Teaching and Learning Qualitative Research

The majority of students enrolled in graduate programs representing schools and colleges of education are required to take one or more courses in qualitative research(Leech & Goodwin, 2008; see also Capraro & Thompson, 2008).

Unfortunately, despite the prevalence of qualitative research courses, and although an abundance of information is present in the published literature on how to conduct qualitative research, with a few exceptions (cf. Chenail, 2007; Hurworth, 2008), little explicit guidance is present on how to teach qualitative research. For example, in the previous edition of the Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005b), one of the leading textbooks used in qualitative research courses in the United States, none of the 44 chapters deal explicitly with teaching qualitative research.

The first phase, the Conceptual/Theoretical Phase, involves an overview of the qualitative research process, using Leech and Onwuegbuzie’s (2006) model. In the second phase, the Technical Phase, the instructors describe 18 qualitative analysis techniques from different traditions and different epistemologies (e.g., constant comparison analysis, discourse analysis), delineating when to use each type of analysis and how to conduct each of these analyses using Computer-Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software (CAQDAS; e.g., NVivo 9; QSR International Pty Ltd., 2011; QDA Miner 3.2; Provalis Research, 2009). For instance, we provide students with works that demonstrate how NVivo 9 (Leech & Onwuegbuzie, 2011), Excel (Combs & Onwuegbuzie, 2010; Meyer & Avery, 2009), and SPSS (Onwuegbuzie & Combs, 2011) can be used to conduct qualitative analyses.

The third phase, the Applied Phase, involves the instructors teaching students how to collect, to analyse, and to interpret qualitative data, and how to write up qualitative research. With respect to data collection, students practice collecting data via observations, interviews, and focus groups—as well as gathering field notes. With regard to data analysis and data interpretation, students write a series of what the instructors call qualitative notebooks, in which students use NVivo 9 or another CAQDAS to facilitate the analysis of data they had collected during the course using several qualitative analytic techniques.

CONCLUSION

There is a need for an emphasis on developing students’ abilities to write-up qualitative research will help students see that writing represents a method of inquiry (Richardson & St. Pierre, 2005)—going far beyond being a passive or reactive process—that is, writing represents an active meaning-making endeavour.

As stated by Elizabeth Adams St. Pierre, “writing is thinking, writing is analysis, writing is indeed a seductive and tangled method of discovery” (emphasis in original); Richardson & St. Pierre, 2005, p. 967). Simply put, writing is an interactive, iterative, and dynamic method of data collection, data analysis, and data interpretation.

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