and four days later, the students and the instructor were visited by two
county attorneys, the police chief, and two student mental health counselors
who conducted "debriefing" sessions. These sessions focused on keeping
students fully informed about the judicial process and having the students
and the instructor, one by one, talk about their experiences and explore their
feelings about the incident. By one week after the incident, the students in
the class had returned to their standard class format. During this time, a few
340 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

students, women who were concerned about violence in general, saw

Student Health Center counselors. These counselors also fielded questions
from several dozen parents who inquired about the counseling services and
the level of safety on campus. Some parents also called the campus adminis-
tration to ask about safety procedures.
In the weeks following the incident, the faculty and staff campus newslet-
ter carried articles about post-trauma fears and psychological trauma. The
campus administration wrote a letter that provided facts about the incident
to the board of the university. The administration also mailed campus staff
and students information about crime prevention. At least one college dean·
sent out a memo to staff about "aberrant student behavior," and one aca-
demic department chair requested and held an educational group session
with counselors and staff on identifying and dealing with "aberrant behav-
ior" of students.
Three distinctly different staff groups sought counseling services at the
Employee Assistance Program, a program for faculty and staff, during the
next several weeks. The first group had had some direct involvement with
the assailant, either by seeing him the day of the gun incident or because they
had known him personally. This group was ,oncerned about securing pro-
fessional help, either for the students or for those in the group who were per-
sonally experiencing effects of the trauma. The second group consisted of the
"silent connection," individuals who were indirectly involved and yet emo-
tionally traumatized. This group recognized that their fears were a result of
the gunman incident, and they wanted to deal with these fears before they
escalated. The third group consisted of staff who had previously experienced
a trauma, and this incident had retriggered their fears. Several employees
were seen by the EAP throughout the next month, but no new groups or
delayed stress cases were reported. The EAP counselors stated that each
group's reactions were normal responses. Within a month, although public
discussion of the incident had subsided, the EAP and Student Health coun-
selors began expressing the need for a coordinated campus plan to deal with
the current as well as any future violent incidents.

The Research Study

We began our study two days after the incident. Our first step was to draft
a research protocol for approval by the university administration and the
Institutional Review Board. We made explicit that we would not become
involved in the investigation of the gunman or in the therapy to students or
staff who had sought assistance from counselors. We also limited our study
Appendix F: A Case Study 341

to the reactions of groups on campus rather than expand it to include off-

camp';s groups (for example, television and ~ewspaper coverage). This
bounding of the study was consistent with an exploratory qualitative case
study design [31], which was chosen because models and variables were not
available for assessing a campus reaction to a gun incident in higher educa-
tion. In the constructionist tradition, this study incorporated the paradigm
assumptions of an emerging design, a context-dependent inquiry, and an
inductive data analysis [10]. We also bounded the study by time (eight
months) and by a single case (the campus community). Consistent with case
study design [17, 31], we identified campus administrators and student
newspaper reporters as multiple sources of information for initial interviews.
Later we expanded interviews to include a wide array of campus informants,
using a semi-structured interview protocol that consisted of five questions:
What has been your role in the incident? What has happened since the event
that you have been involved in? What has been the impact of this incident
on the university community? What larger ramifications, if any, exist from
the incident? To whom should we talk to find out more about the campus
reaction to the incident? W'e also gathered observational data, documents,
and visual materials (see table 1 for types of information and sources).
The narrative structure was a "realist" tale [28), describing details, incor-
porating edited quotes from informants, and stating our interpretations of
events, especially an interpretation within the framework of organizational
and psychological issues. We verified the description and interpretation by tak-
ing a preliminaty draft of the case to select informants for feedback and later
incorporating their comments into the final study [17, 18). We gathered this
feedback in a group interview where we asked: Is our description of the inci-
dent and the reaction accurate? Are the themes and constructs we have identi-
fied consistent with your experiences? Are there some themes and constructs
we have missed? Is a campus plan needed? If so, what form should it take?

Themes

Denial
Several weeks later we returned to the classroom where the incident
occurred. Instead of finding the desks overturned, we found them to be
neatly in order; the room was ready for a lecture or discussion class. The
hallway outside the room was narrow, and we visualized how students, on
that Monday in October, had quickly left the building, unaware that the
gunman, too, was exiting through this same passageway. Many of the
342 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

''mZ~W'' ". . ,~ ,. .~"'m,,,'=".", "'" ""=~=,.-"" ..

~ Table 1 Data Coliection Matrix: Type of Information by Source
Information/ Audio"
i Visual
,i Information
Source Interviews Observations Documents Materials
! Students involved Yes Yes
Students at large Yes
Central administration Yes Yes
,
I
Campus police Yes Yes
Faculty Yes Yes Yes
Staff Yes
Physical plant Yes Yes
I News reporters/
papers/television Yes Yes Yes

I
IT
Student health counselors
Employee Assistance
Yes

I Program counselors Yes

Trauma expert Yes Yes Yes
! Campus businesses Yes
II Board members Yes

students in the hallway during the incident had seemed unaware of what was
going on until they saw or heard that there was a gunman in the building.
Ironically though, the students had seemed to ignore or deny their danger"
ous situation. After exiting the building, instead of seeking a hiding place
that would be safe, they had huddled together just outside the building.
None of the students had barricaded themselves in classrooms or offices or
had exited at a safe distance from the scene in anticipation that the gunman
might return. "People wanted to stand their ground and stick around,"
claimed a campus police officer. Failing to respond to the potential danger,
the class members had huddled together outside the building, talking ner-
vously. A few had been openly emotional and crying. When asked about
their mood, one of the students had said, "Most of us were kidding about
it." Their conversations had led one to believe that they were dismissing the
incident as though it were trivial and as though no one had actually been in
danger. An investigating campus police officer was not surprised by the
students' behavior:
Appendix F: A Case Study 343

It is not unusual to see people standing around after one of these types of inci-
dents. The American people want to see excitement and have a morbid curios-
ity. That is why you see spectators hanging around bad accidents. They do not
seem to understand the potential danger they are in and do not want to leave
until they are injured.

This description corroborates the response reported by mental health

counselors:. an initial surrealistic first reaction. In the debriefing by coun-
selors, one female student had commented, "I thought the gunman would
shoot out a little flag that would say 'bang'." For her, the event had been like
a dream. In this atmosphere no one from the targeted class had called the
campus mental health center in the first twenty-four hours following the
incident, although they knew that services were available. Instead, students
described how they had visited with friends or had gone to bars; the sever-
ity of the situation had dawned on them later. One student commented that
he had felt fearful and angry only after he had seen the television newscast
with pictures of the classroom the evening of the incident.
Though some parents had expressed concern by phoning counselors, the
students' denial may have been reinforced by parent comments. One student
reported that his parents had made comments like, "I am not surprised you
were involved in this. You are always getting yourself into things like this!"
or "You did not get hurt. What is the big deal? Just let it drop!" One student
expressed how much more traumatized he had been as a result of his
mother's dismissal of the event. He had wanted to have someone whom he
trusted willing to sit down and listen to him.

Fear
Our visit to the classroom suggested a second theme: the response of
fear. Still posted on the door several weeks after the incident, we saw the
sign announcing that the class was being moved to another undisclosed
building and that students were to check with a secretary in an adjoin-
ing room about the new location. It was in this undisclosed classroom,
two days after the incident, that two student mental health counselors,
the campus police chief, and two county attorneys had met with students
in the class to discuss fears, reactions, and thoughts. Reactions of fear
had begun to surface in this first "debriefing" session and continued to
emerge in a second session.
The immediate fear for most students centered around the thought that
the alleged assailant would be able to make bail. Students felt that the
assailant might have hatbored resentment toward certain students and that
344 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

he would seek retribution if he made bail. "I think I am going to be afraid

when I go back to class. They can change the rooms, but there is nothing
stopping him from finding out where we are!" said one student. At the first
debriefing session the campus police chief was able to dispel some of this fear
by announcing that during the initial hearing the judge had denied bail. This
announcement helped to reassure some students about their safety. The cam-
pus police chief thought it necessary to keep the students informed of the
gunman's status, because several students had called his office to say that
they feared for their safety if the gunman were released.
During the second debriefing session, another fear surfaced: the possibil-
ity that a different assailant could attack the class. One stl)dent reacted so
severely to this potential threat that, according to one counselor, since the
October incident, "he had caught himself walking into class and sitting at a
desk with a clear shot to the door. He was beginning to see each classroom
as a 'battlefield'." In this second session students had sounded angry, they
expressed feeling violated, and finally [they1 began to admit that they felt
unsafe. Yet only one female student immediately accessed the available men-
tal health services, even though an announcement had been made that. any
student could obtain free counseling.
The fear students expressed during the "debriefing" sessions mirrored a
more general concern on campus about increasingly frequent violent acts in
the metropolitan area. Prior to this gun incident, three young females and a
male had been kidnapped and had later been found dead in a nearby city. A
university football player who experienced a psychotic episode had severely
beaten a woman. He had later suffered a relapse and was shot by police in
a scuffle. Just three weeks prior to the October gun incident, a female uni-
versity student had been abducted and brutally murdered, and several other
homicides had occurred in the city. As a student news reporter commented,
"This whole semester has been a violent one."

