IRDL 2017 and Interview as a research method

Last week I went to the beautiful campus
of Loyola Marymount University for IRDL 2017. I’m glad that this wonderful
research methods training program received funding to continue for another
three years – more academic librarians will benefit from it and gain important
skills to become more competent and confident practitioner researchers. I had
great conversations with the participants this year. They were all working on
interesting projects – e.g. how ARL libraries design their fundraising page on
the library website, how students understand or misunderstand library jargon,
how students’ interpretation of research differs from faculty’s expectation and
observation of their research behavior, just to name a few. I can’t wait to
read more about these great projects in journal publications.

In the past week, I taught during the
day, and worked on other projects at night (yes, it’s a productive week for
me!). Particularly, I took full advantage of LMU library’s subscription to SAGE
Research Methods, and read a number of articles about the research method –
interview. There are different ways to use interview in gathering qualitative
data. Here’s a summary of them from the SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative
Research:

Convergent
interviewing – a technique that aims to collect, analyze, and interpret
people’s experiences, opinions, attitudes, beliefs, and knowledge that converge
around a set of interviews. It was created primarily to address issues in under-researched
areas. It permits in-depth interviewing by promoting a cyclical research
process that requires ongoing analysis as part of the overall strategy. Interviewers
engage in a constant comparative reflexive process that permits detailed rich
content and theoretical sampling as researchers seek to continuously test
emerging interpretations from early interviews in subsequent interviews.
Cognitive
interviewing – it encompasses a variety of approaches for eliciting qualitative
data on how participants interpret and respond to a wide variety of situations.
Cognitive interviewing increasingly is used in the evaluation of technology
interfaces such as websites and tools for informatics. It is used in education
to understand how students think about content and respond to test items and in
marketing to understand how to evaluate products better.
Conversational
interviewing – an approach used by research interviewers to generate verbal data
through talking about specified topics with research participants in an
informal and conversational way. Interviewers and interviewees rely on
taken-for-granted assumptions about how everyday talk occurs and how speakers
make meaning of one another’s utterances. In emphasizing features of mundane conversation,
conversational interviewers strive to facilitate a research environment in
which participants feel free to participate in extended discussions of research
topics in a less hierarchical environment than that convened in structured
interview settings.
Narrative interview
– an interview that is organized to facilitate the development of a text that can
be interpreted through narrative analysis. Narrative analysis is guided by a
theory of narrative, and these theories of narrative vary in the influence of
the reader, the text, and the intent of the author on interpretation. For this
reason, the content and structure of a narrative interview will depend both on
the theory of narrative being used in the analysis and on the research
question.
Interactive interviewing
– an interpretive practice for getting
an in-depth and intimate understanding of people’s experiences with emotionally
charged and sensitive topics such as childbirth, illness, loss, and eating
disorders. Emphasizing the communicative and joint sense-making that occurs in
interviewing, this approach involves the sharing of personal and social
experiences of both respondents and researchers, who tell (and sometimes write)
their stories in the context of a developing relationship.
The critical
incident technique (CIT) – originally, it refers to a set of procedures to
collect direct observations of human behaviors in a way that facilitates their
use in solving practical problems and developing broad psychological
principles. Over the years, it has been increasingly applied to studying psychological
states or experiences, and emphasis has shifted from direct observation by
experts to retrospective self-report in interviews.
Co-constructed
narratives – this refers to stories jointly constructed by relational partners
about epiphanies in their lives. This approach offers a way for participants to
actively construct a version of a relational event that provides insight,
understanding, and an in-depth and complex reflection on what occurred. As
such, this mode of doing research provides an alternative to traditional interviewing,
especially when the topic under consideration is emotionally charged, personal,
and sensitive.

Books about Research Methods (4)

If you are a LIS practitioner interested in learning more about qualitative research methods, G.E. Gorman and Peter Clayton’s book, “Qualitative Research for the Information Professional: A Practical Handbook” might be a good choice. It is a comprehensive manual of how to conduct qualitative research, and covers a variety of methods for qualitative data collection, analysis and reporting.

