Chapter 5
Five Different Qualitative
Studies
Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e
5.1
Key Questions
• What is of central interest in the narrative
study, the phenomenology, the grounded
theory study, the ethnography, and the
case study?
• How do the five approaches differ?
• How does a researcher choose from
among the five approaches?
Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e
5.2
Narrative: Angrosino (1994)
• Overview of the study
– The story of Vonnie, a 29-year-old mentally ill
man whom the author met at Opportunity
House
– Vonnie Lee talks openly about his life but his
descriptions of his life centered on a bus route
– The author took a bus trip with Vonnie Lee to
his work place
– The bus held special meaning for Lee and on
the bus he supplied the researcher with details
about the people, places, and events of the
journey
Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e
5.3
Narrative: Angrosino (1994)
• Researcher conclusions
– The bus gave meaning to Vonnie Lee’s life
through escape and empowerment
– This meaning explained why he told his life
stories in the form of bus routes
– Vonnie Lee’s stable self-image, the bus trip,
helped him survive the problems in his life
– The researcher reflected on the use of
metaphor as a framework for analyzing stories
of participants in life history projects at the end
of the study
Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e
5.4
Narrative: Angrosino (1994)
• Overview of the methodology
– The study fits well within the cultural
interpretations of anthropological life history
research
– The central focus of the study was the story of
an individual
– The researcher collected stories and
reconstructed life experiences through
researcher participant observation
– The individual recalled a special event in his
life, an epiphany (a bus ride)
Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e
5.5
Angrosino (1994)
• Overview of the methodology
– The author reported detailed information about
the setting or historical context of the bus trip,
which situated the epiphany within a social
context
– The author reflected on his own experiences
and acknowledged that the study was his
interpretation of Vonnie Lee’s life
Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e
5.6
Phenomenology:
Anderson & Spencer (2002)
• Overview of the Study
– The study focused on the cognitive
representations that AIDS patients held about
their disease
– The authors advanced the Self-Regulation
Model of Illness Representation that
suggested that patients were active problem
solvers whose behavior was a product of their
cognitive and emotional responses to AIDS
– The study described how patients represented
AIDS in images had not been studied
Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e
5.7
Anderson & Spencer (2002)
• Overview of methodology: Data collection
– The study involved conducting interviews for over
18 months with 58 men and women with a
diagnosis of AIDS
– The interview questions reflected a
phenomenological framework
•
•
•
•
What is your experience with AIDS?
Do you have a mental image of HIV/AIDS?
What feelings come to mind?
What does it mean to have it in your life?
– The participants were also asked to draw pictures
of their disease
• Only 8 participants drew pictures
• Authors integrated these pictures into their data analysis
Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e
5.8
Anderson & Spencer (2002)
• Overview of methodology: Data analysis
– The transcripts were read several times
– The significant phrases or sentences were
identified
– The meanings were clustered into themes (175
significant statements and 11 major themes)
– The results were integrated into an in-depth
exhaustive description of the phenomenon
– The findings were validated using member
checking and their remarks were included into
the final description
– The study concluded with the essence (the
exhaustive description of the patient’s
experiences and coping strategies)
Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e
5.9
Anderson & Spencer (2002)
• Features of a phenomenological study
– The study used systematic data analysis
procedures of significant statements,
meanings and themes, and an essence
– The study included tables illustrating
significant statements, meanings, and theme
clusters
– The study included a central phenomenon that
was appropriate for phenomenology
– The study involved rigorous data collection
with 58 participants
– The study ended by describing the essence of
the experience
Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e
5.10
Grounded Theory:
Morrow & Smith (1995)
• Overview of the study
– The study focused on the survival and coping
strategies of 11 women that experienced
childhood sexual abuse
– The study included an extensive passage on
data coding of information and memoing
– The authors developed a visual model of the
process that was focused around the central
category of threatening or dangerous feelings
along with helplessness, powerlessness, and
lack of control
Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e
5.11
Morrow & Smith (1995)
• Overview of the methodology
– The authors collected data from personal
interviews, focus groups, and participant
observation
– The authors coded the data and formed
categories of data (Open Coding)
– The data was reassembled into a visual model
that consisted of a central phenomenon
(central category), causes, contexts,
intervening conditions, strategies, and
consequences (outcomes)
Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e
5.12
Morrow & Smith (1995)
• Features of grounded theory
– The authors mentioned that their purpose was
to generate a theory using a constructoriented approach
– The grounded theory procedure was
discussed and used the framework of
systematic grounded theory