Safety
The violence in the city that involved university students and the subse-
quent gun incident that occurred in a campus classroom shocked the typi-
cally tranquil campus. A counselor aptly summed up the feelings of many:
"When the students walked out of that classroom, their world had become
very chaotic; it had become very random, something had happened that
robbed them of their sense of safety." Concern for safety became a central
reaction for many informants.
When the chief student affairs officer described the administration's reac-
tion to the incident, he listed the safety of students in the classroom as his pri-
mary goal, followed by the needs of the news media for details about the case,
Appendix F: A Case Study 345

helping all students with psychological stress, and providing public informa-
tion on safety. As he talked about the safery issue and the presence of guns on
campus, he mentioned that a policy was under consideration for the storage of
guns used by students for hunting. Within four hours after the incident, a press
conference was called during whicl) the press was briefed not only on the
details of the incident, but also on the need to ensure the safery of the campus.
Soon thereafter the university administration initiated an informational cam-
paign on campus safety. A letter, describing the incident, was sent to the uni-
versity board members. (One board member asked, "How could such an
incident happen at this university?") The Student Affairs Office sent a letter to
all students in which it advised them of the various dimensions of the campus
security office and of the types of services it provided. The Counseling and
Psychological Services of the Student Health Center promoted their services in
a colorful brochure, which was mailed to students in the following week. It
emphasized that services were "confidential, accessible, and professional." The
Student Judiciary Office advised academic departments on various methods of
dealing with students who exhibited abnormal behavior in class. The weekly
faculry newsletter stressed that staff needed to respond quickly to any post-
trauma fears associated with this incident. The campus newspaper quoted a
professocassaying, "I'm totally shocked that in this environment, something
like this would happen." Responding to the concerns about disruptive students
or employees, the campus police department sent plainclothes officers to sit
outside offices whenever faculry and staff indicated concerns.
An emergency phone system, Code Blue, was installed on campus only
ten days after the incident. These thirty-six ten-foot-tall emergency phones,
with bright blue flashing lights, had previously been approved, and specific
spots had already been identified from an earlier study. "The phones will be
quite an attention getter," the director of the Telecommunications Center
commented. "We hope they will also be a big detractor [to crime]." Soon
afterwards, in response to calls from concerned students, trees and shrub-
bery in poorly lit areas of campus were trimmed.
Students and parents also responded to these safery concerns. At least
twenty-five parents called the Student Health Center, the university police,
and the Student Affairs Office during the first week after the incident to
inquire what kind of services were available for their students. Many parents
had been traumatized by the news of the event and immediately demanded
answers from the university. They wanted assurances that this rype of
incident would not happen again and that their child[ren were] safe on
the campus. Undoubtedly, many parents also called their children during
the weeks immediately following the incident. The students on campus
responded to these safery concerns by forming groups of volunteers who
would escort anyone on campus, male or female, during the evening hours.
346 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Local businesses profited by exploiting the commercial aspects of the

safety needs created by this incident. Various advertisements for self-defense
classes and protection devices inundated the newspapers for several weeks.
Campus and local clubs [that] offered self-defense classes filled quickly,
and new classes were formed in response to numerous additional requests.
The campus bookstore's supply of pocket mace and whistles was quickly
depleted. The campus police received several inquiries by students who
wanted to purchase handguns to carry for protection. None [was] approved,
but One wonders whether some guns were not purchased by students any-
way. The purchase of cellular telephones from local vendors increased
sharply. Most of these purchases were made by females; however, some
males also sought out these items for their safety and protection. Not unex-
pectedly, the price of some products was raised as much as 40 percent to
capitalize on the newly created demand. Student conversations centered
around the purchase of these safety products: how much they cost, how to
use them correctly, how accessible they would be if students should need to
use them, and whether they were really necessary.

Retriggering
In our original protocol, which we designed to seek approval from the
campus administration and the Institutional Review Board, we had outlined
a study that would last only three months-a reasonable time, we thought,
for this incident to run its course. But during early interviews with coun-
selors, we were referred to a psychologist who specialized in dealing with
"trauma" in educational settings. It was this psychologist who mentioned
the theme of "retriggering." Now, eight months later, we begin to under-
stand how, through "retriggering," that October incident could have a long-
term effect on this campus.
This psychologist explained retriggering as a process by which new inci-
dents of violence would cause individuals to relive the feelings of fear, denial,
and threats to personal safety that they had experienced in connection with
the original event. The counseling staffs and violence expert also stated that
one should expect to see such feelings retriggered at a later point in time, for
example, on the anniversary date of the attack or whenever newspapers or
television broadcasts mentioned the incident again. They added that a
drawn-out judicial process, during which a case were "kept alive" through
legal maneuvering, could cause a long period of retriggering and thereby
greatly thwart the healing process. The fairness of the judgment of the court
as seen by each victim, we were told, would also influence the amount of
healing and resolution of feelings that could occur.
Appendix F: A Case Study 347

As of this writing, it is difficult to detect specific evidence of retriggering

from the October incident, but we discovered the potential consequences
of this'process firsthand by observing the effects of a nearly identical violent
gun incident that had happened some eighteen years earlier. A graduate
student carrying a rifle had entered a campus building with the iutention of
shooting the department chairman. The student was seeking revenge,
because several years earlier he had flunked a course taught by this profes-
sor. This attempted attack followed several years of Jegal maneuvers to
arrest, prosecute, and incarcerate this student, who, on more than one occa-
sion, had tried to carry out his plan but each time had been thwarted by
quick-thinking staff members who would not reveal the professor's where-
abouts. Fortunately, no shots were ever fired, and the student was finally
apprehended and arrested.
The professor who was the target of these threats on his life was seri-
ously traumatized not only during the period of these repeated incidents,
but his trauma continued even after the attacker's arrest. The complex
processes of the criminal justice system, which, he believed, did not work
as it should have, resulted in his feeling further victimized. To this day,
the feelings aroused by the original trauma are retriggered each time a gun
incident is reported in the news. He was not offered professional help
from the university at any time; the counseling services he did receive
were secured through his own initiative. Eighteen years later his entire
department is still affected in that unwritten rules for dealing with dis-
gruntled students and for protecting this particular professor's schedule
have been established.

Campus Planning
The question of campus preparedness surfaced during discussions with the
psychologist about the process of "debriefing" individuals who had been
involved in the October incident [19J. Considering how many diverse groups
and individuals had been affected by this incident, a final theme that emerged
from our data was the need for a campuswide plan. A counselor remarked,
"We would have been inundated had there been twenty-five to thirty deaths.
We need a mobilized plan of communication. It would be a wonderful addi-
tion to the campus considering the nature of today's violent world." It
became apparent during our interviews that better communication could
have occurred among the constituents who responded to this incident. Of
course, one campus police officer noted, "We can't have an officer in every
building all day long!" But the theme of being prepared across the whole
campus was mentioned by several individuals.
348 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

The lack of a formal plan to deal with such gnn incidents was surprising,
given the existence of formal written plans on campus that addressed vari-
ous other emergencies: bomb threats, chemical spills, fires, earthquakes,
explosions, electrical storms, radiation accidents, tornadoes, hazardous
material spills, snowstorms, and numerous medical emergencies. Moreover,
we found that specific campus units had their own protocols that had actu-
ally been used during the October gun incident. For example, the police had
a procedure and used that procedure for dealing with the gunman and the
students at the scene; the EAP counselors debriefed staff and faculty; the
Student Health counselors used a "debriefing" process when they visited
the students twice in the classroom following the incident. The question that
concerned us was, what would a campuswide plan consist of, and how
would it be developed and evaluated?
As shown in table 2, using evidence gathered in our case, we assembled
the basic questions to be addressed in a plan and cross-referenced these ques-
tions to the literature about post-trauma stress, campus violence, and the dis-
aster literature (for a similar list drawn from the public school literature, see
Poland and Pitcher [21]). Basic elements of a campus plan to enhance com-
munication across units should include determining what the rationale for
the plan is; who should be involved in its development; how it should be
coordinated; how it should be staffed; and what specific procedures should
be followed. These procedures might include responding to an immediate
crisis, making the campus safe, dealing with external groups, and providing
for the psychological welfare of victims.

Discussion
The themes of denial, fear, safety, retriggering, and developing a campuswide
plan might further be grouped into two categories, an organizational and a
psychological or social-psychological response of the campus community to
the gunman incident. Organizationally, the campus units responding to the
crisis exhibited both a loose coupling [30] and an interdependent communi-
cation. Issues such as leadership, communication, and authority emerged dur-
ing the case analysis. Also, an environmental response developed, because the
campus was transformed into a safer place for students and staff. The need
for centralized planning, while allowing for autonomous operation of units in
response to a crisis, called for organizational change that would require
cooperation and coordination among units.
Sherrill [27] provides models of response to campus violence that rein-
force as well as depart from the evidence in our case. As mentioned by
Sherrill, the disciplinary action taken against a perpetrator, the group
Appendix F: A Case Study 349

Table 2 Evidence From the Case, Questions for a Campus Plan, and
References
Evidence From the Case Question for the Plan References Useful

Need expressed by Why should a plan be Walker (1990);

counselors developed? Bird et al. (1991)

Multiple constitutes Who should be involved in Roark & Roark

reacting to incident developing the plan? (1987); Walker
(1990)

Leadership found in units Should the leadership for Roark & Roark
with their own protocols coordinating be identified (1987)
within one office?

Several unit prorocols Should campus units be Roark & Roark

being used in incident allowed their own (1987)
protocols?
Questions raised by What types of violence Roark (1987);
students reacting to case . should be covered in Jones (1990)
the plan?

Groups/individuals How are those likely to Walker (1990);

surfaced during our be affected by the incident Bromet (1990)
interviews to be identified?

Comments from campus What provisions are made

police, central for the immediate safety of
administration those in the incident?

Campus environment How should the physical Roark & Roark

changed after incident environment be made safer? (1987)

Comments from central How will the external Poland & Pitcher
administration publics (e.g., press, (1990)
businesses) be apprised
of the incident?
Issue raised by counselors What are the likely sequelae Bromet (1990);
and trauma specialist of psychological events Mitchell (1983)
for victims?
Issue raised by trauma What long-term impact Zelikoff (1987)
specialist will the incident have on
victims?

Procedure used by Student How will the victims Mitchell (1983);

Health Center counselors be debriefed? Walker (1990)
350 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

counseling of victims, and the use of safety education for the campus com-
munity were all factors apparent in our case. However, Sherrill raises issues
about responses that were not discussed by our informants, such as devel-
oping procedures for individuals who are first to arrive on the scene, dealing
with non-students who might be perpetrators Or victims, keeping records
and documents about incidents, varying responses based on the size and
nature of the institution, and relating incidents to substance abuse such as
drugs and alcohol.
Also, some of the issues that we had expected after reading the literature
about organizational response did not emerge. Aside from occasional news-
paper reports (focused mainly on the gunman), there was little campus
administrative response to the incident, which was contrary to what we had
expected from Roark and Roark [25], for example. No mention was made
of establishing a campus unit to manage future incidents-for example, a
campus violence resource center-reporting of violent incidents [25], or con-
ducting annual safety audits [20]. Aside from the campus police mentioning
that the State Health Department would have been prepared to send a team
of trained trauma experts to help emergency personnel cope with the
tragedy, no discussion was reported about formal linkages with community
agencies that might assist in the event of a tragedy [3]. We also did not hear
directly about establishing a "command center" [14] or a crisis coordinator
[21], two actions recommended by specialists on crisis situations.
On a psychological and social-psychological level, the campus response
was to react to the psychological needs of the students who had been directly
involved in the incident as well as to students and staff who had been indi-
rectly affected by the incident. Not only did signs of psychological issues,
such as denial, fear, and retriggering, emerge, as expected [15], gender and
cultural group issues were also mentioned, though they were not discussed
enough to be considered basic themes in our analysis. Contrary to assertions
in the literature that violent behavior is often accepted in our culture, we
found informants in our study to voice concern and fear about escalating
violence on campus and in the community.
Faculty on campus were conspicuously silent on the incident, including
the faculty senate, though we had expected this governing body to take up
the issue of aberrant student or faculty behavior in their classrooms [25].
Some informants speculated that the faculty might have been passive about
this issue because they were unconcerned, but another explanation might be
that they were passive because they were unsure of what to do or whom to
ask for assistance. From the students we failed to hear that they responded
to their post-traumatic stress with "coping" strategies, such as relaxation,
physical activity, and the establishment of normal routines [29]. Although
Appendix F: A Case Study 351