For researchers who know which specific qualitative research method to use, but aren’t sure about how to exactly go about it, this book would come in very handy. For example, we want to conduct a case study, but we don’t know the detailed procedures of using this method, reading Gorman and Clayton’s book will be quite helpful.

However, I find the book a little week on the research conception aspect. It talks little about how to identify research problems that could benefit from qualitative research. In order for people to truly understand when to use qualitative research to address a research problem, it would be helpful to provide more examples. The authors did provide a table outlining the distinctive features of qualitative research (e.g. the purpose is to contextualize, interpret and understand participant perspectives), but for each feature, it would’ve been helpful to use an existing study or two from the literature to illustrate it. Maybe for their next edition, they may consider incorporating more examples, so readers will have a more concrete idea as to how to determine whether qualitative research is appropriate for a particular research inquiry.

Overall, the book is written in a clear and concise fashion, and it’s a fast read too. I’d recommend it to people who want to know more about the technical details of using a specific qualitative method.

Determining the proper research methods (3)

In the previous two posts, we looked at how we could choose a proper research method for our study needs, specifically, the qualitative or quantitative instruments we can use to gather data. But a research study’s methodological design is more than determining the specific data collection instruments. There is a broader consideration – the overall framework of the design. This framework could be a particular type of research design or a research paradigm that provides guidance for the data collection process.

For example, we are conducting a study to evaluate the impact of a new pedagogical approach on learning outcomes, and we may consider the experimental/semi-experimental design. In our study, we have an independent variable – new pedagogical approach, and a dependent variable – learning outcomes. We can treat the independent variable as the experimental stimulus, and see what happens when it’s present/absent. Given our resources, we may further consider whether a classical experiment is possible, or we should use semi-experimental designs like the time-series design or using non-equivalent control groups. Once we are clear about the design, we can further figure out the specific data gathering methods – methods we can use to collect data that measures the two variables.

Another example – let’s say we are interested in finding out what competencies are essential for reference librarians. Survey could be an appropriate method to use – we can send out surveys to reference librarians and ask them to self-report the competencies they consider essential to their work. But what if we are hoping to generate a consensus from the study, where the list of competencies is agreed upon by the study participants? In that case, we may use the Delphi study design as the design framework to guide the data collection process – the first step is to select a panel of experts (e.g. established authors in journals like RUSQ, leaders of the profession such as the head of RUSA), and then, we administer rounds of surveys among them to reach a consensus on what competencies are essential for reference librarians.

In qualitative research, there are numerous research paradigms that we can use as the framework of methodology –case study, grounded theory, participatory action research, institutional ethnography, ethnomethodology, and naturalism. These different paradigms represent different approaches to qualitative research. There are no specific methods attached to these paradigms. The distinctions are epistemological, having to do with what data mean, regardless of how they are collected.

Now it’s time to conclude the series of posts on determining the proper research methods – from the overall design to specific data collection methods, we need to understand both our own study needs/constraints and the characteristics and affordance of each method/design in order to make the best decision.

Determining the proper research methods (2)

Once we know whether we know what type of research we will be focusing one (qualitative vs. quantitative), the next step is to figure out the specific method for data collection. For quantitative research, the frequently used methods include survey, quantitative observations, and quantitative content analysis. There are different factors to consider, but the characteristics of each method carry the most weight. For example, we are conducting a study to find out if there’s any relationship between library users’ socio-economic status and their reading behavior. The socio-economic status is defined by annual income, and the reading behavior is indicated by the number of books they check out, the genres of the books, and check-out frequency, etc. We may distribute survey to all library users and ask them to provide information on these variables, but mail survey could be costly, and online survey often gets a very low response rate. Besides, it’s always imposing when we send out survey questionnaires. So, is there any other method that could overcome these limitations and get us the same data? One alternative is quantitative content analysis. If we have access to all library users’ library records, we can anonymize them, and then look at each user’s address (where people live could be an indicator of their level of income, and therefore socio-economic status) and their borrowing record. This method is completely unobtrusive, and will give us all the information we need on the two variables in the study, and maybe more accurately than a survey would because self-reported data is not always 100% precise (there might be memory lapses, incorrect interpretation of the question, etc.)

