Qualitative Dissertation Methodology. Nathan Durdella
“to examine Black student involvement and cultural leadership development through the conceptual lens of validation, which reaches beyond the Eurocentric conceptualization of student involvement . . . and examines the validating experiences of underrepresented students.” Bailey went on to describe the study’s rationale in the following way: “While there is much research on the experiences of Black student leaders at Historical Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and [Predominantly White Institutions] PWIs, there is a lack of research of these students at other institutional types. Specifically, there is a lack of research on Black student leadership experiences at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), particularly HSIs that are commuter campuses” (p. 5). Meanwhile, Bertone (2016, p. 6) focuses her dissertation study on “the relationship between growth mindset and the transfer experience for community college students.” In her dissertation study, Michel (2014, p. 4) designed a purpose “to explore the social preparedness and familial support experiences of first-year, first-generation, low-income Latino college students during their transition from an urban charter high school to regional urban public universities in Southern California.” Do you see patterns in what Bailey, Bertone, and Michel set out to do in their studies?
The language and focus of qualitative research converges on exploring and describing the experiences of a social or cultural group. You can see from these doctoral student samples that a common set of terms emerges over and over—what repeats and shows up again and again in these research purposes? A clear focus on “experiences” of specific groups—Black students at HSIs; first-year, first-generation, low-income Latino students; and transfer students—permeates their studies that explore experiences and relationships in social settings. Two student samples further illustrate the general tendency to design exploratory studies of social groups in qualitative research. For her part, Peralta (2014, p. 5) describes how she designed a dissertation study that examined “the academic experiences of Latino middle school students who transition from an alternative school setting to a traditional school setting and how these experiences shape their meaning of academic success.” And Randolph (2014, p. 4) framed her dissertation study as an examination of “undergraduate research experiences of students of color.”
Facilitating voice or emancipating local groups, improving conditions and supporting change in or preserving family practices, updating policies and enhancing protections, uncovering implicit or hidden meaning, establishing local connections and advancing your career, and many, many more goals frequently undergird your interest in pursuing a specific line of inquiry in a dissertation study. In general, dissertation research goals can be seen as connected to one or more of the following sources:
Social science research goals (see above)
Qualitative research approaches (see Chapter 3 and qualitative research design and methods texts)
Discipline-specific goals (consult faculty and disciplinary association representatives)
Program outcomes (access program documents and consult instructional leaders in the program)
Individual study purpose and goals (review research published in the field)
Personal goals and interests of researchers (engage in self-reflection and ask peers for feedback)
Reflect on Research Goals in Your Field
Do a quick self-assessment of what you know about research goals unique to your field.
While general social science research and discipline- and program-specific goals and outcomes are important, what you hope to do and accomplish in your study is central to how you frame your research problem, purpose, and questions. In fact, what you hope to accomplish appears formally in your research purpose, where you describe what you will do in your study and what you hope to accomplish with your study. Your personal goals for investigating a phenomenon often drive initial decisions about a topic and focus for your dissertation study. As your personal goals intersect with broader research currents, they tend to be interpreted and filtered for your study. For example, emancipatory research outcomes are associated with critical paradigms. Therefore, it is important to leverage the guiding principles and specific assumptions of the various approaches and work with them to structure your study.
Connecting personal goals to dissertation research work.
As you develop a framework from your review of the empirical and conceptual literature, think about how you can connect your personal goals for a dissertation study with the research goals of qualitative inquiry. After reflecting on your personal goals for undertaking an original investigation and completing a dissertation study as part of your doctoral studies, you can link them to a developing dissertation research plan. A useful approach to use when assessing how personal and research goals align involves using the formula for a research purpose and inserting the general language of qualitative research into the formula (Creswell, 2014). Here, you can experiment with your current or evolving research purpose by formulating the terms as follows: phenomenon + group + setting or site. Using Michel’s (2014) example above, the formula would look something like this:
social preparedness and familial support (phenomenon) + Latino college students (group) + high school to university (setting/site)
After building a formula, work on adding terms that move the study onto the spectrum of qualitative research and focus the work on exploring the experiences of a group or the relationship between a set of experiences and outcomes for a group. Extending Michel’s (2014) example, we can see the following purpose take shape: “The purpose of this study is to explore the social preparedness and familial support experiences of first-year, first-generation, low-income Latino college students during their transition from an urban charter high school to regional urban public universities in Southern California.” In this example, the bolded terms connect Michel’s goals for her study with the goals of qualitative research, binding her purpose with what the broader community of researchers expects to see in projects that adopt such approaches.
Becoming a Qualitative Dissertation Methodologist
When you feel confident about using qualitative approach to framing your dissertation study—you have confirmed that qualitative methodology is the most appropriate way to answer the question that emerged from initial and ongoing work and connected qualitative research goals to the goals of your investigation—then you can turn attention to what lies ahead as a qualitative researcher. In my experience as a researcher and faculty advisor, doing qualitative research—whether with an instructor or student peers in class, for a collaborative research project with a faculty member, as part of efforts of a research center on campus, with a pilot dissertation study, or in your dissertation study—facilitates the development of an identity as a qualitative researcher. From my own experiences and observations, considering characteristics of qualitative research and formalizing a few key practices in your research work may help move you in the methodological direction you are looking to go for your dissertation study.
Working with standard and emergent approaches in qualitative research.
Methodology is a complex concept. Schwandt (2007, p. 193) defined methodology as “a theory of how inquiry should proceed” that “involves analysis of the assumptions, principles, and procedures in a particular approach to inquiry (that, in turn, governs the use of particular methods).” Accordingly, Schwandt argues methodology involves a whole set of structures that direct what researchers do in studies that employ specific approaches—from the focus of investigations and the stuff of research problems to the steps in gathering and interpreting information. But methodology’s complexity is more than the sum of its foundational parts. Indeed, researchers have tended to weave epistemological perspectives into an approach and layer methodology with outlooks on how we come to understand the nature of reality. Historically, interpretivism—or the idea of the social construction and reproduction of reality—has been associated with qualitative research methodologies (Merriam, 2009). Recently, though—over the last several decades—qualitative