the issues of gender and race surfaced in early conversations with infor-
ma';ts, we did not find a direct discussion of these issues. As Bromet [5J com-
ments, the sociocultural needs of populations with different mores must be
considered when individuals assess reactions to trauma. In regard to the
issue of gender, we did hear that females were the first students to seek out
counseling at the Student Health Center. Perhaps our "near-miss" case was
unique. We do not know what the reaction of the campus might have been
had a death (or multiple deaths) occurred, although, according to the trauma
psychologist, "the trauma of no deaths is as great as if deaths had occurred."
Moreover, as with any exploratory case analysis, this case has limited gen-
eralizability [17], although thematic generalizability is certainly a possibility.
The fact that our information was self-reported and that we were unable to
interview all students who had been directly affected by the incident so as to
not intervene in student therapy or the investigation also poses a problem.
Despite these limitations, our research provides a detailed account of a
campus reaction to a violent incident with the potential for making a con-
tribution to the literature. Events emerged during the process of reaction that
could be "critical incidents" in future studies, such as the victim response,
media reporting, the debriefing process, campus changes, and the evolution
of a campus plan. With the scarcity of literature on campus violence related
to gun incidents, this study breaks new ground by identifying themes and
conceptual frameworks that ·could be examined in future cases. On a practi-
callevel, it can benefit campus administrators who are looking for a plan to
respond to campus violence, and it focuses attention on questions that need
to be addressed in such a plan. The large number of different groups of
people who were affected by this particular gunman incident shows the com-
plexity of responding to a campus crisis and should alert college personnel
to the need for preparedness.

Epilogue

As we conducted this study, we asked ourselves whether we would have had

access to informants if someone had been killed. This "near-miss" incident
provided a unique research opportunity, which could, however, only approx-
imate an event in which a fatality had actually occurred. Our involvement in
this study was serendipitous, for one of us had been employed by a correc-
tional facility and therefore had direct experience with guurnen such as the
individual in our case; the other was a University of Iowa graduate and thus
familiar with the setting and circumstances surrounding another violent inci-
dent there in 1992. These experiences obviously affected our assessment of this
352 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

case by drawing our attention to the campus response in the first plan and to
psychological reactions like fear and denial. At the time of this writing, cam-
pus discussions have been held abollt adapting the in-place campus emergency
preparedness plan to a critical incident management team concept. Counselors
have met to discuss coordinating the activities of different units in the event of
another incident, and the police are working with faculty members and depart-
ment staff to help identify potentially violence-prone students. We have the
impression that, as a result of this case study, campus personnel see the inter-
relatedness and the large number of units that may be involved in a single inci-
dent. The anniversaty date passed without incident or acknowledgment in the
campus newspaper. As for the gunman, he is still incarcerated awaiting trial,
and we wonder, as do some of the students he threatened, if he will seek ret-
ribution against us for writing up this case if he is released. The campus
response to the October incident continues.

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Author Index

Aanstoos, C. M., 104 Berger, B. M., 323

Adam" E. M., 305 Bernard, H. R., 145
Adler, P., 289, 315 Betz, N. E., 305
Adler, P. A., 289 Beverly, )., 55
Agar, M. H., 68, 122, 150,315 Biernacki, P., 316
Agger, B., 12,27-28,31,179 Biklen, S. K, 69, 125, 134
AlIen, S. D., 207, 208, 209 Bird, G. W., 349 (tab)
American Anthropological Bjorgo, T., 313
Association, 242 Blackman, S. )., 310
American Psychological Association. 44 Blazak, R., 310
Anderson, E. H., 85, 88, 94,108, Bloland, H. G., 25, 31, 249
160, 182, 189 Bodner, G. M., 99
Angen, M. )., 18, 203 (tab), 205, 207, Bogdan, R. c., 5, 20, 69,125,134,249
211,220 Bogdewic, S. P., 145
Angrosino, M. V., 22, 81, 85, 86, 93, 97, Borgatta, E. F., 25, 58
108,128,158,183,186-187,233,259 Borgatta, M. 1., 25, 58
Anzul, M., 11, 202, 207, 208 Boyle, T., 107
Apple, M., 32, 70 Brake, M., 310, 312, 313, 314
Appleby, R. 5., 317 Brauhn, N. E. H., 268, 280
Armstrong, D., 210, 220 Braun, B. G., 300, 301
Asmussen, K. J., 1, 13,43,92,95,109, Breitbart, W., 267
112,129,132,135, 151, 152, 154, Brickhous, N.) 99
155 (fig), 163, 181, 182, 184 (tab), Briere, J.t 286
196,197,224,225,245 Bromet, E. )., 349 (tab)
Atkinson, P., 3, 9, 69, 71, 72, 84,125,129, Brown, D. D., 27, 28, 32, 247
131,134,142,143,145,184 (tab), Brown, J., 97
192,194,243,244,247 Brown, M. L., 11, 65, 98,122,131,
161, 191,240
Banyard, V. 1., 287, 303, 304 Brown-Collins, A., 305
Barbour, R. 5., 20, 42 Buechler, S. M., 323, 331
Barlow, C. A., 98 Burbule" N. c., 20
Barritt, 1., 102 Burrell, G., 31
Bartlett, ). G., 266 Butler,1. D., 268
Bazeley, P., 167
Becker, H. 5., 316 Cairns, K. V,) 98
Benford, R. D., 327 Calhoun, c., 331

371
372 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Cameron, L., 266, 267, 280 159,161,164,166,173,174 (fig),

Campbell, D. T., 316 175,177,181,182,184 (tab), 191,
Carpenter, D. R, 267, 269 196,197,207,211,224,225,229,
Carspecken, P. F., 32, 70 234,240,245,247,249
Carter, K, 56 Crocker, J. c., 259
Casey, K., 55 Crorty, M., 19,21
Centers for Disease Control Cunningham, J. w., 31
Prevention, 266 Czarniawska, B., 9, 54, 55, 56, 81,
Charmaz, K., 3,4,9,21,54,55,63,65-66, 131,153-154,175,179,182,183,
68,83,98,128,221,238,316 184 (tab), 185, 186, 199, 221; 235
Chase, S. K., 54, 55, 203 (tab),
206, 207, 220 Daiute, c., 53-54
Cheek, J., II Davidson, F., 142
Chen, X., 268 Davis, F., 313, 323, 324
Chenitz, W. c., 83,184 (tab), 191 Daynes, J. G., 54, 57, 126,234
Cherryholmes, C. H., 23 Deem,R.,26
Clandinin, D. J., 3, 4, 9, 18,25,54,55, Delamont, S., 3, 9, 69, 84
56,57,81,129,131,158,175,180, deMarrais, K., 140
183,184 (tab), 185, 186, 199,221, Demme, J., 273
226,231,233,235 Denzin, N. K., 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 (tab), 9,11,
Clarke,A. E., 25, 31, 63-64, 83, 248 18,19,20,22,23,25,36,55,69,73,
Clarke, G., 310 80 (tab), 81, 88,110,130,158,175,
Clarke, J., 310 179,184 (tab), 185, 186, 194, 199,
Clifford, J., 178, 186, 199 213-214,221,226,231,233,234,
Coffey, A., 3, 9, 69, 84 235,246,248
Cohen, L J., 287 Dey, I., 150
Cohen, S., 310, 313 Diefenbach, M. A., 280
Colaizzi, P. F., 60, 82, 88, 160, 189, 231, Dominguez, 1. M., 268
265,269,270 Dennor, J., 24
Cole, A., 234 Douaihy, A., 266
Connelly, F. M., 3, 4, 9, 18,25, 54, 55, Douglas, J. D., 316
56,57,81,131,158,175,180,183, DufoUf, S., 73
184 (tab), 185, 186, 199,221,226, Dukes, S., 60, 82,126,227,231
231,233,235
Conrad, C. F., 98,106,191,238 Earisman, D. L., 313
Corbin, J., 4, 7 (tab), 9, 20, 42, 63, 64-66, Echeverria, p. S., 268
65,66,68,80 (tab), 83,123,128,139, Edel, 1., 12, 57, 214
160,161,175,177,184 (tab), 190, Edgerton, R. B., 261
191,199,207,216,228,237,238, Edwards, 1. V., 97
239,240,290,291 Eisenhardt, M., 45, 211
Cortazzi, M., 54, 56 Eisner, E. W., 203 (tab), 204
Courtois, C. A., 286 Elliot, J., 54, 82, 119, 143
Crabtree, B. F., 6, 152 Ellis, c., 55, 97,123
Craig, L., 310, 313, 314 Ely, M., 11, 183, 202, 207, 208
Creswell, J. W., 1,4,11,13,16,19,20,43, Emerson, R. M., 138, 145,
47,48,52,55,56,57,65,67,75,86, 184 (tab), 193-194
92,95,97,98,99,102,103,107,109, Erickson, F., 288, 289, 291
112,114,122,129,131,132,135, Erlandson, D. A., 207, 208, 209
144,151,152,154, 155 (fig), 156, Ezeh, P. j., 139
Author Index 373

