RSCH-FPX7868 goes deep into qualitative research methodology — phenomenology, grounded theory, case study — and the analysis techniques (thematic coding) used to rigorously interpret qualitative data.
Qualitative research designs
RSCH-FPX7868 covers major qualitative traditions — phenomenology (exploring lived experience of a phenomenon), grounded theory (building theory from data), and case study (in-depth examination of a bounded case) — teaching students to select the tradition matching their research question's specific focus.
Qualitative data analysis and trustworthiness
The course covers thematic coding and analysis techniques for systematically interpreting qualitative data, and Lincoln and Guba's trustworthiness criteria (credibility, transferability, dependability, confirmability) as the qualitative parallel to quantitative validity and reliability standards.
Key topics in RSCH-FPX7868
- Phenomenology, grounded theory, and case study research traditions
- Selecting a qualitative tradition matched to the research question
- Thematic coding and qualitative data analysis techniques
- Lincoln and Guba's trustworthiness criteria: credibility, transferability, dependability, confirmability
- Sampling strategies specific to qualitative research: purposive and theoretical sampling
- Researcher reflexivity and bracketing assumptions in qualitative research
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Worked example: choosing between phenomenology and grounded theory
- Research question A: "What is the lived experience of nurses transitioning to telehealth-only roles?" — phenomenology, since the focus is on the essence of the shared experience itself
- Research question B: "What is the process by which nurses develop confidence in telehealth-only roles?" — grounded theory, since the focus is on building an explanatory theory of a process, not just describing the experience
- Lesson: Even two qualitative questions about a similar topic may require different qualitative traditions depending on whether the focus is on describing lived experience or building explanatory theory about a process
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Frequently asked questions
Phenomenology focuses on describing and understanding the essence of a lived experience shared by a group of people — what it's genuinely like to go through a specific phenomenon, from the perspective of those who experienced it. Grounded theory focuses instead on generating an explanatory theory about a process or phenomenon, built systematically from the data itself rather than tested against a pre-existing theory. RSCH-FPX7868 teaches that a research question asking "what is this experience like" points toward phenomenology, while a research question asking "what is the process by which this happens" or "what explains this pattern" points toward grounded theory — the key distinguishing factor is whether the research goal is rich description of a shared experience (phenomenology) or building a new explanatory theoretical framework about a process (grounded theory), even when both questions might superficially address a similar general topic area.
Lincoln and Guba proposed four criteria for establishing rigor in qualitative research: credibility (do the findings accurately represent participants' experiences, often established through member checking or prolonged engagement), transferability (can the findings inform understanding in similar contexts, established through rich, detailed description rather than statistical generalization), dependability (would findings be consistent if the study were repeated under similar conditions, established through a documented audit trail), and confirmability (are findings shaped by the data rather than researcher bias, established through reflexivity). RSCH-FPX7868 teaches these criteria as qualitative research's answer to the need for rigor standards, since quantitative validity and reliability concepts (which assume a single, objectively measurable reality) don't directly apply to qualitative research's different epistemological assumptions about socially constructed, individually experienced reality — these four criteria give qualitative researchers a parallel, appropriately adapted framework for demonstrating that their research findings are genuinely trustworthy and rigorously conducted.