The state of qualitative research in health and social science literature: a focused mapping review and synthesis

Abstract

Pluralism and creativity are inherent and important parts of the qualitative endeavour. The multiplicity of approaches and methods can, however, be confusing. We undertook a focused mapping review and synthesis to obtain a snap-shot profile of the state of qualitative research in health and social science literature. We retrieved 102 qualitative articles published between January and March 2015 from six leading health and social science journals. Articles were scrutinised for alignment between researchers’ reported orientation (methodological or philosophical positioning) and the techniques used (methods). In the sampled articles level of alignment was generally high, with considerable mastery of qualitative approaches evident. However, the complexity of the qualitative landscape highlighted in our review, led us to develop a diagrammatic representation: The Qualitative Research Level of Alignment Wheel?. This educational resource/teaching aid is designed to assist qualitative researchers (particularly those more novice) and research students to locate the orientation and techniques of their studies. As an important contribution to the international field of qualitative inquiry, it will assist in understanding and accounting for points at which techniques are melded and orientations blended. In turn this will lead to the individual and collective qualitative endeavour as being a coherent one.     

DILEMMAS IN RESEARCH: ISSUES OF VULNERABILITY AND DISEMPOWERMENT FOR THE SOCIAL WORKER/RESEARCHER

Qualitative research ethics discussions have established a sound knowledge and practice base which advises on the protection and rights of the research informants. This paper, although supporting the primacy of informant safety, will highlight less visible research debates. The potential for vulnerability and harm of the social work researcher will be explored. The value of achieving heightened empathy and emotional resonance with research participants is considered as a process which the author suggests is likely to increase the richness of the research data, but also may accentuate researcher vulnerability or distress. The author's experience of doing personal research with vulnerable informants, and of being a social work research supervisor, will be used to reflect on processes and practices which she claims may make social work researchers particularly vulnerable to conflict and distress. Data from her recent research which explored the experiences of social work researchers will be used to illustrate these issues.     

Reflection note: confessions of a Muslim researcher – considering identity in research

ABSTRACT

This research note explores some of the contentions that have emerged from Muslim-on-Muslim research and how this can implicate the researcher more personally. Speaking in the context of methodological concerns arising from qualitative research, the paper consider the following aspects: inappropriate access of participants, over-representation of own experiences, and questioning fundamental parts of your identity. Whilst certain experiences can shake the foundations of being a researcher and even sense of self, these should ultimately be welcomed. It is concluded that, in taking the time to reconcile from such tensions emerging from our multiple identities, it can allow for becoming a more rigorous and reflexive researcher.     

The puzzle of metaphor and voice in arts‐based social research

Research exploring the emotional responses to crime experienced by the citizens of several major European and North American countries has suggested that a significant proportion of the residents of these countries 'fear' or feel 'angry' about the possibility of criminal victimization. It has ceased to appear incredible to us that we are regularly finding that between a quarter and two thirds of our citizens are fearful or 'angry about crime' 'all of the time'. The argument put forward in this contribution to the work in this field is that the emotional responses to crime have been exaggerated by the inappropriate use of the survey as a measurement tool. Ethnographic and qualitative data suggest that experiences of 'fear' and 'anger' are less common. Suggestions for improving the ability of the questions used in surveys to accurately capture these emotional responses are advanced.     

White-Knuckle Research: Emotional Dynamics in Fieldwork with Racist Activists

Current understandings of emotions as relational expressions rather than individual states have made it possible to reconsider the role of emotion in the research process. This article proposes two ways that qualitative research on social movements can benefit from greater attention to the emotional dynamics of fieldwork. First, by examining the strategic use of various emotions by informants as well as by researchers, scholars are in a better position to explore how informants and researchers jointly shape knowledge and interpretation in qualitative research. Second, exploration of emotional dynamics in interviewing relationships can be used as data to deepen understanding of both the interpretative process and of the emotional content of social movements. I examine these issues in the context of a life history project with activists in contemporary U.S. racist movements.     

Researcher Emotions: A Way Into The Experiences of Frail Older People

This paper explores the importance of the researcher's emotional experience in practice-near research. It details a journey towards positioning researcher emotions within a doctoral project exploring the everyday stories of older people deemed frail. Data from the experiences of interviewing and analysing the story of one couple are used to exemplify the emergent method. The method combines the Biographic Narrative Interpretive Method with the psychoanalytically informed Tavistock Observation Method. The paper details the utilisation of the method and the frame it gives the researcher to move beyond the purely text based, cognitive responses of participant and researcher, to the less rational, and unspoken aspects of the research encounter.