Farber, E. W., 268 Gottschalk, S., 3ll

Fassinger, R. E., 305 Graham-Bermann, S. A., 287, 303, 304
Fay, B., 22, 27, 247 Gramling, 1. E, 268, 279
Ferguson, M., 32 Greckhamer, T., 3, 4, 18
Fetterman, D. M., 12, 71, 84, 128, Grigsby, K. A., 97,184 (tab), 188
207-208,242,243,244 Gritz, J. I., II 0-lll
Field, N., 268 Grossberg, 1., 3ll
Field, P. A., 9, 59 Guba, E. G., 16, 18, 19, 21, 31, 75, 84, 93,
Finders, M. J., 99 154,184 (tab), 196,202,203 (tab),
Fine, M., 36, 41, 44, 52, 139, 140-141, 207,208,209,212,225,247,248,291
179-180,199,290 Gubrium, J. E, 144
Fischer, C. T., 180
Fitzgerald, J., 31 Habermas, J., 323
Fitzgerald, T. K., 259 Haenfler, R., 28, 86, 91, 95,108,163,
Flinders, D. J., 249 182, 195
Foil<man, S., 287, 298 Hall, S., 310, 312, 329
Hame!, J., 73
Ford, K., 286 Hammersley, M., 69, 71, 72, 125, 129,
Portin, D., 73 131,134, 142, 143, 145, 184 (tab),
Fothergill-Bourbonnais, F., 268 192,194,243,244,247
Foucault, M., 64 Hankiss, A, 259
Fox, K. J., 314 Harding, S., 32
Fox-KelIer, E., 26 Harper, W., 184 (tab), 189
Frankel, R M., 271 Harris, c., 28
Fretz, RI., 138, 145, 184 (tab), 193-194 Harris, E. L., 207, 208, 209
Friedman, T., 11,202,207,208 . Harris, M., 68
Fryback, P. B., 268, 279 Harrison, S. B., 99
Harter, 1., 20, 159
Gallant, J. E., 266 Hatch, J. A., 38 (tab), 41, 44, SI, 114
Gamson, J., 29 Hebdige, D., 310, 312, 313, 314
Garner, D.,11, 202, 207, 208 Heilbrun, C. G., 235
Geer, B., 316 Heinrich, K. T., 106
Geertz, c., 99 Hendrick, S. S., 286
Geffner, R, 286 Henry, S. B., 268
Geiger, S. N. G., 97, 234 Henry, T., 314
Gelso, C J., 305 Herman, J. L., 294
Gergen, K., 119 Heron, J., 22
Giddens, A., 329, 331 Heylin, C, 314
Gilchrist, V. J., 243 Hill, B., 99
Gilgun, J. E, 179, 182, 199 Hill, C E., 305
Gill, M., 268 Holstei, J. A., 144
Gioia, D. A., 31 Holzemer, W. 1., 268
Giorgi, A., 58, 60, 82, 180, 215, 236 Hopkins, B. 1., 268
Glaser, B. G., 63, 83, 287, 288, 291 Horowitz, M., 287
Glesne, C, 76,122,141,178,207,208 Hoshmand, 1. 1. S. T., 31, 287, 288
Goetz, J. P., 202, 203 (tab), 291 Howard, G. S., 305
Goffman, E., 194 Howarth, W. 1., 259
Gore, E C, 268 Howe, K., 45, 211
Gosling, A., 210, 220 Huber, J., 56, 57,97,126
374 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Huberman,A M., 8 (tab), 114, Laschinger, S. j., 268

127 (tab), 128, 132, 144, 148, Lather, P., 26, 32, 203 (tab), 204, 205
149 (tab), 150, 152, 154, 175,208, Lauterbach, S. S., 98,131
210,211,220,246,291 Lazarus, R. S.) 287, 298
Hunter, J. D., 317 Leblanc, L, 310, 330, 331, 333nnl4-15
Hussed, E.> 82 LeCompte, M. D., 9, 23, 38 (tab), 42,51,
Hyman, L A, 349 (tab) 69,71,72,84,131,202,203 (tab),
221,291
Idler, E. L, 267 Leipert, B. 0., 98
Irwin, D., 318 LeVasseur, J. J., 62, 82
Irwin, j., 312, 313 Leventhal, E. A, 266, 267, 280
Israelski, D., 268 Leventhal, H., 266, 267, 280
Lewis, j. B., 140
jackson, 0., 23 Lieblich, A, 54
jackson, j. L, 287, 303 Liebman, R. c., 317
jacob, E., 6, 7 (tab) Lightfoot, C., 53-54
jefferson, T., 310, 312 Lincoln, Y. S., 3, 5, 7, 8 (tab), 11, 16, 18,
johnson, B. K., 287 19,20,21,22,23,31,36,45,73,75,
Joklnen, A., 140 84,93,130,154,184 (tab), 196,202,
jones, 0. j., 349 (tab) 203 (tab), 207, 208, 209, 212-213,
jonnalagadda, S. S., 268 220,225,246,247,248,291
jorgensen, 0. L, 132, 145,243 Lipson, j. G., 141
josselson, R, 54 Lofland, j., 138, 145, 218, 316
Lofland, L H., 138, 145,316
Kaplan, j., 317 Loftus, E. E, 287
Karen, C. S., 97 Lomask, M., 184 (tab), 186
Keamey, M. H., 98, 271 Long, P. j., 287, 303
Kelle, E., 166, 175 L5Qw, H., 317
Kemmis, S., 11,22 Lopez, K. A., 82
Kenkel, M. B., 287 Luck,L,23
Kerlinger, EN., 249 Lundberg-Love, P. K., 286
Kidder, L, 204 Lynn, M., 28, 32, 247
Kincheloe, j. L, 27
Klonoff, E. A., 305 Madison, D. S., 27, 32, 69, 70, 84,148,
Kluft, R. P., 296 149 (tab), 221, 241, 247
Koegel, P., 261 Mahoney, M. j., 286, 291, 304
Koopman, c., 268 Maielta, R. c., 4, 166, 173, 174 (fig), 175
Koro-Ljungberg, M., 3, 4, 18 Mandle, C. L, 203 (tab), 206, 207, 220
Krueger, R. A, 133 Marcus, G. E., 178, 199
Kus, R. J., 191 Marrnion, S., 286
Kvale, S., 132, 140, 144, 145 Marouf, E, 268
Marshall, c., 11, 38 (tab), 45, 49, 51,
Labaree, R. V., 139 62,102,107,114,126,152,175
Ladson-Billings, G., 24 Marteau, T., 210, 220
Lahickey, B., 317 Martin, j., 153
Lancy, D. E, 6-7 (tab) Marty, M. E., 317
Landis, M. M., 217 Mastera, G., 111-112
Landrine, H., 305 Maxwell, j., 4, 50, 52,114
Langness, L L, 261 May, K. A., 184 (tab), 190
Author Index 375

McCain, N. L., 268, 279 Neimeyer, G. J., 287

McClaren, )., 97 Neimeyer, R. A" 287
McCracken, G., 131, 144 Nelson; 1. W., 97,184 (tab), 194
McDailiel, ). S., 268 Neuman, W. L., 19,21
McDonald, M., 267 Newcomb, M., 286
McEntarffer, R., 20, 159 Nielsen, J. M., 32
McKay, )., 107 Nieswiadomy, R. M., 58
McVea, K., 20,159 NortoD, C. S., 259
Meadows, 1. M., 270, 271 Nunkoosing, K., 140, 145
Megel, M. E:, 97, 184 (tab), 188
Melucci,A., 311, 329, 333nl6 O'Hara, c., 314
Merleau-Ponty, M., 58, 82, 269 Obey, )., 259
Merriam, S.B., 73, 74. 75, 84, Oiler, C. )., 7 (tab), 58, 82
184 (tab), 195, 197,207,208,209 Olander, 1. S., 99
Mertens, D. M., 19,20,30,33 Olesen, V., 25, 26, 32, 247
Mickunas, A., 58-59, 82, 236 Ollerenshaw,). A., 55, 56, 155,234
Miles, M. B., 8 (tab), 114, 127 (tab), Olson, 1. N., 97
128,132,144,148,149 (tab), 150, Ozcan, N. M., 158
152,154,164,175,208,210,211,
220,246,291 Padilla, R., 98
Miller, D. 1., 57, 99, 207 Padula, M. A., 99
Miller, D. W., 11,20,229 Parker, L., 28, 32, 247
Miller, T., 106,312,313 Parkin, E, 318
Miller, W. 1., 6, 152 Passik, S., 267
Millroy, W. 1., 69, 71 Patton, M. Q., 22, 23, 150,208
Mills, G. E., 249 Peacock, 1., 286
Mitchell, )., 349 (tab) Personal Narratives Group, 55
Moonen, D. J., 268 Peshkin, A., 76, 122, 141, 178,207,
Moore, D., 313 208,289
Morgan, D. 1., 133,289 Phillips, D. c., 20
Morgan, G., 31 Pink, S., 69, 129
Morrow, R.A., 27, 28, 32, 247 Pinnegar, S., 54, 57, 126,234
Morrow, S. L., 65, 85, 90, 95, 108, 131, Pitcher, G., 349 (tab)
161,182, 184 (tab), 191,238,285 Pitre, E., 31
Morse, J. M., 5, 7 (tab), 9, 36, 41, 42, 52, PIano Clark, V. 1., 67
59,101,108,123,139,270,271 Plummer, K., 29, 30, 55, 81,119,128,
Moss, P., 26, 32 142,214,234
Moustakas, c., 4, 8 (tab), 9,18,20,21,58, Poland, S., 349 (tab)
59-62,80 (tab), 82, 88, 89, 97,110, Polkinghorne, D. E., 54-55, 56, 58, 60,
159,160,175,184 (tab), 187-188, 61,62,82,121 (tab), 126, 131,
189,199,215,216,221,226,227, 184 (tab), 188,215,236,288
231,235,236,237 Preissle, J., 69, 71
Muggleton, D., 310, 311, 331, 332n5 Prior, 1., 145
Munhall, P. 1., 7 (tab)
Murphy, ). P., 23 Reason, P., 22
Murphy, S., 98 Redfield, R., 6
Reilly, C. A., 268
Natanson, M.) 58, 82 Reinert, B. R., 268, 279
National Academy of Sciences, 4 Reinharz, S., 32
376 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Reutter, 1., 98 Smith, K. V" 268

