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Physical Therapy Residental Capstone Project

A guide about the Physical Therapy Capstone project and resources on various research methods.

What is Qualitative Research?

Qualitative research is an umbrella term used to cover a wide variety of research methods and methodologies that records people's experiences and perception.  In general, qualitative researchers are interested in studying social processes, how people make sense and create meaning, and what their lived experiences are like. They are interested in understanding how knowledge is historically, politically, and culturally situated.  Data is primary in non-numeric forms.

The process of collecting data is through interviewing or observation.  Data collection forms include action research, ethnography, focus groups, narrative research and more.

Adapted from: Salkind, N. J. (2010). Encyclopedia of research design (Vols. 1-0). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. doi: 10.4135/9781412961288

Ethnography

Ethnography involves the production of highly detailed accounts of how people in a social setting lead their lives.  Ethnography is a qualitative research method in which a researcher, an ethnographer, studies a particular social/cultural group with the aim to better understand it. Ethnography is both a process, one does ethnography, and a product, one writes an ethnography. In doing ethnography, an ethnographer actively participates in the group in order to gain an insider’s perspective of the group and to have experiences similar to the group members. In writing ethnography, an ethnographer creates an account of the group based on this participation, interviews with group members, and an analysis of group documents and artifacts.

Adapted from: Allen, M. (2017). The sage encyclopedia of communication research methods (Vols. 1-4). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc doi: 10.4135/9781483381411

Phenomenology

Phenomenology is a method of explaining meaning that strips out reference to abstract, historical or structural influences, and instead looks to the experiencing subjects’ direct and unmediated awareness of phenomena.

Thorpe, R., & Holt, R. (2008). The SAGE dictionary of qualitative management research (Vols. 1-0). London, : SAGE Publications Ltd doi: 10.4135/9780857020109

Types of qualitative data collection

Action research
A type of applied research to find the most effective way to bring about a desired social change or to solve a practical problem, usually in collaboration with those being researched.

Autoethnography
A form of inquiry in which researchers use their own experiences to develop understanding and insights into a culture, subculture, or life experience.  As a method it combines features of life history and ethnographic methods.

Biographical research
A range of methods, procedures and approaches for producing and interpreting stories or narratives of people's lives.

Case study research
Usually refers to the intensive study of a small number of cases, or a single case.

Documentary research
Research based solely or primarily on documentary sources as opposed to data produced by other means.

Ethnography
Involves the production of highly detailed accounts of how people in a social setting lead their lives, based on systematic and long-term observation of, and discussion with, those within the setting.

Focus groups
A form of group interview centered on a particular topic or activity and in which the interaction within the group is used to facilitate the elicitation of participants' views.

Indigenous research
Research in which indigenous people are actively engaged with the researcher in the creation of knowledge.

Internet research
The use of the internet to conduct primary or secondary research.

Narrative research
Research focused on the elicitation and interpretation of people's narrative accounts of their experience.

Observational research
Approaches to research in which the research observes research participants in some way.  The extent to which the presence of the research is apparent to those being studied can vary.

Qualitative interviewing
Interviews are conversations designed to elicit information about some relevant topic.

Unobtrusive measures
Sources of data not involving the direct elicitation of responses from research subjects.  Can be derived from sources as traces, non-participant observation, and records of people who are unaware they are being studied.

Video research
Data collection using video technologies.

Definitions are from Sage Research Methods' Methods Map.

eBooks on Qualitative Research

Videos on Qualitative Research