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HOW TO WRITE CHAPTER TWO OF RESEARCH PROJECTS

A practical guide to research writing – chapter two.

Historically, Chapter Two of every academic Research/Project Write up has been Literature Review, and this position has not changed. When preparing your write up for this Chapter, you can title it “Review of Related Literature” or just “Literature Review”.

This is the chapter where you provide detailed explanation of previous researches that has been conducted on your topic of interest. The previous studies that must be selected for this chapter must be academic work/articles published in an internationally reputable journal.

Also, the selected articles must not be more than 10 years old (article publication date to project writing date). For better organization, it has been generally accepted that the arrangement for a good literature review write up follows this order:

2.0     Introduction

2.1     Conceptual Review

2.2     Theoretical Framework

2.3     Empirical review

Summary of Literature/Research Gap

2.0     INTRODUCTION

This serves as the preamble to the chapter alone or preliminary information on the chapter. All the preliminary information that should be provided here should cover just this chapter alone because the project already has a general introduction which is chapter one. It should only reflect the content of this chapter. This is why the introduction for literature review is sometimes optional.

Basically here, you should describe the contents of the chapter in few words

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2.1     CONCEPTUAL REVIEW

This section can otherwise be titled “Conceptual Framework”. It must capture all explanations on the concepts that are associated with your research topic in logical order. For example, if your research topic is “A study of the effect of advertisement on firm sales”, your conceptual framework can best follow this order:

2.1     Conceptual Framework

2.1.1  Advertisement

2.1.1.1        Types of Advertisement

2.1.1.2.      Advantages of Advertisement

2.1.2  Concept of Firm Sales

2.1.2.1        Factor determining Firm Sales

These concepts must be defined and described from the historical point of view. Topical works and prevailing issues globally, in your continent and nation on the concepts should be presented here. You must be able to provide clear information here that there should be no ambiguity about the variables you are studying.

2.2     THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

This can be otherwise titled “Theoretical Review”. This section should contain all previous professional theories and models that have provided explanations on your research topic in the recent past. Yes, related theories and models also falls within the category of past literature for your research write up. Professional theories that are most relevant to your topic should be separately arranged in this section, as seen in the example below:

2.2.1  Jawkwish Theory of Performance

2.2.2  Interstitial Theory of Ranking

2.2.3  Grusse Theory of Social Learning

But the most important thing to note while writing this part is that, apart from making sure that you must do a thorough research and ensure that the most relevant theories for your research topic is selected, your theoretical review must capture some important points which should better reflect in this order for each model:

The proponent of the theory/model, title and year of publication, aim/purpose/structure of the theory, contents and arguments of the theory, findings and conclusions of the theory, criticisms and gaps of the theory, and finally the relevance of the theory to your current research topic.

Best Research Writing eBook

Academic project or thesis or dissertation writing is not an easy academic endeavor. To reach your goal, you must invest time, effort, and a strong desire to succeed. Writing a thesis while also juggling other course work is challenging, but it doesn't have to be an unpleasant process. A dissertation or thesis is one of the most important requirements for any degree, and this book will show you how to create a good research write-up from a high level of abstraction, making your research writing journey much easier. It also includes examples of how and what the contents of each sub-headings should look like for easy research writing. This book will also constitute a step-by-step research writing guide to scholars in all research fields.

2.3     EMPIRICAL REVIEW

This can be otherwise titled “Empirical Framework”. This is usually described as the critical review of the existing academic works/literature on your research topic. This can be organized or arranged in two different alternative ways when developing your write up:

• It can be arranged in a table with heading arranged horizontally in this order: Author name and initials, year and title of publication, aim/objectives, methodology, findings, conclusions, recommendations, research gap. Responses for the above should be provided in spaces provided below in the table for up to 40 articles at least.
• The second option excludes the use of tables but still contains the same information exactly as above for tables. The information is provided in thematic text format with appropriate in-text references. Note that all these points to be included can be directly gotten from the articles except the research gap which requires your critical thinking. Your research gap must identify an important thing(s) the previous research has not done well or not done at all, which your current research intends to do. Although, you should criticize, but constructively while acknowledging areas of perfections and successes of the authors.

Note that every research you critically review must have evident/obvious gaps that your research intends to fill.

SUMMARY OF LITERATURE REVIEW/RESEARCH GAP/GAP ANALYSIS

This is the concluding part of every literature review write up. It provides the summary of the entire content of the whole Chapter. Sometimes, some institutions require that you bring the analysis of all the gaps of the existing literature under review here. Conclusions on the whole existing literature under review should briefly be highlighted in this section.

I trust that this article will help undergraduates and postgraduate researchers in writing a very good Literature Review for your Research/Project/Paper/Thesis, and will also meet the needs of our esteemed readers who has been requesting for a guide on how to write their Chapter Two (Literature Review).

Enjoy, as you develop a good Literature Review for your research!

24 comments

please i want to understand how to write a project. tutorial available?

thanks so now am able to write the chapter two of the research

Thank you for the article,it really guide and educate.

Thank you so much for this vital information which serve as a guide to me in respect to my chapter 2. With so much hope and interest this piece of information will pass across other researchers.

Very helpful, thanks for sharing this for free.

This is fantastic, I commend you for the well job done, this guiedline is so much useful for me, you’ve indeed light up my path to write a good literature review of chapter 2

I Have a doctoral dissertation research and I want to understand the help you can offer for me to move forward. Thanks.

It was indeed helpful. Thanks.

This is helpful

Good it serves a lecture delivered by notable Prof

Very helpful, thanks for be present,

Sir, am confused a bit am writing on the role of social media in creating political awareness and mobilizing political protests (in Nigeria). How my going to do conceptual framework. Thanks

Thanks for educating me better

Thank you so much, the detailed explanation has given me more courage to attain my first class degree, all the way from Gulu Uganda.

Really helpful. Thank you for this.

Sure this page realy guide me on chapter two big thanks i will request more when the need arise

thank you for this article but is this the only option for writing a chapter two for an undergraduate degree project?

Very helpful

Weldone and kudos to you guys

Thanks a lot this has surely helped me in moving ahead in my project

Thanks for this piece of information I really appreciate ✨

Pls how will i see the preamble in my journal or am i going to write it offhand

First of all thanks for the informations provided above. I want to ask is the nature and element of research also included in this chapter

Need proof reading help

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How to write chapter two of a research pape r.

As is known, within a research paper, there are several types of research and methodologies. One of the most common types used by students is the literature review. In this article, we will be dealing how to write the literature review (Chapter Two) of your research paper.

Although when writing a project, literature review (Chapter Two) seems more straightforward than carrying out experiments or field research, the literature review involves a lot of research and a lot of reading. Also, utmost attention is essential when it comes to developing and referencing the content so that nothing is pointed out as plagiarism.

However, unlike other steps in project writing, it is not necessary to perform the separate theoretical reference part in the review. After all, the work itself will be a theoretical reference, filled with relevant information and views of several authors on the same subject over time.

As it technically has fewer steps and does not need to go to the field or build appraisal projects, the research paper literature review is a great choice for those who have the tightest deadline for delivering the work. But make no mistake, the level of seriousness in research and development itself is as difficult as any other step.

To further facilitate your understanding, we have divided this research methodology into some essential steps and will explain how to do each of them clearly and objectively. Want to know more about it? Read on and check it out!

What is the literature review in a research paper?

To develop a project in any discipline, it is necessary, first, to study everything that other authors have already explored on that subject. This step aims to update the subject for the academic community and to have a basis to support new research. Therefore, it must be done before any other process within the research paper. However, in the literature review (Chapter Two), this step of searching for data and previous work is all the work. That is, you will only develop the theoretical framework.

In general, you will need to choose the topic in question and search for more relevant works and authors that worked around that research idea you want to discuss. As the intention is to make history and update the subject, you will be able to use works from different dates, showing how opinions and views have evolved over time.

Suppose the subject of your research paper is the role of monarchies in 21st-century societies, for example. In that case, you must present a history of how this institution came about, its impact on society, and what roles the institution is currently playing in modern societies. In the end, you can make a more personal conclusion about your vision.

If your topic covered contains a lot of content, you will need to select the most important and relevant and highlight them throughout the work. This is because you will need to reference the entire work. This means that the research paper literature review needs to be filled with citations from other authors. Therefore, it will present references in practically every paragraph.

In order not to make your work uninteresting and repetitive, you should quote differently throughout development. Switching between direct and indirect citations and trying to fit as much content and work as possible will enrich your project and demonstrate to the evaluators how deep you have been in the search.

Within the review, the only part that does not need to be referenced is the conclusion. After all, it will be written as your final and personal view of everything you have read and analyzed.

How to write a literature review?

Here are some practical and easy tips for structuring a quality and compliant research paper literature review!

Introduction

As with any work, the introduction should attract your project readers’ attention and help them understand the basis of the subject that will be worked on. When reading the introduction, you need to be clear to whoever is reading about your research and what it wants to show.

Following the example cited on the theme of monarchies’ roles in the 21st-century societies, the introduction needs to clarify what this type of institution is and why research on it is vital for this area. Also, it would help if you also quoted how the work was developed and the purpose of your literary study.

Basically, you will introduce the subject in such a way that the reader – even without knowing anything about the topic – can read the complete work and grasp the approach, understanding what was done and the meaning of it.

Methodology

Describing the methodology of a literature review is simpler than describing the steps of field research or experiment. In this step, you will need to describe how your research was carried out, where the information was searched, and retrieved.

As you will need to gather a lot of content, searches can be done in books, academic articles, academic publications, old monographs, internet articles, among other reliable sources. The important thing is always to be sure with your supervisor or other teachers about the reliability of each content used. After all, as the entire work is a theoretical reference, choosing unreliable base papers can greatly damage your grade and hinder your approval, putting at risk the quality and integrity of your entire research paper.

Results and conclusion

The results must present clearly and objectively everything that has been observed and collected from studies throughout history on the research’s theme. In this step, you should show the comparisons between authors, like what was the view of the subject before and how it is currently, in an updated way.

You will also be able to show the developments within the theme and the progress of research and discoveries, as well as the conclusions on the issue so far. In the end, you will summarize everything you have read and discovered, and present your final view on the topic.

Also, it is important to demonstrate whether your project objectives have been met and how. The conclusion is the crucial point to convince your reader and examiner of the relevance and importance of all the work you have done for your area or branch, society, or the environment. Therefore, you must present everything clearly and concisely, closing your research paper with a flourish.

In all academic work, bibliographic references are essential. In the academic paper literature review, however, these references will be gathered at the end of the work and throughout the texts.

Citations during the development of the subject must be referenced in accordance with the guideline of your institutions and departments. For each type of reference, there is a rule that depends on the number of words or how you will make it.

Also, in the list of bibliographic references, where you will need to put all the content used, the rules change according to your search source. For internet sources, for example, the way of referencing is different than book sources.

A wrong quote throughout the text or a used work that you forget to put in the references can lead to your project being labeled a plagiarism work, which is a crime and can lead to several consequences. Therefore, studying these standards is essential and determinant for the success of your work’s literature review (Chapter Two).

