Course 3201: Qualitative Research Methods in Human Development and Applied Psychology

I. Introduction (Read Creswell, Chapter 1)

  • Psychology and the challenge of meaning and context
  • Science as an enterprise and community
  • Theory: description and explanation
  • False opposition of qualitative and quantitative methods
  • Multi-method research: Triangulation

 II. Historical and Philosophy of Science Foundations

  •  Normal science concepts, the law of large numbers
  • Measurement, probability, the method of difference, control, variables/characters
  • Laws, theories, propositions, concepts, induction-deduction, causality, explanation

 III. Research Design (Creswell, 2)  / The majory research strategies (Creswell, 3 & 4)

  •  Life History
  • Phenomenology
  • Grounded Theory
  • Ethnography
  • Case Study

 IV. Conceptual and practical underpinnings (Creswell, 5)

V. Going into the field (Creswell, 6)

  •  Rapport
  • Diplomacy
  • Threat
  • The interview
  • Participant observation

 VI. Data Collection (the easier part) (Creswell, 7)

  • Notes and tapes
  • Documents: Personal and Official
  • Imaging-still, video, digital
  • Sound
  • Computer assistance

 VII. Data Analysis (the harder part) (Creswell, 8)

  •  Utilization strategies
  • Follow through
  • Communication and giving voice
  • Advocacy
  • Theory and theorizing

 VIII. Writing and reporting (audience) (Creswell, 9)

  •  Evaluation Research
  • Policy Research
  • Action Research
  • Heuristic Research
  • Applied and Academic Research

 IX. Reliability and validity (Creswell, 10)

 X. Conclusion & consolidation (Creswell, 11)

  •  Theory, Research, and Professional Practice