QUALITATIVE METHODS IN COMMUNICATION

University of Illinois at Chicago

COMM 580 Call No. 14984 LING 582 Call No. 14143

Spring 2008, Wednesdays, 4 – 6:30 p.m., BSB 1169 Kevin G. Barnhurst, Ph.D., Professor & Head, Department of Communication

Office, BSB 1148A. Hours, Tuesdays, 2:30 – 3:30 p.m. or by appointment

(312) 413-3231 E-mail <kgbcomm(a)uic.edu> Web Site http://www.uic.edu/~kgbcomm

description

This introduction to qualitative methods focuses on communication but has broad application to other social sciences. The course will touch on archival methods used in history and on the problems with interpreting narratives and documents, areas familiar to most students, but will concentrate on a less familiar area: fieldwork. The course involves hands-on experience, with the theoretical literature on qualitative fieldwork in the background, because the only way to learn fieldwork is by doing it.

Purposes

Gain familiarity with the main issues involved in qualitative research practice and analysis through

reading and discussion. Experience in depth at least one technique of qualitative field work, and learn about others through

interactions with students doing it themselves. Produce information useful for a group to improve its work and to succeed in reaching its goals.

Readings

The reading for the seminar is light, given the focus on doing. Seminar sessions will be discussions about experiences in the field, informed by (usually) a think-piece or two on a qualitative method. A larger bibliography is available for investigating specific methods in depth. There is no required textbook, and readings are available on electronic library reserves: cid=352 (qualitative).

Assignments

Complete two independent assignments, one to train for working with human subjects in the field and one to learn qualitative analysis software for interpreting field results.

Fieldwork

Each student must complete a phase of fieldwork each week, including making complete field notes, and report to the seminar at its meeting. Travel to the field site will take place always in pairs or groups. No student will go to, spend time at, or return from a research site alone, except those doing thesis work. All results, including field notes, become part of a project archive that the community group will maintain. The outcome of the course will be information that the group(s) can employ independently to assess progress and success in reaching goals after the seminar ends.

Research Report

Each seminar member will write two reports, one individual essay and one research write-up (the latter a group effort for those not working alone). The amount each student writes for the two reports together should be no more than a typical term paper.

The individual report describes the field experience immediately after it ends. The narrative should recount the learning about the field site and the method(s), in the form of an essay (autobiographical and biographical) telling stories to make its main points. The report is due at the fieldwork presentation to the class.

The research report takes a standard social science format (Introduction, Literature Review, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion), based on fieldwork for the seminar. The report is due the week before the presentation to community group(s).

Evaluations

Each member of the seminar will make three presentations for a grade, two to the class (first on an assigned method, and then on preliminary fieldwork results, just before Spring Break), and one to the invited community groups (in the last class). Two practical assignments prepare you for field work and for analysis of results. Other assessments include two research reports, the first due after fieldwork ends, and the second due in the penultimate class. There will be no final exam.

Course grades follow this formula: Participation (attendance, preparation on readings, contribution to group work, and involvement in class discussions), 25 percent; Assignments (human subjects and qualitative software), 7 percent; Fieldwork (field attendance, weekly progress reports, and field notes), 25 percent; Presentations (method, preliminary results, interpretation, and final/group results) 13 percent; and Reports (preliminary, draft, and final), 30 percent.

courtesies

Deadlines. Because the seminar involves work with a community group, no late assignments will be accepted. If you have an illness or emergency, please meet with me as soon as possible to provide documentation and discuss a suitable adjustment in your assignments.

Attendance. Absences, tardiness, and leaving early from class or scheduled fieldwork appointments count against your grade. Missing more than three days of class or fieldwork, or arriving late to or departing early more than six times, or a combination of absences and partial absences, will result in a failing grade. Missing or arriving late for an appointment to travel to the field or to meet with a community group member weighs the same as attendance at seminar meetings.

Exclusivity. Reports must be original work you complete for this course only. Turning in work that is the same or substantially the same as that completed for another course is a form of academic dishonesty and will result in a failing grade on the assignment.

Honesty. You must do your own work. Cite the ideas of others thoroughly and consistently, and provide page numbers for quotations. Students found to have plagiarized the work of others (used their words without giving proper credit), including material from the internet, will receive a failing grade for the course. Department policy is to report all incidents of academic misconduct to the Student Judicial Affairs office.

