Qualitative Methods for Social Research Part I

Social research is intended to help us to conceptualize and analyze our experience of social life so that we can describe, understand, and explain it as it is presented to us in a form that we recognize as empirical reality. Whereas quantitative methods attend to social phenomena as objects that can be measured and emphasize experimentation to eliminate plausible explanations, qualitative studies attend to social phenomena as subjects and emphasize methods that seek meaning in symbolic representations including, for example, words and images. This session will include a presentation and discussion of qualitative methods as an appropriate approach to research considering the historical and theoretical foundation of qualitative research; when and why they are appropriate; specific methods for sampling, data collection, and analysis; and the challenge of validity.