Ross Woods, rev. 2020, 24
The toolkit of research methods for people research is big and growing. Browse these and choose the best method(s) for the issue you want to explore. They tend to be qualitative and phenomenological.
You will need more information to be able to use any of these methods. Type the name of the method into your Internet search engine to get longer explanations and examples. If it is still a good fit for your research, search for dissertations and journal articles that use that methodology. The authors should have described their methodology in enough detail for someone else to replicate it. You will see not only how they used the methodology, but also any adjustments they made for local contextual factors. Several tips:
If the only tool you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail.If, however, you choose from a variety of tools, you can select the right one for the job.
Some of these methods are not stand-alone. For example a research that builds a theoretical model normally needs another method to gather data. Similarly, it would be unusual for a program evaluation to comprise an entire research, unless it was a particularly complex program where conclusions do not readily present themselves, or where evaluations of its success were in dispute.
Some methods are not suited for academic research, for example, a biography using oral sources.
Several methods tend to overlap considerably. Large group pooling, focus groups and action learning are all ways of using questions with groups. Error analysis is not greatly different from Critical Incident Analysis. Organisational ethnography is simply one application of ethnography. Some might even be the same in practice. One of the main applications of the Delphi Technique is scenario analysis.
Action Research was omitted in this edition. Action Research
means research in which the researcher is actively involved in instigating change according to a set of goals. The researcher carefully monitors his/her actions and the results produced. The researcher becomes part of the research itself and needs to be honest about oneself and one's inputs in order to remain accountable. The project (program development) method is a good example in this toolkit. Action Research follows post-modern thinking in that it breaks down the distinction between objective and subjective. It would once have been disallowed when researchers thought they had to see the change processes objectively. The term "Action research" can also refer to decision-oriented research.
Ross Woods
An oral biography is a biography that is written based on stories told by the person themselves. The person is the "teller" because they are telling their story. The "recorder" is the person to whom it is told. The biography may be limited to a specific period.
Its purpose is to depict the interpretation of the teller's world, and in so doing define some aspects of his or her identity. It does this by relating three complex elements in a three-way relationship:
Oral biography is an excellent research approach, but it comes with some strict conditions.
A final biography using oral material is an artificial construction. The unconstructed reality is a collection of stories of usually unrelated incidents. Some may have been polished with many retellings, while others may never have been told before.
But a biography is more than recording existing stories. Even the most basic activities are stages in constructing something different from the original material.
Although these aspects of construction can happen, they don't all necessarily happen in any particular biography. That is, it is a mistake to presume that they do not happen.
First, recording oral stories reduces them to a fixed form that can be examined. They lose the dynamic of oral stories shared with particular people in particular contexts.
Second, putting the stories together might change them. The teller has most likely never before systematically told all the stories to one person in one context. By putting together stories that might never before have been together, the teller and recorder can generate patterns, raise questions of consistency, and identify problems of chronology.
Third, putting the stories in chronological order is an act of construction. The teller tells stories in an order that may be quite different from the order in which readers can readily understand them.
Fourth, the process of interviewing and exploring actively stimulates evolution in identity and worldview. By being asked questions, the teller learns about him/herself and his/her world. Telling one's personal story is a reflective exercise. It is possible that their views change or at least crystallize into something that was not there before.
Fifth, the recorder's questions can set certain directions. Once the recorder and teller have put the stories together one way for the first time, neither teller nor recorder can necessarily go back and start on a different direction. A pattern that has been established in their minds becomes difficult to ignore. Besides, the whole process can go in unforeseen directions through the way one story can trigger another. That is, by committing oneself to one path, other paths can become inaccessible.
Sixth, the recorder's values and methods tend to influence the direction of the biography. They cannot be neutral and objective, and the best approach is to monitor their effects as they emerge during the project.
Seventh, the teller might in all honesty manufacture parts of stories by:
That is, the teller's memories after events are not necessarily a reliable source of what actually happened. However, the way they tell the stories can be very reliable portrayal of identity and worldview.
The first step is for the recorder to establish a personal trust with the teller. The teller must feel free to speak openly. This is more like a commitment to personal friendship than mere professional credibility. As in many studies, means of access reveals so much about the subject that it is an important part of the research itself. For example, if the teller is a recluse, the avenues of gaining trust tell a great deal about the teller.
Some issues need to be decided before starting:
These might be simple in a business arrangement, but the interpersonal dynamics may be much more complex, especially if the teller and recorder are from different cultures or subcultures. For example:
Use tapes if possible, although some tellers might be quite nervous. It will be difficult if the teller is reluctant to speak when recorded, or even worse, deliberately and imperceptibly change the story because it is recorded.
When you are ready to start, start wherever the teller wants. The teller will probably choose something easy and non-threatening, such as favourite memories, especially of childhood. The information might be sketchy at this stage, but the teller will get accustomed to probing his/her memory and expressing recollections. Don't interrupt with questions until they are accustomed to telling their story.
Develop a rough outline of the life span to date and show the teller. The outline should generate a long list of questions, for example, if some interesting episodes emerge, some things appear inconsistent, or there are gaps.
Go over the questions, and be free to ask extra questions spontaneously, without making the teller feel interrogated. Keep a record of the questions and why they are asked.
Let the teller re-tell the stories until both recorder and teller are satisfied. The teller might add detail, insert different perspectives, or produce inconsistencies that may be explored.
Keep the teller informed of what is being written. Teller's responses can vary greatly, because they are not accustomed to seeing their words committed to a static written record. They might be surprised, bored, or pensive. They might think it was a bad idea or a great masterpiece.
The teller may ask you to delete things from the manuscript. The stories might arouse unpleasant memories or remind of past traumas, so do not be surprised if the teller become angry, discourages or even denies his or her own exact words. The stories might reveal inconsistencies. They might potentially embarrass the teller or those he/she loves. They might reflect information about other people that may not be divulged.
However, the teller might eventually decide to reveal past difficulties if cast in an appropriate light and if he or she has personally reconciled with his or her past.
Check any available written resource information from the time of the stories. Compare it with the stories and generate questions that you can further explore.
A publishable autobiography is very different from a work of research. The final work should sound like the teller speaking, so be careful not to over-polish the language. The way it is artificially constructed will be hidden to the general reader but will be essential to telling the story clearly. You might need to add linking sentences between episodes to make the work readable.
Other than that, it is similar to any other manuscript being developed for publication. Edit very thoroughly and proofread. Contact a publisher with a background in that kind of book. Be sure you know what the publisher expects. Even though you may suggest a cover and title, the final decision is the right of the publisher.