By adequately studying the rules, dedicating yourself, and putting them into practice, not only will it be easy to develop a successful project, but achieving your dream grade will be closer than you think.

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Research Methods

Chapter 2 introduction.

Maybe you have already gained some experience in doing research, for example in your bachelor studies, or as part of your work.

The challenge in conducting academic research at masters level, is that it is multi-faceted.

The types of activities are:

• Finding and reviewing literature on your research topic;
• Designing a research project that will answer your research questions;
• Collecting relevant data from one or more sources;
• Analyzing the data, statistically or otherwise, and
• Writing up and presenting your findings.

Some researchers are strong on some parts but weak on others.

We do not require perfection. But we do require high quality.

Going through all stages of the research project, with the guidance of your supervisor, is a learning process.

The journey is hard at times, but in the end your thesis is considered an academic publication, and we want you to be proud of what you have achieved!

Probably the biggest challenge is, where to begin?

• What will be your topic?
• And once you have selected a topic, what are the questions that you want to answer, and how?

In the first chapter of the book, you will find several views on the nature and scope of business research.

Since a study in business administration derives its relevance from its application to real-life situations, an MBA typically falls in the grey area between applied research and basic research.

The focus of applied research is on finding solutions to problems, and on improving (y)our understanding of existing theories of management.

Applied research that makes use of existing theories, often leads to amendments or refinements of these theories. That is, the applied research feeds back to basic research.

In the early stages of your research, you will feel like you are running around in circles.

You start with an idea for a research topic. Then, after reading literature on the topic, you will revise or refine your idea. And start reading again with a clearer focus ...

A thesis research/project typically consists of two main stages.

The first stage is the research proposal .

Once the research proposal has been approved, you can start with the data collection, analysis and write-up (including conclusions and recommendations).

Stage 1, the research proposal consists of he first three chapters of the commonly used five-chapter structure :

• Chapter 1: Introduction
• An introduction to the topic.
• The research questions that you want to answer (and/or hypotheses that you want to test).
• A note on why the research is of academic and/or professional relevance.
• Chapter 2: Literature
• A review of relevant literature on the topic.
• Chapter 3: Methodology

The methodology is at the core of your research. Here, you define how you are going to do the research. What data will be collected, and how?

Your data should allow you to answer your research questions. In the research proposal, you will also provide answers to the questions when and how much . Is it feasible to conduct the research within the given time-frame (say, 3-6 months for a typical master thesis)? And do you have the resources to collect and analyze the data?

In stage 2 you collect and analyze the data, and write the conclusions.

• Chapter 4: Data Analysis and Findings
• Chapter 5: Summary, Conclusions and Recommendations

This video gives a nice overview of the elements of writing a thesis.

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Project Chapter Two: Literature Review and Steps to Writing Empirical Review

Kindly share this story:

• Conceptual review
• Theoretical review,
• Empirical review or review of empirical works of literature/studies, and lastly
• Conclusion or Summary of the literature reviewed.
• Decide on a topic
• Highlight the studies/literature that you will review in the empirical review
• Analyze the works of literature separately.
• Summarize the literature in table or concept map format.
• Synthesize the literature and then proceed to write your empirical review.

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How To Develop Your Research Project Chapter Two Effectively (Literature Review) | ResearchWap Blog

• Posted: Wednesday, 08 April 2020
• By: ResearchWap Admin

How To Develop A Literature Review For A Research Work

Introduction:

A literature review is a survey of academic sources on a particular project topic. It gives an overview of the ebb and flows information, permitting you to distinguish significant hypotheses, strategies, and holes in the current research.

A literature review is to show your reader that you have read, and have a good grasp of, the main published work concerning a particular topic or question in your field.

It is very important to note that your review should not be simply a description of what others have published in the form of a set of summaries but should take the form of a critical discussion, showing insight and an awareness of differing arguments, theories, and approaches. It should be a synthesis and analysis of the relevant published work, linked at all times to your own purpose and rationale.

Conducting a literature review involves collecting, evaluating, and analyzing publications (such as books and journal articles) that relate to your research question. There are five main steps in the process of writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates, and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources – it analyzes, synthesizes, and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

According to Caulley (1992) of La Trobe University, the literature review should:

• compare and contrast different authors’ views on an issue • group authors who draw similar conclusions • criticize aspects of the methodology • note areas in which authors are in disagreement • highlight exemplary studies • highlight gaps in research • show how your study relates to previous studies • show how your study relates to the literature in general • conclude by summarising what the literature says

THE PURPOSES OF THE REVIEW ARE:

• To define and limit the problem you are working on • To place your study in a historical perspective • To avoid unnecessary duplication • To evaluate promising research methods • To relate your findings to previous knowledge and suggest further research

A good literature review, therefore, is critical of what has been written, identifies areas of controversy, raises questions, and identifies areas that need further research.

STRUCTURE OF THE LITERATURE REVIEW

The overall structure of your review will depend largely on your own thesis or research area. What you will need to do is to group together and compare and contrast the varying opinions of different writers on certain topics. What you must not do is just describe what one writer says, and then go on to give a general overview of another writer, and then another, and so on. Your structure should be dictated instead by topic areas, controversial issues or by questions to which there are varying approaches and theories. Within each of these sections, you would then discuss what the different literature argues, remembering to link this to your own purpose.

Linking words are important. If you are grouping together writers with similar opinions, you would use words or phrases such as: Similarly, in addition, also, again

More importantly, if there is disagreement, you need to indicate clearly that you are aware of this by the use of linkers such as: however, on the other hand, conversely, nevertheless

At the end of the review, you should include a summary of what the literature implies, which again links to your hypothesis or main question.

A standard research literature review is expected to follow the format below:

Introduction

• Conceptual framework
• Theoretical framework
• Empirical review
• Knowledge gap (optional)
• Summary of literature

INTRODUCTION: here undergraduate or final year project students are expected to simply spell out in at least seven (7) what this chapter will contain. As we have it above conceptual framework, theoretical framework, empirical review, etc. a good introduction gives the project supervisor kind confidence in his or her project students.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK: a good conceptual framework will cover all the research objectives so as to help solve the problem of the research work. This section involves the use of diagrams to explain certain key variables in the research work. The use of diagrams is usually high in MBA/MSC thesis research.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: this section is very important in research work. Undergraduate project students, postgraduate research students are expected to search for theories that are related to their research project topic.

For example, consider the project topic on human resource management: work-life balancing and its effect on employee productivity; the theory that is suited for the above research topic is The Segmentation Theory, Spill-Over Theory, Compensation Theory, Resource Drain Theory, and Border Theory. A project student is expected to get the theories that are related to their research work/ topic.

EMPIRICAL REVIEW

The empirical review is simply talking about the various researches done by other researchers concerning your topic or people's research works that are similar to your research work. The names of various researchers must be attached to their findings or statement.

For example, the use of instructional materials in teaching and learning of geography in senior secondary schools has a significant effect on the level of the academic achievement of students (Androameda, 2017)

SUMMARY OF LITERATURE

Here the research or project students are expected to point out their view concerning all that was discussed in each section of the literature review.

WHY WRITE A LITERATURE REVIEW?

When you write a thesis, dissertation, or research paper, you will have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position yourself in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate

You might also have to write a literature review as a stand-alone assignment. In this case, the purpose is to evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of scholarly debates around a topic.

The content will look slightly different in each case, but the process of conducting a literature review follows the same steps.

Step 1: Search for relevant literature

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic.

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions.

If you are writing a literature review as a stand-alone assignment, you will have to choose a focus and develop a central question to direct your search. Unlike a dissertation research question, this question has to be answerable without collecting original data. You should be able to answer it based only on a review of existing publications.

Search for literature using keywords and citations

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research topic and question. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalog
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering, and computer science)

Read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

To identify the most important publications on your topic, take note of recurring citations. If the same authors, books or articles keep appearing in your reading, make sure to seek them out.

You can find out how many times an article has been cited on Google Scholar – a high citation count means the article has been influential in the field, and should certainly be included in your literature review.

What can proofreading do for your paper?

Scribbr editors not only correct grammar and spelling mistakes, but also strengthen your writing by making sure your paper is free of vague language, redundant words, and awkward phrasing.

Step 2: Evaluate and select sources

You probably won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on the topic – you’ll have to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your questions.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models, and methods? Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• How does the publication contribute to your understanding of the topic? What are its key insights and arguments?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

The scope of your review will depend on your topic and discipline: in the sciences, you usually only review recent literature, but in the humanities, you might take a long historical perspective (for example, to trace how a concept has changed in meaning over time).

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism. It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography, where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

You can use our free citation generator to quickly create correct and consistent APA citations or MLA format citations.

Step 3: Identify themes, debates, and gaps

To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, you need to understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results):  do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes:  what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts, and contradictions:  where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications:  are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps:  What is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

Step 4: Outline your literature review’s structure

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. You should have a rough idea of your strategy before you start writing.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points, and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods, you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework. You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Step 5: Write your literature review

Like any other academic text, your literature review should have an introduction, the main body, and a conclusion. What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Dissertation literature review you are writing the literature review as part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate your central problem or research question, and give a brief summary of the scholarly context. You can emphasize the timeliness of the topic (“many recent studies have focused on the problem of x”) or highlight a gap in the literature (“while there has been much research on x, few researchers have taken y into consideration”). Stand-alone literature review you are writing a stand-alone paper, give some background on the topic and its importance, discuss the scope of the literature you will review (for example, the time period of your sources), and state your objective. What new insight will you draw from the literature?

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

• Summarize and synthesize:  give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret:  don’t just paraphrase other researchers—add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically evaluate:  mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs:  use transitions and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons, and contrasts

Literature review paragraph example

The example below is taken from the body of a literature review on the relationship between national identity and nature conservation. This paragraph discusses how humanities scholars have approached the concept of wilderness.

Early work in environmental humanities tended to take a sharply critical approach to the wilderness, focusing on the cultural construction of supposedly ‘natural’ landscapes. The rise of climate change awareness in the 1980s had been framed by narratives about “the end of nature” (McKibben 1989), in which a once-pristine wilderness is degraded by humans to the point of disappearance. In response to this popular discourse, environmental historian William Cronon critiqued the concept of pure, pristine nature to be preserved from human influence, arguing that ideas like “wilderness” are themselves products of particular human cultures and histories. In his influential essay ‘The Trouble with Wilderness’ (1995), Cronon traces how the ideal of untouched wilderness, anxiety over its loss, and the political will to preserve it has been central to American national identity, entwined with religious motifs and colonial frontier mythologies. Following Cronon, the racial and class politics of wilderness preservation was a theme taken up by several scholars in the late 1990s and early 2000s, who researched the material effects of conservation politics on indigenous and rural Americans (Catton 1997; Spence 1999; Jacoby 2001). The US National Park system became the dominant paradigm for analyzing relations between conservation, nationhood, and nationalism. However, this approach has sometimes led to a narrowly US-centric perspective that fails to engage closely with the meanings and materialities of “wilderness” in different contexts. Recent work has begun to challenge this paradigm and argues for more varied approaches to understanding the socio-political relations between nations and nature.

