Qualitative research

tallaght01

Anyone got any experience of this?

I've been at a lot of lectures recently where qualitative research, as applied to medicine has been bigged up. There has been a very real bias, though, as the lecturers were sociologists, who all do exclusively qualitative research.

Instead of lecturing us on some interesting qualitative studies, they seemed to have a huge chip on their shoulders, and have been spending most of their time lecturing us about the soul-less nature of quantitative research.

Now, I'm fundamentally attracted tot he types of things they look into. But their polarisation has really stopped them from giving a good lecture series.

For example, I asked about a study I'd read, and was curious about how it could be extrapolated to bigger populations (as the sample population was about 50 people, from a very specific community, with a particular cultural context). They got a bit agitated, and told me that qualitative research isn't supposed to be extrapolated to bigger communities.

So, later on, they were giving out that public health department s don't use their qualitative data enough to inform public health decisions on any kind of large scale. So, working for a public health dept, I asked them do they now want us to extrapolate their findings to inform larger public health decisions. Seemed contradictory to me.

They literally told me they didn't know. There were two lecturers giving the talk, and they didn't even try an answer.

So, I'm left a bit clueless about all of this. I've read some qualitative stuff myself. And from what I can gather, it's usefullness lies in identifying problems in smaller communities (for example, we know a town has a HUGE HIV problem. We don't know why. So, the qualitative researchers interview people in the community who tell them that within this town, there is a perception that condoms don't work). So, the public health dept goes in and targets the population with education programmes, free condom etc etc.

So, I put this to them. Is this what qualitative research is used for? They said maybe. Sometimes.

Does anyone here do qualitative research in relation to health? I really enjoy reading qualitative studies, and I love the subject matter. But can anyone tell me what exactly it's used for in reality?

2Scoops

LOL at sociologists with a chip on their shoulder - is there any other kind? :pac:

I think your example of the town with a high prevalence of HIV is a good one. Qualitative research would lend itself best to public health by addressing a focused problem and trying to figure it out. Other than that, qualitative is sometimes seen as 'hypothesis-generating' research rather than hypothesis-testing - they do a lot of very in-depth stuff, rather than being focused on a measurable output, and might find some weird unusual thing that leads to some more hypothesis-driven quantitative research.

Neither better nor worse, just different.

Valmont

2Scoops wrote: »

LOL at sociologists with a chip on their shoulder - is there any other kind? :pac:

I think your example of the town with a high prevalence of HIV is a good one. Qualitative research would lend itself best to public health by addressing a focused problem and trying to figure it out. Other than that, qualitative is sometimes seen as 'hypothesis-generating' research rather than hypothesis-testing - they do a lot of very in-depth stuff, rather than being focused on a measurable output, and might find some weird unusual thing that leads to some more hypothesis-driven quantitative research.

Neither better nor worse, just different.

I took a qualitative research class two years ago and I agree with you here. I got the impression that qualitative can be useful for an initial exploration of an area that has not been examined or looked at in the past i.e. hypothesis generating.

hotspur

Qualitative is usually carried out in under-explored areas as exploratory research of which there are precious few at this stage of the game. The single most salient aspect of those who tend to concentrate in qualitative studies is their inability to engage in quantitative studies. If you cannot meaningfully extrapolate then the study is very exploratory in nature and of limited use.

Qualitative research is inherently interesting to read but of serious limitation regarding extrapolation most of the time. There are very few areas where genuine qualitative research is necessitated, and as a clinician and researcher with a background in medicine it is inevitable what you will be disenchanted with the attitude and methodology of sociologists.

Public health work is necessarily based on population data, if you cannot use limit focused qualitative research to inform larger population based research then it is of dubious relevance. Qualitative research is preliminary in nature, if it doesn't lend itself to testable hypotheses about population behaviour then it is not relevant research.

Nobody worth their salt would suggest that a qualitative study ought not to considered in respect of the validity of extrapolation. Public health policy depends on population relevant data, this necessitates data beyond qualitative exploratory studies in the vast majority of cases. You sound like you understand this, stick to your beliefs and understanding. Sociologists are not public health professionals in the vast majority of cases.

ulysses32

hotspur wrote: »

The single most salient aspect of those who tend to concentrate in qualitative studies is their inability to engage in quantitative studies.

Now there is a statement that could do with some research! You are extrapolating on an entire research population without any evidence, qualitative, quantitative or otherwise!

Qualitative can be very elucidating for reseaching experience, effects and "lived" knowledge.

Try this example of the veracity of quantitative research:

Irish census 2002: 46% of people in Ireland claim fluency in the Irish language.

A qualitative study of this data could be interesting in terms of veracity!

tallaght01

ulysses32 wrote: »

Now there is a statement that could do with some research! You are extrapolating on an entire research population without any evidence, qualitative, quantitative or otherwise!

But that's our lived experience of qualitative researchers :pac:

ulysses32

I think your lecturers, OP, are trying to convey the importance of the human behind the case, and the statistics, in the medical profession.

As i am sure you are well aware statistics can blind judgement and sometimes, not always, it is valuable to hear the voices behind the numbers.
Stats have their value and their place, as does the qualitative voice.

The short article below (Stephen Jay Gould) might be illuminating.

http://www.cancerguide.org/median_not_msg.html

It's great being an outlier!