Experiential activities help psychology students experience firsthand the richness and depth of meaning of qualitative data. Through these activities students grapple with pragmatic, philosophical, and ethical questions like those facing researchers in the field. These activities concern focus groups, observation, data collection, cultural sensitivity, ethnomethodology, data analysis, and ethics. In a final exercise students develop answers to the common challenges posed by skeptics of qualitative methodology. Instructors can select single exercises for broad psychology courses or use all of them, as we do, in a course dedicated to qualitative research in psychology.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
American Psychological Association. (1992). Ethical principles of psychologists (Rev. ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
2.
BanyardV. L.MillerK. E. (1998). The powerful potential of qualitative research for community psychology. American Journal of Community Psychology, 26, 485–505.
3.
DenzinN. K.LincolnY. S. (1994). Handbook of qualitative research.Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
4.
DreherM. (1994). Qualitative research methods from the reviewer's perspective. In MorseJ. (Ed.), Critical issues in qualitative research methods (pp. 281–297). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
5.
FineM. (1992). Disruptive voices: The possibilities of feminist research.Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
6.
FontesL. A. (1997). Conducting ethical cross-cultural research on family violence. In KantorG. K.JasinskiJ. L. (Eds.), Out of the darkness: Contemporary perspectives on family violence (pp. 296–312). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
7.
FontesL. A. (1998). Ethics in family violence research: Cross-cultural issues. Family Relations, 47, 53–61.
8.
GarfinkelH. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology.Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
9.
GergenK. J. (1988). Feminist critique of science and the challenge of social epistemology. In GergenM. M. (Ed.), Feminist thought and the structure of knowledge (pp. 27–48). New York: New York University Press.
10.
GottfriedH. (1996). Feminism and social change: Bridging theory and practice.Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
11.
HubbardR. (1988). Some thoughts about the masculinity of the natural sciences. In GergenM. M. (Ed.), Feminist thought and the structure of knowledge (pp. 1–15). New York: New York University Press.
12.
Keith-SpiegelP.KoocherG. P. (1998). Ethics in psychology: Professional standards and cases (2nd ed.). London: Oxford University Press.
13.
KennedyM. M. (1979). Generalizing from single case studies. Evaluation Quarterly, 3, 661–678.
14.
KirkJ.MillerM. L. (1986). Reliability and validity in qualitative research.Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
15.
KruegerR. A. (1994). Focus groups: A practical guide for applied research (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
16.
LatherP. (1986). Issues of validity in openly ideological research: Between a rock and a soft place. Interchange, 17, 63–84.
17.
LoosG. P. (1995). Foldback analysis: A method to reduce bias in behavioral health research conducted in cross-cultural settings. Qualitative Inquiry, 1, 465–479.
18.
MaguireP. (1987). Doing participatory research: A feminist approach.Amherst: Center for International Education, University of Massachusetts.
19.
MarshallC.RossmanG. B. (1989). Designing qualitative research.Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
20.
MatonK. I.HrabowskiF. A.IIIGreifG. L. (1998). Preparing the way: A qualitative study of high-achieving African American males and the role of the family. American Journal of Community Psychology, 26, 639–668.
21.
MatsumotoD. (1996). Culture and psychology.Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.
22.
OlderJ. (1979). Improving the introductory psychology course. Teaching of Psychology, 6, 75–77.
23.
PattonM. Q. (1990). Qualitative evaluation and research methods (2nd ed.). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
24.
PattonM. Q. (1996). Preface. In SussmanM. B.GilgunJ. F. (Eds.), The methods and methodologies of qualitative family research (pp. xvii–xxiii). Binghamton, NY: Haworth.
25.
PhillipsD. C. (1990). Subjectivity and objectivity: An objective inquiry. In EisnerE.PesshkinA. (Eds.), Qualitative inquiry in education (pp. 19–37). New York: Teachers College Press.
26.
PiercyF. P.NickersonV. P. (1996). Focus groups in family therapy research. In SprenkleD. H.MoonS. M. (Eds.), Research methods in family therapy (pp. 173–185). New York: Guilford.
27.
ReasonP. (1994). Participation in human inquiry.Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
28.
ReynoldsP. D. (1979). Ethical dilemmas in social science research.San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
29.
RossmanG. B.WilsonB. L. (1985). Numbers and words: Combining quantitative and qualitative methods in a single large-scale evaluation study. Evaluation Review, 9, 627–643.
