In an earlier blog I have spoken about the relevance of research questions. The nature of research questions that you set up would determine whether your research demands a qualitative or a quantitative approach. In contemporary times, a mixed methods approach is frequently used that draws out the best out of qualitative and quantitative paradigms. The paradigm that you follow would also determine the tools that you use for the research. Needless to say, this is once again based on your research questions. Here, my focus is on tool development in qualitative research.
Identify your Research Questions
At the beginning of any research, it is important to carefully frame a set of research questions that would guide you through the entire research process. At the stage of tool development, it would help to identify the demands of your research questions. Do they require you to make generalised trends or are they focused on exploration and in-depth analysis? Is your sample expected to be literate, computer savvy, easily approachable? This would determine if your tools can be technology based, the language in which the tools needs to be made, etc.
Balance Out the Level of Description Required
The next step is to identify the need to balance between objectivity and subjectivity. Some aspects of your research are best covered through a structured tool that gives objective data. Participants’ basic details such as age, gender, caste, class, etc can be easily gathered through a single sheet questionnaire containing multiple choice questions. Such tools can also be used for screening for the second level of data collection. For instance, if you want to restrict your sample in the next stage to those who are strongly against LGBTQ, you can make a rating scale or an opinionnaire and tabulate and analyse responses. This can be your preliminary data. In the second level, your tool can be more descriptive and open ended.
Length of the Tool
Keep in mind that most people do not have the time or inclination to fill up lengthy questionnaires. The more the number of items, the more details you want them to write, the less likely you would be to get the information you need. Ideally, you should be able to get a tool filled in one sitting of approximately an hour. Thus, it is important for your tool to be crisp and comprehensive. You may not get a second appointment.
Moving away from Paper and Pencil Tools
I strongly recommend exploring options other than paper and pencil tools when doing data collection. Document analysis, observations, interviews are also useful. Observation in fact, is inherent in all aspects of data collection. It is important to expressions that may indicate thoughts, feelings, and opinions that are not voiced otherwise. Observations however, are often not tapped as rich sources of data. It is important to note down all observations immediately after field visits. This is significant to ensure that one doesn’t forget the details and also, you can revisit your observations at a later stage and filter out any immediate biases that you may have inadvertently noted down as observation. While taking interviews, it is important once again to check if a structured interview will work best for you. In many interviews, you would have to go with a set of themes, the order and framing of questions may have to change spontaneously. Often, interviews may have to be completely unstructured, providing you a huge amount of data. This would mean double time in noting down and analysing the wealth that you would have gathered. Many participants would also not allow for recording of interviews. If they do allow, you will have to work on transcribing interviews. If they don’t, you will have to take detailed notes. Either way, descriptive interviews mean that you will be spending at least double the time in getting your data ready for analysis post the interviews. Be ware, this is far more time consuming that you can imagine and is often boring to repeatedly note down details that you have already heard once.
Establishing Reliability and Validity
A major difficulty that people face in tool development is that of ensuring the validity of the tools. However, there are several established ways of checking your tools for reliability and validity in qualitative research. I strongly recommend identifying and thoroughly studying the already used tools in the area of your research. You may also want to locate research studies that are not in the same area but are using the same method that you are employing. Both these would give you ideas and direction for what may be useful for your work. Having a close set of peers who are familiar with your work would help you to do the first level of vetting. It is important here to be open to criticism from well meaning peers. A second step is to consult your supervisor, and if feasible and required, to consult a set of experts. Expert validation would help you to ensure that a third person who has a fair amount of expertise in the area is able to understand the direction of your research within the context of your research questions. It is helpful if you are able to contact the stalwarts in your area of work and share your design with them.
Most importantly, before you approach your supervisor, your peers, or experts in the area, you may wish to revisit your research questions and see if your tools fulfill what you set out to find. For a good theoretical understanding, you may wish to refer to Creswell’s Five Traditions in Qualitative Research and Jerry Willis’s Qualitative Research. You may also wish to read Thapan’s Life at School, Baby Halder’s A Life Less Ordinary, Dalrymple’s Nine Lives, Freeman’s Life Story of an Indian Untouchable, Mulk Raj Anand’s The Untouchable, and similar such writings. All of these will give you ideas about how research writing can take many forms. In addition, you would do well to find out pre-doctoral and doctoral thesis that have worked with similar methods as you are working. Happy writing!