If you have a unique and interesting case, there may be lessons to learn from it. If it's a program of some kind, there needs to be something experimental or pioneering about it for your study to be research. The steps below are especially related to programs, but case studies are used for other things too.
Step 1. Describe the program:
Step 2. Collect the comments of different people:
Case studies of individual cases are increasingly considered a little old-fashioned. They definitely still have a place, especially when programs are quite complex and there is only one case that can be studied. The present trend is to have two or more cases in the study so they can be compared. This gives a firmer basis for conclusions and for considering how to apply findings in other situations.
In your case study, make sure that you start with a particular direction and develop a particular conclusion; don't just gather a lot of information and leave it in a pile.
Compare also the methods of program development, program evaluation, and open ended surveys.
Critical incident analysis is commonly used when most incidents in a category are fairly routine and well understood, but a few offer challenges or insights and need analysis. In many ways, it is not so different from grounded theory, except that it does not look at all examples in a class. It is also like doing a large number of rather small case studies.
Here are some basic steps, which you would need to refine according to your context:
It usually takes an extended period to gather incident details unless they are already well documented. You will need a consistent, detailed reporting system. It is quite likely that you will improve it during the research project, and some of your early data may be defective. This is disappointing, especially if a very interesting unique incident occurs early in data collection, but refining the reporting procedure is sometimes part of the research itself. As you understand incidents better, you are better able to report them. Nevertheless, it is wise to start with a quite rigorous system.
You will quite probably depend on others to collect data, and they will need training. Most people naturally write down a too-brief interpretation and impression, rather than an accurate record of the events themselves. While their personal views may be helpful, they may also be inaccurate. Consequently, they will need training to be more objective in their reporting.
If you use incorrect criteria to select incidents for analysis, you will exclude relevant incidents. This can pre-determine your conclusions and invalidate them. It is better to include extra incidents and record the selection process in your research report, especially if other people are collecting evidence. That way, you can write down your selection procedure in detail, increasing the validity of your conclusions. It also makes your methodology easier to replicate.
The analysis process is much like unpacking a suitcase. The closed suitcase has everything in it, but you can't see it clearly. By "unpacking", you can bring everything out and lay it out so that it's easy to see.
You will need to compare similar incidents to look for themes and develop generalisations. However, this process can be quite problematical because it is easy to read similarities and differences into incidents rather than understand each on its own merits. If the details of your data are clear and fairly objective, your readers will be able to see mistakes in your reasoning.
Decision-Oriented Research (also called action research) is research that is specifically aimed at making practical implementation decisions. The method aims to give maximum value for research dollar and man-hour. It sidelines many "interesting, nice-to-know" avenues of questioning that get information that might one day be useful for something else, but that don't really help make decisions now.
The basic process is to run the research project according to clearly-defined goals. In broad brushstrokes, the steps are:
This method makes at least three assumptions, all of which are not always true. It assumes that you can identify the decisions you will need to make, that you can know what information you will need to make the decision, and that the information will help in making those decisions.
Consequently, it views research as a relatively short-term activity. Over time, you will make different decisions from those anticipated and relevant information might come from unexpected directions. Besides, after doing the research it may be that you understand the issues better but are not necessarily much closer to a decision.
It can be used for academic research if it is broad enough to catch relevant issues and follow them up, and include some kind of conceptual knowledge.
The Delphi Technique is a way is to gain consensus within a group of people. It was originally developed at the Rand Corporation in the late 1940s or early 1950s. Historically speaking, its purposes have mainly been to produce qualitative evaluations, to forecast events, or to generate quantitative estimates. The technique is now used for a wider range of purposes.
The technique is basically as follows:
The benefits include:
For the process to work, the design team must remain unbiased and report the group summary as closely as possible to reflect individual opinions.
It works best when:
Participant dropout can be a problem through:
The technique is now used in business, education, and the social sciences for a variety of applications, including management decision making, policy evaluation, program planning, and prioritizing issues or actions. Some concrete examples:
Most of the studies found by Martin and Frick used the Delphi Technique for some aspect of curriculum development:
It might sound odd, but the Delphi technique is also used in some Ph.D. research.
"The Delphi Technique: An Informal History of Its Use in Agricultural Education Research Since 1984." Andrew G. Martin, and Martin J. Frick. Journal of Agricultural Education Vol. 39, No. I, 1998.
Error analysis is common in studies of language learning, where researchers look to see why learners of second languages consistently make the same kinds of mistake. In essence, the approach is concerned with identifying patterns.
The approach can apply equally well in other fields, and is much like critical indicent analysis. For example, if a community services program had a concerning number of clients dropping out, it could examine the causes. It may be that the program has systemic faults that made it unable to meet the needs of some clients. It would be even more pertinent if dropped-out clients showed up at another agency offering similar services.
You will probably also want to suggest and test solutions to the problems that you have found.
Ethnography is cultural description. In a narrower sense, it is describing by getting people's answers to your questions, and it usually includes participant observation. However, you can also use most methods in this website as part of an ethnographic project, and in larger projects it would be normal (or even required) to use a variety of them.
It can be done in different kinds of cultures:
It has particular kinds of questioning techniques. James Spradley suggests opening with "Grand tour" questions, to get people's overview of the whole.
When it come to asking questions, as much as possible, keep interviews to friendly conversations and make notes immediately afterwards, not during the conversation. Technically these are called "free informal interviews". Other than that, there are certain important attitudes and rationales in ethnography.
Assume that their culture really makes sense. People almost certainly have very good reasons for what they do. Try to find out those reasons. I am consistently surprised that cultures are so logical, even when I don't agree with some values.
Are some answers better than others? Some people will give better answers than others and some answers might not seem to make much sense. It might be that they do make sense, but you haven't figured out why yet because you haven't gone far enough into the mindset.
In the US, ethnography has changed radically since the US government legislated to protect individual privacy. Embedded ethnography is the idea that the informants are only persons who have signed a privacy disclosure statement, as required by U.S. law, but are able to speak for their cultural group. It is not known whether this is usually successful; the Hawthorne effect is the tendency for people to respond differently if they know that they are in a research project.
Questionining is a basic research technique, and you can be required to master it. Your goal is to get interviewees doing all the talking with you only keeping it on track.
Write key questions in your plans. Put some thought into them: they should be open-ended discussion starters. If you're not used to doing interviews, you might want to have some follow-up questions written down as well. When you get more skills, you'll be able to produce follow-up questions spontaneously as the need arises.
Try the following approaches to get people to talk. It is not usually difficult; most people liketo talk about what they thing they know.