Rex, L. A.) 99 Smith, L M" 97,184 (tab), 186,234
Rhoads, R, A" 99 Smith, M, L, 65, 85, 90, 95,108,131,161,
Richards. L., 5, 36, 41, 42, 52,101 182,184 (tab), 191-192,238,285
Richardson, L, 46,178,179,180,181, Snow, 0. A" 327
182,184 (tab), 195, 199, 203 (tab), Solorzano,D. G" 28, 32
206,213,220,247,250 Sorreil, j, H" 97
Riemen, D, j" 97,110, 126,159-160 Sparkes, A. c., 31
Riemer, J., 315 Spencer, M. H., 85, 88, 94,108,160,
Riessrnan, C. K., 54 182,189
Roark, E. W, 349 (tab) Spiegel, D., 268
Roark, M" 349 (tab) Spiegelberg, H., 58, 82
Roark, M, L, 349 (tab) Spindler, G" 217-218
Roberts, R, 310 Spindler, L, 217-218
Rochford, E, B, jr" 327 Spradley, j, p" 71, 84, 108, 112, 131,
Roman, 1. G., 31, 32 132,154,162,231,241,243
Rorty, R" 23 St. Pierre, E, A" 178, 199, 203 (tab),
Rose, T.. 311 206,213,220
Rosenau, P. M., 31 Stake, R. E., 4, 9,18,44,73,74,75,
Rosenbaum, M., 98 80 (tab), 84,106,108, 114, 122, 151,
Rosenbloom, C. A., 268 163,175,178,184 (tab), 195, 199,
Rosenfeld, R, 267 201,207,208-209,218-219,221,
Rossman, G, R, 11, 23, 38 (tab), 45, 49, 215,231,244,245,246,248,249
51,62,102,107,114,126,152,175 Steinmetz, A. c., 11,202,207,208
Roth, S,' 287 Stewart, A., 316
Roulston, K., 140 Stewart, A, j" 26, 32, 247
Rubin, H, j" 144 Stewart, D" 58, 82, 236
Rubin, L S,' 144 Stewart, D. W., 133
Russell, 0. E. H., 286 Stewart, K., 129
Russeil, j, M" 268 Stinson, M, H" 286
Stith, S, M" 349 (tab)
Sampson, H., 133, 138 Strauss, A., 4, 7 (tab), 9, 20, 42, 63, 64-66,
Sanjek, R" 138, 145, 242 65,66,68,80 (tab), 83, 128, 160,161,
Saxon, E.. 273 175,177,184 (tab), 190, 191, 199,
Schaper, p, E., 268 207,216,228,237,238,239,240,
Schensul, j, j" 9, 23, 38 (tab), 42, 51, 69, 290,291
72,84,131,221 Strauss, A. L., 287, 289, 290
Schladale, j" 349 (tab) Streubert, H. j" 267, 269
Schwandt, T, A" 19, 21 Strickland, B, R, 287
Schwartz, j, A" 268 Stringer, E, T" 25, 249
Scott, j" 311, 330 Sudnow, D" 194
Sersen, B., 326 Suoninen, E.) 140
Shamdasani, P. N" 133 Swanson, j, M" 83, 184 (tab), 191
Shaw, L L, 138, 145, 184 (tab), 193-194 Swingewood, A" 58
Silverman, D., 220
Singh, N" 266 Tashakkori, A" 23
Skipper, B. L, 207, 208, 209 Taylor, S,' 5, 249
Slife, R D" 8 (tab), 25, 31, 248, 249 Taylor, $, j" 20
Author Index 377

Taylor, V., 311 Wicke, J., 32

Teddlie, C, 23 Widdicombe, S., 310, 329, 330
Tesch, R, 5, 6, 58, 60, 82, 246 Wilkinson, M., 11> 22
Thaler, H., 267 Williams, M., 129
Thomas, J., 25, 27, 32, 70, 201, 241, 242 Williams, R. N., 8 (tab), 25,
Thomas, W. I., 73 31,248,249
Tierney, W. G., 30, 33, 180 Willis, D. G., 82
Trujillo, N., 99, 107 Willis, P., 28, 310
Turner, J. L., 259 Wilson, B. L., 23
Turner, W., 29, 268, 279 Wilte, R, 313
Tuval-Mashiach, R., 54 Winthrop, R. H., 71
Wolcott, H. F., 6, 9, 18,45,69,70,71,72,
Usher, K, 23 80 (tab), 84, 99,112, 132, 148,
149 (tab), 152, 161-162, 175,
Valerio, M., 112 182, 184 (tab), 192-193, 195,
Valocchi, S., 33 198,199,203 (tab), 205, 221,
Van Kaam, A., 60, 82 229,241,242,243
Van Maanen, J., 69,184 (tab), 192, Woleott, H. E, 203 (tab)
195,199,243 Wooden, W. S., 310
van Manen, M., 3, 4, 9, 58, 59, 61, 62, Wooffitt, R., 310, 329, 330
82,179,199,221,235 Worden, S. K., 327
Vaughn, C, 99 Wuthnow, R., 317
Vogl,D., 267 Wyatt, G. E., 286

Waldorf, D., 316 Yin, R. K., 4, 5, 9, 20, 23, 73, 74, 75, 76,
Walker, G., 349 (tab) 84,132,133,184 (tab), 196, 197,
Wallace, A. E C, 229 199,221,245,246
Watson, K., 28, 29-30,33,249 Yosso, T. J., 28, 32
Weinman, J., 210, 220 Young, K., 310, 313, 314
Weis, L., 36, 41, 44, 52, 139, 140-141, Yussen, S. R, 158
179-180,199
Weitzman, E. A., 164, 175 Zagnoli, L. J., 259
Wertz, F. J., 180 Zelikoff, W, I., 349 (tab)
Whalen, K., 56, 57, 97, 126 Zetlin, A. G., 259
Whittemore, R., D. 203 (tab), 206, Zilber, T., 54
207,220,261 Ziller, R. C., 130
'Whittier, N. E., 311 Znaniecki, F., 73
Subject Index

A priori code, 152 in literature, 7 (tab)-8 (tab)

A priori theory, 20, 42 variations within approaches, 4
Access, gaining, 123-125, 138-139 See also Case study; Ethnography;
Advocacy/participatory worldview, 21-22 Grounded theory; Narrative;
sample research proposal, 48-19 Phenomenological study
AIDS. See Cognitive representations of Artifacts
AIDS study definition of, 241
Alternative knowledge claims, 19,25 in case study, 75, 132
Ample quotation, 89, 182 in ethnography, 56, 71
Analysis, data. See Data Asmussen, Kelly. See Campus
analysis/representation violence case study
Analysis of culture-sharing group, 71, 241 Assertions, 173, 196, 197,219
Analysis of themes, 75, 244 definition of, 75, 244
See also Campus violence case study; See also Case study
Cognitive representations of Atlas. ti, 166
AIDS study Audiovisual materials, 43, 76,129, 141
Analytic memo, 290 in case study, 73, 75, 132,225
Anderson, E. H. See Cognitive in ethnography, 72, 131
representations of AIDS study in grounded theory, 66
Angrosino, M. V. See Mental disability Audit trail, 291
narrative study Autobiography
Approaches to inquiry (five approaches) definition of, 55, 233
additional readings, 81-84 See also Mental disability
choosing approach, 95-96 narrative study
comparison among approaches, Autoethnography, 123
76-81,78 (tab)-80 (tab) Axial coding
core texts in, 10 definition of, 237
data analysis/representation in grounded theory, 64, 65, 66, 67) 95,
comparison, 156 (tax)-157 (tab), 111-112,122,128, 160, 161,
164-173 171 (fig), 172, 190, 191-192,228
data collection comparison, See also Open coding;
120 (tab)-121 (tab), 143-144 Selective coding
definition of, 246 Axiological, definition of, 247
focus comparison, 93-96, 94 (fig) Axiological assumption, 17 (tab), 18

379
380 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Backyard, studying your own, 122 research themes in, 341-348

BASK (behaviof, affect, sensation, response to incident, 339-340
knowledge) model of retriggering theme in, 346-347
dissociation, 301 rhetorical structure of, 196-197
Behaviors, 68 safety theme in, 344-346
definition of, 241 text of study, 337-352, 337-354
See also Ethnography turning story in, 225-230
Biographical narrative writing, 158, verification in, 341
186-187 See also Case; Case study
Biographical study, 87-88 Case, 73, 244
definition of, 55, 233 See also Campus violence case
See also Mental disability study; Case study
narrative study Case study
Biography, interpretive, 18, 25, 88, access/rapport in. 125
213-214,226 additional readings, 84, 99
Bounded system analysis of themes in, 75
definition of, 244 analysis/representation in. 75.163-164
in case study, 73, 74, 76, 93, 341 artifacts studied in, 75, 132
Bracketing (epoche), 59-60, 89,142, assertions in, 75
170 (fig), 235 bounded system in, 73, 74, 76, 93, 341
bracketing in, reducing, 142
Campus violence case study case in, 73, 244
bounds of study, 341 categorical aggregation in. 164
campus planning theme in, central research question, 109, 112-113
347-348,349 (tab) challenges, 75-76
central research question in, 109, coding, 172 (fig)-173
112-113 collective case study, 74, 129
context of, 92, 93, 340-341 computer analysis template,
data analysis in, 92-93,151, 163-164 172 (fig)-173
data collection in, 92, 93, 341 context in, 75, 92, 93, 340-341
data collection matrix in, 76, 342 (tab) core elements of, 93
data representation in, 154, 155 (fig) core texts, 10
data sources for, 341 criteria of quality checklist, 218-219
denial theme in, 341-342 cross-case analysis, 75, 163
description of case, 163-164 data analysis, 92-93
discussion of, 348, 350-351 data collection, 92,132
environmental response to, 3.48 data collection activities,
fear theme in, 343-344 120 (tab)-121 (tab)
gender issues in, 350, 351 data sources, 92
gunman incident in, 338-339 definition of, 73, 244, 337-354
informant feedback in, 341 direct interpretation in, 163
issue/procedural subquestions in, 113 embedded analysis in, 75
organizational response to, 348, 350 exploratory qualitative, 341
psychological/social-psychological extreme/deviant, 129
response to, 350--351 generalizability of, 76
race issues in, 351 holistic analysis in, 75
realist narrative structure of, 341 instrumental. 74, 75
reflection, researcher, 93, 351-352 interpretive phase, 75
Subject Index 381

intrinsic, 74, 75 Central research question, 107-109,

issue/procedural subquestions in. 113 111,112-113
multi-site, 73, 74 Centre for 'Contemporary Cultural
multiple forms of data collection, 75 Studies (CCCS), 310-311
naturalistic generalizations in, Childhood sexual abuse
163, 196 construct-oriented approach to, 286
number of cases to study, 76 statistics on, 286
problem statement for, 103 symptom-oriented approach to, 286
procedures for conducting, 74-75 See also Childhood sexual abuse study
purpose statement for, 107 Childhood sexual abuse study
purpose statement for, encoding accountability in, 291
words, 105 (tab) analytic memos in, 290, 294
recording information in, 135 analytic process/writing in, 289-290
research questions in, 112-113, 135 axial coding in, 161,290
rhetorical structure, overall, 195-196 blind coding in, 209-210
rhetorical structure in, 184 (tab) causal conditions in, 291-292, 294
rhetorical structure in, central phenomenon in, 90
embedded, 196-197 central research question in, 108
sample size, 128 coding, in vivo, 290, 294
sampling strategy, 75, 76, 129 coding categories in, 90
site/individual for, 122 coding in, open, 289-290
types of, 74 coping theory, traditional, 287
validation/evaluation in, 218-219 core categories in, 90, 290, 294-295
variants in, 4 cultural norms and, 90, 292, 294-295
within-case analysis, 75 data analysis in, 90-91, 161, 286,
within-site, 74 289-290
writing narrative for, 195-197 data collection in, 90, 289
See also Approaches to inquiry; data sources for, 285-286, 287. 289
Campus violence case study; Case discussion of, 303-306
Catalytic validation, 204 emotion-focused coping in, 304
Categorical aggregation, 164 entry into field, 288-289
Category intercoder agreement in, 210-211
categorical aggregation, 164 mernoing in, 90, 290
definition of, 64, 237 method in, 288-291
in grounded theory study, 63, 90, participant~coresearchers in,
290,294-295 290-291,305
Causal conditions, 64, 66, 68 participants in, 288
definition of, 67. 237 power core ordering process in, 304
in grounded theory study, 110, problem~focused coping in, 304
291-292,294 procedure in, 288-291
Causal model, 40 purpose of, 287
Central phenomenon quotes in, 182
definition of, 67,104,237 results of, 291-303
in grounded theory study, 68, 90, rhetorical structures in, 191-192
110,160-161,192 rigor of, testing. 90, 291
in narrative study. 104 selective coding in, 290
in phenomenological study, 89,104 self-reflectivity, researcher, 289, 290
in purpose statement, 103-104 sexual abuse forms and, 90, 292, 294-295
•
382 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

