Am I a qualitative researcher?
In 2012, I met with two academics who would become my PhD supervisors the following year. I told them that I wanted to conduct research into women’s experiences of a condition called endometriosis. I wanted to know what clinicians could do to support women in the absence of effective treatment and a cure. They suggested I incorporate a qualitative component into my associated funding application. This made me nervous.
I had just spent four years studying psychology, a
discipline that can, shall we say, be desperately positivist. This education
had taught me that ‘real’ research involved numbers. Why else had I just studied
four years of statistics (a subject that I loved) and nothing else?
Despite these ingrained beliefs, I could see how speaking
with women was consistent with my research questions. It also made sense from a
feminist perspective that women were the experts in this matter and should be
privileged over the psychometrics (mostly designed by men, for men) that I had
originally envisioned. I felt better.
Throughout the first year of my PhD, as I became more
immersed in the literature and further refined my research questions, it became
increasingly clear that my methodology should be qualitative only. This made me
nervous again. Could you even get a PhD with ‘only’ qualitative research? (Yes!)
My school had no qualitative course at the time—few
universities in Australia do. My primary supervisor trained me in the
methodology from the ground up. She had me learn, understand, and appreciate the
theoretical foundations before I dared to even draft an interview schedule. And
I’m so glad she did.
This apprenticeship gave me a unique skill set that has
proven valuable again and again throughout my (early) research career. I can
grow a qualitative research project from the seed of an idea nurtured by rich theoretical
underpinnings to a fruitful project that produces ‘real world’ change. So valuable
is this skill set that every job I have received since starting and then
completing my PhD, from research assistant to research fellow, has been because
of this skill set.
Even so, I still find myself unpacking views about qualitative
research that I have unconsciously internalised from the world of academia.
That interviews with a few people can never be as valuable as a survey with
thousands, for example. Sometimes, to my embarrassment, I find myself getting prickly
when someone calls me a ‘qualitative researcher.’ I’m often quick to tell them
that I’m also skilled and experienced at quantitative methods.
Qualitative research is often seen as ‘fluffy’ research, not
‘real’ research, or that thing you sometimes do before the ‘real’ research
begins (e.g. to inform the development of survey questions). It is constantly
placed at the bottom of the research evidence hierarchy.
I strongly believe that such beliefs are at least partially
explained by the feminisation of the methodology. In many countries, there are prominent
socially constructed beliefs that boys/men are naturally good at numbers
(quantitative) and girls/women are naturally good at talking about feelings
(qualitative). Further, because qualitative research is often used to explore
the experiences of women and marginalised groups—populations that quantitative
research has rarely been designed with and for—the methodology is belittled
along with the practitioners.
Recently my partner, an educational designer, developed and is executing his
first qualitative study. We have had a lot of discussions about the ways he
could do this while privileging the participant voice, ensuring rigor (quality of
the research process), and meeting reporting objectives for his team. In having
these discussions, I was reminded of what a complex and sophisticated methodology
this really is. There are few ‘step by step’ processes to follow. Each project
is unique and must be developed with critical and reflective thought.
I still get a little thrill every time I analyse a data set
and search the output on SPSS to find the ‘answer.’ But it is nothing to the
thrill of interviewing participants. Of being given the honour of a glimpse of
their lives at challenging times when they have broken and when they have
grown. Of being trusted to do something respectful and meaningful with it. Of
thinking about the complex social structures that have potentially influenced
or shaped those experiences for better or worse, and how to apply these to
improve experiences, lives, and outcomes.
Academia has a lot of problems. Underpaid staff with little
to no job security, a lack of diverse gender and cultural representation in
research and teaching, and performance measures relying heavily on publications
that result in little ‘real world’ change, to name but a few. But I love being
a researcher. I can’t think of any other career where I can combine so many
fabulous and thought-provoking skills and experiences. I feel immensely
grateful to be here and hope that I can stay for a whole career, an
increasingly difficult feat.
So, am I a qualitative researcher? Or a researcher who uses qualitative methods (among others)? I’m not sure. I just know that I am a researcher who loves to hear the stories people gift me in the hopes of making the world a little better, and who feels immensely privileged to be doing so.
Kate x
Image via Pexels.