Interviewees are sometimes reluctant to speak. In these cases, you have several options:
What about you, Krissy? What do you think?then follow it up with:
Mel, what do think?However, some people want to just be listeners and don’t want to speak. It’s okay; they might contribute later when they are more comfortable in the group.
In a group, make sure that everyone who wants a say gets a say.
The people on that side of the room have been quiet; what do you think?; Close people down only when you have no choice.
I think we need to give someone else a turn.
Silent periods, however, are not always bad. A silent period allows everybody to think about something in particular before they answer. You can get them to give answers by staying quiet, but you lose the opportunity if you talk too much. Put another way, you can give them a reflection time, which is very helpful if the group is accustomed to talking without thinking. You can build on new discussion once the silence has finished.
Some people will give better answers than others and some answers might not seem to make much sense. It might be that they do make sense, but you haven't figured out why yet because you haven't gone far enough into the mindset.
Some people give partial answers simply because they are speaking spontaneously and don't have time to think out their entire rationale. And of course there will always be people who simply don't know why or who deliberately give you a poor answer because they are shy or feel threatened.
There will probably be cultural aspects to asking good questions. For example, people of one culture differentiate sharply between the purpose (hidden agenda) of the question and what it is that is asked (direct intent). They might not answer what you asked, but respond according to what they perceive your purpose to be.
As another example, they might answer your question very well, but their idea of a reason might not seem logical to you. In that case, you need to identify what kind of cultural logic they are using. If you dismiss the answer, you have dismissed an excellent learning opportunity.
People might become embarrassed if you push them for an answer and they honestly don't know. It might be totally inappropriate to ask a person of the opposite sex, or of particular age groups.
Some people will be recognized as knowing more than others. People will generally know who has the job of safeguarding their cultural knowledge. Those people may be university staff, shamans, reclusive mystics, artisans, or grandmothers. They maintain their knowledge, perhaps act as a resource to the general population, teach it to others, and pass it onto their replacements in the next generation.
Some safeguarded knowledge might deliberately be kept secret, and some knowledge is considered too "deep" for most people to understand. They may also use specific terminology that is different from the general populace.
Be aware that your race, age, gender, apparent class or role could affect the research. For example, if you are a male, then you might have limited access to women informants in some societies and only be able to research amongst men. Alternatively, you might receive very different answers from a female researcher. This is not bad, but you need to realize that your identity is a factor in what you can learn. Obviously, then, a woman might be able to do very good research amongst women if only men had previously researched that group of people.
People will also probably give better answers when they know you better and trust you more. If they think you are a genuine friend who wants to learn, they will likely give you an honest answer. But if you say that you are writing a graduate dissertation, they can feel threatened by your role and very pressured to provide a clever answer. They might decline, especially if they have much lesser formal education, or they might manufacture a fictitious answer. There are cases when researchers have become disrespected, and people make up spurious, fictitious answers.
Some questions can annoy people if they sound like:
Have you stopped beating your wife?(Whether you answer yes or no, it still means that you have been beating your wife.)
How much is a one-dollar candy?(The answer is so obvious that it can be frustrating, and it seems like you're fishing for another answer.)
Anecdotes are very good evidence of the beliefs of the person giving the anecdote, so they are very useful for investigating cultural phenomena. At an individual level, an individual's anecdotes are essential to defining his/her identity and watersheds. At a group level, anecdotes reflect the values and beliefs of a community. For example, people in organizations use them as folklore to maintain their organization's unique culture and identity. (This does not mean that anecdotes are true, which is why they are considered unhelpful in most other kinds of research.)
Guess what's on my mind.
Participant observation means that you actually take part in the activity rather than take the role of a neutral or hidden bystander. Ethnographers found out that they learnt more and understood events better than when they were actively involved:
To some extent, you're observing yourself but that is not a problem. You may need to commit yourself to a longer period of time that you anticipate. Otherwise, the procedures are the same as other ethnographic researches.
There are mixed views on taking photographs. In some cases, people will act very unnaturally and that will be frustrating or misleading. In other cases, taking photos is very practicable.
Recommended Text: James P. Spradley Participant Observation Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Fort Worth. 1980.
Exposition is most suitable if the basic resource material is a long document.
One usually works with the document in its original language. In a few cases, some translations are so significant that they are suitable primary sources, usually because the changes are significant in their own right. (Consider, for example, the field of Septuagint studies.)
Training in hermeneutics (including exegesis when necessary) is appropriate preparation.
Simply providing an explanation of the text is inadequate. You should argue for a conclusion that is not self-evident in the text.
Exposition is appropriate for exploring:
Goal-free evaluation, first suggested by Michael Scriven, works on the assumption that a program evaluator observing a program can be biased by knowing the program goals. The program evaluator interprets observations according to program goals, and can become blind to anything else.
The "rhetoric of intent" is one of the program participant's best tools to defend what they have done. This is the "But the purpose was to ... " argument. They might simply seek a coherent rationale for their actions, or might naturally want to rationalize the program as successful.
Almost by definition, the evaluator could not be someone in the program who knew its goals. The evaluator observes what happens in the program to find actual products and effects. Rather than asking about the goals of the program, he must infer the actual goals from his observations. He might also be able to infer the reasons why the program exists and why it uses the approaches it does. The evaluator's inferences should resemble those that were originally formulated if the program reality matched the formulation and suited its consumers.
Scriven did not present a clear methodology, but the basic steps seem to be:
Note: this approach tends to look at the program from the consumer's viewpoint rather than the program developer's viewpoint.
A focus group is a discussion group made up of people who represent the research population. You give the group a list of simple but carefully-written questions for them to freely discuss. You don't get into the discussion unless someone is talking too much and not letting others give their ideas. You make a recording of the discussion and use it as if it were a regular book. You can quote sections, look for patterns, etc.
As a method, it has some weaknesses:
You can counter the weaknesses to some extent. First, be very focused when defining your target group and selecting group members. Second, run a series of focus groups with different people from the target population. This will reduce the effects of any groups where discussion only explores a narrow issue.
Focus groups also have strengths:
See interview questionnaires for other relevant information.
Strauss and Glasser developed this qualitative research methodology as a way to understand an event (or other kind of phenomenon) that occurs in different ways at different times, making it difficult to understand. It is based on a model of reality that assumes that causes produce the phenomenon to achieve purposes.
By comparing the different examples, it is possible to build up a composite picture of the whole phenomenon. The "composite picture" is a theory in that it explains the whole of the phenomena. It is called grounded because it is based on many real examples. The theory not only derives from information of concrete examples but also depends on the examples for supporting evidence.