survival/coping strategy, 296-301 Coding paradigm or logic diagram, 67,

survival/coping strategy consequences, 191,238
90,161,301-303 Cognitive representations of AIDS study
survival/coping strategy context, 295 accepting AIDS theme in, 277
survival/coping strategy intervening access/rapport in, 125
conditions, 295-296 caring for oneself theme in, 275
survival/coping theoretical model, central phenomenon in, 89
293 (fig) central research question in, 108
text of study, 285-306 clinical application of, 271
threatening/dangerous feelings, 90, consent in, obtaining, 270
296-301,297 (fig) context of, 89
valence core ordering process in, 304 data analysis in, 88-89, 125
visual/theoretical model for, 161, data collection in, 89
286, 303, 304 design for, 88
Choosing research approach devouring life theme in, 89, 272 (tab),
audience question, 95 273-274
background question, 95-96 discussion of, 279-280
personal approach question, 95-96 dreaded bodily destruction theme,
scholarly literature question, 95-96 89,272 (tab), 273
Chronology, 158, 178,233 framework for, 88, 266-267
Class. See Critical race theory (eRT); future research for, 281
Critical theory holding a wildcat theme in, 276
Clusters of meanings, 61, 235, 272-279 hoping for right drug theme in,
Code switching, 194 274~275
Coding illness representation attributes in, 267
axial, 64, 65, 66, 67, 95, Ill-ll2, 122, implications for nursing, 281
128,160,161,171 (fig), 172, 190, inescapable death theme in, 272-273
191-192,228,237,290 just a disease theme in, 275-276
blind,209-210 literature review for, 267-269
emergent, 152 magic of not thinking theme in,
in vivo codes, 153,290,294 276-277
intercoder agreement. 210-211 methodology in, 269-271
open, 64, 67, 90,95, 111, 112, participants in, 88, 269
160-161,164,171 (fig), 172, 191, procedure in, 269-270
228,239-240,289-290 purpose of, 88, 267
pre-existing, 152 quotes in, 182
prefigured, 152 recouping with time
selective, 65, 67, Ill, 160, 161, 172, theme in, 278-279
240,290 research design of, 269
See also Coding, using software results, significant statements. 271 (tab)
program results, theme clusters, 272-279
Coding, using software program results of, 271-279
case study research, 172 (fig)-173 sample for, 269
ethnographic research, 171 (fig), 172 text of study, 266-281
grounded theory research, theoretical elements in, 280
171 (fig), 172 turning to higher power theme in,
narrative research, 170 (fig)-171 277-278
phenomenological research, 171 (fig), validation in, 271
172-172 validity in, 271
Subject Index 383

verification in, 270-271 methodological research design in, 27

writin'g stru<;:tures in, 189 substantive research design in, 27-28
Collective case study, 74,129,244 Cross-case analysis, 75,163,245
Comparison table, 154, 162 . Cultural portrait, 72, 95,171 (fig),
Composite description, 159 172,241
Computers. See Data Cultural theory, 42
analysis/representation, Culture, definition of, 71, 241
computerized Culture-sharing group, 68-69, 92,
Conditional matrix, 65, 67,161 95,122,128,129,218,228-229
definition of, 238 analysis of, 71
in grounded theory, 171 (fig), 172 definition of, 241-242
Consensual validation, 204 description of, 72
Consequences, 22, 23 interpretation of, 161-162
definition of, 65, 238
in grounded theory study, 65, 66, Data analysis/representation, 43
67,68,90,110, Ill, 161, 192, additional readings, 175
208,227-228 case study, 163-164
Constant comparative, 64,106, 160,238 classifying, 153-154, 156 (tab)
Construct validation, 204 coding. See Coding
ConstructionMorientation approach, comparing five approaches. 156
63,90 (tax)-157 (tab), 164-173
Constructivism,341 computer use in qualitative data
Constructivist grounded theory, 63, analysis. See Data analysis/
65,238 representation, computerized
Constructivist/interpretivist format, data analysis spiral, 150-155, 151 (fig)
sample proposal, 47-48 data management, 150, 156 (tab)
Context describing, 151-153, 156 (tab)
definition of, 67, 238 ethnography, 161-163
for ethnography, 315, 332n9 general strategies, 148-149 (tab)
for grounded theory research, 295 grounded theory, 160-161
for interview, 133-134 hypotheses, 154
for narrative study, 87, 260-262 inductive, 38-39, 43,154
historical, 39, 56, 57, 87, 234, 312 interpreting, 154, 157 (tab)
of case study, 75, 92, 93, 340-341 jottings, 138, 142
Context of case, 75, 245 matrices/tables, 43, 89
Convenience case sampling, 126, metaphors, 43,154
127 (tab) narrative, 155, 156 (tab)-157 (tab),
Coping. See Childhood sexual abuse study 158-159
Creswell, J. W. See Campus violence case phenomenological research,
study 156 (tab)-157 (tab), 159-160
Criterion sampling, 128 propositions, 154
Critical case sampling, 126, 127 (tab), 128 readingimemoing, 150-151, 156 (tab)
Critical ethnography, 70, 92, 148, 241 representing/visualizing,
Critical race theory (CRT), 28 154-155 (fig), 157 (tab)
additional readings, 31-32 visuals, 43
definition of, 247 Data analysis/representation,
Critical theory computerized,164-173
additional readings. 31-32 advantages/disadvantages
definition of, 27, 247 of, 165-166
384 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Atlas.ti, 166 recording procedures, 135-138

choosing among computer site/individual for, 119, 122-123
programs, 173, 174 (fig) storing data, 142-143
HyperRESEARCH,167 studying own backyard, 122
in case study research, 172 (fig)-173 videotaping, 129, 141
in ethnographic research, 171 (fig), 172 visual ethnography, 129
in grounded theory research, Data representation. See Data
I7l (fig), 172 analysis/representation
in narrative research, 170 (fig)-171 Database, computerized, 142-143, 165,
in phenomenological research, 167,169,173
171 (fig), 172-172 Deception, 44, 134, 141-142, 242
11AJCqda, 167-168 Description
QSR NVivo, 167 case, 73
software programs, sample of, 166-168 composite, 159
software programs, using with five definition of, 245
approaches, 168-173 structural, 60, 61,159,170 (fig), 172,
Data collection, 43 187,188,215,227,236
access/rapport, 123-125, 138-139 textural, 60, 61, 62,159,237
additional readings, 144-145 thick, 194, 195,204,207,209,214
audiovisual materials, thin, 194
129-130 (fig), 141 Description of culture~sharing group,
autoethnography, 123 72,242
data collection circle, lI8 (fig)-lI9 Dimensionalized, 67,160,238
documents, 43, 124, 129, 130 (fig), Direct interpretation, 163,245
132, 141 Disability theory, 30
e-mail texts, 129 Disconfirming evidence, 90, 128, 196,204,
ethical issues, 141-142 208,212,290,291,316
field issues in, 138-142 Discrepant case analysis, 291
five approaches compared, Discriminant sampling, 68, 238-239
120 (tab)-121 (tab), 143-144 Documents, as data resource,
forms of data, 129-135 43,124, 129, 130 (fig), 132, 141
forms of data, overview, 130 (fig)
grounded theory study, 131 Embedded analysis, 75,196,245
human subjects consent to participate Embedded quotes, 182
form, sample, 124 (fig) Emic, 72, 242
in case study, 132 Encoding, 105 (tab), 108, 180-182,247
in ethnographic study, 131-132 Epiphanies, 57, 87,186,234
in narrative study, 131 Epistemological, definition of, 247
in phenomenological study, 131 Epistemological assumption,
interviews, 129, 130 (fig), 132-134 17 (tab), 18
interviews, challenges to, 140-141 Epoche (bracketing), 59-60, 89, 142,
journaling, 129, 141 170 (fig), 235
observation, 129, 130 (fig), 134-135 Essential, invariant structure (essence),
observation, challenges to, 139 60,62,89,170 (fig), 187, 188,
onUne focus group, 129 227,235
photo elicitation, 129-130 Ethical issues
purposeful sampling, 125-129 anonymity, 44, 141, 143
purposeful sampling typology, confidentiality, 44
127 (tab) consent, 44,124 (fig), 133, 134,270
Subject Index 385

deception, 44, 134, 141-142, 142, 242 sampling strategy, 128-129

'~off the record;' 142 turning story in, 228-230
Ethical validation, 205-206 . types of, '69-70
Ethnography validation/evaluation in, 217-218
access/rapport in, 71,125, 193 writing narrative in, 192-195
additional readings, 84. 99 . See also Approaches to inquiry; Straight
anthropological approach to, 69, 72, 77, edge (sXe) movement study
260-261, 262 Etic, 72, 242
artifacts studied in, 56, 71 Evidentiary adequacy, 289
autoethnogra'phy, 123 Exoticism, 262
bracketing, reducing, 142 Exploratory qualitative case study, 341
central question in, 108-109 Extreme/deviant case study, 129
challenges to, 72-73
coding, 171 (fig), 172 Face validation, 204
computer template for data analysis, Feminist research approach, 25-27
171 (fig), 172 additional readings on, 32-33
core elements of, 92 definition of, 247
core texts for, 10 gender as social construct and, 26
critical, 70, 92, 148, 241 on participant~coresearcher, 305
cultural portrait in, 72, 95, Field issues
171 (fig), 172 deception, 44, 134, 141-142
culture~sharing group in, 68-69, 71, 72, "going native;' 72, 134
92,95,122,128,129,161-162, immersion, 68
218,228-229 in data collection, 138-142
data collection, 131-132 reciprocity, 24, 44, 72,125,213,218
data collection activities, Field texts, 55
120 (tab)-121 (tab) Fieldwork, 71-72, 242
data transformation in, 162 First~order narrative, 119
definition of, 68-69, 242 Five qualitative approaches to inquiry. See
descriptive questions in, 108 Approaches to inquiry (five
emic in, 72 approaches)
etic in, 72 Focus group, online, 129
field issues in, 72, 143, 172 Focus group interview, 90. 133
informant feedback in, 162, 192 Foreshadowing, 12, 101, 102, 103, 104
key informants in, 71 definition of, 247-248
patterns in, 162, 228-229, 230, 316 purpose statement as, 106
personal reflection in, 218 research questions as, 107,
procedural sUbquestions in, 112 110,112-113
procedures for conducting, 70-72 Function, 71, 242
purpose statement for, 107
purpose statement for, encoding words, Gatekeeper, 71, 125, 193,243
105 (tab) Gender
realist, 69-70 youth subcultures and, 312, 328.
research questions in, 112 333n14
rhetorical structure in, 184 (tab) See also Critical race theory (CRT);
rhetorical structure in, embedded, Critical theory; Feminist research
194-195 approach; Queer theory
rhetorical structure in, overfl:ll, 192-194 General taxonomy table, 162
sample size, 128 Generate or discover theory, 63, 239
386 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

