RSCH7868 is the qualitative counterpart to RSCH7864, completing the research-methods triad that begins with RSCH7860's broad survey. Where RSCH7864 develops competency with numerical data and statistical inference, RSCH7868 develops competency with the non-numerical data — interviews, observations, documents, narratives — that qualitative research generates and the distinctive analytical approaches those data require.
Essential concepts and methods of qualitative research
What the course covers
- Qualitative research approaches: Students study multiple qualitative traditions — phenomenology, grounded theory, case study, ethnography, narrative inquiry — learning each approach's distinctive logic, appropriate applications, and limitations rather than treating "qualitative research" as a single undifferentiated category
- Sampling and participant recruitment: Qualitative sampling strategies (purposive, snowball, theoretical, criterion-based) differ fundamentally from the probability sampling logic quantitative research uses; students learn why sample size in qualitative work is driven by data saturation rather than statistical power calculations
- Data collection strategies: In-depth interviewing, focus groups, participant observation, document analysis, and other qualitative data-collection methods, with attention to the skills each method requires (including the interviewing, rapport-building, and reflexive self-awareness skills that distinguish effective qualitative data collection from routine questioning)
- Analysis strategies: Thematic analysis, coding (open, axial, selective), constant comparative analysis, and other systematic approaches to drawing rigorous, defensible conclusions from qualitative data — countering the misconception that qualitative analysis is simply "reading and summarizing"
Ethical considerations for vulnerable and diverse populations
RSCH7868 gives particular attention to the ethical dimensions of qualitative research with vulnerable and diverse populations — a focus that reflects how qualitative methods' depth of engagement with individual participants creates ethical obligations beyond those addressed in standard IRB training. When a researcher conducts a two-hour in-depth interview about a participant's lived experience of trauma, incarceration, immigration, or illness, the ethical considerations around informed consent, confidentiality, potential for re-traumatization, power dynamics, and cultural sensitivity become far more complex than those governing an anonymous quantitative survey.
Strategies to protect human subjects
Beyond general ethical principles, the course addresses specific, practical strategies for protecting human subjects in qualitative research contexts: managing dual relationships when studying communities to which the researcher belongs, maintaining participant anonymity when detailed qualitative descriptions risk identification even without names, handling unexpected disclosures during interviews (particularly disclosures of ongoing harm or illegal activity), and managing the researcher's own emotional response to participants' accounts — a genuine occupational consideration in qualitative research with vulnerable populations that is rarely discussed in quantitative-methods training.
RSCH7868 assignments include qualitative research proposals, interview protocol designs, coding exercises, and ethical review analyses
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Frequently asked questions
Qualitative and quantitative research represent genuinely different paradigmatic traditions with different philosophical assumptions, different standards of rigor, different data-collection methods, different analytical procedures, and different criteria for evaluating the quality and trustworthiness of findings. Trying to teach both adequately in a single course would either shortchange one tradition (usually qualitative, which gets compressed into "the alternative to quantitative" rather than studied as a rich methodological family in its own right) or require such superficial treatment of both that students emerge competent in neither. Qualitative research skills — conducting a good interview, building rapport with participants, writing observational field notes, coding data systematically, reaching data saturation, maintaining reflexive awareness of one's own assumptions and biases throughout the research process — are genuinely different skills from the statistical reasoning and computational skills RSCH7864 develops, and they require dedicated instructional time and practice to develop. The ethical dimensions alone — the complex considerations involved in deep, sustained engagement with vulnerable participants' lived experiences — require more nuanced treatment than a few weeks within a broader methods course could provide. Capella's three-course structure (survey, then quantitative, then qualitative) ensures every doctoral student develops meaningful competency in both traditions rather than deep competency in one and superficial exposure to the other.