If a researcher fully answers all questions and includes all occurrences of the phenomenon, then the researcher is assumed to have a full picture of the reality of the phenomenon. That is, he/she is said to have developed a "theory" of it.
The preliminary work is similar to any other qualitative study. The student determines a purpose and a particular phenomenon, and surveys the literature.
The field work comprises making field notes that describe in detail as many occurrences as reasonably possible in as many different forms as possible.
Evidence is then sifted from the examples to answer the following questions:
Compare examples to resolve apparent contradictions. Get more information if necessary to answer all the above questions accurately.
Write up your results.
Notes
This is similar to the case study method when a range of cases is compared as a basis for developing generalizations.
Ensure that you really have only one phenomenon, and not multiple different phenomena that should be kept separate.
History is much more than making notes about what happened in the past. Indisputable factual information is called technical history; it comprises the sort of data one can look up in a book. Archival studies includes the keeping of archival documents so that they do not deteriorate with time. Neither of these are strictly historical studies in an academic sense.
History is partly a way to convey ideals and ideas. Children at school study their national and ethnic history to gain an identity of their race or nation. In some countries, governments censor the textbooks and course descriptions, deleting references to viewpoints and events which shed their country in a poor light, and taking a nationalist view against the colonists who "oppressed"' them. The authors of Judges and Chronicles selected and interpreted Jewish history according to Yahwist religion. Marx's values were very different, but he also used historical study to reinforce his philosophical paradigm.
Postmodern trends in history are especially value-laden, focusing on the experiences, lifestyles, relationships, and worldviews of ordinary people. "Data" are viewed as subject to the vagaries of interpersonal communication. This tends to subjectivize and relativize the value of sources and the nature of historical events, and to create multiple co-existing paradigms.
Like scholars in any kind of inquiry, the historian constructs and compares theories, tests hypotheses, and perhaps sometimes produces new theories. The historian needs to make sense of a mass of information by sorting it into a justifiable pattern, which in one sense is a theory. The "pattern'' can also be shown to be inaccurate, in which case a better theory would need to be formulated. This also applies to developing hypotheses on historical causes and classification systems.
History is a science in that it is possible to have contrasting conclusions and theories requiring debate, evaluation and further inquiry.
What is your purpose, expressed as a contribution to knowledge on the subject?
In some sense there is usually a particular problem that must be set. However, the work will do better if it has clear purpose and boundaries of place time or group of people.
Studies of a single case are a little tricky because it can be hard to derive any wider principles from only one example. The comparative case study gives more scope for development. In other cases, you might want to examine people's perceptions and a narratologica approach could be helpful.
In the minority of cases, you might want to write a general descriptive history based on elicited stories. In this case, the conclusion will probably be a general statement that summarizes or encapsulates the whole. However, there would normally be interrelated particular issues that make the effort valuable. Be careful that the work does not get too long: define your purpose specifically enough to exclude some things that could be discussed.
Also like any other field of study, the historian must select and limit his topic so that he can study it more effectively. That is, historical study is usually oriented towards defining and solving problems, and this has several ramifications:
The raw data of history are those surviving documents that are accessible to scholars. There are original sources: notes and letters, diary extracts and e-mailed material from individuals, photographs, films, organizational records, government records, and published materials.
You will often need to examine the ideas of other historians, so you will probably need to refer to published books and journals. Published texts can sometimes be your best source of information, depending on your topic.
It is now more academically respectable to include people's personal stories because they directly reflect personal experience with as little as possible "tampering" by the historian. Writing history based on interviews is called oral history, and most information is either composites of transcriptions of recorded interviews, or sections of quoted verbatim material.
Find a balance between the stories of people and the interests of the historian. You cannot simply tell stories just because they are good stories. Not all stories will fit your purposes. Unless they contribute to the purpose as an academic work, you probably need to either delete stories, delete parts of them, or summarize them.
In principle, you may not use your personal memoirs as an academic study. However, you may use your contemporaneous observation notes as historical material.
It is very insightful if you can draw together the stories from very different perspectives. There might be some "unpacking" to do. Think of it as a suitcase with everything in it. It's all there, but you can't see everything clearly. By "unpacking," you can bring everything out and lay it out so that it's easy to see. The study of unpacking narratives is now called narratology, and you might like to ask if there is anything in particular that needs unpacking.
Beware of creating stereotypes, which are by definition incomplete or inaccurate representations. If you describe the people in early days as "enthusiastic and dedicated heroes who never faltered in the face of overwhelming adversity to explore a frontier and civilize the primitive heathens" you are creating a stereotype.
Ask "Is that a deliberate construction you made of them? Or a 1950s stereotype that was reflected in the records? Or what they believed about themselves at the time, or imagined it to be much later? How did other people at the time describe them?"
Perhaps some were heroes who achieved the nearly impossible, but the stereotype is unhelpful. You would do better to give realistic and more balanced view of the people and their achievements.
Do not describe indigenous people as "native", "heathen", "witchdoctor" or "primitive" because the terms appear to assert racial superiority of whites and to denigrate indigenous people.
Unless using verbatim reports/stories from people:
If terms like these are in the verbatims, what do they (and perhaps other words) tell you about the worldview of people at the time?
Here's the challenge. You are given a very large group of people in a conference and the task of pooling everyone's opinion on a certain topic. You have only 45 minutes to do so. You want everyone to contribute. You also want the process to be open-ended; you don't want to predetermine outcomes. You would like everything to be written down. This will enable you to analyze it in an unhurried way afterward.
Means-ends analysis is basically saying that we use means to reach particular goals. It is actually a system of program evaluation, but it works well as a research project. The questions are then:
Narratology is relatively new as a field and as branch of qualitative research. It was previously studied in biography, psychology, and discourse analysis in both literature and grammar. Its aim is to draw meaning out of stories, and find how people have structured their experience.
The purpose is to discover the ways in which meaning is conceived and expressed. It is not an end in itself.
How to do conduct a narrative study
First, determine your purpose. The purpose will be the criteria for selecting subjects and it might become the leading open-ended question to stimulate people to describe their experiences.
Second, get people to tell their experiences as stories on tape. The most common is an interview, but other forms are also possible: monologue, discussion between two or more people, or a broadcast interview or discussion. You could also use it for oral literature.
You should observe and record relevant body language for non-verbal expression, and you should minimize your influence:
Third, reduce the narrative to writing, numbering your lines or paragraphs. Develop your own kind of notation appropriate to your purpose. The amount of detail varies according to purpose--the more emotion needs to be reflected, the more detail is probably necessary. For example, you might need to show pauses counted in seconds.