"Going native;' 72, 134 purpose statement for, encoding

Grounded theory study, 42 words, 105 (tab)
access/rapport in, 124 research questions in, 66, 112
additional readings, 83-84, 98-99 rhetorical structure in, 184 (tab)
axial coding in, 64, 65, 66, 67, 95. rhetorical structure in, embedded,
111-112,122,128,160,161, 191-192
171 (fig), 172, 190, 191-192,228 rhetorical structure in, overall, 190
categories in, 63, 90. 290, 294-295 sample size, 126, 128
causal conditions in, 110, sampling strategy, 128
291-292,294 site/individual for, 122
central phenomenon in, 68, 90, llO, turning study in, 227-228
160-161,192 types of, 64-66
central question in, 108, 112 validation/evaluation in, 216-217
challenges to, 67-68 variants in, 4
coding, 171 (fig), 172 visual model in, 191-192
computer software for data analysis. writing narrative in, 189-192
171 (fig), 172 zigzag in, 64
conditional matrix, 171 (fig), 172 See also Approaches to inquiry;
consequences in, 65, 66, 67, 68, 90, 110, Childhood sexual abuse study
111,161,192,208,227-228
construction-orientation approach, Haenller, R. See Straight edge (sXe)
63,90 movement study
constructivist, 63, 65-66, 238 Hardcore (punks), 312, 315, 332n2
context in, 295 Health science research, 42
core elements of, 90 Hermeneutical phenomenology,
core texts for, 10 4,59,82,235
data analysis/representation in, Hierarchical tree diagram, 154
160-161 Hippie subculture, 312-313, 314, 323,
data collection activities in, 324,330
120 (tab)-121 (tab) Historical context, 39, 56, 57. 87, 312, 234
data collection in, 131 HIV. See Cognitive representations of
data interpretation in, 154 AIDS study
defmition of, 62-64, 239 Holistic, 71, 243
dimensionalized properties, 67) 160 Holistic analysis, 75,196,245
intent of, 62-63 Horizonalization, 61, 159, 188,235
intervening conditions, 295-296 Human subjects consent to participate
issue/procedural subquestions in, form, sample, 124 (fig)
111-112 Hypothesis. See Propositions
open coding in, 64, 67, 90, 95,111,112,
160-161,164,171 (fig), 172, 191, Identity. See Queer theory; Youth
228,289-290 subculture
patterns in, 286, 296, 303 Ideological perspective
problem statement for, 103 critical theory, 27-32
procedures for conducting, 66-67 feminist theory, 25-27
process questions in, 108 postmodern critique. 25, 29,178-179,
propositions in, 65, 67, 90, Ill, 154, 204,206,212,311
160,161, 17l (fig), 190, 191, Imaginative variation or structural
217,228 description, 60, 61, 159, 170 (fig),
purpose statement for, 106 235,172,187,188,215,227,236
Subject Index 387

Immersed, 68 research question, central,

definition ()f, 243 107-109, 112-113
"going native:~ 72, 134 research questions, 107-113
In vivo codes, 153,239,290,294 subquestions,109-113
Inductive data analysis, 38-39, 43, Issue subquestions, 110-111,248
154,316
Inductive inquiry, 19 Journaling, 131, 141
Institutional review board (IRB), 92, 123, See also Memoing
139,269,340-341
Instrumental case study, 74, 75, 245 Key informant, 71, 243
Intentionality of consciousness,
59,235-236 Language, 68,243
Interpretation of culture-sharing group, Life course stages and experiences, 54,
161,162,243 158,234
See also Ethnography Life history, 55, 234
Interpretive biography, 18,25, See also Mental disability narrative
88,213-214,226 study
Interpretive communities, 23-30 Literature review, 102-103
critical theory, 27-28 Lived experiences, 57-58, 59, 61, 89,106,
disability theory, 30 122,128,189,214,236
feminist theory, 25-27 Logging data, 138
postmodern perspectives, 25 Longer quote, 183
queer theory, 28-30
Interpretive qualitative research, Matrix, data collection, 132, 143, .154, 161
3,21,248 Maximum variation sampling, 126,
Interpretivism,20 127 (tab), 129
Intervening conditions, 295-296, Meaning units, 159, 170 (fig)
64,67,239 Memoing
Interview, 43,130 (fig), 131, 132-134 analytic memo, 290
challenges to, 140-141 definition of, 67, 239
consent, obtaining, 133, 134 self-reflective memo, 131,290
context for, 133-134 Mental disability narrative study
deception and, 134 anecdote in, 254-255
field issues in, 140-141 bus trip in, 255-258
focus group, 90, 133 bus trip in, meaning of bus in, 87,158,
in-depth,131,289,316 258-259
information, recording, 134 central research question in, 108
note-taking during, 134 context of, 87
one-on-one, 90, 132, 133 contextualizing autobiographical inter-
pilot testing, 133 view in, 87, 260-262
protocol for, 133, 135 data analysis/representation in, 158
protocol for, sample, 136 (fig) data collection in, 87,128,254-255
telephone, 132-133 discussion of, 259-262
Intrinsic case study, 74, 75, 245 epiphany in, 87
Introducing and focusing study labeling and, 261
additional readings, 114 metaphor and, 87, 251, 259-260
purpose statement, 103-107, 105 (tab) quotations in, 183
questions for discussion reflection in, 87
research problem, 102-103 sampling strategy in, 128
388 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

self/self-image in, 87, 251, 259 purpose statement for, encoding

single individual as central focus in, words, 105 (tab)
87,252-253 rhetorical structure in, 184 (tab)
summary of study, 86-88 rhetorical structure in, embedded,
text of study, 252-262 185-186
turning story in, 225-226 rhetorical structure in, overall, 183, 185
writing structures in, 186-187 sample size for, 126
Metaphor, 18, 43, 87,154,177,194, sampling strategy for, 128 ..
251,259-260 site/individual for, 119
Methodological, definition of, 248 turning story in, 225-226
Methodological assumption, 17 (tab), 19 types of, 54-55
Methodological congruence, 42 validation/evaluation in, 213-215
Methodological research design, variants in, 4
27,211-212 writing qualitative study, 183, 185-187
Mod subculture, 312, 313 See also Approaches to inquiry; Mental
Morrow, S. 1. See Childhood sexual disability narrative study
abuse study Naturalistic generalizations, 163, 196, 246
Multi-site, 73, 74, 245
Multiple sources of information, 73, 246 Observation, 43,134-135
challenges to, 139
Narrative protocol for, 135, 138
first-order, 119 protocol for, sample, 137 (fig)
second-order, 119 One-ori-one interview, 90, 132, 133
Narrative study, 43 Online focus group, 129
access and rapport in, 123-124 Ontological, definition of, 248
additional readings, 81-82, 96-97 Ontological assumption, 16, 17 (tab), 18
as the phenomenon of study, 54 Open coding
central phenomenon in, 104 definition of, 239-240
central question in, 108 grounded theory and, 64, 67, 90, 95,
challenges to, 57 111,112,160-161,164,171 (fig),
coding in, 170 (fig)-I71 172,191,228,289-290
computer software for data analysis, See also Axial coding; Selective coding
170 (fig)-171 Opportunistic sampling, 128
core elements of, 87-88 Oral history, definition of, 55, 234
core texts, 10
data analysis/representation in, Paradigms/worldviews, 19-23
155,158 advocacy/participatory, 21-22
data collection activities in, definition of, 19, 248
120 (tab)-121 (tab) postpositivism, 20
data collection in, 129, 131, 141 pragmatism, 22-23
definition of, 53-54, 234 social constructivism, 20-21
field issues in, 143 Paralogic validation, 205
interpretive approach to, 179 Participant observation, 68, 90,131-132
journaling in, 129, 141 definition of, 243
patterns in, 163 longitudinal, 314
problem statement for, 103 Patterns, 158, 193
procedural subquestions for, 110 defmition of, 246
procedures for conducting, 55-56 in ethnography, 162,228-229,
purpose statement for, 106 230,316
Subject Index 389

in grounded theory research, research questions in, 61, 110-111

'286, 296, 303 rhetorical structure in, 184 (tab)
in narrative, 163 rhetorical structure in,
in phenomenology, 268 embedded, 188-189
Phenomenological study rhetorical structure in, overall,
access/rapport in, 124 187-188
additional readings, 82-83, 97-98 sample size, 126
analysis/representation, 159-160 sampling strategy, 128
bracketing, reducing, 142 sitelindividual for, 119, 122
central pheriomenon in, 89,104 structural description in, 60, 61, 159,
central research question in, 111 170 (fig), 172, 187, 188,215,227
challenges to, 62 textural description in, 60, 61, 159,
dusters of meaning in, 272-279 170 (fig), 172, 187, 188,227
coding, 170 (fig)-171 turning the story in, 226-227
computer software for data analysis, types of, 59-60
l7l (fig), 172-172 validation/evaluation in, 215-216
core elements of, 89 variants in, 4
core texts, 10 writing narrative in, 187-189
criteria for quality in, 215-216 See also Approaches to inquiry;
data analysis/representation Cognitive representations
in, 159-160 of AIDS study
data collection activities in, Phenomenological data analysis, 61, 236
120 (tab)-121 (tab) Phenomenon, the, 54, 236
data collection in, 131 Philosophical assumptions, in research
definition of, 57-59, 236 design, 16-19
essence of experience in, 60, 62, 89, additional readings, 31
170 (fig), 187, 188,227 axiological, 17 (tab), 18
hermeneutical, 4, 59, 82 epistemological, 17 (tab), 18
horizonalization in, 61,159,188 methodological, 17 (tab), 19
imaginative variation in, 61 ontological, 16-18, 17 (tab)
informant feedback in, 140 philosophical, 16-19
intentional consciousness in, 59 philosophical, practice implications,
issue/procedural subquestions for, 17 (tab)
IID-lll rhetorical, 17 (tab), 18-19
lived experience in, 57-58, 59, 61, 89, Philosophical perspectives, 58-59, 236
1D6,122 Photo elicitation, 129-130
meaning questions in, 108 Postmodernism, 25, 29,178-179,204.
meaning units in, 159, 170 (fig), 206, 212, 311
187,188, definition of, 248-249
patterns in, 268 Postpositivism, 20, 21
philosophical themes in, 188-189,215 PoststructuraHsID,29
problem statement for, 103 Pragmatism, 22-23
procedures for conducting, 60-62 Problem statement, 103
psychological approach, 4, 9, 59-60, 61, Procedural subquestions, 110-111, 249
189,226-227 Progressive-regressive method,
purpose statement for, 106 185-186,234
purpose statement for, encoding Properties, 67,160,240
words, 105 (tab) Proposal, general structure of
reflexivity in, 189 advocacy/participatory format, 48-49
390 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

