Qualitative Designs

Qualitative research focuses on analysis of documents, artifacts, words, pictures, and other non-numerical data. Often the researcher has direct contact with the persons being studied in the research and may even be a participant observer; therefore, the researcher's insights and experiences may form an important part of the investigation. The approach is descriptive, interpretative, subjective, and inductive in nature. Qualitative studies are characterized by three design strategies (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005; Guba & Lincoln, 1989, 2005; Kiely & Hartman, in press; Patton, 2002; Schwandt, 2001), described below.

Naturalistic Inquiry

In qualitative research, the investigator observes what is taking place without attempting to manipulate or control the phenomena of interest. Naturalistic inquiry occurs in real world settings (i.e., not in a laboratory or artificial setting), and events unfold naturally without interventions or controls on the setting or a course predetermined by the researcher. The investigator does not attempt to put constraints on study conditions or outcomes. This approach is characterized by openness to whatever emerges from the study, and requires that the researcher pay attention to process and situation dynamics that may change over the course of the study.

Emergent Design Flexibility

Qualitative research design involves an iterative process because the investigator uses a discovery-type approach in determining instruments to be used and data to be gathered. That is, the researcher may start out looking at a certain type of document, noticing particular patterns and themes, then as events unfold in the midst of the study decide to switch to oral interviews to get a different perspective on the themes. This iterative process might be repeated several times before the researcher creates a synthesis and interprets the data. Thus, the design of qualitative research is open-ended in nature. While the researcher initially specifies an outline for what is to be accomplished and plans for observations such as initial interview questions, the approach may be altered as the situation changes and new paths of inquiry emerge.

Purposeful Sampling

Contrary to quantitative research, which might involve deliberate attempts to obtain representative or random samples, qualitative researchers do not attempt to gain a representative sample of a population under study. The focus in qualitative research is on gathering data from "information rich" cases that can be studied to provide an in-depth understanding of the phenomena of interest. Thus, qualitative researchers purposefully sample the specific documents, artifacts, people, and programs that are illuminative and that they believe will provide a great deal of information related to the purpose of the research.

Often this type of research results in small sample sizes or even single case studies (N=1). As noted above, one of the common problems in service-learning research is small sample sizes that limit the generalizability of the data and inferences, making it difficult to have confidence in the results and generalize to other situations and samples. Too often researchers describe a single case study with limited data, such as a single service-learning course or program. Although this may prove helpful to others trying to conceive a new course or program, generally it does not lead to new cumulative understandings or contribute to the research knowledge base on service-learning. Qualitative researchers are less concerned with these issues, often valuing a few meaningful cases for study, rather than large numbers of less meaningful cases. Nevertheless, we recommend triangulation through the use of multiple measures and conducting cross-case (multi-case) analysis to increase understanding and generalizability. Cross-case analysis involves making comparisons between cases, analyzing relationships, and hypothesizing about causes and consequences (Patton, 2002).