When it comes to qualitative research, the popular methods include field observations, focus group interview, and qualitative interview. Again, it’s important that we understand the affordance of each method in order to determine which one suits our needs best. For example, a library has a new teen space and we would like to find out how teenagers are using this space. We could go to the teen space and observe what teen library users are doing there (reading books, resting on the comfy couch, meeting in groups, etc.). Being a complete observer helps us maintain our objectivity, but the detachment from the phenomenon we are studying makes it difficult to get an in-depth understanding. So, we could invite teenagers to participate in focus group interviews and talk about how they are using the space and what they think about it. Such interview will surely provide us with a more in-depth view of the use of the teen space, but guiding and moderating a focused conversation is not easy and takes a lot practice and if not done properly, it would result in biased data.

Now we know that understanding each data collection method’s characteristics (advantages, disadvantages, etc.) is the most important factor in determining which method to use in our own study. There are also other factors, such as our access to the study population (how can we sample), the demographic of our study population (if we are studying children, we need to be super careful about surveying/interviewing them), and constraints like budget (do we have the money to provide incentives) and time frame (how much time do we have to complete the study).

(to be continued)

(picture source http://alephunky.deviantart.com/art/Choose-your-heart-190249846)

Determining the proper research methods (1)

In early August, our Gateway PhD students will come to San Jose for a one-week residency, and I was asked to give a talk to them about choosing proper research methods for their studies. To prepare for this talk, I will be sorting out my thoughts on this blog, and hopefully I will find the best way to cover this complex topic in the thirty minutes I’m given.

We all know that there are two types of research – quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative research seeks to describe observations of a phenomenon in quantitative measures, and results of quantitative research are usually numerical represented. Qualitative research, on the other hand, defies quantification and it captures the nuanced details of a phenomenon that cannot be observed by quantitative methods. Which type of research to pursue has everything to do with the nature of one’s research topic and research problem.

For example, we are studying people’s attitudes toward a new library policy, and we may approach it quantitatively. We may administer a survey among library patrons. On the survey, there are five statements representing different attitudes toward the policy, and patrons are asked to select the one they most agree with. Findings of the study can be described via measures like frequency distribution, mode, or even correlational measures (e.g. the relationship between demographic variables and the statement choice). For the same topic, we may also approach it qualitatively. Instead of using the survey instrument, we gather patrons in the library conference room to conduct focus group interviews. This means of inquiry will give us an in-depth view of their attitudes toward the policy, which will be a much fuller view than what the five statements can cover.

Now we are at a dilemma – which type of research should we engage in? Well, we need to go back to our original problem – people’s attitude toward the new library policy. How do we operationally define the variable “attitude toward the policy”? We may ask questions like – has there been any research about the new policy? Do we know enough about this policy to generate an exhaustive list of attributes for the variable (e.g. a list of statements to describe every possible attitude)? Is it our goal to find out how many people have what attitudes, or do we just want to understand how exactly patrons respond to this policy?

As you can see, these questions are helping us decide whether we want to pursue this topic deductively or inductively. The deductive approach allows us to go from general to specific – that is, we have a general theory, and we want to test it out in specific cases. The inductive approach is the other way around – we go from specific to general, and we make observations of specific cases and draw conclusions from that. So, if our answers to the above questions are – yes we do know enough to general an exhaustive list of attributes for the variable “attitude” and we do want to find out how many library patrons have what kinds of attitudes, it means we are approaching the topic deductively and should engage in quantitative research. On the other hand, we may approach the topic inductively and pursue qualitative research to find out what exactly are people’s attitudes toward the library policy.

(to be continued)

Phenomenology and LIS research

Phenomenology is a philosophy that qualitative researchers use to guide their own research. There are three schools of this phenomenology:

Edetic or descriptive phenomenology, guided by the work of Husserl
Hermeneutics, also referred to as interpretive or existential phenomenology, guided by the work of Heidegger and Gadmaer
The Dutch (Utrecht) school of phenomenology, which combines descriptive and interpretive phenomenology and raws on the work of Van Manean and Others.

An article I recently read (Dowling, M. & Cooney, A. (2012). Research approaches related to phenomenology: Negotiating a complex landscape. Nurse Researcher, 20(2), 21-27.) provided a detailed explanation of the three different perspectives and research approaches, and how they should be applied by nurse researchers.