The example combines the thematic and chronological approaches. This section of the literature review focuses on the theme of wilderness, while the paragraph itself is organized chronologically.

In conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

Dissertation literature review if the literature review is part of your thesis or dissertation, show how your research addresses gaps and contributes new knowledge, or discuss how you have drawn on existing theories and methods to build a framework for your research.Stand-alone literature review if you are writing a stand-alone paper, you can discuss the overall implications of the literature or make suggestions for future research based on the gaps you have identified.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting it. Our quick guide to proofreading offers some useful tips and tricks!

Tags: literature review, chapter two

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Doing Research in the Real World

Student resources, chapter 2: theoretical perspectives and research methodologies.

• Checklist for Using Theory

Chapter 2. Research Design

Getting started.

When I teach undergraduates qualitative research methods, the final product of the course is a “research proposal” that incorporates all they have learned and enlists the knowledge they have learned about qualitative research methods in an original design that addresses a particular research question. I highly recommend you think about designing your own research study as you progress through this textbook. Even if you don’t have a study in mind yet, it can be a helpful exercise as you progress through the course. But how to start? How can one design a research study before they even know what research looks like? This chapter will serve as a brief overview of the research design process to orient you to what will be coming in later chapters. Think of it as a “skeleton” of what you will read in more detail in later chapters. Ideally, you will read this chapter both now (in sequence) and later during your reading of the remainder of the text. Do not worry if you have questions the first time you read this chapter. Many things will become clearer as the text advances and as you gain a deeper understanding of all the components of good qualitative research. This is just a preliminary map to get you on the right road.

Research Design Steps

Before you even get started, you will need to have a broad topic of interest in mind. [1] . In my experience, students can confuse this broad topic with the actual research question, so it is important to clearly distinguish the two. And the place to start is the broad topic. It might be, as was the case with me, working-class college students. But what about working-class college students? What’s it like to be one? Why are there so few compared to others? How do colleges assist (or fail to assist) them? What interested me was something I could barely articulate at first and went something like this: “Why was it so difficult and lonely to be me?” And by extension, “Did others share this experience?”

Once you have a general topic, reflect on why this is important to you. Sometimes we connect with a topic and we don’t really know why. Even if you are not willing to share the real underlying reason you are interested in a topic, it is important that you know the deeper reasons that motivate you. Otherwise, it is quite possible that at some point during the research, you will find yourself turned around facing the wrong direction. I have seen it happen many times. The reason is that the research question is not the same thing as the general topic of interest, and if you don’t know the reasons for your interest, you are likely to design a study answering a research question that is beside the point—to you, at least. And this means you will be much less motivated to carry your research to completion.

Researcher Note

Why do you employ qualitative research methods in your area of study? What are the advantages of qualitative research methods for studying mentorship?

Qualitative research methods are a huge opportunity to increase access, equity, inclusion, and social justice. Qualitative research allows us to engage and examine the uniquenesses/nuances within minoritized and dominant identities and our experiences with these identities. Qualitative research allows us to explore a specific topic, and through that exploration, we can link history to experiences and look for patterns or offer up a unique phenomenon. There’s such beauty in being able to tell a particular story, and qualitative research is a great mode for that! For our work, we examined the relationships we typically use the term mentorship for but didn’t feel that was quite the right word. Qualitative research allowed us to pick apart what we did and how we engaged in our relationships, which then allowed us to more accurately describe what was unique about our mentorship relationships, which we ultimately named liberationships ( McAloney and Long 2021) . Qualitative research gave us the means to explore, process, and name our experiences; what a powerful tool!

How do you come up with ideas for what to study (and how to study it)? Where did you get the idea for studying mentorship?

Coming up with ideas for research, for me, is kind of like Googling a question I have, not finding enough information, and then deciding to dig a little deeper to get the answer. The idea to study mentorship actually came up in conversation with my mentorship triad. We were talking in one of our meetings about our relationship—kind of meta, huh? We discussed how we felt that mentorship was not quite the right term for the relationships we had built. One of us asked what was different about our relationships and mentorship. This all happened when I was taking an ethnography course. During the next session of class, we were discussing auto- and duoethnography, and it hit me—let’s explore our version of mentorship, which we later went on to name liberationships ( McAloney and Long 2021 ). The idea and questions came out of being curious and wanting to find an answer. As I continue to research, I see opportunities in questions I have about my work or during conversations that, in our search for answers, end up exposing gaps in the literature. If I can’t find the answer already out there, I can study it.

—Kim McAloney, PhD, College Student Services Administration Ecampus coordinator and instructor

When you have a better idea of why you are interested in what it is that interests you, you may be surprised to learn that the obvious approaches to the topic are not the only ones. For example, let’s say you think you are interested in preserving coastal wildlife. And as a social scientist, you are interested in policies and practices that affect the long-term viability of coastal wildlife, especially around fishing communities. It would be natural then to consider designing a research study around fishing communities and how they manage their ecosystems. But when you really think about it, you realize that what interests you the most is how people whose livelihoods depend on a particular resource act in ways that deplete that resource. Or, even deeper, you contemplate the puzzle, “How do people justify actions that damage their surroundings?” Now, there are many ways to design a study that gets at that broader question, and not all of them are about fishing communities, although that is certainly one way to go. Maybe you could design an interview-based study that includes and compares loggers, fishers, and desert golfers (those who golf in arid lands that require a great deal of wasteful irrigation). Or design a case study around one particular example where resources were completely used up by a community. Without knowing what it is you are really interested in, what motivates your interest in a surface phenomenon, you are unlikely to come up with the appropriate research design.

These first stages of research design are often the most difficult, but have patience . Taking the time to consider why you are going to go through a lot of trouble to get answers will prevent a lot of wasted energy in the future.

There are distinct reasons for pursuing particular research questions, and it is helpful to distinguish between them.  First, you may be personally motivated.  This is probably the most important and the most often overlooked.   What is it about the social world that sparks your curiosity? What bothers you? What answers do you need in order to keep living? For me, I knew I needed to get a handle on what higher education was for before I kept going at it. I needed to understand why I felt so different from my peers and whether this whole “higher education” thing was “for the likes of me” before I could complete my degree. That is the personal motivation question. Your personal motivation might also be political in nature, in that you want to change the world in a particular way. It’s all right to acknowledge this. In fact, it is better to acknowledge it than to hide it.

There are also academic and professional motivations for a particular study.  If you are an absolute beginner, these may be difficult to find. We’ll talk more about this when we discuss reviewing the literature. Simply put, you are probably not the only person in the world to have thought about this question or issue and those related to it. So how does your interest area fit into what others have studied? Perhaps there is a good study out there of fishing communities, but no one has quite asked the “justification” question. You are motivated to address this to “fill the gap” in our collective knowledge. And maybe you are really not at all sure of what interests you, but you do know that [insert your topic] interests a lot of people, so you would like to work in this area too. You want to be involved in the academic conversation. That is a professional motivation and a very important one to articulate.

Practical and strategic motivations are a third kind. Perhaps you want to encourage people to take better care of the natural resources around them. If this is also part of your motivation, you will want to design your research project in a way that might have an impact on how people behave in the future. There are many ways to do this, one of which is using qualitative research methods rather than quantitative research methods, as the findings of qualitative research are often easier to communicate to a broader audience than the results of quantitative research. You might even be able to engage the community you are studying in the collecting and analyzing of data, something taboo in quantitative research but actively embraced and encouraged by qualitative researchers. But there are other practical reasons, such as getting “done” with your research in a certain amount of time or having access (or no access) to certain information. There is nothing wrong with considering constraints and opportunities when designing your study. Or maybe one of the practical or strategic goals is about learning competence in this area so that you can demonstrate the ability to conduct interviews and focus groups with future employers. Keeping that in mind will help shape your study and prevent you from getting sidetracked using a technique that you are less invested in learning about.

STOP HERE for a moment

I recommend you write a paragraph (at least) explaining your aims and goals. Include a sentence about each of the following: personal/political goals, practical or professional/academic goals, and practical/strategic goals. Think through how all of the goals are related and can be achieved by this particular research study . If they can’t, have a rethink. Perhaps this is not the best way to go about it.

You will also want to be clear about the purpose of your study. “Wait, didn’t we just do this?” you might ask. No! Your goals are not the same as the purpose of the study, although they are related. You can think about purpose lying on a continuum from “ theory ” to “action” (figure 2.1). Sometimes you are doing research to discover new knowledge about the world, while other times you are doing a study because you want to measure an impact or make a difference in the world.

Basic research involves research that is done for the sake of “pure” knowledge—that is, knowledge that, at least at this moment in time, may not have any apparent use or application. Often, and this is very important, knowledge of this kind is later found to be extremely helpful in solving problems. So one way of thinking about basic research is that it is knowledge for which no use is yet known but will probably one day prove to be extremely useful. If you are doing basic research, you do not need to argue its usefulness, as the whole point is that we just don’t know yet what this might be.

Researchers engaged in basic research want to understand how the world operates. They are interested in investigating a phenomenon to get at the nature of reality with regard to that phenomenon. The basic researcher’s purpose is to understand and explain ( Patton 2002:215 ).

Basic research is interested in generating and testing hypotheses about how the world works. Grounded Theory is one approach to qualitative research methods that exemplifies basic research (see chapter 4). Most academic journal articles publish basic research findings. If you are working in academia (e.g., writing your dissertation), the default expectation is that you are conducting basic research.

Applied research in the social sciences is research that addresses human and social problems. Unlike basic research, the researcher has expectations that the research will help contribute to resolving a problem, if only by identifying its contours, history, or context. From my experience, most students have this as their baseline assumption about research. Why do a study if not to make things better? But this is a common mistake. Students and their committee members are often working with default assumptions here—the former thinking about applied research as their purpose, the latter thinking about basic research: “The purpose of applied research is to contribute knowledge that will help people to understand the nature of a problem in order to intervene, thereby allowing human beings to more effectively control their environment. While in basic research the source of questions is the tradition within a scholarly discipline, in applied research the source of questions is in the problems and concerns experienced by people and by policymakers” ( Patton 2002:217 ).

Applied research is less geared toward theory in two ways. First, its questions do not derive from previous literature. For this reason, applied research studies have much more limited literature reviews than those found in basic research (although they make up for this by having much more “background” about the problem). Second, it does not generate theory in the same way as basic research does. The findings of an applied research project may not be generalizable beyond the boundaries of this particular problem or context. The findings are more limited. They are useful now but may be less useful later. This is why basic research remains the default “gold standard” of academic research.

Evaluation research is research that is designed to evaluate or test the effectiveness of specific solutions and programs addressing specific social problems. We already know the problems, and someone has already come up with solutions. There might be a program, say, for first-generation college students on your campus. Does this program work? Are first-generation students who participate in the program more likely to graduate than those who do not? These are the types of questions addressed by evaluation research. There are two types of research within this broader frame; however, one more action-oriented than the next. In summative evaluation , an overall judgment about the effectiveness of a program or policy is made. Should we continue our first-gen program? Is it a good model for other campuses? Because the purpose of such summative evaluation is to measure success and to determine whether this success is scalable (capable of being generalized beyond the specific case), quantitative data is more often used than qualitative data. In our example, we might have “outcomes” data for thousands of students, and we might run various tests to determine if the better outcomes of those in the program are statistically significant so that we can generalize the findings and recommend similar programs elsewhere. Qualitative data in the form of focus groups or interviews can then be used for illustrative purposes, providing more depth to the quantitative analyses. In contrast, formative evaluation attempts to improve a program or policy (to help “form” or shape its effectiveness). Formative evaluations rely more heavily on qualitative data—case studies, interviews, focus groups. The findings are meant not to generalize beyond the particular but to improve this program. If you are a student seeking to improve your qualitative research skills and you do not care about generating basic research, formative evaluation studies might be an attractive option for you to pursue, as there are always local programs that need evaluation and suggestions for improvement. Again, be very clear about your purpose when talking through your research proposal with your committee.

Action research takes a further step beyond evaluation, even formative evaluation, to being part of the solution itself. This is about as far from basic research as one could get and definitely falls beyond the scope of “science,” as conventionally defined. The distinction between action and research is blurry, the research methods are often in constant flux, and the only “findings” are specific to the problem or case at hand and often are findings about the process of intervention itself. Rather than evaluate a program as a whole, action research often seeks to change and improve some particular aspect that may not be working—maybe there is not enough diversity in an organization or maybe women’s voices are muted during meetings and the organization wonders why and would like to change this. In a further step, participatory action research , those women would become part of the research team, attempting to amplify their voices in the organization through participation in the action research. As action research employs methods that involve people in the process, focus groups are quite common.

If you are working on a thesis or dissertation, chances are your committee will expect you to be contributing to fundamental knowledge and theory ( basic research ). If your interests lie more toward the action end of the continuum, however, it is helpful to talk to your committee about this before you get started. Knowing your purpose in advance will help avoid misunderstandings during the later stages of the research process!

The Research Question

Once you have written your paragraph and clarified your purpose and truly know that this study is the best study for you to be doing right now , you are ready to write and refine your actual research question. Know that research questions are often moving targets in qualitative research, that they can be refined up to the very end of data collection and analysis. But you do have to have a working research question at all stages. This is your “anchor” when you get lost in the data. What are you addressing? What are you looking at and why? Your research question guides you through the thicket. It is common to have a whole host of questions about a phenomenon or case, both at the outset and throughout the study, but you should be able to pare it down to no more than two or three sentences when asked. These sentences should both clarify the intent of the research and explain why this is an important question to answer. More on refining your research question can be found in chapter 4.

Chances are, you will have already done some prior reading before coming up with your interest and your questions, but you may not have conducted a systematic literature review. This is the next crucial stage to be completed before venturing further. You don’t want to start collecting data and then realize that someone has already beaten you to the punch. A review of the literature that is already out there will let you know (1) if others have already done the study you are envisioning; (2) if others have done similar studies, which can help you out; and (3) what ideas or concepts are out there that can help you frame your study and make sense of your findings. More on literature reviews can be found in chapter 9.

In addition to reviewing the literature for similar studies to what you are proposing, it can be extremely helpful to find a study that inspires you. This may have absolutely nothing to do with the topic you are interested in but is written so beautifully or organized so interestingly or otherwise speaks to you in such a way that you want to post it somewhere to remind you of what you want to be doing. You might not understand this in the early stages—why would you find a study that has nothing to do with the one you are doing helpful? But trust me, when you are deep into analysis and writing, having an inspirational model in view can help you push through. If you are motivated to do something that might change the world, you probably have read something somewhere that inspired you. Go back to that original inspiration and read it carefully and see how they managed to convey the passion that you so appreciate.

At this stage, you are still just getting started. There are a lot of things to do before setting forth to collect data! You’ll want to consider and choose a research tradition and a set of data-collection techniques that both help you answer your research question and match all your aims and goals. For example, if you really want to help migrant workers speak for themselves, you might draw on feminist theory and participatory action research models. Chapters 3 and 4 will provide you with more information on epistemologies and approaches.

Next, you have to clarify your “units of analysis.” What is the level at which you are focusing your study? Often, the unit in qualitative research methods is individual people, or “human subjects.” But your units of analysis could just as well be organizations (colleges, hospitals) or programs or even whole nations. Think about what it is you want to be saying at the end of your study—are the insights you are hoping to make about people or about organizations or about something else entirely? A unit of analysis can even be a historical period! Every unit of analysis will call for a different kind of data collection and analysis and will produce different kinds of “findings” at the conclusion of your study. [2]

Regardless of what unit of analysis you select, you will probably have to consider the “human subjects” involved in your research. [3] Who are they? What interactions will you have with them—that is, what kind of data will you be collecting? Before answering these questions, define your population of interest and your research setting. Use your research question to help guide you.

Let’s use an example from a real study. In Geographies of Campus Inequality , Benson and Lee ( 2020 ) list three related research questions: “(1) What are the different ways that first-generation students organize their social, extracurricular, and academic activities at selective and highly selective colleges? (2) how do first-generation students sort themselves and get sorted into these different types of campus lives; and (3) how do these different patterns of campus engagement prepare first-generation students for their post-college lives?” (3).

Note that we are jumping into this a bit late, after Benson and Lee have described previous studies (the literature review) and what is known about first-generation college students and what is not known. They want to know about differences within this group, and they are interested in ones attending certain kinds of colleges because those colleges will be sites where academic and extracurricular pressures compete. That is the context for their three related research questions. What is the population of interest here? First-generation college students . What is the research setting? Selective and highly selective colleges . But a host of questions remain. Which students in the real world, which colleges? What about gender, race, and other identity markers? Will the students be asked questions? Are the students still in college, or will they be asked about what college was like for them? Will they be observed? Will they be shadowed? Will they be surveyed? Will they be asked to keep diaries of their time in college? How many students? How many colleges? For how long will they be observed?

Recommendation

Take a moment and write down suggestions for Benson and Lee before continuing on to what they actually did.

Have you written down your own suggestions? Good. Now let’s compare those with what they actually did. Benson and Lee drew on two sources of data: in-depth interviews with sixty-four first-generation students and survey data from a preexisting national survey of students at twenty-eight selective colleges. Let’s ignore the survey for our purposes here and focus on those interviews. The interviews were conducted between 2014 and 2016 at a single selective college, “Hilltop” (a pseudonym ). They employed a “purposive” sampling strategy to ensure an equal number of male-identifying and female-identifying students as well as equal numbers of White, Black, and Latinx students. Each student was interviewed once. Hilltop is a selective liberal arts college in the northeast that enrolls about three thousand students.

How did your suggestions match up to those actually used by the researchers in this study? It is possible your suggestions were too ambitious? Beginning qualitative researchers can often make that mistake. You want a research design that is both effective (it matches your question and goals) and doable. You will never be able to collect data from your entire population of interest (unless your research question is really so narrow to be relevant to very few people!), so you will need to come up with a good sample. Define the criteria for this sample, as Benson and Lee did when deciding to interview an equal number of students by gender and race categories. Define the criteria for your sample setting too. Hilltop is typical for selective colleges. That was a research choice made by Benson and Lee. For more on sampling and sampling choices, see chapter 5.

Benson and Lee chose to employ interviews. If you also would like to include interviews, you have to think about what will be asked in them. Most interview-based research involves an interview guide, a set of questions or question areas that will be asked of each participant. The research question helps you create a relevant interview guide. You want to ask questions whose answers will provide insight into your research question. Again, your research question is the anchor you will continually come back to as you plan for and conduct your study. It may be that once you begin interviewing, you find that people are telling you something totally unexpected, and this makes you rethink your research question. That is fine. Then you have a new anchor. But you always have an anchor. More on interviewing can be found in chapter 11.

Let’s imagine Benson and Lee also observed college students as they went about doing the things college students do, both in the classroom and in the clubs and social activities in which they participate. They would have needed a plan for this. Would they sit in on classes? Which ones and how many? Would they attend club meetings and sports events? Which ones and how many? Would they participate themselves? How would they record their observations? More on observation techniques can be found in both chapters 13 and 14.

At this point, the design is almost complete. You know why you are doing this study, you have a clear research question to guide you, you have identified your population of interest and research setting, and you have a reasonable sample of each. You also have put together a plan for data collection, which might include drafting an interview guide or making plans for observations. And so you know exactly what you will be doing for the next several months (or years!). To put the project into action, there are a few more things necessary before actually going into the field.

First, you will need to make sure you have any necessary supplies, including recording technology. These days, many researchers use their phones to record interviews. Second, you will need to draft a few documents for your participants. These include informed consent forms and recruiting materials, such as posters or email texts, that explain what this study is in clear language. Third, you will draft a research protocol to submit to your institutional review board (IRB) ; this research protocol will include the interview guide (if you are using one), the consent form template, and all examples of recruiting material. Depending on your institution and the details of your study design, it may take weeks or even, in some unfortunate cases, months before you secure IRB approval. Make sure you plan on this time in your project timeline. While you wait, you can continue to review the literature and possibly begin drafting a section on the literature review for your eventual presentation/publication. More on IRB procedures can be found in chapter 8 and more general ethical considerations in chapter 7.

Once you have approval, you can begin!

Research Design Checklist

Before data collection begins, do the following:

• Write a paragraph explaining your aims and goals (personal/political, practical/strategic, professional/academic).
• Define your research question; write two to three sentences that clarify the intent of the research and why this is an important question to answer.
• Review the literature for similar studies that address your research question or similar research questions; think laterally about some literature that might be helpful or illuminating but is not exactly about the same topic.
• Find a written study that inspires you—it may or may not be on the research question you have chosen.
• Consider and choose a research tradition and set of data-collection techniques that (1) help answer your research question and (2) match your aims and goals.
• Define your population of interest and your research setting.
• Define the criteria for your sample (How many? Why these? How will you find them, gain access, and acquire consent?).
• If you are conducting interviews, draft an interview guide.
•  If you are making observations, create a plan for observations (sites, times, recording, access).
• Acquire any necessary technology (recording devices/software).
• Draft consent forms that clearly identify the research focus and selection process.
• Create recruiting materials (posters, email, texts).
• Apply for IRB approval (proposal plus consent form plus recruiting materials).
• Block out time for collecting data.
• At the end of the chapter, you will find a " Research Design Checklist " that summarizes the main recommendations made here ↵
• For example, if your focus is society and culture , you might collect data through observation or a case study. If your focus is individual lived experience , you are probably going to be interviewing some people. And if your focus is language and communication , you will probably be analyzing text (written or visual). ( Marshall and Rossman 2016:16 ). ↵
• You may not have any "live" human subjects. There are qualitative research methods that do not require interactions with live human beings - see chapter 16 , "Archival and Historical Sources." But for the most part, you are probably reading this textbook because you are interested in doing research with people. The rest of the chapter will assume this is the case. ↵

One of the primary methodological traditions of inquiry in qualitative research, ethnography is the study of a group or group culture, largely through observational fieldwork supplemented by interviews. It is a form of fieldwork that may include participant-observation data collection. See chapter 14 for a discussion of deep ethnography. 

A methodological tradition of inquiry and research design that focuses on an individual case (e.g., setting, institution, or sometimes an individual) in order to explore its complexity, history, and interactive parts.  As an approach, it is particularly useful for obtaining a deep appreciation of an issue, event, or phenomenon of interest in its particular context.

The controlling force in research; can be understood as lying on a continuum from basic research (knowledge production) to action research (effecting change).

In its most basic sense, a theory is a story we tell about how the world works that can be tested with empirical evidence.  In qualitative research, we use the term in a variety of ways, many of which are different from how they are used by quantitative researchers.  Although some qualitative research can be described as “testing theory,” it is more common to “build theory” from the data using inductive reasoning , as done in Grounded Theory .  There are so-called “grand theories” that seek to integrate a whole series of findings and stories into an overarching paradigm about how the world works, and much smaller theories or concepts about particular processes and relationships.  Theory can even be used to explain particular methodological perspectives or approaches, as in Institutional Ethnography , which is both a way of doing research and a theory about how the world works.

Research that is interested in generating and testing hypotheses about how the world works.

A methodological tradition of inquiry and approach to analyzing qualitative data in which theories emerge from a rigorous and systematic process of induction.  This approach was pioneered by the sociologists Glaser and Strauss (1967).  The elements of theory generated from comparative analysis of data are, first, conceptual categories and their properties and, second, hypotheses or generalized relations among the categories and their properties – “The constant comparing of many groups draws the [researcher’s] attention to their many similarities and differences.  Considering these leads [the researcher] to generate abstract categories and their properties, which, since they emerge from the data, will clearly be important to a theory explaining the kind of behavior under observation.” (36).

An approach to research that is “multimethod in focus, involving an interpretative, naturalistic approach to its subject matter.  This means that qualitative researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them.  Qualitative research involves the studied use and collection of a variety of empirical materials – case study, personal experience, introspective, life story, interview, observational, historical, interactional, and visual texts – that describe routine and problematic moments and meanings in individuals’ lives." ( Denzin and Lincoln 2005:2 ). Contrast with quantitative research .

Research that contributes knowledge that will help people to understand the nature of a problem in order to intervene, thereby allowing human beings to more effectively control their environment.

Research that is designed to evaluate or test the effectiveness of specific solutions and programs addressing specific social problems.  There are two kinds: summative and formative .

Research in which an overall judgment about the effectiveness of a program or policy is made, often for the purpose of generalizing to other cases or programs.  Generally uses qualitative research as a supplement to primary quantitative data analyses.  Contrast formative evaluation research .

Research designed to improve a program or policy (to help “form” or shape its effectiveness); relies heavily on qualitative research methods.  Contrast summative evaluation research

Research carried out at a particular organizational or community site with the intention of affecting change; often involves research subjects as participants of the study.  See also participatory action research .

Research in which both researchers and participants work together to understand a problematic situation and change it for the better.

The level of the focus of analysis (e.g., individual people, organizations, programs, neighborhoods).

The large group of interest to the researcher.  Although it will likely be impossible to design a study that incorporates or reaches all members of the population of interest, this should be clearly defined at the outset of a study so that a reasonable sample of the population can be taken.  For example, if one is studying working-class college students, the sample may include twenty such students attending a particular college, while the population is “working-class college students.”  In quantitative research, clearly defining the general population of interest is a necessary step in generalizing results from a sample.  In qualitative research, defining the population is conceptually important for clarity.

A fictional name assigned to give anonymity to a person, group, or place.  Pseudonyms are important ways of protecting the identity of research participants while still providing a “human element” in the presentation of qualitative data.  There are ethical considerations to be made in selecting pseudonyms; some researchers allow research participants to choose their own.

A requirement for research involving human participants; the documentation of informed consent.  In some cases, oral consent or assent may be sufficient, but the default standard is a single-page easy-to-understand form that both the researcher and the participant sign and date.   Under federal guidelines, all researchers "shall seek such consent only under circumstances that provide the prospective subject or the representative sufficient opportunity to consider whether or not to participate and that minimize the possibility of coercion or undue influence. The information that is given to the subject or the representative shall be in language understandable to the subject or the representative.  No informed consent, whether oral or written, may include any exculpatory language through which the subject or the representative is made to waive or appear to waive any of the subject's rights or releases or appears to release the investigator, the sponsor, the institution, or its agents from liability for negligence" (21 CFR 50.20).  Your IRB office will be able to provide a template for use in your study .

An administrative body established to protect the rights and welfare of human research subjects recruited to participate in research activities conducted under the auspices of the institution with which it is affiliated. The IRB is charged with the responsibility of reviewing all research involving human participants. The IRB is concerned with protecting the welfare, rights, and privacy of human subjects. The IRB has the authority to approve, disapprove, monitor, and require modifications in all research activities that fall within its jurisdiction as specified by both the federal regulations and institutional policy.

Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods Copyright © 2023 by Allison Hurst is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

• Chapter Two: Understanding the distinctions among research methods

Humanistic and scientific epistemologies represent two different world views about what constitutes knowledge. In the humanities, aesthetics or an appreciation for the arts are included as a way of knowing. The knowing comes from the emotions and thoughts the art evokes. In an impromptu audience participation skit on the risks of binge drinking, some participants will hopefully walk away with a heightened commitment to change their drinking habits. In science, such ways of knowing might be dismissed as too anecdotal and intuitive. Knowledge comes from systematic observation of larger groups in more controlled settings. The great thing is that within these two world views, multiple research methods are available. The goal in chapter two is to provide an overview of the two approaches, based on some basic points of comparison. As the authors, we first review the basic question of why multiple methods are needed. Second, we offer a continuum to help you visualize where each method is located in relationship to the others. Third, we provide a chart identifying key points of comparison for the methods. And, fourth, we explore the boundaries of each method regarding what each can and cannot provide. We do so by addressing a common list of discussion questions, including the scholarly and professional benefits of each.

• Chapter One: Introduction
• Chapter Three: Ethical research, writing, and creative work
• Chapter Four: Quantitative Methods (Part 1)
• Chapter Four: Quantitative Methods (Part 2 - Doing Your Study)
• Chapter Four: Quantitative Methods (Part 3 - Making Sense of Your Study)
• Chapter Five: Qualitative Methods (Part 1)
• Chapter Five: Qualitative Data (Part 2)
• Chapter Six: Critical / Rhetorical Methods (Part 1)
• Chapter Six: Critical / Rhetorical Methods (Part 2)
• Chapter Seven: Presenting Your Results

It is important to note one limitation to this chapter: To provide a general overview, we, the authors, necessarily describe quantitative, qualitative, and critical/rhetorical each as singular methods. In reality, each of the three have a whole toolbox of different methods available to researchers. Thus, at times we will refer to the three approaches as distinct singular methods, but at other times it is necessary to recognize each represents multiple methods. In subsequent chapters you will learn more specifically what those toolboxes contain.

Why Can't One Shoe Fit All? Or, Why Do we Need Multiple Research Methods?

Researchers are fortunate to have multiple methods to choose from because no one research method is capable of covering all angles on a given topic. As an illustration, imagine you want to study how people use social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn). You could conduct an on-line Internet survey and solicit a large number of people, but you will have to keep the questions simple and relatively few if you want a good response rate. In contrast, you could study social media by physically hanging out in a computer lab to observe and interview users to find out more about unique personal usage and perceptions, but it would take a great deal of time to study many people. In addition to the fact that different methods tend to produce different results as discussed in chapter one, a key point to understand is that all research methods have unique limitations. A given research method is only appropriate for certain research questions or goals. Just as importantly, each method carries with it underlying epistemological assumptions about how knowledge is constructed. It is important to assure a goodness of fit between the underlying assumptions of a method and the topic of study.

When conducting research, you first pick a topic – a general area of communication that interests you. Social media use is a good example. It is a hot topic because: 1) the technology is fairly new and the forms of social media available to users is constantly expanding (e.g., Foursquare , "mayorships"), 2) the number of people participating worldwide on social media is growing (see Social Media Statistics and Pew Internet), and 3) social media are cost efficient for non-profit and for-profit groups to get their messages out. Social media is an exciting research topic because there is relatively little published on it yet and because it has moved marketing communication from one-way solicitation to consumer generated two-way communication (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Students and colleagues are studying social media in every area of Communication Studies, for example:

In rhetoric:

Jenkins, E. (2008). My iPod, my iCon: How and why do images become icons?  Critical Studies in Media Communication, 25 (5), 466-489.

In Performance Studies:

Atkinson, J., & Dougherty, D. (2006). Alternative media and social justice movements: The development of a resistance performance paradigm of audience analysis.  Western Journal of Communication, 70 (1), 64-88.

In Interpersonal Communication:

Chen, S. (2009). College male students' cultural value identity in new media world.  China Media Research, 5 (4), 41-46.

In Organizational Communication:

Stolley, K. (2009). Integrating social media into existing work environments: The case of delicious.  Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 23 (3), 350-371.

In Public Relations:

Waters, R. D., Burnett, E., Lamm, A., & Lucas, J. (2009). Engaging stakeholders through social networking: How nonprofit organizations are using Facebook.  Public Relations Review, 35 (2), 102-106.

In Journalism:

Jewitt, R. (2009). The trouble with twittering: Integrating social media into mainstream news.  International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics, 5 (3), 233-240.

In Electronic Media:

Gordon, E. (2007). Mapping digital networks: From cyberspace to Google.  Information Communication & Society, 10 (6), 885-901.

In Political Communication:

Tedesco, J. C. (2004). Changing the channel: Use of the Internet for communicating about politics. In L. L. Kaid (Ed.),  Handbook of political communication research  (pp. 507- 532). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Assuming you want to investigate the topic of social media, the next step is to figure out a  research question (RQ) , the general question that guides an academic study. Researchers develop their research questions by reading previous research on the topic and figuring out what questions have not been answered sufficiently. A RQ is different from a specific question one might ask in an interview or survey. Instead, it is the big question one wants to answer using the data gathered in the research process. The idea of beginning with a question comes out of scientific research methods and is used more in the sciences and social sciences than in the humanities because scientific researchers approach their work in a highly systematic way focused on answering a guiding question. There is less openness to unplanned discovery. The research question helps narrow the area of study so that the ability to obtain answers is more likely. For example, how would you even begin to research the topic of social media given its complexity? Below are examples of the types of RQs you could ask to study social media coupled with the appropriate research methods (RMs) and underlying  Epistemological Assumptions (EA) . Try to identify the research method the RQ calls for before reading on. A section labeled Further Thinking (FT) suggests implications to extend your thinking about designing an effective study.

RQ1: Are there age differences in the use of Facebook and Twitter?

RM1:  What would researchers need to answer this RQ? The question asks to compare possible differences in age groups regarding the use of two forms of social media. To answer this question, researchers would need a larger sample of people with relatively similar demographics (except age) in terms of family income, access and use of the Internet, perhaps sex, ethnicity, nationality, etc., to be able to claim a difference or similarity beyond anecdotal observations. The survey results would be summarized quantitatively through statistical analysis of the groups and numbers to provide specific group comparisons. EA1:  Scientific/social science approach. Knowledge is proven statistically through the use of demographically representative samples of the population. The larger the sample, the stronger the conclusion.  FT1:  What other suggestions or questions can you raise regarding the appropriate methods needed for this study? For example, if the survey is conducted on-line, will that bias the results by leaving out people who do not use or have access to the Internet? And are such people proportionately different in age? Should the study be limited to participants in the U.S.? Why or why not? Could you use anything other than a survey to find out why participants use or do not use Facebook and Twitter? If so how would you do this? Finally, is this a research question worth asking? Will it yield useful information? Why?

RQ2: How do non-profit organization leaders feel about the use of social media?

RM2:  What would researchers need to answer this question? The words "how" and "feel" suggest the researchers are asking for descriptive rather than predictive or comparative information. They want a picture of the ways in which non-profits are using social media and what leaders' attitudes are toward social media as a vehicle for communicating with their publics. To describe is to use words, rather than only numbers. The results will not be able to offer predictions, but may help non-profit practitioners and scholars understand what the unique barriers and advantages are for agencies with limited resources to use social media. EA2:  Qualitative, humanistic approach. The research question assumes that the non- profit leaders' attitudes are important to examine. The question is open-ended, suggesting an exploratory approach is acceptable as a basis for knowledge construction. FT2:  Are there ways you could reword the research question to enhance the data? For example, is asking how someone feels on a topic too vague? What types of questions might you ask in an in-depth interview to answer this research question? Would it be useful to know about the leaders' knowledge of social media use for contacting specific publics, which social media they use and why? What about whether the leaders find social media use effective and if so, why? This asks researchers to assess a quality – effectiveness, in which a first task would be to define what is meant by "effectiveness" and gather the appropriate information to assess effectiveness, as it is defined.

RQ3: How does President Barack Obama's use of social media construct a specific message to U.S. people?

RM3:  What would researchers need to answer this question? They would need to study the websites and other forms of social media the President's administration uses. They would need to look at both the verbal and nonverbal messages contained in these locations or contexts. The research question asks to identify the persuasive strategies used and it would require identifying what specific message he is attempting to send. EA3:  The research method calls for a rhetorical analysis of the persuasive elements of the messages. The assumption is that the administration's use of social media has a persuasive as well as an informative elements. FT3:  Examine a website used by the administration such as Organizing for America. Does it give you other ideas of what should be included in this analysis? What about examining the topics addressed (and not addressed): Is there any bipartisan representation, are there underlying images of presidential power being portrayed? What do these say about the attempted message? How does the public respond?

Many more questions could be asked about social media, such as what long term effect it is having on cultural change and global relations. These few examples are meant to illustrate that a topic can be explored through different research questions, each will call for specific research methods, and each methods choice reflects underlying assumptions about how knowledge is constructed. To be a critical consumer and contributor to research, one needs to understand these relationships and identify underlying assumptions that may or may not be acknowledged in a research report.

Because scholars subscribe to a particular set of underlying assumptions, they tend to specialize in quantitative, qualitative, or critical/rhetorical methods. However, it is best to let the research question guide the methods choice. Thus, as teachers, we the authors, will not argue for the relative superiority of one method in this textbook, but instead celebrate the variety of tools available and help you learn which tools are most useful for particular types of research questions. As noted in chapter 1, Communication Studies is unique because it bridges the humanities and social sciences and, thus, is inherently interdisciplinary and multi-methodological.

There are commonalities and overlaps in the characteristics and underlying values across the three basic research methods. Thus, rather than think of research methods such as completely independent and opposite of each other, we prefer placing the diverse methods on a common continuum.

Research Methods Epistemological Continuum

Scientific, social scientific, humanistic, and creative methods exist on a  continuum  representing their epistemological assumptions. We do not use the word continuum in a highly technical sense here, but as commonly understood -- as relationships between things that gradually transition from one condition to another without abrupt shifts. A color wheel is a continuum. It is clear that blue and green are different, but there are shades between them that share characteristics.

Research methods can be placed along a continuum, from the most "objective" (observable, scientific) approach to the most "subjective" (interpretive, humanistic) approach to knowledge construction. The two extremes of the continuum represent two different worldviews. However, identifying only the two extremes would leave out the majority of exciting interdisciplinary work done in Communication Studies and present a false, simplistic view that researchers never meld world views. In fact, most social science research in Communication Studies represents a blend of the two world views. Although social science researchers may use quantitative measures and statistics to analyze results, they likely also subscribe to the notion that discovering purely  objective  (unbiased) knowledge is not possible in studying human behavior. Conversely, some scholars in the humanities find it beneficial to apply scientific notions such as the use of mathematics to write scores of music (e.g., Fauvel, Flood & Wilson, 2003), and those who do close textual criticism argue you must have evidence from the text to support your interpretation of it (meaning you cannot rely solely on idiosyncratic and subjective interpretations). Below is a diagram of the continuum to help you visualize the relationships and distinctions in research methods and related epistemologies.

Assumptions for Natural Sciences and Quantitative Social Sciences Research:

• There is an objective social reality (Truth with a capital "T") that can be measured.
• Quantitative research should look for specific causes and effects of certain phenomenon.
• The overall goal of quantitative research is to develop generalizations that enable the researcher to better predict, explain, and understand some phenomenon.
• A research problem or question should always develop out of a body of literature and this research frames the study that is being done.
• The research process and related procedures are most important for quantitative methods.
• Data is anything that can be measured and converted to numbers.
• Research should be theory driven, not conducted without a solidly tested theoretical base.
• The research report is written in third person, as in "the researcher found . . . ," mirroring the emphasis on objectivity, detached observation.

Assumptions for Qualitative Social Science Research:

• All knowing is perceptual. Thus, knowledge cannot exist separate from the knower (the researcher).
• Multiple social realities are created and recreated in interaction, and qualitative research can help explain those realities.
• Lay people are experts about their world and should be heard.
• Human behavior results from a person's "free will" or choice, rather than being caused by something in her/his external environment.
• The best categories used to organize information gained from research should emerge from the participants, rather than imposed ahead of time by the researcher or theoretical assumption
• The researcher should actively interact with what is being researched. She or he is a part of the study.
• Data should be rich quotations or observations provided in detailed field notes. Any conclusions or themes proposed by the researcher must be clearly grounded in the participants' words.
• Theory tends to emerge from the data, rather than be used to direct the analysis of the data in the study.
• A research report can be written in first-person, as in "I found . . . "; the researcher should locate her/himself in the study so that the reader clearly knows the perspective she or he is coming from.

Assumptions for Rhetorical/Critical Research:

• Rhetoric constructs reality. Thus, rhetorical criticism not only views knowledge as subjective, but also as potentially powerful tools of influence that demand critical, watchful eyes.
• Rhetoric is created by humans, and dominant realities emerge that favor some people over others.
• Rhetoric involves strategic choices.
• Rhetoric influences our thinking and belief systems.
• Therefore, we ought to critically analyze the rhetoric that surrounds us.

Assumptions for Creative Methods:

• Everyone has a story that deserves to be told, and listened to.
• The universe is knowable through the close examination of a single experience, person, and/or moment.
• The fleeting, the singular, the human, the ephemeral, the momentary is worthy of attention.
• Knowledge is best gained when it is experienced. Performance Studies and filmmaking provides an experience of discovery for the writers, actors, and audience.
• Part of that experience gained can be the physicality of performance.

Even though scholars in Communication Studies do not study natural science (e.g., biology, physics), they use nearly all the methods noted on the continuum. Understanding the range of methods available is necessary to make sure you select the most apt method to explore the questions you have about communication.

Key Characteristics

The continuum draws attention to epistemological connections between and distinctions among research methods. You should notice the Social Science methods are listed in between world views as they include methods that are more subjective (like ethnography) and others that are more objective (like content analysis). In reality, each approach (quantitative, qualitative, rhetorical and creative) has some flexibility on the continuum, as scholars vary in their approaches according to the research questions or goal of the project being pursued.

In addition to epistemological assumptions, other key characteristics distinguish the methods. These include:

• Reasoning Methods
• Types of RQs Answered
• What Counts as Data
• Criteria Used to Assess the Quality of a Study

Ultimately, though, all these characteristics link back to the base epistemological assumptions.

Goals , or the general intent of the research, are influenced by the worldview held about how knowledge is gained. If one believes absolute truths or universal laws can be discovered, then one can make statistical generalizations (with a small margin for error), based on the results of a series of studies on samples of a population, to the whole (macro) population. That population (or  macro level ) for which a researcher seeks to predict behavior can be the entire student body at one university or across the country, recent immigrants living in Iowa or the Midwestern U.S., an extended family or a group of extended families, the entire U.S. population or any other demographic boundary drawn to represent a group. For example, after over 30 years of sampling populations around the world to identify the emotions linked to a set of diverse facial expressions, social scientists claim to have found six universal emotion expressions: happiness, sadness, disgust, fear, anger and surprise (Ekman, 2003). This claim is based on results from experimental groups that were statistically generalized to the world's population. This does not mean the stimuli for expressing the emotions is the same across cultures (or populations), or that an emotion (such as happiness) necessarily has a universal definition. These later stipulations are context dependent rules derived from smaller  micro  (usually qualitative) analyses with specific groups of people in more natural interactions (Matsumoto, 1990; Matsumoto, Franklin, Choi, Rogers & Tatani, 2002). If one believes truth is interpretive and context dependent (as some social science and most humanities scholars do), then the researcher does not seek to identify universal laws, but instead might try to identify social rules that seem to exist in a given situation that call for specific displays of emotion.

Reasoning Methods  refers to how one organizes and tries to makes sense of information. The two general approaches differ in world views. These are depicted visually in the diagram below.

If one believes knowledge can lead to the discovery of universal laws, the researcher is more likely to use a  deductive  reasoning method, also called "top-down" (Trochim, 2006a). Researchers using deductive reasoning usually begin with some sort of theory to guide their analysis of the data. Often there has already been a lot of research done on their topic, so they are testing out certain elements of a theory when doing the research. They go "looking for" certain aspects of the theory in their data. Moving from general to specific allows the researcher to isolate and control for, possible contaminating influences and just put what they most want to study under the metaphorical microscope. The results are then generalized back to represent the larger population.

Conversely, if one believes knowledge can be gained through interpretation and that results or knowledge are influenced by the context in which they are studied, the researcher is more likely to use the  inductive  reasoning method, also called "bottom-up" (Trochim, 2006a), moving from specific examples of observation to building a more general theory to help describe or explain human behavior.

As an example of the inductive approach, Molefí Asante (1987, 2001) is an interpretive scholar in intercultural communication who argues that communication rules must be grounded in the beliefs and values of a specific group of people. He challenges previous research based on the study of European Americans that generalizes interpersonal interaction norms to all ethnic groups. He studies African American groups and finds interaction rules vary with cultural identity. Asante named his framework Afrocentricity to identify cultural themes necessary for understanding many (but not all) contemporary African American communities' interaction norms.

Why is the distinction between deductive and inductive reasoning important to understand? Trochim (2006a) explains:

These two methods of reasoning have a very different "feel" to them when you're conducting research. Inductive reasoning, by its very nature, is more open-ended and exploratory, especially at the beginning. Deductive reasoning is narrower in nature and is [often] concerned with testing or confirming hypotheses. (para. 2)

In reality, most social science and humanities scholarship involves some degree of both inductive and deductive reasoning. As noted in chapter 1, because the research process is a circular one, each step informs the others. Deductive and inductive reasoning inform each other and are both part of the process of constructing knowledge regardless of one's world view of how knowledge is best formed.

What counts as data?  Recognizing the term "data" itself is more of a quantitative term and does not fit humanities methods as well, we use it to clarify that all methods have a focus of study. Another way to think of this is to apply the metaphor of a microscope and ask what the researcher plans to put under the microscope for closer analysis. The focus will dictate the use of the most appropriate method. In quantitative methods the data focus is called the  Unit of Analysis. By defining the unit of analysis, the research is forced to identify the boundaries of what will be the focus of study versus for example, the context . In quantitative research, the unit of analysis is very specific and isolated. The data is reduced to discrete numbers in the form of statistics. In qualitative, rhetorical and creative work, the unit of analysis may be less clearly spelled out in advance of the study. It may be a more organic process to identify meaning or knowledge. At its basis, the unit of analysis in qualitative and humanities work is words, nonverbal symbols, and their inter-relationships.

What  criteria  are used to assess the quality of scientific/quantitative and qualitative/humanistic studies? As one might guess, because the goals are different, the criteria to assess the quality of work is not the same. In the scientific world view consistent with objectivity, generalizability to a larger population is paramount. In the qualitative and humanistic world views consistent with subjectivity, detailed description and in-depth analysis of a smaller data set are valued. Both world views value scholarship that advances knowledge on a given topic and that is pragmatic, advancing the quality of life for societies.

To summarize, consider the table below. You will notice we have grouped the different methods from the previous continuum into two generalized world views.

Comparing and Contrasting Methods

In the remainder of this chapter, we the authors, explore each research method in detail by answering core questions you might have about how Communication Studies researchers use it:

• What types of research questions can this method answer?
• What counts as data?
• What are the limits of this method?
• What are the benefits of this method?
• What job/professions most benefit from this method?

Quantitative Research Methods

What types of research questions can this method answer? If you see a research question with the following types of inquiries, you can bet it is a quantitative study:

• What are the norms or averages?
• What is the cause/effect?
• If I manipulate or control item A, such as exposure to a violent movie, will it cause item B -- violent reactions from audience members?
• Are there differences among groups, such as are there gender/sex differences in teens' body images?
• Is there a relationship among the concepts being studied, such as the way one talks (conversational style) and relational satisfaction?"

Quantitative research methods are appropriate for identifying frequencies, degrees of intensity, predicting cause/effect, determining if differences among groups are significant, and identifying relationships among items of study. Quantitative methods answer questions about phenomena that can be reduced to easily identifiable variables and their related numbers or statistics.

It is important to acknowledge the power that numbers have to influence people. When a public speaker or activist website report statistics people listen: "One in six women and one in 33 men will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime" or "Every two minutes someone in the United States is sexually assaulted" (RAINN, 2009). Statistics make a reality concrete. Even though individual stories of rape survivors can be extremely compelling, statistics can help paint the larger picture of a cultural problem.

What counts as data?  Numbers, discrete pieces of information that can be counted and statistically compared and analyzed.

What are the limits of this method?  Even when researchers use quantitative methods for the appropriate type of research questions, what are inherent limitations of the method?

Because quantitative methods often call for grouping people into categories for comparison, such as sex or age, the very nature of using numbers can flatten out the complexities of human identity. For example, asking about differences between women and men ignores all the similarities between women and men, and differences among men, and differences among women as a result of gender, race, class, religion, sexual orientation, age, etc. The complexity of relationships between two people or groups is necessarily simplified by reducing descriptions of the relationships or people to numbers that represent frequencies, degrees, averages, etc. Reducing people and cultures to numerical data always involves some loss of contextual information. For example, when viewers' response options are limited on survey questions, researchers do not know why viewers responded the way they did.

Quantitative research methods often rely on self-reported information, such as in surveys. This would not be a concern in the humanistic world view that seeks to understand perceptions, but if the goals are to predict, control, and be objective, self-reporting provides a limited perspective, which may not accurately represent actual behaviors.

What are the benefits of this method?  What does it get at that other methods cannot? The quantitative method can explain, predict, compare and/or confirm. This method makes problems very visible through the use of numbers. For example, in the U.S., nearly 12,000 people die every year in driving under the influence (DUI) related accidents. Police arrest 900,000 each year for DUI/DWI, and a full one-third of those are repeat offenders (Drinking and Driving.Org, 2010). Without numbers like these, the public and legislatures would not know the scope of the social and health problem and thus would be less likely to create laws to discourage it. It is difficult to create a law restricting freedoms without statistics to support the rationale for the law.

In the United States, numbers have been a predominant method of knowledge construction and will likely remain so, in part because of the ability to generalize to larger populations. Statistics make demographic summaries possible, allowing researchers to summarize across a large number of people and generalize to a larger population. Quantitative experiments and studies that are well-designed also attempt to filter out unrelated factors that could create "bias" in the study, in an attempt to make the study more accurate.

What job/professions most benefit from this method?  Knowing how statistics are gathered will benefit any citizen, volunteer, and/or paid employee who seeks competence and empowerment for themselves and others. It is a part of a toolkit that helps you think critically, challenge common assumptions and myths, and analyze numbers using multiple statistical tools. For example, an understanding of quantitative methods can help you conduct a political poll, do market research, and make an argument for a financial application. It is beneficial to anyone who collects "number" data for an organization. It can be beneficial to speech writers who want to collect demographic audience analyses before giving a speech, communication professionals writing governmental grant applications for non-profit organizations, or public relations professionals who want to assess an organization's public image after a crisis, or present a new product.

In sum, the world of scientific quantitative research methods is one that values researchers' control over their own potential biases. It is a world in which knowledge or information is gathered in discrete chunks and statistically linked. It is the basis of what is traditionally known as laboratory research, and extends to survey research conducted nationally and internationally to provide statistical explanations and predictions about the current quality of life.

Qualitative Research Methods

What types of research questions can this method answer?  Qualitative research methods solicit words that describe. Research questions that begin with "What" or "How," and seek to enhance depth of understanding call for the use of qualitative research methods. Researchers use qualitative methods to answer questions about the nature of something:

• What is it like?
• How does it happen?
• What do the community members think?
• How do they view this issue?

Usually the research questions are sufficiently broad and nondirectional to allow the researcher a good amount of exploration. Thus, qualitative research questions do not use words such as "effect, influence, impact, determine, cause, and relate" (Keyton, 2011, p. 67). When April Chatham-Carpenter and Victoria DeFrancisco decided to study women and self esteem, they had one basic research question: "How do the women in the study conceptualize and build their self- esteem?" They chose to use qualitative methods and did 1-2 hour interviews with women about their life experiences related to self-esteem (e.g., Chatham-Carpenter & DeFrancisco, 1997, 1998).

Qualitative methods are not typically helpful for studying highly controlled laboratory types of research where the goal is to replicate behaviors or predict cause and affect relationships. Qualitative research questions call for studying more naturally occurring interactions or areas that have not had much research done on them. In this latter instance, qualitative findings often serve as the basis for larger quantitative studies.

What counts as data?  Words, images, naturalistic observations. Anything that helps the researcher describe and understand participants' world views.

What are the limits of this method?  Even when researchers use qualitative methods for the right type of research questions, what are inherent limitations of the method?

In qualitative research, the limits are often the limits of the researcher. The researcher is the instrument of the study, so the strength of the method is relative to the experience and talents of the researcher. In the qualitative and humanistic world view, knowledge is seen as connected to the knower. The researcher and the research results are not independent, and the validity or accuracy of the results are dependent on how well the researcher represents the participants' voices and experiences.

Qualitative researchers recognize all knowledge as bound by time and context. Qualitative research is limited to a focus on a particular group at a particular time. Thus it is not possible to generalize to whole populations based on a study of a few members. The aim of qualitative research is to capture patterns of experience that may "ring true" in other similar contexts or help explain the patterns; it cannot be used to make universal claims.

Qualitative research often takes longer to conduct than quantitative studies do. Qualitative researchers cannot simply convert their findings into numbers, but have to transcribe interviews and field notes (often hundreds of pages) and review them over and over again to come up with themes. They often spend multiple months in the "field" collecting their data, before even getting to the place where they are doing such transcribing and analysis.

What are the benefits of this method?  What does it get at that other methods cannot? The qualitative method provides depth in exploration, description, interpretation, and evocative understanding. Qualitative methods are useful for exploring a new topic, and they can help refine the focus of necessary research for follow-up quantitative studies. Although qualitative methods are used to study a smaller group of people than quantitative methods, the sample size and results are usually more generalizable than the critical rhetorical approach that may study only one text. The qualitative method can give the researcher shades of meaning not evident from numbers alone. The qualitative method provides  in-depth description  that quantitative methods cannot. It helps generate theory, because of the room for exploration mentioned earlier. It brings data to life, by having participants say how they feel in their own words, thus providing the "insiders" perspective used to give voice to individuals' experiences that have previously been ignored. Whereas people in a quantitative study are often called "subjects" of study, they are referred to as "participants" in qualitative research.

What job/profession most benefits from this method?  Developing skills in qualitative research will benefit any profession that calls for being able to note what others might take for granted in observing human behavior and culture. Using qualitative methods helps raise awareness that people's voices are important. To be an effective leader means being able to appreciate and value input and dialogue with employees. Skills in qualitative methods also raise awareness of one's own influences on interactions and the co-construction of meanings. Communication consultants and public relations professionals use qualitative research methods to solicit and better understand employee or particular publics' perspectives and then are able to summarize, analyze, and make recommendations for actions based on these. Qualitative methods can help organizations understand a problem or issue, and adjust strategic plans accordingly. There are several faculty in Communication Studies who have had careers in business management, sales, public relations, and training and development. They say that all the research methods were useful. However, as organizational communication scholar and co-author, Tom Hall said, at the end of the day, observation (via qualitative methods) is most often used in the business/management setting" (Hall, personal communication, January 21, 2010).

In sum, the world of qualitative research methods is one that values observation and interaction with people experiencing everyday life in unique social contexts. The unique contexts tied to the topic of study (e.g., cancer survivors, organizational conflicts), background of the participants (e.g., race, ethnicity, sex, gender, citizenship, sexual orientation, etc.), and larger social and historical context are a part of what the researcher studies, but they also necessarily discourage the researcher from making any generalizations or predictions beyond the group observed.