The paper argues that the emotional experiences of the researcher as well as the participant are important data in understanding the experience of ‘being frail’. However, there is the need for an over-arching theoretical framework to give validity to these emotional processes. It argues that psychoanalytical approaches, which emphasise the quality of the emotions experienced and the internal psychological processes which mediate social experience, are helpful in underpinning both methodology and methods of practice-near research.     

Merging and its procedures in QSR software

Qualitative Solutions and Research (QSR) provide merge tools for combining NUD*IST or NVivo 'projects' as neither package enables more than one researcher to work on a data set simultaneously (although, of course, turn-taking on the computer is possible). These tools appear to offer researchers collaborating in pairs and in teams the option to develop work separately and combine it for cross-analysis. Although the merge tools are easy to use, doing so effectively imposes some important limitations on the use of QSR software. This paper discusses four strategies for using merge effectively in team research.     

Researching an-'other' minority ethnic community: Reflections of a black female researcher on the intersections of race,gender and other power positions on the research process

There is a dearth of discussion on the methodological dilemmas faced by minority ethnic researchers who research minority ethnic communities of which they are not a part. The paper explores the political and ethical issues involved in a black woman researching South Asian women's lives, analysing the research process, and focusing on issues of choice of research group, access and placing. This paper represents a reflexive account of the research relationships developed in longitudinal qualitative doctoral research between a black (of African descent) postgraduate student and sample of 19 South Asian female student teachers in England and draws on literature of women interviewing women and ethnic or 'race' matched research. The methods employed were documentary analysis, observing meetings, a focus group, two student questionnaires, one-to-one interviews with staff and group and one-to-one interviews with South Asian female student teachers. It is argued that whilst social characteristics such as gender, language, religion and culture are important in determining notions of commonality and difference, a shared experience of racism between the researched and the researcher may affect the research relationship most significantly.     

Inside out: some notes on carrying out feminist research in cross-cultural interviews with South Asian women immigration applicants

This article considers a number of important issues raised in the growing literature with regard to the place of ethnicity in feminist research methodology and the woman-to-woman interview. Drawing on examples from the author's experiences of conducting interviews with South Asian women immigration applicants, the article firstly illustrates that because of a different ethnicity, a white feminist researcher is likely to be regarded as an outsider by the minority-ethnic interviewees, regardless of the sharing of gender. Secondly, using the ideas of 'personal' and 'structural' power the article discusses how the researcher's outsider status complicates the power relations between the interviewer and the participants.     

Inviting intimacy: The interview as therapeutic opportunity

This paper explores the notions of time and texture --or the interplay of the temporal and cultural dimensions of social life--as the conceptual foundation for the development of longitudinal qualitative (LQ) methodologies. It illustrates the different ways in which time is theorized among both qualitative and quantitative researchers in order to draw out the creative potential offered by LQ methodologies for understanding the dynamics of everyday life. The paper concludes by exploring how LQ methodologies might be used in the context of childhood research and for revisioning the process of 'growing up'.     

Researching religion: The vocation of the sociologist of religion

This paper reflects on the vocation or 'calling' of the researcher in the sociology of religion in the light of his experiences of researching transformations in English Catholicism in the last quarter of the twentieth century. It takes as its starting point Weber's two essays. A consideration of religious perspectives on the lay vocation leads to an evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of insider research. The paper reflects on research mistakes, threats and attempts to co-opt the researcher, unexpected surprises and serendipity, and the need for the social scientist to retain control of his/her research. It concludes with inspiration from Havel that the calling of the sociological researcher is socially important and urges renewed commitment to seeking with integrity the extension of certified knowledge and the demystification of powerful institutional structures.     

Using feminist ‘reflexive practice’ to explore stress and well-being of local researchers in South Sudan

ABSTRACT

This article discusses using feminist methods of reflexive practice to support and learn about the well-being of researchers working on gender-based violence research in South Sudan. In particular, we focus on the experiences of South Sudanese researchers undertaking this research in their own country. We share key findings and offer personal reflections on and suggestions for improving fieldwork. As feminists ourselves we placed a high value on sharing personal reflections on emotional challenges that the research team faced. However, our South Sudanese colleagues did not find these approaches very useful, preferring to discuss technical challenges, and placed emphasis on the importance of professionalism. This experience suggests the need for more culturally diverse feminist research tools, and for better recognition of the crucial role played by national researchers in international research projects. We end with recommendations.     