One key difference between Husserl’s descriptive phenomenology and Heidegger’s interpretive phenomenology is that Husserl believed that a phenomenon and its essence can be objectively studied, requiring researchers to bracket out their perceived reality of world, whereas Heidegger rejected the notion of bracketing, claiming that a researcher cannot separate description from his her own interpretation. This difference bears resemblance to what distinguishes positivism from interpretivism. Researchers (at least nurse researchers nowadays) are trying to find the middle ground and focus more on understanding the reality of their experiences to the person as they engage with the phenomenon rather than the more objective reality of the nature of the phenomenon itself. In other words, phenomenology is most useful when the task at hand is to understand an experience as it is understood by those who are having it.

Reading this article made me want to find out how phenomenological research is done in LIS. I did a keyword search in Library Literature & Information Science Fulltext and came up with 32 results. Some were book reviews, some were reflection pieces and some others were empirical studies. Here is the list of citations – it will be very helpful if I ever teach a course on qualitative research and need to put together a list of class readings.

Burns, C., & Bossaller, J. (2012). Communication overload: a phenomenological inquiry into academic reference librarianship. Journal Of Documentation, 68(5), 597-617.
Chen, K., & Huang, I. (2012). Library Use by Medical Students Engaging in Problem-based Learning: A Taiwanese Case Study. Libri: International Journal Of Libraries & Information Services, 62(3), 248-258.
Budd, J. (2012). Phenomenological Critical Realism: A Practical Method for LIS. Journal Of Education For Library & Information Science, 53(1), 69-80.
Klentzin, J. (2010). Collective Success: A Phenomenological Case Study of Ohio Public Libraries. Public Library Quarterly, 29(4), 293-319.
Budd, J. M., Hill, H., & Shannon, B. (2010). Inquiring into the Real: A Realist Phenomenological Approach. Library Quarterly, 80(3), 267-284.
Hultgren, F. (2013). The stranger’s tale: information seeking as an outsider activity. Journal Of Documentation, 69(2), 275-294.
Veletsianos, G., & Kimmons, R. (2013). Scholars and faculty members’ lived experiences in online social networks. Internet & Higher Education, 1643-50.
Pietras, M., & Robinson, L. (2012). Three views of the “musical work”: bibliographical control in the music domain. Library Review, 61(8/9), 551-560.
Stephens, M. (2008). The Pragmatic Biblioblogger: Examining the Motivations and Observations of Early Adopter Librarian Bloggers. Internet Reference Services Quarterly, 13(4), 311-345.
Budd, J. M. (2008). Cognitive Growth, Instruction, and Student Success. College & Research Libraries, 69(4), 319-330.
Templeton, T. (2008). Placing the Library: An Argument for the Phenomenological and Constructivist Approach to the Human Geography of the Library. Library Quarterly, 78(2), 195-209.
Julien, H., & Hoffman, C. (2008). Information Literacy Training in Canada’s Public Libraries. Library Quarterly, 78(1), 19-41.
Antell, K., & Engel, D. (2006). Conduciveness to Scholarship: The Essence of Academic Library as Place. College & Research Libraries, 67(6), 536-560.
Dalbello, M. (2005). A Phenomenological Study of an Emergent National Digital Library, Part I: Theory and Methodological Framework. Library Quarterly, 75(4), 391-420.
Brown, J., & Duke, T. (2005). Librarian and faculty collaborative instruction: A phenomenological self-study. Research Strategies, 20(3), 171-190.
Limberg, L., & Alexandersson, M. (2003). The School Library as a Space for Learning. School Libraries Worldwide, 9(1), 1-15.
Watson, J. (2001). Making sense of the stories of experience: methodology for research and teaching. Journal Of Education For Library & Information Science, 42(2), 137-148.
Horn, J. (1998). Qualitative research literature: a bibliographic essay. Library Trends, 46(4), 602-615.
Saab, D. J., & Riss, U. V. (2011). Information as ontologization. Journal Of The American Society For Information Science & Technology, 62(11), 2236-2246.