Qualitative Research in Practice : Stories From the Field - Blogs Unpad

Qualitative research in practice
years we have seen the terms ‘practice research’ and ‘practitionerresearcher’
transcend the narrow behaviourist model of the
clinician-scientist and draw upon a broad range of both quantitative
and qualitative modes of inquiry. We do not wish to dichotomise
quantitative and qualitative methods of investigation here, as the
questions which arise in the human services require a broad repertoire
of research approaches.
Quantitative and/or qualitative methods?
Some questions are readily transformed into testable propositions
and can be investigated using quantitative methods. Sometimes
this involves a major endeavour to collect and analyse the necessary
data but it can also involve the analysis of data which can be
collected easily or which already exists. For example, hypotheses
such as ‘Clients who are rung the day prior to an appointment will
be more likely to keep the appointment’ or ‘Clients who are offered
an appointment within three days of making the appointment will
be more likely to keep the appointment’ are easy to test even in a
small human service organisation.
The client information systems and management information
systems used in human service agencies today provide an extraordinary
reservoir of quantitative data which can be analysed very
simply to answer many questions about service user characteristics,
the nature of service provision and, to some extent, the outcomes of
service. Furthermore, hypotheses about patterns of presentation to
a service in relation to different sections of the community can be
relatively easily investigated if the demographic profile of an area is
known. Thus the over- or under-representation of males or females
or people of different age groups, occupational status or ethnic
backgrounds can be identified. The reasons why this might be so
cannot be so easily investigated using quantitative methods,
however, and qualitative methods may have a place in exploring
how people define their needs and why and how they seek assistance
in certain places.
Similarly, feedback from those using services can be obtained
easily through routine client satisfaction scales which rate different
aspects of a service, but hearing how the clients have benefited
or not from a service in their own words will require more than
a standard quantitative approach. To tap both dimensions of
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