Fourth, conduct an analysis. The kinds of things to look for are:
Fifth, draw some conclusions and show how the evidence supports your conclusions. When you write up your work, include the full text as an appendix.
Notes:
Textbook: Catherine Kohler Reissman Narrative Analysis Qualitiative Research Methods Series. Vol 30 (1993: Sage Publications, Newbury Park, Ca.)
Consider these questions: To what extent will a story reflect any objective reality? To what extent can you generalize between cases?
A central problem of narrative analysis is the control of the voice, or who speaks to the reader or listener. Narrative is all about memory and selection, both remembering and forgetting. What is actively remembered and forgotten can depend on who the audience is, and this is true as the narrative is told both at the interviewee/interviewer stage and at the writer/reader level.
Narrative happens at many levels, and the question often is, "Whose narrative is being told?" To throw in an additional wild card, the reader's grid and interpretation of the narrative is largely beyond the control of the writing process, and naturally and rightly so.
However, the writer influences, wittingly or unwittingly, the production of the work through an extended process of selection as the narrative is edited and re-edited, translated and interpreted. Having end goals in view (before the editing, translation, interpretation process takes place) can deeply compromise the final product.
In ethnography, the only way a reader can assess the original material, and the only way the interviewee can have an unqualified voice, is to include the verbatims in the work. This by no means eliminates the problems of interpretation by the reader, but it is a positive step in terms of voice.
In narrative analysis, where notes rather than verbatims are taken, the editing process has already begun, so the narrative is immediately different from the original. How this narrative is controlled is important, and the reader needs to know the range of background and beliefs that inform both the interviewee and the interviewer.
Each informant may have a different view of what is discussed in the narrative, and generalized perspectives are not very helpful. One of the changes in post-modernism was that generalizations, however necessary, are recognized to be the artificial constructions of researchers, as opposed to the authenticity of the original narrative.
Each informant's narrative is unique. For the purpose of a particular research paper, it is important for the researcher to:
The danger with narrative analysis is that it so easily shifts to narrative interpretation, where the interpretation is imposed from a different, usually dominant, cultural narrative. It is easy for the researcher to slip into this mode, and it inadvertently reinforces what largely has been the fate of the narrative of those living under cultural domination. (In hermeneutics, this kind of reading into the text is called eisogesis.)
Clearly all narrative analysis is compromised, and this reflects the everyday reality of our existence together as people with widely differing, interacting narratives.
The process of listening, interpreting, speaking and re-listening is extremely important. It must take place openly and persistently so that we (especially anyone from a dominant culture) increasingly understand the narratives of others.
It then behoves the researcher to be aware, vigilant and open in the personal, and public, on-going process of intercultural communication and understanding.
Brian Holliday
Try using narratological analysis for conversations. You might look for incremental changes in outlook, or for watersheds and plot twists. In any case, you will want to look at the causes and the results.
Some possible factors affect on how you might interpret conversations:
The aim of this kind of research is to build a "model" that explains processes and is a satisfactory basis for practice. You can create models of almost anything.
Model-building is a useful approach when you:
Developing a model means finding the main concepts in a process and figuring out the relationships between them. In many ways, this is similar to grounded theory. Q.v. Models are rationales of how and why things work, and are normally represented as diagrams as well as through written text. A model has to be good enough to work on its own, although in practice it's usually best if there are other competing models. To be a little more technical:
A model is a simplified representation
of a set of relationships and processes
between the main components
in a complex system.
Models are usually a simplification, and it is often quite possible to have two or more models of the same process. If a model get too elaborate, explaining more and more of what is happening, two things can happen. If things go well, it might get promoted to the status of a theory. If things go badly, the main idea might get lost in the detail, making the model less useful.
Building the model is the research project. Putting it into a set of "how to do it" steps is separate and often not part of the research but part of the implementation. Try to avoid making a list of steps and claiming that it is a model.
Here are a set of steps in building a model:
Step 1. What is it you want to do?
Step 2. Do a literature review. You might find another model in a parallel field that you can adapt. Of course, you might also find that others have already made an adequate model of your idea.
Step 3. Do a field study. What's happening out there? What are the factors involved?
Step 4. Identify the key aspects or components.
Step 5. Try drawing a diagram. When you get a diagram, ask whether you can you improve on it.
Step 6. Do you have evidence to show that it is an adequate representation of the process?
Step 7. Write up your model.
Some research is done by observation, which suits some topics very well. It is quite objective, and can be in stark contrast to what people believe about themselves. (For example, when interviewed, 90% of customers said they preferred the blue sofas to the red sofas. But they did something different; they always bought the red sofas.
For example, a researcher left a jacket over a chair in a public library with an open book in front of it on a desk. The researcher's purpose was to find out how strongly this identified an area of "claimed" personal space. Compared to other chairs, people generally waited a very long time before someone would fold the jacket and use that chair.
These kinds of topics work well for observations:
Note that your subjects are not aware that they are being used for your research, so that brings you some extra ethical responsibilities:
In many research cases, you might be dealing with groups of people who have been working together to achieve a purpose. This kind of evaluation is based on the idea that a program comprises many different kinds of people, called "stakeholders".
Stakeholder program evaluation basically works by identifying the different stakeholders and getting their input on how well the program is working. In all discussions and negotiations, every party is given the same rights and the opinion of each must be given the same weight.
The version below uses the example of a school, but it is just as appropriate for any other kind of program of human services.
List the various groups of stakeholders, that is, those who depend in some way on the program to succeed. For example, in a college these include teaching staff, board members, students, administrators, extension students, employer groups, professional licensers, alumni, donors, the school library, etc.
Choose at least two or three representatives from each group. These representatives must be people who can accurately represent their stakeholder group. Each of these groups becomes a Perspective Group [PG]
Meet separately with each PG and explain that you desire to evaluate the program. Ask each PG questions such as the following:
Suggestion: Guard the neutrality of the process by (1) adhering to a written list of questions that are prepared prior to interviews, (2) explaining to each interviewee that results of the interviews will be reported anonymously (3) avoiding any tendency to take sides with any single PG, and (4) not informing leaders who is in each PG (they usually have the most political power and the most to lose by negative results).
Prepare a report (not more than one page) from the meetings with each PG.
Distribute these reports from each PG to each other PG.
Hold a team a meeting including a representative from each PG to:
Deliver the final report. It will consist of an explanation of the method utilized (as above), adaptations made for local conditions, reports of meetings with each PG, results of the combined PG meeting, and the final report sent to all PGs.
It is possible that for a smaller less complex program, the procedure could be made even simpler. Note, however, that a survey might be better to evaluate some kinds of simple programs or for some purposes.
It may be that you are required to either call for submissions from the general public or an identified population. I suggest that appoint a group to do this in Step 2, and include the input as part of Step 3. Your job becomes more complex if you must make a draft of the report available to public comment. This means that you have extra steps between 6 and 7. Produce your draft final report, circulate it, and then use a stakeholder process to review them, that is, repeat step 6 using the added information.
Reference: This version of stakeholder program evaluation is simplified from Ferris's method, originally published as the Accreditation Manual for Theological Education by Extension by Asia Theological Association (n.d.).
Scenario Analysis is a way of exploring what might happen in unpredictable circumstances, and is particularly useful in complex risk management and forecasting. If you can do a better job of considering possible outcomes and explore the implications of each, you can make more informed decisions.
As a research methodology, it is better suited to disciplines where the data is harder or more tangible. For example, you may have parallel or similar cases from which you can draw reliable inferences. It is one of the best approaches for analyzing risks in possible disasters and emergencies, because the findings are necessary even if risks have never materialized, and the principles of planning need to be discovered and thought through before the disaster. It is unsuited to topics that depend on speculation and long chains of logical deduction, where mistakes are easy to make but hard to find.
It doesn't necessarily matter if risks never materialize for several reasons. First, one still needs to identify important risks and put plans in place. Second, fairly improbable scenarios might be so devastating that one still needs to have counter-measures.
Scenario analysis is most used for:
The steps in Scenario Analysis are:
The interpretation of signs and symbols is extremely appropriate when carefully used visual images are the main source of data. For example, most modern magazine advertisements comprise photographs and small amounts of writing, yet the messages they convey are far more complex. Semiotics is the interpretation of signs and symbols. It is a separate field of study, and uses particular italisized below.
A sign (sometimes called a symbol) is anything that can convey meaning. It might be a sentence, a story, a fashion outfit, or an advertisement in a magazine or on TV.
A sign can generate multiple meanings; in fact, postmoderns enjoy ambiguity, and postmodern communicators often deliberately encourage people to produce many unique meanings.
A sign will convey information (content), but that is seldom the only meaning and often not the main meaning.
Signs are also clustered together to form what is called a text. (The term is confusing because in semiotics it is used to refer to media other than written media.)
Signs suggest genres or other systems that help us to interpret them.
Layout (format) also carries meaning. A picture densely packed with piles of fresh vegetables might be used to tell you something about the soup in the can. (There are also lots of fresh vegetables in the can.) Layout artists also select typeface carefully to reinforce a message.
By placing signs together, one can acquire the meaning of another. An ordinary pen might look much more glamorous in the slender hands of a beautiful woman with expensive jewellery and a evening gown.
It is important to differentiate between what is signified and the object that signifies it (the referent). (Woman with rings and evening gown is the object, but the signified meaning is glamour, wealth, leisure, beauty).
Signs might address particular audiences.
For example, let's try a canned soup ad again. An advertisement might comprise a note on a refrigerator door:
In our example, Jones soup company is the sender because it actually sent the message. Mary is purported to be the source; so she is the addresser. The message is actually sent to a group of people who buy groceries (and might buy good canned soup), so they are the receivers. Yet it purports to be sent to Tom, so Tom is the addressee.
How does the sign or text construct a relationship between addresser and addressee? For example, the wife is busy (perhaps left early for work), and she must leave a note for a husband. She doesn't have time to cook, but must produce something good enough for a greengrocer's wife. There is the implication that the daughter-in-law wants to keep a good relationship with her mother-in-law.
Does the sign mention institutions? Institutions are relatively stable social relationships or roles. In our example, marriage (or its contemporary equivalent) is obvious. One might speculate on the supposed difficulties in dealing with mothers-in-law.
Are there stereotypes? (E.g. Husband rushing off to work in the morning.)
Does the message create a myth, that is, a message that people would accept as true? (E.g. This soup tastes as if it is made of lots of fresh vegetables.)
Are there connotations?
Of course, skilful communicators have devised strategies so that these elements interact with each other to create a more powerful message.
First identify your topic. There will probably need to be either a very large text or a genre or set of texts for you to draw any meaningful conclusions.
Start by identifying the elements above: sign(s), text, genre, sender, addresser, receiver, and addressee
Then try answering the questions below:
There might be some "unpacking" to do. Think of it as a suitcase with everything in it. It's all there, but you can't see everything clearly. By "unpacking", you can bring everything out and lay it out so that it's easy to see. The study of unpacking symbols is called semiotics (and incidentally includes the study of narrative) and you might like to ask if there is anything in particular that needs unpacking.
Simply providing an explanation is inadequate for research purposes. You should argue for a conclusion that is not self-evident in the data.
_________
Reference: Tony Thwaites, Lloyd Davis, Warrick Mules Tools for Cultural Studies: an Introduction (South Melbourne: Macmillan, 1994).
See also Narrative and Exposition
Values clarification is the process of getting people to identify their values. So far, it is seldom used in formal research unless it is hybridised with questionnaire approaches, where, typically respondents are asked to put a set of items in order of preference. It is more widely used in education as a teaching approach to get students to make value-based decisions or preferences based on hypothetical dilemmas or decisions. The decisions or preferences tend to reveal underlying values of which the students are not conscious. For example:
You are stranded in a lifeboat with a wealthy man who knows nothing of boats, a poor but experienced sailor, and a very sick man who will die in the next hour. The boat is swamped and has no chance of immediate rescue. It will sink in one hour's time unless one of you leaves the boat. A huge storm is coming in the next ten minutes.
What will you do? Should one of you take a chance in the water? If so, who?
From that, students identify and clarify their personal values, and examine whether they are justified. Values encompass both ethics and personal priorities. It might also include personal taste.
Values clarification assumes that people are often unconscious of their values and beliefs until they must express or act on them. Although attitudes and beliefs vary among people, they tend to be shared in cultural groupings, and are important descriptors of worldview.
The point is to describe an aspect of worldview as a consistent whole. This involves:
In values clarification questions, make sure that you avoid determining the values between which people may choose. Few things are more infuriating than being asked: "Would you rather eat a red slug or a blue slug?" if you won't eat any slug at all. It is also a mistake to make some options appear more attractive than others. If you want to find out a preferred brand of car, don't ask "Would you rather drive a brand new Mercedes or a beat-up old Jaguar?"
