PSY1023 Chap.9 Qualitative Paradigms and Research Designs
Qualitative Paradigms and Research Designs
The Week 9 seminar widens the lens from coding to the traditions that qualitative researchers work within. It defines qualitative research as an approach for exploring social phenomena in depth, with attention to context and meaning, and lists its hallmarks: an exploratory aim, subjective interpretation, an inductive approach, small purposeful samples and an emphasis on participants' own perspectives.
The week also stresses that bias is part of interpretive work, so credibility comes from awareness and transparency rather than from pretending to be neutral.
The seminar also sets out the aims a qualitative researcher pursues, from understanding human experience and giving voice to participants to providing depth over breadth and tracing processes of change.
A paradigm is the set of beliefs and practices that guides how a researcher studies the world, and the seminar breaks it into ontology, epistemology and methodology. Three qualitative paradigms are introduced.
Constructivism holds that reality is built through interaction, so there are multiple realities. Interpretivism focuses on how people make sense of their own experiences and argues that social life cannot be studied with natural-science methods alone.
Critical theory looks at power, privilege and inequality, and treats research as a tool for change.
Against that backdrop the seminar introduces four research designs: phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography and case study.
Phenomenology seeks the essence of an experience and often uses bracketing; grounded theory builds theory about a process from data; ethnography immerses the researcher in a group's everyday life; and case study investigates one bounded case, or a few, in its real-life setting.
Creswell's (2013) chapter on five qualitative approaches, the week's assigned reading, adds narrative research and compares all five on focus, unit of analysis, data collection, analysis strategy and the shape of the final report.
Learning these contrasts lets you read published studies more sharply and describe your own project accurately.
That last point matters for AT3, whose design subsection asks for your methodology, design, ontological and epistemological approach and type of analysis.
Most groups run reflexive thematic analysis on a handful of short interviews: a legitimate qualitative design in its own right, but not a phenomenology or a grounded theory. The paid pages set the five approaches side by side, model a coherent design paragraph, and train you to spot the mismatches markers notice first. Clear labels also help a marker judge whether your method and your claims line up.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Characteristics and aims of qualitative research
- 02
Paradigms as ontology, epistemology and methodology
- 03
Constructivism, interpretivism and critical theory
- 04
Phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography and case study
- 05
Narrative research and Creswell's five-approach comparison
- 06
Describing an AT3 design without overclaiming
Worked example · free
Choosing a design for a returning-student study
- 2Identify the focus: the question targets a lived experience that several people share, and asks what that experience is like, which matches phenomenology's aim of describing its essence.
- 1Rule out the near misses: grounded theory would need a process to explain and theoretical sampling to build a theory, and ethnography would need a culture-sharing group observed over time.
- 1Check the data plan: in-depth interviews with a modest group who have all lived the phenomenon is the typical phenomenological data source.
- 1Name the paradigm: an interpretivist stance fits, because the study is about how participants make sense of their own return to study.
Key terms
- Research Paradigm
- A set of beliefs, assumptions and practices about reality, knowledge and method that guides how a researcher investigates the world.
- Bracketing
- A phenomenological practice, also called epoché, in which researchers try to set aside their own preconceptions to focus on participants' experiences.
- Theoretical Sampling
- A grounded theory strategy of choosing further participants for what they can add to the developing theory.
- Bounded System
- The case at the centre of a case study, such as one program, event or organisation, defined by clear limits of place and time.
- Culture-Sharing Group
- A community whose members hold learned patterns of values, behaviour, beliefs and language in common, the usual focus of ethnography.
Qualitative Paradigms and Research Designs FAQ
Is reflexive thematic analysis a research design like phenomenology?
Braun and Clarke treat thematic analysis as a method that is not tied to one theoretical framework, whereas phenomenology and grounded theory carry their own theoretical commitments. Describe an AT3 project by its paradigm plus the analysis method rather than borrowing a design label it does not meet.
What is the difference between constructivism and interpretivism?
They overlap heavily. Constructivism stresses that reality itself is built through social interaction, giving multiple realities, while interpretivism stresses understanding how individuals make sense of their experiences and rejects natural-science methods for social questions.
How many participants does grounded theory usually involve?
Creswell describes grounded theory researchers typically conducting 20 to 30 interviews until categories are saturated, and his comparison table mentions interviews with 20 to 60 people. That scale is one reason a small class project rarely qualifies as grounded theory.
Where does critical theory fit in a student-experience project?
Critical theory suits questions about power, privilege and inequality, for example how institutional arrangements disadvantage some groups of students. It aims to change unequal structures, so the research question and rationale should make that goal explicit.
Assessment move
Build a one-page comparison of your own before reading anyone else's. List the four designs from the seminar plus narrative research from Creswell's chapter, and for each one write its focus, who is usually studied, what data are collected and what the finished report looks like.
Then test the table on real questions: write three or four research questions about student life, swap them with a classmate, and decide which approach fits each, giving a reason drawn from the focus column. Keep the table beside you for the Week 10 material too, because the methods-section guidance there asks you to justify whichever approach to inquiry you name.
For paradigms, rewrite one question three ways so that it suits constructivism, interpretivism and critical theory in turn, and notice how the aim and the wording change. Next, read the methods section of one of the unit's starting-reference articles and identify its paradigm, design and analysis method, flagging anything left unstated.
Finally, draft the opening of your own AT3 design subsection, naming the paradigm, your ontological and epistemological position, and reflexive thematic analysis as the method. Read it aloud with your group and check three things: that every term agrees with the others, that you have not claimed a design your data cannot support, and that the role of the researcher is described as active rather than neutral.
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