From last week I read the paper “Adopt, adapt, abandon: Understanding
why some young adults start, and then stop, using instant messaging”, where
adoption, adaption and abandoned use was examined of Instant messaging by
former users. The qualitative method used in this paper was inductive
qualitative technique, also described in grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss,
1967). In this approach you use the data to build theory, by examine concrete
events and from these data attempt to identify larger categories and to
understand them. The direction of reasoning is often thought of as “bottom up”,
from data to theory (Eben A. Weitzman, 1997). The inductive qualitative
technique was used to analyze interview data collected from 21 participants
from a semi-structured interview.
During the seminar Monday 16/12 we discussed our qualitative research
paper and what methods was used. Most common method used in the papers in my
group was qualitative interview. The paper that brought most discussion in the
group was Situating
Internet Use: Information-Seeking Among Young Women with Breast Cancer,
which used a slightly different qualitative method, Narratives. This subject
occupied most of our seminar time and resulted in some further researching and
composing of a describing text of Narratives under the tab “Other methods” on
the course page. This is what I learned concerning this method.
Narratives uses field texts such as stories, autobiography, journals,
field notes, letters, conversations, interviews and life experience, as the
units of analysis to research and understand the way people create meaning in
their lives as narratives. It uses stories as source of information for a
specific research. In the paper of information seeking among young women with
breast cancer, narratives were used to collect stories of women that had been
affected by breast cancer. With a very open instruction of how to write their
story. The fact that stories are used as material to conduct research upon have
been criticized for not being theoretical enough (David M. Boje, 2001). In the
paper they conclude that the advantage with using this method, is the
opportunity to narratize experiences in ways that were personally meaningful,
rather than imposing pre-assigned response categories on their experiences
(Balka et al., 2010).
References
Paper: Adopt, adapt, abandon: Understanding why some young adults start,
and then stop, using instant messaging
Journal: Computers in Human behavior
Impact factor: 2.489
Balka, E., Krueger, G., Holmes, B. J. and Stephen, J. E. (2010). Situating
Internet Use: Information-Seeking Among Young Women with Breast Cancer.
Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 15, pp. 389–411.
David M. Boje, Narrative Methods for
Organizational and Communication Research (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2001),
83, 98.
Hej Gustav!
SvaraRaderaI liked the way you described how the methodology used in your paper is a bottom up approach, meaning that we go from data to theory building.
I would have to say that for me the first seminar was useful because I realized that narratives is, as you say, a slightly different qualitative methodology (than interviews). Before the seminar I would categorize as an open-ended interview . So, the seminar was useful in understanding the importance of using stories as a source of information for a specific research topic, as well as the benefits and limitations of narratives. I am not sure that I agree with the critique on narratives not being theoretical enough. What do you think?
Well it's the first time I encountered Narratives and have just seen it applied on one research which makes it hard to form a solid opinion. However I can imagine some examples which may explain this critique. First of all if we take this papers ( Situating Internet Use: Information-Seeking Among Young Women with Breast Cancer) way of conduct in consideration. Where the collected data consists of stories, there are hard to get confirmation concerning the truth in the story. Even though all participants stories are true there may be still hard to prove everything. In other methods were data are collected, the data can be recorded and proven if the method is analysing some kind of conduct. On this point I disagree, but I still consider this as a good method. As we discussed on the seminar, there may be more effective to post-reflect on an event to be able to detach feelings playing a role present of an event. It may give a better picture. What do you think about my reasoning?
RaderaHi Gustav, i'm learning new methods all the time by reading your blog. I commented on your last blog about the inductive qualitative method, which was new to me. I have never heard about using narratives as a research method but it sounds very interesting. What kind of stories are there typically? Experiences by other people as with the women affected by breast cancer? I think it can be very effective in some cases, like the one in your described paper. When do you think it is good to use this method? What other research methods lies close to this method would you say?
SvaraRadera