for constructivist/interpretivist Quotation

format, 47-48 ample, 89, 182
for dissertation, 50 embedded, 182
theoretical lens format, 49-50 longer, 183
Propositions
definition of, 240 Race. See Critical race theory (CRT);
in grounded theory research. 65, 67, Critical theory
90, Ill, 154, 160, 161, 171 (fig), Realist ethnography, 69-70, 243
190,191,217,228 Reciprocity, 24, 44, 72,125,213,218,243
Psychological approach, 4, 9, 54, 59-60, Reflexivity, 163, 178-180, 189, 243~244
61,189,226-227,236 Representation, data. See Data
Psychology of human effectiveness, 305 analysis/representation
Punk subculture, 314, 315, 323, 329, 330, Research design
332nn2-3,333nI4 definition of,S, 249.
Purpose statement, 103-107, 105 (tab) See also Interpretive communities;
Purposeful sampling, 76,125-129 Paradigms/worldviews;
definition of, 246 Philosopical assumptions, in
maximum variation, 75, 126 research design
typology of, 127 (tab) Research questions
additional readings, 114
QSR NVivo, 167 case study, 109, 112-113
Qualitative research central question, 107-109
as holistic, 39 central question, encoding, 108
characteristics of, 37-39, 38 (tab) descriptive questions, 107
definition of, 36-37, 249 emancipatory questions, 107
emergent design in, 39 ethnographic research, 108-109, 112
fragmentation of, 4 explanatory questions, 107
inductive data analysis in, 38-39 exploratory questions, 107
interpretive approach in. 3 grounded theory research, 108
interpretive inquiry in, 39 narrative research, 108, 110
multiple sources of data in, 38 open-ended,43,90,135
naturalistic setting in. 37 phenomenological research,
participant's meanings in, 39 108,110-111
researcher as key instrument in. 38 subquestions, 109-113
theoretical lens in, 39 subquestions, issue-oriented, 109
when to use, 39-41 sUbquestions, procedural, 110
See also Approaches to inquiry; subquestions, topical, 109-110
Qualitative study, designing Researcher, as key research instrument, 38
Qualitative study, designing Resistance, subcultural, 310-311
additional readings, 51-52 defining resistance, 311
characteristics of good study, 45-46 youth subcultures, 312-314
plan/proposal, general structure of, See also Straight edge (sXe) movement
47-50 study
process of, 41-47 Restorying, 56, 234
Queer theory, 28-30 Rhetorical, definition of, 249
additional readings on, 33 Rhetorical assumption, 17 (tab), 18-19
definition of, 249 Rhizomatic validation, 205
Subject Index 391

Rigor, research, 45, 46, 90 Spencer, M. H. See Cognitive

See also Validation/evaluation representations of AIDS study
standards Standards. See Validation/evaluation
standards
Sampling Stories, 153, 160,235
case study, 129 Straight edge (sXe) movement study
convenience case, 126, 127 (tab) analysis/representation in, 163
critical case, 126,127 (tab),128 author participation, 92
discriminant, 238-239 central research question in, 108-109
ethnographic study,128-129 collective meaning in, 329
grounded theory study, 126, 128 conclusion of, 329-331
maximum variation, 126, context of, 315, 332n9
127 (tab), 129 core values in, 91, 312, 317-328
narrative research, 126, 128 critical approach in, 92
,opportunistic, 128 data collection in, 91, 315-316
phenomenological study, 126, 128 data recording/organizing in, 316
purposeful,125-129 data sources/collection in, 315-316
sample size, 126, 128 description of movement, 91
theoretical, 128,240-241 gender issues in, 312, 328, 333n14
within~culture, 128 individual meaning in, 329, 332nl0
Saturate, saturated, or saturation, 160, methodology in, 314-316
240,271 overview of straight edge (sXe)
Scientific approach, 20, 41--42, 43, 69 movement, 311-312
Second~order narrative, 119 participant observation in, 91, 315-316
Selective coding, 65, 67 positioning statement, by
definition of, 240 researcher, 163
in grounded theory, Ill, 160, positive/dean living value in, 318-320
171 (fig),172 relationship to other youth
See also Axial coding; Open coding movement, 329-330
Self~reflection research themes in, 91, 92
validation and, 206 reserving sex for caring relationships
See also Reflexivity value in, 321-322
Self-reflective memoing, 131,290 rhetorical structures in, 195
Self-Regulation Model of Illness rise of movement, 91
Representation, 88, 266-267 self-realization value in, 323-324
Sexual abuse. See Childhood sexual social activism value in,
abuse study 326-328,330-331
Significant statement, 170 (fig) spreading message value in, 324-326
Single individual, 57 text of study, 310-331
definition of, 234-235 typical sXer, 312
Slcinhead subculture, 313-314, 323, 330 See also Ethnography; Youth subculture
Smith, M. 1. See Childhood sexual Strategy, defInition of, 64, 240
abuse study Structural description, 60, 61, 159,
Social constructivism, 20-21 170 (fig), 172, 187,188,215,227,236
Social science theories, 24, 249 Structure, 62, 244
Sociobehavioralism, 261 Subcultural resistance. See Straight
Spatial metaphor, 177 edge (sXe) movement study
392 Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Subquestions, for research, 109-113 face validation, 204

Substantive case report, 225 grounded theory research, 216-217
Substantive-level theory, 67, 90, 240 in field, 207-208
Substantive research design, in integrity, 206
critical theory, 27-28 ironic validation, 205
Surviving. See Childhood sexual member checking, 208-209
abuse study narrative research, 213-215
Synecdoche, 194 negative case analysis, 206
paralogic validation, 205
Table participant review, 45
comparison, 154, 162 peer review/debriefing, 45, 206
general taxonomy, 162 perspectives/terms overview, 203 (tab)
telephone interview, 132-133 phenomenological research, 215-216
2 x 2, 154, 163, 196 primary validation criteda, 206
Testimonios, 55 referential adequacy, 204
Textural description, 60:. 61, 62,159,237 reliability perspectives, 209-211
Themes, analysis of, 75, 244 researcher bias, clarifying, 206
See also Campus violence case study; rhizomatic, 205
Cognitive representations of secondary validation criteria, 206
AIDS sttldy standards for, 212-213
Theoretical lens format, sample proposal structural corroboration, 204
for, 49-50 substantive validation, 206
Theoretical sampling, 64, 66, 128, thick description, 209
216,240-241 triangulation, 45, 204, 208
Thick description, 194, 195,204,207, validation perspectives, 202, 204-207
209,214 validation/reliability in qualitative
Thin description, 194 research, 202-211
Transcendental phenomenology, 60, validation strategy, 207-209
215,237 voluptuous validation, 205
Tree diagram, 6, 154 Verisimilitude, 46, 194, 250
Tropes, 194, 195, 198 Visual ethnography, 129
2 x 2 table, 154, 163, 196 Voluptuous validation, 205

Validation/evaluation standards, 44-45 Within-case analysis, 75, 246

additional readings, 220-221 Within-culture sampling, 128
auditing, 204 Within-site, 73, 74, 246
authenticity, 206 Women. See Childhood sexual abuse
case study research, 218-219 study; Gender
catalytic validation, 204 Worldviews. See Paradigms/worldviews
comparing five approaches, 219 Writing qualitative study
construct validation, 204 additional readings, 198-199
credibility, 206 audience, 180
criticality, 206 case study structure, 195-197
ethical validation, 205-206 chronological approach to, 178
ethnographic research, 217-218 comparison of narrative structure,
evaluation criteria, 211-219 184 (tab), 197-198
external audits, 209 encoding, 180-182
Subject Index 393

ethnographic structure, 192-195 tropes, 194, 195, 198

focus, narrowing/expanding, 178 variety of methods for, 42
fore~hadowing in, 186-187
grounded theory structure, 189-192 Youth subculture
intercoder agreement, 210-211 gender issues in, 312, 328, 333n14
narrative research structure, 183, hardcore, 312, 315, 332n2
185-187 hippies, 312-313, 314, 323, 330
phenomenological structure, 187-189 mods, 312, 313
progressiv.e-regressive method, 185-186 punks, 314, 315, 323, 329, 330,
quotes, 182-183 332nn2-3, 333n14
reflexivity/representations, 178-180 skinheads, 313-314, 323, 330
'Storytelling) 178 See also Straight edge (sXe)
theory and, 178 movement study
thick description, 194, 195, 204,
207,209,214 'Zines,332n5
About the Author

John W. Creswell, PhD, is the Clifton Institute Professor

and has been Professor of Educational Psychology at the
Universiry of Nebraska-Lincoln since 1978. He special-
izes in research methods and writes, teaches, and con-
ducts research on mixed methods research, qualitative
research, and research designs. At the Universiry of
Nebraska, he co-directs the Office of Qualitative and
Mixed Methods Research, a service and research unit
that provides methodological support for proposal development and funded
projects. In addition, he has been Adjunct Professor of Family Medicine at the
Universiry of Michigan Health System (2001-2005) and serves as a consultant
on many family medicine and Department of Veterans Administration large-
scale funded projects. He was recently appointed co-editor of the new Sage
Publications journal, the Journal of Mixed Methods Research. He has
authored 10 books, including his bestselling book, Research Design:
Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods (2003), and his most recent
book, Designing and Conducting Mixed Methods Research (2007), coau-
thored with Vicki Piano Clark. Many of his books have been translated into
different languages, and they are widely used around the world.

395
Qualitative
Data
. Analysis

,
"