Accommodation. If you must miss class due to religious holidays or observances, please notify me in the first two weeks of class to make arrangements that will not disadvantage you in the course. It also helps if you remind me shortly before the arranged absence. Students with disabilities who require accommodations for access or participation in this course must register with the Office of Disability Services at (312) 413-2103 or –0123 (TTY).

calendar

The following calendar indicates the activities planned for and assignments due at each meeting of the course. All dates are tentative and may be adjusted at any time.

Unit I. Concepts in Qualitative Research

Jan. 16. Paradigms: Naturalism & Ethnomethod, Grounded, Case, Institution, and Action Theory

Blumer, Herbert. “The Methodological Position of Symbolic Interactionism.” Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method, pp. 1–60. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969.

Geertz, Clifford. “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture.” The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, pp. 3-30. New York: Basic Books, 1973.

Jan. 23. Methods: Document Analysis, Observation, Interviews & Focus Groups

Rosaldo, Renato. “Grief and a Headhunter’s Rage.” Culture & Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis, pp. 1–21. Boston : Beacon Press, 1993.

Emerson, Robert M., Rachel Fretz, and Linda Shaw. “Pursuing Members’ Meanings.” Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes, pp 108-141. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.

Jan. 30. Ethics, Protecting Participants

Shea, Christopher. “Don't Talk to the Humans: The Crackdown on Social Science Research.” Lingua Franca 10.6 (September 2000): 27–34.

University of Illinois Ethics Officer. “University Code of Conduct” [on line]. Available: http://www.ethics.uillinois.edu/policies/code.cfm

Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs. “III. University Policy; Definition of Academic Misconduct,” Policy & Procedures on Academic Integrity in Research & Publication [on line]. Available: http://www.vpaa.uillinois.edu/policies/ai_document.asp?bch=1

Office for the Protection of Human Subjects. “Informed Consent” [on line]. Available: http://www.research.uic.edu/protocolreview/irb/policies/0237.pdf

Due: Assignment 1. Turn in a copy of an up-to-date certificate showing you have completed

training in human subject protections. If you’re not yet certified (usually the case), you can take

the initial training on line. If your certificate is expired, renew it by doing continuing education.

Follow the appropriate links:

http://www.research.uic.edu/protocolreview/irb/education/index.shtml

Unit II. Qualitative Research Practice

Feb. 6. Presentation of Group Selections

Glaser, Barney G., and Anselm L. Straus. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research, pp. 1–18. (See also Ch. 3, Theoretical Sampling, pp. 45–77.) Chicago: Aldine, 1967.

Students, working in groups of at least two and no more than five, present the community group selected for field work during the semester, along with their methods (one for each student).

Sanders, Clinton R. “Rope Burns: Impediments to the Achievement of Basic Comfort Early in the Field Research Experience.” In Fieldwork Experience: Qualitative Approaches to Social Research, pp. 158–70. Ed. William B. Shaffir, Robert A. Stebbins & Allan Turowetz. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1980.

Feb. 13. Document Analysis

Van Bukleo, Sandra. “My Own ‘Desperate Deeds and Desperate Motives’: How the Project Evolved.” In The Research Process in Political Science, pp. 206–221. Ed. P. Shively. Itsaca, Ill.: F. E. Peacock, 1984.

Feb. 20. Observation

Orwell, George. “Shooting an Elephant.” A Collection of Essays by George Orwell, pp. 154–62. Garden City: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1957.

Feb. 27. Participant Observation

Eliasoph, Nina. “The Mysterious Shrinking Circle of Concern” and “Method.” Avoiding Politics: How Americans Produce Apathy in Everyday Life, pp. 1–22, 269–79. Cambridge Cultural Social Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

March 5. Interviews

Rosengarten, Theodore. “Preface.” All God’s Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw, pp. xiii–xxv. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974.

March 12. Focus Groups or Case Studies (students’ choice)

Merton, Robert K. “The Focussed Interview and Focus Groups: Continuities and Discontinuities.” Public Opinion Quarterly 51.4 (Winter 1987): 135–69.

March 19. Presentations Individual presentation of research outcomes. Individual essays on fieldwork due.

March 26. No class, spring break.