Alternative approaches to researching social capital: A comment on van Deth's measuring social capital

This paper responds to van Deth's overview of empirical research on social capital and the difficulties of measuring the concept. We entirely agree with many of the problems that he identifies with the dominant mode of enquiry to date: namely survey and polling methods of attitudinal data. We are sure there are ways of improving on such quantitative methods although we are of the view that qualitative research is especially helpful for exploring the processes of social capital formation and the relationship between networks and norms so crucial to Putnam's use of the concept. Briefly, we discuss our own qualititive work involving intensive interviews with 120 activists drawn from a Citizens Audit of Britain. We address the importance of pre-existing trust and informal processes of mobilization, the significance of experiences of group involvement for generating norms of trust as well as distrust and the extent to which evaluations of such experiences influence wider views of participation and democracy in Britain. In sum, we totally endorse van Deth's call for the greater use of 'multi-methods and multi-level srategies' in empirical research by extending his plea to consider the valuable role of qualitative methods in the study of social capital.     

The experiential gap in disaster research: Feminist epistemology and the contribution of local affected researchers

ABSTRACT

In this article, we make the case for a situated knowledge of disasters. By applying a feminist standpoint framework, we argue that an ethic of “objectivity” and a privileging of the unattached researcher creates an experiential gap in the disaster literature whereby researchers who themselves experience disaster are undervalued and underrepresented. We analyze reflexive accounts by disaster researchers to show what epi stemological barriers emerge from conventional processes of inquiry and the systematic disadvantaging of local, affected researchers. We also study patterns in articles by “outsider” and “insider” researchers, focusing on differences and similarities in research questions, reflexivity, relationships with and access to participants, and larger theoretical goals. This comparison reveals that the unique position of affected researchers can help to bridge formal knowledge and practical life knowledge, creating new and worthwhile paths to understanding the social effects of disaster.     

The Authenticity of Self: Conceptualization,Personal Experience,and Practice

Scholars across the social sciences often use the concept of authenticity to refer to such different things as sincerity, truthfulness, originality, and the feeling and practice of being true to one's self or others. Whereas the concept of authenticity refers to all of these things, a careful employment of this concept requires a clear understanding of it. By reviewing theory and empirical research on authenticity, we aim at a more precise conceptualization of authenticity. We argue that authenticity is about being true to one's self. When one is true to one's self, one experiences authenticity. This conceptualization views authenticity as a self‐reflective and emotional experience. In order to understand authenticity, a researcher must then take into consideration at least two things: people's emotional experiences of being true or untrue to one's self and people's ideas about what their true self is.     

Emotional Labor and Health Care

We examine the literature on emotional labor and health care to demonstrate the potential for emotional labor research to inform how social and medical scientists think about health care and how examining healthcare contexts has contributed to the scientific understanding of emotional labor processes. In doing so, we first review the key terms and definitions that are used within the emotion management perspective and evaluate the ways in which power differences have remained largely implicit features of research on emotional labor in healthcare settings. Finally, we explore how the increasing economic rationalization of health care may be influencing the emotional experiences of today's healthcare professionals and the implications of this trend for future research on emotional labor and the health and well-being of care providers and their patients.     

On the Outside Looking In? The Experience of Being a Straight,Cisgender Qualitative Researcher

Research with disenfranchised and marginalized populations is often completed by those traditionally considered outsiders who are not part of the studied population. The history of outsider research has been somewhat tumultuous, and some outsider researchers have manipulated participants or carried out unethical studies. However, the insider/outsider dichotomy is overly simplistic and does not always accurately reflect the researcher position. Using lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals as an example, this article will review the literature on insider/outsider researchers, suggest a more fluid concept of researcher positionality, and identify several recommendations for qualitative researchers.     

Beyond the cool pose: Black men and emotion management strategies

This review presents an overview of research on qualitative work that has documented emotion management strategies among Black men. I emphasize qualitative work here as it gives us insight into the processes that account for particular strategies. Research on Black men and emotions has focused on their class‐based experiences, as either lower SES working‐class or poor Black men in settings concentrated by people of color or higher SES middle‐class Black men in White‐dominated spaces. Within these two class positions, Black men adopt emotion management strategies for both the frontstage and backstage meant to best navigate their surroundings. This research emphasizes that Black men's emotional strategies are often a reaction to larger systems that oppress and discriminate against their race and gender status.