Announcing 'Stammering Research' - Stammering Research - UCL

Stammering Research. Vol. 1.
have accepted that it will be there forever”. Robert, by contrast, interpreted it to mean a ‘life issue’:
“Initially, I did not see my stammer as being an important issue in my life”. Talk of the “equivalence of
stimulus conditions” is seriously misleading in this discursive context. It serves merely to provide a
false impression of scientificity, and to obscure the real issues of reliability and validity.
Although there are several other critical issues that could be discussed, including transcription style
and sample size, I think enough has been said to indicate the need for a more careful consideration of
design and analysis issues in qualitative research of this nature. Having said that, thanks are due to
Rosemary Sage for opening the door to a qualitative exploration of the meaning of stammering, and for
providing glimpses into a “‘deeper’ understanding of social phenomena than numbers can provide”.
References
Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative
research: New York: Aldine Publishing CO.
Sellitz, C., Jahoda, M., Deutsch, M., & Cook, S. (1964). Research Methods in Social Relations. New
York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Sage, R. (2004). How interviews with adults who stammer inform research directions concerning what
we think about our stammer: Participants views from the Apple House Fluency Course,
Oxford. Stammering Research, 1, 271-289.
Silverman, D. (2003). Interpreting Qualitative Data. 2 nd Edition. London: Sage.
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