Unit III. Qualitative Analysis & Reporting

April 2. Problems of Interpretation

Darnton, Robert. “Workers Revolt: The Great Cat Massacre of the Rue Saint-Séverin.” The Great Cat Massacre, pp. 75–104. New York: Basic Books, 1984.

Assignment 2. Turn in a print-out of your analysis of assigned documents from the software.

April 9. Feminism

Hsiung, Ping-chun. “Between Bosses and Workers: The Dilemma of a Keen Observer and a Vocal Feminist.” In Feminist Dilemmas in Fieldwork, pp. 122–37. Ed. Diane L. Wolf. Boulder: Westview, 1996.

April 16. The Visual

O’Brien, Tim. “The Things They Carried.” In The American Short Story, pp. 688–704. Ed. Richard Ford. London: Granta Books, 1992.

Due: Report 1. Draft Research Results Paper

April 23. Presentation to the Community Groups

Each research group (well in advance) invites representatives from the community group to attend this presentation. Community members then give feedback about the respective group report.

April 30. Final Report. Due: Report 2. Final Research Results Paper

further reference

Qualitative Paradigms

King, Gary, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba. Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research, pp. 3–49. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.

Fenno, Richard F., Jr. Home Style: House Members in Their Districts, pp. 1–30. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1978.

Piven, Frances Fox, and Richard A. Cloward. “Introduction” and “Relief, Labor, and Civil Disorder: An Overview.” Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare, pp. xv–xix, 3–42. New York: Vintage Books, 1993.

Field Research Models

Gamson, William. 1992. Talking Politics, pp. 1–58. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

McAdam, Doug. Freedom Summer, pp. 3–10, 66–198, 233–40. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

Ethics, Protecting Participants

Allen, Charlotte. “Spies Like Us: When Sociologists Deceive their Subjects.” Lingua Franca, November 1997, pp. 31–39.

Brainard, Jeffrey. “The Wrong Rules for Social Science?” Chronicle of Higher Education, March 9, 2001. http://oz.plymouth.edu/~wjt/HCI/chronicle1.htm

Davidian, Blanche. “The Performance of Patriotism: Infiltration and Identity at the End of the World.” Theater 27.1 (1996): 7–28.

Ellis, Carolyn. “Emotional and Ethical Quagmires in Returning to the Field.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 24.1 (April 1995): 68–98. PDF.

Millgram, Stanley. “Some Conditions of Obedience and Disobedience to Authority.” Human Relations 18.1 (February 1965): 57–75.

Pierce, Jennifer. “Articulating the Self in Field Research.” In Gender Trials: Emotional Lives in Contemporary Law Firms, pp. 189–214. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.

Document Analysis

Lustick, Ian S. “History, Historiography, and Political Science: Multiple Historical Records and the Problem of Selection Bias.” American Political Science Review 90.3 (1996): 605–18.

Pierson, Paul. “Not Just What, but When: Timing and Sequence in Political Processes.” Studies in American Political Development 14 (Spring 2000): 72–92.

Robertson, Craig. “The Archive, Disciplinarity, and Governing: Cultural Studies and the Writing of History.” Cultural Studies, Critical Methodologies 4.4 (November 2004): 450-71.

Steedman, Carolyn. “Something She Called a Fever: Michelet, Derrida, and Dust.” American Historical Review 106.4 (October 2001): 1159-80.

Observation

Karp, David A. “Observing Behavior in Public Places: Problems and Strategies.” In Fieldwork Experience: Qualitative Approaches to Social Research, pp. 82–97. Ed. William B. Shaffir, Robert A. Stebbins & Allan Turowetz. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1980.

Tamale, Sylvia. “ ‘Doing Gender’ in the House.” When Hens Begin to Crow: Gender and Parliamentary Politics in Uganda, pp. 119–31. Boulder: Westview, 1999.

Participant Observation

Cook, Ian. “Participant Observation.” In Methods in Human Geography, pp. 127–49. Ed. Robin Flowerdew & David Martin. London: Longman, 1997.

Rowler, Lorraine. “The Four Square Laundry: Participant Observation in a War Zone.” The Geographical Review, January–April 2001, pp. 414–22. HTML.

Eliasoph, Nina. “ ‘Close to Home’: The Work of Avoiding Politics.” Theory & Society 26.5 (October 1997): 605–47.

