Qualitative Research: The Researcher in a Comatose State

Abstract

Qualitative research is often thought of as the “answer” to the quantitative/positivist research “problem.” However, qualitative research has had a rather unsavory history of its own that illuminates the potentially problematic nature of Western research per se, not just positivistic research. By utilizing Denzin and Lincoln’s “eight moments” and drawing from feminist and indigenous research methodologies, the author troubles qualitative research and encourages her readers to not assume that qualitative is “more humane” simply because it is not quantitative. The chapter concludes by encouraging readers to decolonize their research and bring their own ways of knowing to the forefront where they can be examined and reconstructed.

Christina’s Story—October 1, 2009 (personal communication)

We read this article the other day; it was a qualitative study, written by this guy who observed all these police interrogations of suspects. I thought it was really interesting because he was the first person to conduct a study like this where he had such insider access into police interrogation techniques. I mean, sure, the study had its flaws, all studies do, but it was a really good effort. He had actually gotten in there behind closed doors, and it was the guy’s dissertation research. But the rest of my class just ripped it to shreds because they were saying it wasn’t scientific, that it should have been more experimental, or at least there should have been other researchers involved in the observations and coding in order to establish inter-rater reliability. They criticized that the researcher only used field notes and he didn’t audio or videotape any of the interrogations, so he couldn’t review the events in order to make sure he “got it right” when he was coding what he observed. One girl in my class actually said, “This is how anthropologists write. We don’t do that here.”

In that class, it’s me and two other crime (criminal justice) majors, and the rest are forensic psych people, so is the professor. Because my take on the article was different, they would attack me and it felt very personal. After a while, I just learned to keep my mouth shut. One of the girls in my program, she never speaks at all. I think because she’s scared. Another one of my friends said that our program just wasn’t as good as theirs, that the students in forensic psych are a different caliber; they’re smarter, more intense, trained to be more articulate, more serious. Their program is really selective, really prestigious, and they all have experience working in psych labs before they enter. We (students in the criminal justice program) recognized that we’re just not as good as they are. So we try not to say anything because the minute we do, they attack us and make us feel like idiots.

In our program, we aren’t trained to be that way. We have open discussions, it’s more relaxed, more open-minded, and it’s not all about critique. We don’t fight with each other; we don’t create hostile environments. But with the others, it’s like, “this is the only way, and there is nothing better than the way we do research.” Our professor actually told us, “no data is better than bad data.” But, there is no such thing as perfect data. All data has flaws. I think it’s a completely unrealistic view of the world; it’s like they don’t understand that this is real life. They were actually saying that the study was not empirical because it wasn’t experimental, and I started to wonder, “Am I the one who’s got it wrong?” I didn’t think that empirical and experimental were synonyms, but now I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong.