Fundamentals of Qualitative Research Methods: What is Qualitative Research (Module 1)

Summary

This video script by Leslie Currie introduces the fundamentals of qualitative research methods in health sciences, emphasizing their unique contributions to understanding complex phenomena. It outlines six modules covering the basics of qualitative research, developing research questions, in-depth interviews, focus groups, data analysis, and scientific rigor. The script highlights the inductive and context-driven nature of qualitative methods, their purposeful sampling, and iterative data analysis, contrasting them with quantitative approaches to showcase their complementary strengths.

Takeaways

• 📚 The course is about 'Fundamentals of Qualitative Research Methods' taught by Leslie Currie, a senior research scientist at Yale School of Public Health.
• 🎯 The goal of the series is to enhance the capacity to conceptualize, design, and conduct qualitative research in the Health Sciences, including clinical and health services research.
• 📚 There are six modules in the series covering the basics of qualitative research, research question development, in-depth interviews, focus groups, data analysis, and scientific rigor.
• 💡 Qualitative research is highlighted as essential for understanding phenomena that cannot be quantified, such as patient preferences or self-efficacy in care management.
• 🔍 The definition of qualitative research is provided as a systematic collection, organization, and interpretation of textual information, using inductive approaches to generate insights.
• 🌐 Qualitative and quantitative research methods exist on a continuum, each with its strengths and limitations, and can be combined in mixed methods research.
• 🔑 Qualitative research aims for depth of understanding, often in natural settings, using purposeful sampling and open-ended data collection methods like interviews and observations.
• 🔍 Data analysis in qualitative research is iterative, involving ongoing interpretation and collection, contrasting with the more structured, one-time analysis in quantitative research.
• 📝 Qualitative research can produce recurrent themes or hypotheses, survey instruments, taxonomies, and conceptual models or theories as its products.
• 🌟 An example of thematic output from a qualitative study on the use of interpreters by resident physicians is provided, illustrating the depth and nuance qualitative research can offer.
• 📈 The script concludes by emphasizing the unique contributions qualitative methods can make to health services and clinical research, and the importance of following rigorous procedures in qualitative research.

Q & A

What is the primary goal of the series on qualitative research methods presented by Leslie Currie?

The primary goal of the series is to enhance the capacity to conceptualize, design, and conduct qualitative research in the Health Sciences, which includes clinical and health services research, and implementation science across various disciplines and specialties.

How many modules are there in the series, and what are they focused on?

There are six modules in the series. They focus on understanding qualitative research, developing a qualitative research question, using in-depth interviews and focus groups as study designs, analyzing qualitative data, and reviewing the principles of scientific rigor in qualitative research.

What is the significance of the quote attributed to Albert Einstein in the context of qualitative research?

The quote emphasizes the importance of recognizing that not everything that counts can be counted, suggesting that qualitative methods can capture aspects of phenomena that are difficult to quantify, thus highlighting their potential power in health sciences research.

How does qualitative research differ from quantitative research in terms of its approach?

Qualitative research is inductive in nature, focusing on generating novel insights into phenomena that are difficult to measure quantitatively, whereas quantitative research is deductive, often testing hypotheses in a controlled setting.

What are the two broad buckets of what qualitative methods can achieve, as mentioned in the script?

Qualitative methods can achieve a comprehensive description of processes, mechanisms, or settings, and they can also characterize participant perspectives and their experiences in great depth.

How does the script describe the relationship between quantitative and qualitative methods?

The script describes the relationship through a Venn diagram, indicating that quantitative and qualitative methods exist along a continuum of measurement, each with its strengths and limitations, and that mixed methods can be used to combine them effectively.

What is the definition of qualitative research provided in the script, and what are its critical elements?

Qualitative research is defined as a strategy for the systematic collection, organization, and interpretation of textual information. Its critical elements include being strategic, systematic, inductive, and focused on achieving depth of understanding.

What are some examples of the products generated through qualitative research?

Examples of products generated through qualitative research include recurrent themes or hypotheses, survey instruments, taxonomies, and conceptual models or theories.

How does the script illustrate the use of thematic output in qualitative research?

The script provides an example from a paper by Lisa Diamond, where recurrent themes were identified from interviews with resident physicians about their experience using interpreters. The thematic output is illustrated with a bolded theme, a description, and an illustrative quote from a participant.

What are the four major products of qualitative research mentioned in the script, and why are they important?

The four major products are recurrent themes or hypotheses, survey instruments, taxonomies, and conceptual models or theories. They are important because they help identify and characterize aspects of health care, understand group interactions and individual perceptions, and provide frameworks for understanding particular phenomena.

How does the script emphasize the importance of qualitative methods in health services and clinical research?

The script emphasizes the importance by discussing how qualitative methods can provide unique contributions to understanding complex phenomena in health services and clinical research, and by highlighting that there are rigorous and widely accepted procedures for qualitative research.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods

Leslie Currie introduces the fundamentals of qualitative research methods, outlining her roles as a senior research scientist, co-director, and lecturer. The series aims to enhance the capacity to conceptualize, design, and conduct qualitative research in Health Sciences, covering clinical, health services, and implementation science across various disciplines. The six modules include understanding qualitative research, developing research questions, in-depth interviews, focus groups, data analysis, and scientific rigor. The importance of qualitative methods is emphasized through Einstein's quote, highlighting the value of non-quantifiable phenomena in research.

05:00

🔍 Exploring Qualitative Research Techniques

This paragraph delves into the specifics of qualitative research, including its inductive approach, depth of understanding, and natural setting. It contrasts qualitative methods with quantitative ones, illustrating their coexistence on a continuum of measurement. The paragraph explains the purposeful sampling, open-ended data collection, and iterative analysis process of qualitative research. It also discusses the potential products of qualitative research, such as recurrent themes, survey instruments, taxonomies, and conceptual models, emphasizing their role in health sciences.

10:03

🌟 Applications and Outputs of Qualitative Research

The final paragraph focuses on the practical applications and outputs of qualitative research, highlighting its unique contributions to health services and clinical research. It provides an example of recurrent themes from a study on the use of interpreters by physicians, showcasing how qualitative research can identify underutilization and offer insights into patient care. The paragraph concludes by emphasizing the rigorous procedures of qualitative research and the structured approach to be covered in the remaining modules of the series.

Keywords

💡Qualitative Research

Qualitative research is a systematic approach to understanding social phenomena through the collection, organization, and interpretation of textual data. It is central to the video's theme, as it is the focus of the series and the subject of the modules presented by Leslie Currie. The video emphasizes that qualitative research is inductive, aiming for depth of understanding, and is conducted in natural settings rather than controlled environments.

💡Health Sciences

Health Sciences encompass a broad range of disciplines including clinical and health services research, and implementation science. In the context of the video, Health Sciences is the application area for qualitative research methods, indicating the wide applicability of these methods across various specialties and disciplines within the health sector.

💡In-depth Interviews

In-depth interviews are a major qualitative study design mentioned in the video. They involve one-on-one conversations to explore participants' experiences, beliefs, and attitudes in detail. The script uses in-depth interviews as an example of a qualitative method to generate insights into phenomena such as patient experiences with epilepsy medication.

💡Focus Groups

Focus groups are another qualitative study design highlighted in the video. They involve group discussions to gather multiple perspectives on a specific topic. The script positions focus groups as a method to review and understand collective viewpoints within the health sciences.

💡Qualitative Data Analysis

Qualitative data analysis refers to the process of interpreting and coding textual data to identify patterns and themes. The video emphasizes that this process is iterative, involving ongoing data collection and interpretation, which contrasts with the more linear approach of quantitative data analysis.

💡Scientific Rigor

Scientific rigor in the context of the video refers to the principles and practices that ensure the quality and reliability of qualitative research. It is one of the modules that will be reviewed, indicating the importance of maintaining high standards in qualitative research to ensure its validity and credibility.

💡Albert Einstein Quote

The quote by Albert Einstein, 'not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted,' is used in the video to illustrate the limitations of quantitative methods and the value of qualitative research in capturing aspects of reality that are not easily quantifiable, such as patient preferences or experiences.

💡Epilepsy Medication Adherence

Epilepsy medication adherence is used as an example in the script to contrast quantitative and qualitative research questions. The quantitative question might measure the proportion of people who stop taking their medication, while the qualitative question explores how medication affects the lives of people with epilepsy, highlighting the different insights each approach can provide.

💡Mixed Methods

Mixed methods refer to the combination of qualitative and quantitative research approaches to leverage the strengths of both and minimize their limitations. The video script mentions mixed methods as a way to enrich research by using a continuum of measurement tools to understand complex phenomena in the health sciences.

💡Recurrent Themes

Recurrent themes in qualitative research are patterns or concepts that emerge repeatedly in the data, indicating significant aspects of the phenomenon under study. The video provides an example from a study on the use of interpreters by physicians, where the theme of 'getting by' without professional interpreters was a key finding.

💡Conceptual Models

Conceptual models are frameworks that help understand and explain a particular phenomenon. The video mentions them as one of the products of qualitative research, suggesting that they can provide insights into the mechanisms or processes at work in health-related contexts.

Highlights

Leslie Currie introduces herself as a senior research scientist at Yale School of Public Health and co-director of the Robert Wood Johnson clinical Scholars Program.

The series aims to enhance the capacity to conceptualize, design, and conduct qualitative research in the Health Sciences.

Qualitative research is defined as a strategy for the systematic collection, organization, and interpretation of textual information.

The importance of qualitative methods is emphasized through Albert Einstein's quote about the limitations of quantification.

Qualitative research is inductive, aiming for depth of understanding and is often conducted in natural settings.

Qualitative methods are contrasted with quantitative methods, showing they exist along a continuum of measurement.

The use of purposeful sampling in qualitative research is explained, as opposed to random sampling.

Data collection in qualitative research involves interview guides and observation tools, as opposed to structured surveys.

Data analysis in qualitative research is iterative, in contrast to the post-collection analysis of quantitative methods.

Qualitative research can produce recurrent themes, hypotheses, survey instruments, taxonomies, and conceptual models or theories.

The paper by Lisa Diamond on the use of interpreters by resident physicians is highlighted as an example of thematic output in qualitative research.

Qualitative methods are positioned as providing unique contributions to health services and clinical research.

The existence of rigorous and widely accepted procedures in qualitative research is acknowledged.

The series will cover primary methodologies such as interviews and focus groups, and data analysis in upcoming modules.

Qualitative research is presented as a valuable tool for understanding complex phenomena that are difficult to quantify.

The importance of reflecting on phenomena that cannot be easily quantified is discussed to appreciate the power of qualitative methods.

An example of a qualitative research question about medication adherence in epilepsy patients is provided to illustrate the approach.

The transcript concludes by emphasizing the importance of qualitative research in enhancing understanding in the Health Sciences.

Transcripts

welcome to fundamentals of qualitative

research methods my name is Leslie

Currie I'm a senior research scientist

at the Yale School of Public Health a

co-director at the Robert Wood Johnson

clinical Scholars Program at the Yale

School of Medicine and a lecturer at

Yale College and in all these various

roles I have the opportunity to teach

and mentor students in using qualitative

research methods as well as collaborate

across a number of multidisciplinary

teams across the university I'd like to

give you an overview of the modules in

this series and to start with the goal

of the series is to enhance our capacity

to conceptualize design and conduct

qualitative research in the Health

Sciences and by Health Sciences I mean

clinical and health services research

implementation science across a host of

disciplines and specialties there are

six modules in the series the first is

what is qualitative research the second

moves us to developing a qualitative

research question which is actually not

as easy as it might sound the third

module addresses one of the major

qualitative study designs the use of

in-depth interviews the fourth module

reviews a second major qualitative study

design the use of focus groups the fifth

module provides an overview of

qualitative data analysis the principles

and practices of analyzing qualitative

data and the last module reviews the

principles of scientific rigor in

qualitative research and so to begin

with the first module what is

qualitative research I want to invite

you to take a moment to reflect on this

fundamental premise really appreciating

this assumption is necessary in order to

maximize the use of qualitative methods

in the Health Sciences so this is a

quote attributed to Albert Einstein who

reflected that not everything that

can be counted counts and not everything

that counts can be counted so if you

pause and you think of a circumstance or

an issue or a phenomenon in your own

clinical practice or area of research I

invite you to contemplate a phenomenon

that perhaps can't have a number

assigned to it if we're interested for

instance in end-of-life care for

terminally ill patients you might think

about preferences for services at the

end of life this may be something that

it was very difficult to put a number on

and so this assumption helps us

appreciate the potential power of

qualitative methods so as an example we

might be interested in the care of

patients with epilepsy this first

question is a quantitative question what

proportion of people with epilepsy stop

taking their medications for three

consecutive days in a six-month period

this is something that we can quantify

put a number on it can be very important

in an overall question and looking at

adherence for meant to medication

regimes in this patient group a

different question related to the same

phenomenon might be how does medication

shape the lives of people with epilepsy

and so looking at a very different

perspective for the patient experience

whether or not they feel mastery or self

efficacy in trying to adhere to complex

medication regimes so let's move to a

definition what is qualitative research

there are many definitions this is one

that we feel represents the critical

elements of a qualitative research

approach and so we'll work through this

through this definition together for a

minute qualitative research is a

strategy for the systematic collection

organization and interpretation of

textual information so let's break this

down into parts we use the word strategy

to connote the fact that qualitative

research question is thoughtful

deliberate

conceived of with a broader attention to

context and to the relative strengths

and limitations of a qualitative method

so it's strategic in its nature it's

systematic it's not something that's

loose loosely formed ad hoc it rather

relies on a set of established

well-defined articulated methodologies

for the collecting organizing and

analyzing of qualitative data

qualitative research broadly uses

inductive approaches so working from the

ground up to generate novel insights

into phenomena that are difficult to

measure quantitatively such as

preferences for end-of-life care or

issues of self-efficacy and mastery in

self-care management so qualitative

methods can do a couple of things two

broad buckets the first being generating

a comprehensive description of processes

mechanisms or settings so thinking about

processes of implementing clinical care

mechanisms how one intervention may

achieve a particular outcome or settings

what is it like to care for patients and

their families in a particular

environment these methods can also

characterize participant perspectives

and their experiences in great depth

here we might think about individual

health behaviors individual experiences

of care in a particular clinic setting

so want to spend a few minutes on this

figure here in this Venn diagram we see

on one in one circle qualitative in the

other circle quantitative we have arrows

pointing to the center of the

intersection of these circles in order

to convey the really I think very

critical notion that quantitative and

qualitative methods really exist along a

continuum of measurement that each has

its respective strengths and limitations

and that when we draw upon those two in

order to minimize

the limitations in a particular method

and maximize its assets we use mix we

can use mixed methods which is the

combining of qualitative and

quantitative methods so let's just

populate one of these circles on the

qualitative methods circle so I

mentioned qualitative methods in terms

of approach is inductive in nature so

we're not coming to a research question

with any a priori hypotheses that we're

testing we're rather working from the

ground up qualitative research in terms

of its goal is to achieve depth of

