Qualitative Research Methods (DP IB Psychology): Revision Note

Qualitative Research Methods

• The following qualitative research methods could feature as the study scenario in Paper 3

• Qualitative research is exploratory and inductive 

  • It is used to gain insight into psychological phenomena

• Qualitative research is generally focused on investigating real behaviour in real settings, documenting individual, rather than general experience

  • It is subjective rather than objective and scientific

• The qualitative research methods relevant to Paper 3 are:

  • Naturalistic observation

  • Interviews

  • Case studies

Naturalistic observations

• These are observations of naturally occurring behaviour in a natural setting e.g.

  • social interaction between children in a playground

  • littering behaviour in a shopping centre

• Several different recording techniques can be used to obtain data e.g.

  • a tally of the frequencies of specific behaviours (quantitative data)

  • field notes which take the form of comments about what is being observed (qualitative data)

• Behavioural categories are predetermined so that the observer knows what they are looking for during the observation e.g.

  • pushing

  • shoving

  • pointing 

• Observations may be

  • Participant - the researcher is part of what is being observed 

  • Non-participant - the researcher is separate from what is being observed

  • Covert - the participants do not know that they are being observed

  • Overt - the participants know that they are being observed

• Time and/or event sampling is used to structure the observation

  • Time sampling - behaviour is sampled according to a predetermined time frame e.g. every 30 seconds within a one-hour observation period

  • Event sampling - predetermined behavioural categories are used with no set timing schedule e.g. drops litter/puts litter in bin/ignores litter

Interviews

• This is a type of self-report which can occur

  • face-to-face

  • online (remotely)

  • with one participant

  • with a small group of participants

• Interviews are used to gain insight into people’s thoughts, opinions and feelings (qualitative data)

• There are four types of interviews relevant to Paper 3:

  • Structured - the researcher uses a set of standardised questions per participant and does not veer from these throughout the interview

  • Semi-structured - the researcher uses some pre-prepared questions but there is scope for the interview to explore areas not covered by these questions

  • Unstructured/narrative - the researcher comes to the interview with no pre-prepared questions (they may open the interview by asking ‘Tell me about a time when you…’) and allows the participant to talk freely

  • Focus group - the researcher gathers a small group of participants (usually via purposive sampling) and gives them a topic to discuss, sometimes asking the group questions but allowing them to discuss the topic freely

Case studies

• A case study is not a method, rather it is a collection of different methods (usually but not exclusively qualitative) which allow a researcher to gain insight into one specific individual (or a small group) who is in some way unique due to an experience or a rare, unusual condition e.g.

  • The case of HM (Scoville & Milner, 1957; Corkin, 1997) is an in-depth investigation into an individual who suffered from extreme anterograde amnesia

  • The case of Eve White/Eve Black (Thigpen & Cleckley, 1954) documents the case of a woman with multiple personality disorder

• Case studies tend to use interviews (with both the participant and other people such as family members and professionals involved with the person), observations, psychometric tests (e.g. IQ, personality, ability)

• Thus, case studies can combine both qualitative and quantitative methods and data (known as triangulation)