Week 3: Qualitative research

Inductive reasoning. Experience. Context. Relativism. Paradigm. Bias. Descriptive. 

These are all words associated with Qualitative research. As a math major in college, I quickly became aware of the inductive and deductive types of reasoning reasoning. We used deductive reasoning. I don't know if I was taught this (but if not, it was definitely inferred), but I went through my whole undergraduate experience believing that inductive reasoning was a much weaker form of reasoning with no real use. I also was very aware of relativism, realism, quantitative research and qualitative research. I was an avid believer in realism, and thought quantitative research was the only way to go.

This week I've learned some things that have changed my outlook on qualitative research. In this video I share some different types and characteristics of qualitative research, as well as how it has it has helped change my perspective. 
NOTE: The first 2 minutes I must have had my microphone covered, because you can't hear me. But here are the basics I talked about during those two minutes:
  • Ontology: what your belief of reality is. There are two kinds--relativism and realism. Relativism believes that reality/truth is based on the situation and realism believes there is one truth and that things are black and white. Basically I just talked about how I believe in both or even a mixture of the two based on the situation--which is interesting, because even my belief of that shows a relativism outlook.
  • Epistemology: Essentially the approach you take to your research based on your ontological beliefs. The two approaches are etic (realism) and emic (relativism).


References: 
Ontology, Epistemology, Methodology, and Methods in Research Simplified. 

R. C. Bogdan & S. K. Biklen. Qualitative Research for Education: An Introduction to Theories and      Methods. pp. 1-48

S. B. Merriam. Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Implementation. pp. 21-38

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