Ross Woods, 05 (rev. Mar 08, Sep. 16)
With thanks to Amelia Mosquera-Pardo
Action learning is an approach for a team of people to learn together through planned experiences. It is a cyclical process, and each part of the cycle has two roles: task (what we have to do now) and learning (what we need to learn now).
Each part of the cycle has two roles: both task (what we have to do now) and learning (what we need to learn now).
You can vary this basic process. One team can handle several projects at once, or two teams in two (or more) separate organizations can collaborate to work on one project. Alternatively, a team can split into different groups of people who each take the process in different directions. (They might not even agree, but the process can continue as long as the learning is valuable.)
Who cares?
Teaching
If you use action learning for Professional Development, you probably won't assess each team member but you will evaluate the effectiveness of the whole program. However, if you use it for teaching students, they can be assessed on what they learn. The answers may be known, so it's not original research, but it's new territory for the students; they need to go through the learning experience to understand it for themselves and the focus is more on the journey.
Management
It can be a way of managing people in the face of a major challenge, such as a large project or radical change. It creates a learning culture that brings people along through change, and views the challenge as a learning opportunity rather than a difficulty. In a project management case, the point might be to satisfactorily complete the project. (The trap in this is to ignore the development of a learning culture.)
It can be also be a way of managing people for continual improvement, which is especially important in highly competitive environments. Participants are usually managers or task teams, and learning is built into the organization's culture. This brings a risk of frustration; workers don't like continual change without good reason.
Research
In original research, nobody knows the answer and the researcher's focus might be to come up with an answer. In some kinds of research the answer is known, but it is not yet known how to implement it, or how it will look in this context.
Check your methology. Identify and apply any relevant standards of rigor and objectivity, that is, that it is real research. For example, you might need to test the findings in multiple contexts to establish any kind of generalizability. Make sure that you are generating real knowledge, not just sharing opinions and building consensus. There are limits to what you can achieve through collecting anecdotes, although a grounded theory approach (q.v.) is perhaps the best way to process them if anecdotes are your most abundant data source.
Some groups report negative learning. They start out thinking that they know a great deal about the topic, but at they end they realize it's more complex than they'd thought and report they now know rather little about it.
www.scu.edu.au/schools/gcm/ar/arp/actlearn.html
www.educ.utas.edu.au/users/ilweb/action_learning.htm
See Reframing The Future for Facilitating Workbased Learning Groups
This topic is huge, and, technically speaking, there are lots of ways of understanding organizations. Let's just start with the feasible, that is, describing organizational culture.
If you are working in an organization, you might be given the task of figuring out how it works, determining whether it has the ability to achieve its purposes, and/or finding out how to make it more effective.
This is a worthwhile venture in your own culture, but can become much more complex in another culture. What looks like a church may really be an extended family, or a group of friends from the next street.
Organizations comprise groups of people who have their own ideas about what the organization is, what it is trying to do, how it works and who makes the decisions. These may be very different from the formally agreed-upon view. For example, in one church the elders met and made the church's formal decisions. Informally, however, the secretary's wife had veto over any decisions although she did not attend meetings.
| Formal | Informal |
|---|---|
| The organization might formally be a business, a Government department, or a church. | The organization is actually an extended family, a money-making venture, only one person whom others help, or a network of friends. |
| Its formal purpose is to establish the best sustainable return for shareholders or implement the policies of government. | Its actual purpose is to protect the interests of the chairman, make money quickly at any cost, keep group X under control, or maintain the status quo. |
| Who makes the formal decisions? The Annual General Meeting, the Board of Management, or the business owner. | Who really makes the decisions? The old people who get to talk a lot at meetings, the office secretary, the government regulators, or the pastor's wife. |
You are now entering the world of organizational ethnography. It will help you to look at the nature and purposes of organizations in different ways. Here are some of the kinds of questions you will want to ask:
Describe real goals of each department as perceived by the people in it. What assumptions were made about goals? See above for examples.
What is or was its constituency? (i.e. People on whom the organization depends for support. E.g. members, clients, funders, friends, volunteers, paid staff, etc.
What did people perceive to be the nature and ethos of the organization? E.g. fun place, very visionary, overly conservative, no clear vision, bureaucratic.
How do "things get done"? E.g. "The boss's wife does it." "I do everything." "Well, lots of things don't get done."
What informal power structures were there? Some people or groups act as gatekeepers or decision makers although it might not officially be their role.
What models of leadership do leaders favor?
Who makes the decisions and how do they get made?
Who controls the information? For example, the secretary might decide what gets put in the minutes. The editor might decide what gets put in the newsletter. The secretary decides who reads the letters.
How do people feel about change? What changes are actually happening? What changes are people most afraid of? For example, moving to a new area, learning a new language, different leadership, being no longer valued, loss of power, or "That's not what I came here to do."
What kinds of organizational structure does it have?
Exploring changes
Changes tell a lot about an organization and how its participants understand it. You can explore change with questions like:
Questionnaires are a very common research tool. They have the advantages of allowing you to carefully focus on the information you want, and collecting it from a potentially wide group of people.
In many cases, you are well-advised to use a simple questionnaire in your "pre-fieldwork" before you start research proper, simply to trawl for unexpected relevant issues. You might then decide to develop one (or several) more sophisticated surveys based on the issues that you uncover.
Closed questions only allow respondents to choose between a limited range of alternatives, so they need careful testing to work well. The most basic form is Yes
or No,
but it is more useful to select between given answers or to grade responses on a scale of 1–5. Closed questions are good for developing statistics, and a computer can do some of the analysis. However, they normally need a large enough representative sample for the statistics to be valid.
Open questions are those where respondents are freed to write their own answers according to their own experience and perspective. As long as the questions are clear and direct, this is the easiest kind of question to write but require more efffort to analyze. They can be useful even if used for only a small number of respondents.
Be clear, and limit the number of questions to those that are most important. You should have no redundant questions although you may ask the same question in different ways if you need to check if people answer consistently. All questionnaires need testing before using widely.
Interview and focus group questions are a little different:
James, that's a good opinion. Why do you think that?
Thanks, Jess. How would you ... ?
Okay. But what would you do if ... ?
The order of the questions is normally helpful:
getting to know youquestions. People know the answers well and can answer easily.
It depends:
Minor flaws are flaws that do not invalidate your data and your ability to draw conclusions. Flaws are not always bad. If they were not foreseeable, it is because you have discovered something new. In these cases, you might try workarounds:
To some extent, one's view of flaws depends on one’s concept of research. A strictly controlled positivistic approach depends on a reliable methodology that will produce reliable results, and accounts for any identifiable intervening factors. In reality, however, intervening factors might only become apparent during the research.