understanding so we're looking in a very

deep way to unpack critical facets of a

given phenomenon we may be interested in

generating a hypotheses that can then go

on and be tested in a quantitative study

qualitative work occurs in a natural

setting it's not experimental it's not

controlled it doesn't happen in a lab

rather we're often interested in

features of the natural environment that

may help us understand the question of

interest sampling approaches and

qualitative methods are purposeful in

nature so just take a moment here to

think together about what purposeful

means this is in contrast to random

sampling so rather than for instance

were in an emergency department setting

and we are rather than recruit every

fifth patient who comes through the

doors of the emergency department a

purposeful sampling design would choose

individual patients who come through the

door that share a given characteristic

so for instance if we're interested in

the care of patients who are homeless in

the emergency department setting we'd

want to be very purposeful in that

design and choosing only those who have

the experience that we're interested in

studying data collection in qualitative

methods is done through interview guides

and various kinds of observation tools

these are much more open-ended than

structured surveys or instrumentation we

use in our quantitative studies and

lastly data analysis is iterative it's a

process of interpreting data going out

to the field collecting data

interpreting that going back out to the

field collecting day

and interpreting that this is in

contrast to our approaches in for

instance a structured survey on

quantitative methods where we collect

all of the data and then begin our

analysis only at that point and so you

can see how the quality principles of

qualitative methods line up with a

quantitative methods and I think very

important to consider that these are

simply a range of tools all designed to

measure different aspects of phenomena

of interest so what are the products of

qualitative research what can we make of

this well there are four at least four

ways to think about what we generate

through qualitative methods the first

product is recurrent themes or

hypotheses we're going to look at an

example of that in a moment the second

kind of product might be a survey

instrument measure so using a

qualitative exploratory phase in order

to design a survey to measure something

that hasn't been measured previously

taxonomy these are classification

systems in order to identify essential

properties of a particular construct and

conceptual models or theories these are

frameworks for helping us understand a

particular phenomenon these are four

major products of qualitative research

the most common we see in the health

sciences are recurrent themes or

hypotheses so themes are unifying

concepts or statements and they can do a

couple of things the first is to help us

identify and characterize a number of

aspects of health care and health the

first can be patterns of behaviors we

might look at how patterns recur in a

certain patient population or in a

certain environment they can help us

understand group interactions and

individual perceptions themes also can

help us develop testable hypotheses they

can do this by helping identify the

salient factors what matters in a given

to a given question what matters say

from a patient's perspective and they

can help inform predictions about

relationships how to

specs or dimensions of a given question

might relate to one another

so it's good let's look at an example

this is a paper written by a former

clinical scholar at the Robert Wood

Johnson program Lisa diamond and Lisa

was very interested in the use of

interpreters by resident physician

physicians in caring for patients who

have limited English proficiency and so

Lisa conducted a qualitative study she

interviewed residents at two academic

medical centers with excellent

interpreter services on site and she

talked with the residents to understand

their experience in using interpreters

in these environments in order to care

for these for these patients this is an

excerpt from the published paper which

is in the Journal of general internal

medicine and this is to give you an

example of what a fee Matic output looks

like this theme is in is in bold this is

one of the five recurrent themes in the

paper and the primary theme here the

emphasis is to indicate that residents

physicians

recognize that they under use

professional interpreters and describe

this phenomenon as quote getting by

sometimes we use the language of

participants in order to represent the

key element the most pertinent essence

of a given theme and then what follows

is several sentences that describe that

theme in greater depth and then followed

by an illustrative quote so using the

words of participants in order to

support and illustrate the higher-level

theme and just to read this together

this theme this quote from a resident

said that I know that when people are

very pushed for time they may or may not

call an interpreter they may just get by

on the few words they know in different

languages for like pain and take a deep

breath and just fumble through you

probably get a pretty bad history and

not maybe a great and maybe not a great

physical exam either it's an example of

thematic output so let's conclude with a

few thoughts first qualitative method

can provide unique contributions to

health services and clinical research

we've talked through briefly some

examples in this introductory segment

second there are rigorous and widely

accepted procedures for study design

sampling data collection and data

analysis and qualitative research and in

the remaining five modules in this

series we'll talk more about primary

methodologies interviews and focus

groups and data analysis in that context

thank you