Critical/Rhetorical Research Methods

What types of research questions can this method answer? Rhetoricians are researchers who study how others use or perform verbal and nonverbal symbols. A rhetor is the person who creates or communicates the message being analyzed. The word critical, in some ways, refers to the goal of rhetorical study to get people to question assumptions, to not default to simplistic understandings of meaning. It seeks to expand and develop complexity, not reduce it to numbers and data. Critical rhetoric is a method that seeks depth, often analyzing a single text, rather than a collection of data (e.g., interviews).

Critical/rhetorical research methods can answer research questions such as:

• What does a text mean?
• How should a text be interpreted?
• What persuasive elements are being used?
• Why does this matter?
• Is a text ethical/aesthetic/effective/truthful?

These are very broad questions, and in truth, rhetorical scholars generally do not begin with a specific research question to answer. Instead, when approaching the analysis of an act of communication, they ask: What is going on here? And why does it matter? (Zarefsky, 2010). To begin with a specific question presumes one already knows what is going on with an act of communication, a presumption that would be inconsistent with the goals of rhetorical study. The goals are not to answer research questions, as much as to get the reader of a rhetorical criticism to think differently and much more deeply about how communication works so that they pose their own questions of how to act, respond, behave, overcome, liberate, etc. For example, when critical rhetorician and co-author, Catherine Palczewski (2005) wrote about postcards distributed in the U.S. prior to (white) women winning the right to vote, she was able to identify more subtle ways in which anti- suffrage messages were mainstreamed in the public by using satiric images that suggested (white) men would be emasculated if women got to vote. Her work encourages realizations about why it took 75 years for the suffrage movement to win this right, as well as the racism, classism, and heterosexism inherent in the debate (to see sample postcards:  Palczewski Suffrage Postcard Archive ).

What counts as data?  The data used consists of speeches, essays, conversations (in print), poetry, novels, stories, comic books, TV programs, films, arts, architecture, plays, music, dance, ads, furniture, automobiles, dress, etc. Basically, any symbolic action can be considered.

What are the limits of this method?  Even if researchers use the critical/rhetorical method for appropriate goals, what are inherent limitations of the method? Rhetoric can never give a certain or non-contingent answer. Criticism is at its best when the critic argues for an interpretation, and presents compelling evidence for that interpretation. But even with the strongest argument and best evidence, certainty cannot be achieved, because, after all, the human world of symbol use is dependent on the rhetor's intentions when using the symbol AND people's interpretations of the rhetor's perceived intentions, which can differ for each member of the audience. The interpretation of rhetoric used by others represents the author's perspective; it is not usually based on the solicited or unsolicited views of others.

What are the benefits of this method?  What does it get at that other methods cannot? The close analysis of symbol choice moves beyond reporting data. Instead of saying "these themes are present," it answers a "so what" question. What does it mean that the public language about paying taxes in the U.S. shifted historically from duty to burden (Lakoff, 2003)? What does it mean that women do not describe themselves as agents when describing a maternity leave policy, but rather see themselves as pawns in a game (Misenbach, Remke, Buzzanell, & Liu, 2008)? What does it mean that the Vietnam Veterans Memorial possesses conflicting meanings of patriotism, hopelessness and waste (Blair, Jeppeson, & Pucci, 1991)? If it is true that language constructs reality, rhetorical criticism encourages researchers to see the infrastructure of that construction, not just the façade (quantitative) or the floor plan (qualitative).

What job/profession most benefits from this method?  The methods of rhetorical criticism teach one to think critically about common assumptions. They also teach one to build a strong argument based on research collected from multiple sources to assist in the in-depth analysis of verbal or visual messages. These are skills that will assist anyone who wants to learn to be an informed consumer or contributor to organizations. The professions of speechwriter; teacher in public speaking, argumentation, debate, or law; public relations campaign creator; marketing planner; public policy or non-profit advocate benefit from such skills.

In sum, rhetoric is the conscious use of symbolic means to influence a social reality at a particular place, in a particular time, and to a particular audience. Symbolic means can include verbal as well as visual means. Critical rhetoricians conduct a close analysis of such rhetorical efforts to make the tools of influence visible and to help others understand the power of such tools.

Creative Methods

As noted previously, this textbook does not include a separate in-depth chapter on the creative method, in part because this method often relies on methods already included in the book, such as qualitative and critical/rhetorical. We include it in this chapter to recognize it is a part of the Communication Studies discipline. What types of research questions can this method answer? Like critical/rhetorical studies, creative work does not generally begin with a specific research question. To begin with a specific question would be to unnecessarily limit the exploration. Instead, the researcher/artist needs to be open to discovery. Thus, creative scholarship can address questions that come from gut reactions such as,

• Whoa, isn't that interesting?
• I wonder why?
• Why did this make me feel and act this way?

Creative scholarship in communication studies includes such fields as performance studies and filmmaking, and they are both methods of knowledge creation. For example, creative work can be a way to share research done with another method (i.e., qualitative ethnography or interviews). Because scholars often discover knowledge in the process of creative work, creative methods are also a mechanism of knowledge creation and data collection. The visual presentation allows the audience to interpret it, and perhaps talk back to the creator, thereby influencing how the meaning of the project will evolve. In addition, performances and films themselves can be a subject of study. One can analyze a play, documentary, or performance art.

Performance Studies  adds a unique dimension to the knowledge continuum in that the enactment of a story creates a new experience each time for the performers as well as for the audience. The actors are required to engage the material in a very physical, rather than only a cerebral, way. Performance studies scholar Elysse Pineau explains the relationship between performance and creation of knowledge: "We explore . . . through the act of performance. That means using embodied rehearsal as a method of discovery and aesthetic performance as a means of communicating what we've learned" (as cited in Stucky, 2006, p. 265). A performance is not only a means to convey a message, but it inspires the message.

Performance Studies and filmmaking methods are useful when there is no single answer to a question. The author of a performance and the actors may take a creative turn when the data collected is really poetic, when it gets at the basic question of what it means to be human, to be vulnerable, and to be an individual. The question Performance Studies and film audiences need to answer is: what does organizing, analyzing and presenting the data in this particular way add to the understanding of it. For example, would giving the people whom you interviewed the chance to perform their stories in public affect the power of the data?

What counts as data?  Data can be gathered for the purpose of the project (e.g., qualitative ethnography can be translated into a play, interviews translated into a documentary); it can be found because it preexists the project (a novel); or it can be created for the project (autoethnography). The data is subject to constant changes because there is a feedback loop: the creative work generates audience response, the researcher analyzes the audience response, reworks the creative work – sometimes finds the data in the performance, and so it goes.

What are the limits of this method?  Even if researchers use performance studies for appropriate goals, what are inherent limitations of the method? Performance Studies is not suited to fixing data for all of eternity. Live performance is fleeting and ephemeral. Its value is in the here and now. Creative work (particularly performed creative work) is not good at preserving findings. Because performances evolve and change, they are always a work in progress, not a final product. A written script cannot capture all that is at play. Documentaries are better at fixing data, but even they are of a moment. Audiences need to remember that even documentaries are not objective truths, but a filmmaker's interpretation of events and issues.

What are the benefits of this method?  What does it get at that other methods cannot? Performance Studies and filmmaking are best used when the data would die if it was not collected at the moment. Creative projects such as filmmaking and performances are best when the deepest and most intimate look at an experience, a moment, a person is necessary. Scholars Barone and Eisner (2012) claim, "Art based research represents an effort to explore the potentialities of an approach to representation that is rooted in aesthetic considerations and that, when it is at its best, culminates in the creation of something close to a work of art" (p. 1).

Creative scholarship can be used to explore findings from previous research methods, and in the process generate new findings. A benefit of creative work is that it allows one to double check the findings. Do they ring human? Do they ring true to those interviewed? It may be the biggest finding is not presented in the creative work, but is discovered as a result of its performance, and then is presented in a different version, such as a journal article. A Performance Studies colleague, Karen S. Mitchell (1996) offers a good example of this evolution of knowledge. She conducted a qualitative ethnography for over a year by joining a local romance readers' book group, attending meetings and reading the books circulated through the club. The ethnography included qualitative interviews with other members. From these experiences, Mitchell scripted a play folding the story of one epic romance novel into the stories of the women's lives from the club. The performances and audience reactions to it (including some book club members) caused Mitchell to think further about what she had learned and the power of the performance. In addition to scripting and directing a play, she was compelled to write about the whole process in a research article in the  Journal of Theatre Topics  (1996).

Creative work, performance and documentary are methods of investigation. Performance in particular allows the performers to step outside of themselves, to become observers of themselves. When done right, creative scholarship enables one to learn. Mitchell explains, "Through rehearsal, you embody; through embodiment, you learn; through performance, you share what you've learned" (Mitchell, personal communication, March 3, 2010).

Creative scholarship is useful in attempting to capture or portray the complexities of individual or group identities that would be flat and one-dimensional on paper. As a method of delivery, the creative visual presentation rather than paper presentation makes the information more accessible to audiences than might be true of an academic journal article. Creative work is multi-modal, using bodies, voices, movements, images, emotions, and memories to enhance the presentation of information. Film, photography, live performance and other arts make ideas come alive. Art based research can raise important questions, generate conversation, and provide a social service when other means of problem solving are ineffective (Barone & Eisner, 2012).

What job/profession most benefits from this method? Creative methods teach one to pay attention to detail and to empathize with human experience. They teach an appreciation of aesthetic ways of knowing and creativity. These are valuable qualities for a number of professions and jobs, such as community organizers, documentary filmmakers, videographers, social welfare leaders, tourism, cultural curators with museums or folklife festivals, community educators (e.g., sex educator, violence prevention, health), and oral history project managers. The limit of the jobs is the limit of one's imagination and ability to advocate for oneself and the group one represents.

In sum, creative scholarship in Communication Studies can be used to convey information and/or to create knowledge through a visual and oral experiential method. In this case, information is not limited to dry description, but the intent is to embrace participants through multiple senses of knowing.

The authors' intent in this chapter was to provide a framework to compare basic characteristics of the variety of research methods taught in the field of Communication Studies. This comparison should help students understand how the diverse methods are distinct from each other before being immersed in the specifics of conducting research in, and reading the results of, each method. It should also help students to understand the methods share some commonalities as they are able to locate the diverse methods on a continuum from scientific to humanistic contributions for knowledge construction. And, most importantly, it should illustrate that regardless of method, all knowledge construction involves some form of data collection and analysis.

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Qualitative Research: Bridging the Conceptual, Theoretical, and Methodological

Student resources, chapter overviews.

In Chapter Two, Using Conceptual Frameworks in Research , we discuss the role of conceptual frameworks, which include theoretical frameworks, to all aspects and phases of qualitative research. The chapter begins with a definition of what a conceptual framework is, what its key components are, and what it helps you do in your research. We describe the myriad roles and uses of a conceptual framework and discuss how you construct and develop one. We describe how the researcher, tacit theories, study goals, setting and context, and formal theory inform, influence, and shape conceptual frameworks. The chapter then provides commentary on and examples of conceptual frameworks to help you begin to develop and then continue to build and refine your own conceptual framework. The chapter includes suggested strategies for developing your emerging conceptual framework.

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CHAPTER TWO RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

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