Fenno, Richard F. Jr, “Observation, Context, and Sequence in the Study of Politics,” APSR 80, 1 (March 1986): 3–15).

Riecken, Henry. “The Unidentified Interviewer.” In Sociological Methods, pp. 204–9. Ed. Norman K. Denzin. Chicago: Aldine, 1970.

Interviews

Lofland, John, and Lyn H. Lofland. “Data Logging in Intensive Interviewing” and “Field Notes.” Analyzing Social Settings: A Guide to Qualitative Observation and Analysis, pp. 53–68. Belmont: Wadsworth, 1984.

Spradley, James P. “Language and Fieldwork” and “Informants.” The Ethnographic Interview, pp. 17–39 (chapters 2–3). New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1979.

Whyte, William Foote. “Interviewing in Field Research.” In Field Research: A Sourcebook and Field Manual, pp. 111–22. Ed. Robert G. Burgess. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1982.

Focus Groups

Greenbaum, Thomas L. “Focus Groups: An Overview.” The Practical Handbook and Guide to Focus Group Research, pp. 1–17. Lexington: D.C. Heath, 1988.

Krueger, Richard A. “Focus Groups.” Focus Groups: A Practical Guide for Applied Research, 2 ed., pp. 16–38. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1994.

Merton, Robert K., Marjorie Fiske, and Patricia L. Kendall. “Introduction to the Second Edition” and “The Group Interview.” In The Focused Interview: A Manual of Problems and Procedures, 2 ed., pp. xiii–xxxiii, 135–69. 1949. New York: Free Press, 1990.

Morgan, David L. “Conducting and Analyzing Focus Groups.” Focus Groups as Qualitative Research, pp. 53–71. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1988.

Case Studies

Van Evera, Stephen. “What are Case Studies? How Should They be Performed?” Guide to Methodology for Students of Political Science, pp. 49–88. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997.

George, Alexander L., and Andrew Bennett. Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences, pp. 3–35. BCSIA Studies in International Security. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005.

McKeown, Timothy J. “Case Studies and the Limits of the Quantitative Worldview.” Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards, pp. 139–67. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004.

Problems of Interpretation

Crang, Mike. “Analyzing Qualitative Materials.” In Methods in Human Geography, pp. 183–96. Ed. Robin Flowerdew & David Martin. London: Longman, 1997.

Feyerabend, Paul. “Against Method.” Killing Time: The Autobiography of Paul Feyerabend, pp. 139–52. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.

Latour, Bruno. “Literature.” Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society, pp. 21–62. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987.

Levi, Margaret. “Producing an Analytic Narrative.” In Critical Comparisons in Politics and Culture, pp. 152–72. Ed. John R. Bowen & Roger Petersen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Mills, C. Wright. “On Intellectual Craftsmanship.” The Sociological Imagination, pp. 195–226. New York: Oxford, 1959.

Feminist Studies

DeVault, Marjorie. “Talking and Listening from Women’s Standpoint: Feminist Strategies for Interviewing and Analysis.” Social Problems 37.1 (February 1990): 96–116.

Monaghan, Lee F. “Opportunity, Pleasure, and Risk: An Ethnography of Urban Male Heterosexualities.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 31.4 (August 2002): 440–77.

Riessman, Catherine Kohler. “When Gender Is Not Enough: Women Interviewing Women.” Gender and Society 1.2 (June 1987): 172–207.

Wolf, Margery. “Afterword: Musings from an Old Gray Wolf.” “ In Feminist Dilemmas in Fieldwork, pp. 215–21. Ed. Diane L. Wolf. Boulder: Westview, 1996.

Visual Studies

Higonnet, Anne. “Introduction.” Pictures of Innocence: The History and Crisis of Ideal Childhood, pp. 6–14. New York, Thames and Hudson, 1998.

Rose, Gillian. “Researching Visual Materials: Towards a Critical Visual Methodology.” Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials, pp. 5–32. London: Sage, 2001.

Webb, Eugene J., Donald T. Campbell, Richard D. Schwartz, and Lee Sechrest. “Physical Traces: Erosion and Accretion.” Unobtrusive Measures: Nonreactive Research in the Social Sciences, pp. 35–53. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1966.