Unfolding Meanings: Some Considerations for Qualitative Interview Studies
. Inside interpretivist paradigm, the repertoire of approaches have been enlargened in the last two decades with the popularity of qualitative research practice. While this present new opportunities to craft better social science texts, it also confuses scientists especially when they are in the process of forming research designs in their early field work experience. Based on my past research experience, during and after my doctoral studies, this paper suggests a set of ideas that might clarify some basic considerations regarding descriptive studies which attempt to unfold people’s understandings through interview conversations. For this purpose, the study discusses some selected considerations regarding episthemological stance, method and textual possibilities. Informed mainly by hermeneutics, the set of ideas presented here aims at providing the readers with the qualities that leads to genuine mode of understanding, sharing with them information on how traditional concepts of “validity” and “analysis” can apply to qualitative studies, and making suggestions on the possibility of crafting richer texts for qualitative interview studies.
Unfolding Meanings: Some Considerations for Qualitative Interview Studies
Inside interpretivist paradigm, the repertoire of approaches have been enlargened in the last two decades with the popularity of qualitative research practice. While this present new opportunities to craft better social science texts, it also confuses scientists especially when they are in the process of forming research designs in their early field work experience. Based on my past research experience, during and after my doctoral studies, this paper suggests a set of ideas that might clarify some basic considerations regarding descriptive studies which attempt to unfold people’s understandings through interview conversations. For this purpose, the study discusses some selected considerations regarding episthemological stance, method and textual possibilities. Informed mainly by hermeneutics, the set of ideas presented here aims at providing the readers with the qualities that leads to genuine mode of understanding, sharing with them information on how traditional concepts of “validity” and “analysis” can apply to qualitative studies, and making suggestions on the possibility of crafting richer texts for qualitative interview studies.
___
- Aylesworth, G. E. (1991). Dialogue, text, narrative: Confronting Gadamer and Ricoeur. In H. J. Silverman (Ed.), Gadamer and hermeneutics. (pp. 63-82). New York, NY: Routledge.
- Bakhtin, M. M. (1984). Problems of Dostoevsky’s poetics. (Emerson, C., Ed. and trans.), Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press (original work published 1963).
- Barone, T. (May, 2002). Class notes from “Narrative Research” course at Arizona State University.
- Caputo, J. D. (1987). Radical hermeneutics: Repetition, deconstruction, and the hermeneutic projects. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
- Cole, M. (1996). Cultural psychology: A once and future discipline. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- Clandinin, D. J., & Connely, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
- Descombes, V. (1991). The interpretative text. In H. J. Silverman (Ed.), Gadamer and hermeneutics. (pp. 247-269). New York, NY: Routledge.
- Dewey, J. (1925). Experience and nature. Chicago: Open Court Publishing.
- Dilthey, W. (1976). The development of hermeneutics. In H. P. Richman (Ed.), W. Dilthey: Selected writings (pp. 247-260). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Originally published in W. Dilthey, Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. 5, pp. 317337, Leipzig, 1914).
- Eisner, E. W. (1997). Educating artistic vision. New York: Macmillan.
- Eisner, E. W. (1991). The enlightened eye: Qualitative inquiry and enhancement of educational practice. New York, NY: Macmillan.
- Erickson, F. (1986). Qualitative methods in research on teaching. In M. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (3rd Ed., pp. 119-161) New York, NY: Macmillan.
- Foucault, M. (1980). Power/Knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings, 197219 (Ed.) C. Gordon. New York: Pantheon.
- Gadamer, H. G. (1989). Truth and method. (2nd edition), New York, NY: Crossroad.
- Gadamer, H. G. (1975). Truth and method. New York: Seabury Press. 100 101