Qualitative Research Studying How Things Work

by Stake, Robert E.

• ISBN13: 9781606235454
• ISBN10: 1606235451
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-03-03
• Publisher: The Guilford Press

Summary

This book provides invaluable guidance for thinking through and planning a qualitative study.

Author Biography

Robert E. Stake is Director of the Center for Instructional Research and Curriculum Evaluation at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is one of several educational researchers who created theory and practice for educational program evaluation in the 1960s. His responsive evaluation approach emphasizes the study of classroom experience, personal interaction, and institutional processes and contexts, often in the form of case studies. Among the evaluative studies he has directed are studies in science and arts education; model programs; and conventional teaching, including higher education, special education and, with Bernadine Evans Stake, gender equity. He is a recipient of the Lazarsfeld Award from the American Evaluation Association and the Presidential Citation from the American Educational Research Association, and holds honorary doctorates from the University of Uppsala, Sweden, and the University of Valladolid, Spain. For many years, Dr. Stake has been a prominent voice in a transatlantic “invisible college” of like-minded evaluators questioning contexts and conventions for educational evaluation and infusing evaluation with fairness and a valuing of experience.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Make Yourself Comfortable	p. 1
Projects	p. 4
Qualitative Research: How Things Work	p. 11
The Science of the Particular	p. 13
Professional Knowledge	p. 13
Individual Experience and Collective Knowledge	p. 17
The Methods of Qualitative Research	p. 19
Causes	p. 20
The Thing	p. 25
Comparing Things	p. 26
Weaknesses of Qualitative Research	p. 28
Essence of the Qualitative Approach	p. 31
Interpretation: The Person as Instrument	p. 36
Interpretive Research	p. 36
Microinterpretation and Macrointerpretation	p. 39
Empathy	p. 46
Thick Description and Verstehen	p. 48
Context and Situation	p. 50
Skepticism	p. 53
Emphasis on Interpretation	p. 54
Experiential Understanding: Most Qualitative Study Is Experiential	p. 56
The Places of Human Activity	p. 57
Criterial and Experiential Description	p. 58
Emphasizing Personal Experience	p. 62
Multiple Realities	p. 66
Bringing in the Experience of Others	p. 66
Stating the Problem: Questioning How This Thing Works	p. 71
First the Question, Then the Methods	p. 72
Laying Out Your Study	p. 77
A Librarian Thinking of a Design	p. 78
Design for Studying How This Case Works	p. 82
Raising and Answering Questions	p. 86
Methods: Gathering Data	p. 88
Observing	p. 90
Interviewing	p. 95
Exhibit Questions	p. 97
Survey	p. 99
Keeping Records	p. 99
Review of Literature: Zooming to See the Problem	p. 104
Refining the Problem to Be Studied	p. 104
Concept Mapping	p. 106
Representing the Field	p. 109
Building upon the Nearby Studies	p. 112
Finding the Literature	p. 115
Evidence: Bolstering Judgment and Reconnoitering	p. 117
Evidence-Based Decision Making	p. 120
Unbearable Lightness of Evidence	p. 121
Triangulation	p. 123
Mixed Methods and Confidence	p. 125
Member Checking	p. 126
Review Panels	p. 127
Progressive Focusing	p. 129
Analysis and Synthesis: How Things Work	p. 133
Taking Apart and Putting Together	p. 134
Working with Patches	p. 137
Interpretation and Sorting	p. 150
Action Research and Self-Evaluation: Finding on Your Own How Your Place Works	p. 157
Participatory Action Research	p. 159
Evaluation	p. 161
Studying Your Own Place	p. 163
Bias	p. 164
Assertions	p. 167
Storytelling: Illustrating How Things Work	p. 170
Vignettes	p. 171
Elements of Story	p. 174
Story versus a Collage of Patches	p. 179
Multiple Case Research	p. 181
Writing the Final Report: An Iterative Convergence	p. 183
The Iterative Synthesis	p. 184
The Ukraine Report	p. 188
Dualities and the Dialectic	p. 191
Particular and General Assertions	p. 192
Generalization from Particular Situations	p. 197
The Professional View	p. 198
Advocacy and Ethics: Making Things Work Better	p. 200
All Research Is Advocative	p. 200
A Voice for the Underrepresented	p. 202
Personal Ethics	p. 203
Protection of Human Subjects	p. 206
People Exposed	p. 209
Essentials of Qualitative Research	p. 212
Looking Forward	p. 214
Glossary: Meanings for This Book	p. 217
Bibliography	p. 223
Author Index	p. 233
Subject Index	p. 237
About the Author	p. 244
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