Interview questionnaires are often excellent for getting detailed information, although there are practical limits about how many people you can survey. They lend themselves best for open-ended questions and information that is not statistical, but can also work well for closed questions that generate statistical information.
The idea is simply that you write a list of questions and then interview people. You can expect to interview individuals, but you can also interview couples or groups. In groups, the group dynamics might tell you as much as the actual answers, and it can become much more like a focus group. Whether you interview individuals, couples or groups, you should also observe body language.
These are normally called free informal interviews
in the research methodology literature. They allow you to adapt to circumstances, such as re-order questions, omit some questions, and add follow-up questions. The current trend is to record the interview, code themes arising, convert them to statistical information, and analyse the statistics. However, it is also possible to analyse data qualitiatively using exposition methodology.
Because the list of questions can evolve very quickly and naturally, it is easy to start before the questions are properly developed. It is better to get the questions right first, so that the first interviews are not wasted with poor questions.
The advantages are:
It's important to put people at ease, build rappport, and create a situation that invites openness and honesty. It helps if you make them feel that they know something valuable. (Most people love to share their knowledge.)
To reiterate, the order of questions can be helpful:
getting to know youquestions to put peaple at ease. People know the answers well and can answer easily; most people enjoy talking about themselves. In doing so, you gather essential demographic information and confirm that they are members of the research population.
Yes–Noquestions if people are reluctant to speak.
Good questioning preparation and techniques can help prevent or minimize the follow problems with interviewees:
Here's how not to do it. Go through and identify each part that would make people uncomfortable:
I am the famous Dr. Helmut Von Schmidt, Professor of Philosophy. I'm conducting some research.
You must sign a form to be involved. Trust me; you don't have to read all five pages of fine print.
I can interview you at my office at the university.
My interview will follow a questionnaire. It is very easy; it has only 200 questions.
I need to record every word you say during the interview. I'll put the microphone near your mouth so we get a good recording.
Interviewing is a basic research technique, and you can be required to master it. Your goal is to get interviewees doing all the talking with you only keeping it on track.
Write key questions in your plans. Put some thought into them: they should be open-ended discussion starters.
If you're not used to doing interviews, you might want to have some follow-up questions written down as well. When you get more skills, you'll be able to produce follow-up questions spontaneously as the need arises.
Questioning approaches:
Tell me your story of ...
How would you respond to someone who said ...?
Interviewees are sometimes reluctant to speak. In these cases, you have several options. First, simplify the question (all the way back to a simple yes/no question if need be) until they answer the blatantly obvious, then build back up to the complexity of your original questions. Second, in a group, you can ask individuals what they think; they might simply be waiting for you to ask. For example, What about you, Krissy? What do you think?
then follow it up with: Mel, what do think?
However, some people want to just be listeners and don't want to speak. It's okay; they might be taking everything in and learning lots. They might contribute later when they are more comfortable in the group.
In a group, make sure that everyone who wants a say gets a say.
The people on that side of the room have been quiet; what do you think?Close people down only when you have no choice.
I think we need to give someone else a turn.
Silent periods, however, are not always bad. First, if everybody is thinking about something in particular, a silent period allows people to learn. It also gives people time to think about a particularly poignant question before they answer. You can push them to give answers by staying quiet, but you lose the opportunity if you talk too much. Second, you can give them a reflection time, which is very helpful if the group is accustomed to talking without thinking. You can build on new discussion once the silence has finished.
Hints:
Yes or Noquestions. They are very easy to answer, and naturally lead to follow-up questions.
Guess what's on my mind.
| Statement | Respondents' possible response |
|---|---|
| "I am the famous Dr. Helmut Von Schmidt, Professor of Philosophy. | He chose a very intimidating way to introduce himself. |
| I'm conducting some research | This makes people sound as if they have to be very clever to participate. They might pretend to be clever or decide they're not good enough. |
| you must sign a form to be involved. | Many people shy away from formal paperwork. |
| Trust me. | I don't trust this person at all. |
| you don't have to read all five pages of fine print. | What are people being asked to agree to? They might feel under pressure to understand all the fine print in a few minutes. |
| Questionnaire ... has only 200 questions. | Sounds very difficult and tedious. |
| We can interview you at my office. | Obviously a very intimidating, inconvenient place. How will I get there? |
| I need to record every word you say during the interview. | A little off-putting. Doesn't he trust me? |
| I'll put the microphone near your mouth. | This would probably increase the respondent's nervousness. Do you want me to bend over and speak into the microphone? |
In some cases, you will be able to go to a meeting, hand out the form, and get them to fill it in as part of the meeting. You then collect the forms and continue the meeting. Similarly, people might be gathered in a regular meeting at a familiar venue (e.g. at the end of a class, after church) for a brief questionnaire. At the meeting:
The advantages are:
The usual problem in using handout questionnaires is that students hand out the questionnaire and give the respondents the means to return them. The respondents then take the forms home, usually lose them or procrastinate so long that the opportunity is lost, and that's the end of it. Students who make this mistake often don't get enough useful data and need to start again.
A few tips:
However, written forms just don't work in some cultures and interview questionnaires work much better. Here are some examples of why written questionnaires can fail:
You can survey people by online questionnaire. Survey monkey is the most well-known of many online services. They are easy to log into from an email link. An online survey is excellent for being fast and inexpensive, and as wide as the Internet.
Here are some tips:
Email is possible, but no longer fashionable. Some people don't even read their e-mail, and others only check it very occasionally, or don't answer. It is also quite likely that your questionnaire will go to a spam or junk folder, and people will not even see it.
Below is a example of a set of instructions for a survey with open-ended questions. Of course you can adapt it for your own survey.
Although mail surveys might still be used sometimes, they have gone out of style. are expensive in large numbers, and require you to collate all statistical data manually. They frequently become junk mail and normally get low response rates; even worse,your results may be invalid if response rates are too low.
You can survey people by mail and here are a few tips:
As noted above, written questionnaires just don't work in some cultures, and interviews are much more effective.
This use of the term Action-reflection
is quite different from its normal use. It works as follows:
Part of the review includes a review of the criteria for adequacy, so might result in their re-definition.
Adapted from Carlson, Rodney Reed, "Preaching Effectively to the Unchurched" (2016). Doctor of Ministry Theses. 14. http://digitalcommons.luthersem.edu/dmin_theses/14. P. 55.