– The study included a visual model of the
theory
– The language of the article was scientific and
objective while at the same time it addressed
a sensitive topic with emotion
Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e
5.13
Ethnography: Haenfler (2004)
• Overview of the study
– The study described the core values of the
straight edge (sXe) movement that emerged on
the east coast of the US in the early 1980’s from
the punk subculture
– The study involved White middle-class males
from ages 15-25
– The movement was linked with the punk music
genre
– The sXers made a large X on each hand before
they entered punk concerts
– The sXers adopted a clean living ideology
– The ethnography examined how subculture group
members expressed opposition individually and
as a reaction to other subcultures
Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e
5.14
Haenfler (2004)
• Overview of the methodology
– The author participated in the movement for
14 years and attended more than 250
concerts
– The data consisted of 28 interviews with men
and women, newspaper stories, music lyrics,
web pages, and sXe magazines
– The author provided a detailed description of
the subculture
• T-shirt slogans
• Song lyrics
• Use of the symbol X
Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e
5.15
Haenfler (2004)
• Overview of the findings:
– The author described the cultural group
– The author identified five themes
•
•
•
•
•
Positivity/clean living
Reserving sex for caring relationships
Self-realization
Spreading the message
Involvement in progressive causes
– The author concluded the article with a broad
understanding of the sXers’ values
Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e
5.16
Haenfler (2004)
• Features of ethnography
– The study focused on a culture-sharing group
and their core values
– The author first described the group and themes
about the group, and ended with a suggestion of
how the subculture worked
– The author positioned himself by describing his
involvement in the subculture and his role of the
group for many years
– The author used a critical ethnographic
perspective to examine the issue of resistance to
opposition
– The author concluded with comment about how
the subculture resisted the dominant culture
Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e
5.17
Case Study:
Asmussen & Creswell (1995)
• Overview of the study
– The study described a campus reaction to a
gunman incident on a midwestern university
campus
– The study began with a detailed description
of the incident including a description of the
city, campus, and the incident
– The study used multiple sources of data
Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e
5.18
Asmussen & Creswell (1995)
• Overview of the study
– Five themes emerged: denial, fear, safety,
retriggering, and campus planning
– The themes were narrowed to two
overarching perspectives, an
organizational and social-psychological
response
– A suggestion was made that campuses
need to develop a plan to respond to
campus violence
Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e
5.19
Asmussen & Creswell (1995)
• Overview of methodology
– The problem appropriate for case study
(description of a campus response to a
gunman incident)
– The data was collected through multiple
sources
•
•
•
•
Interviews
Observations
Documents
Audio-visual materials
Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e
5.20
Asmussen & Creswell (1995)
• Overview of methodology
– The data was analyzed for codes and themes
– The themes were used to form overarching
perspectives that were also related to the
literature
– The case study structure was followed – the
problem, the context, the issues, and lessons
learned
– The study included practical and useful
implications
– The authors were reflective about their prior
experiences related to the problem (epilogue)
Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e
5.21
Asmussen & Creswell (1995)
• Features of case study
– The authors identified a case for study
– The authors chose an instrumental case to
illustrate the problem of potential campus
violence
– The case was a bounded system
– The authors used extensive multiple sources
of data to provide a detailed picture of the
incident and campus response
– The authors spent considerable time
describing the context for the case
Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e
5.22
Differences Among the Five
Approaches (Figure 5.1)
A Portrait
A Case
An Individual
Narrative Study
A Culture-Sharing
Group
Case Study
Ethnography
A Theory
Phenomenology
A Phenomenon
Creswell qualitative Inquiry 2e
Grounded Theory
5.23
Differences Among the Approaches
• Narrative – focuses on the life of an
individual
• Phenomenology – focuses on a
phenomenon and the essence of the lived
experiences of persons about that
phenomenon
• Grounded Theory – focuses on developing a
theory about a process
• Ethnography – focuses on a description and
interpretation of a culture-sharing group
• Case Study – focuses on an in-depth
understanding of a case
Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e
5.24
Key Questions in Choosing an Approach
• What is the approach attempting to
accomplish?
• What approach is frequently used by
gatekeepers in the field or the audience
for the study? (e.g., advisors, editors)
Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e
5.25
Key Questions in Choosing an Approach
• What research skills/experiences are
need to conduct research using the
approach?
• What type of qualitative study is needed
most to contribute to the scholarly
literature in the field?
• What approach are you, as a researcher,
most comfortable with?
Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e
5.26
Chapter 5
Five Different Qualitative
Studies
Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e
5.27