Article summary of What are epistemological bases for qualitative research? (Chapter 2) by Willig - Chapter

In this chapter, the range of epistemological positions that qualitative researchers can take are described. The relationships between different epistemological positions are also discussed. Lastly, it is discussed how researchers can identify their own assumptions. For example, a researcher can ask him- or herself the following questions to find out where he or she stands:

1. What kind of knowledge do I aim to create?
2. What are the assumptions that I make about the (material/social/psychological) world which I study?
3. How do I conceptualize the role of the researcher in the research process? What is the relationship between myself and the knowledge I want to generate?

What are different types of knowledge?

In qualitative research, three types of knowledge can be created: realist knowledge, phenomenological knowledge, and social constructionist knowledge.

Realist approach

When a researcher tries to create knowledge that reflects the truth as much as possible, in other words, that reflects something exactly as it is happening in the world, that is called a realist approach. Realists assume that things exist independently of the researcher or any other human’s knowledge about it. This can include social or psychological processes. For example, a realist may be interested in what happens when a new member joins an established group, or a study of the way in which people who lost their parents at an early age approach intimate relationships. In sum, a realist assumes that social/psychological processes exist and can be identified. These processes are ‘real’, which means that they exist, even when the participants are not aware of it. Further, the researchers can be able to identify and describe the processes. Realist-like research is characterized by a discovery orientation: the role of the researcher is like that of a detective who uses his or her skills, knowledge, and experience to find out what is really going on. There is also a difference between ‘naïve’ and ‘critical’. Naïve realist approaches believe that there is a uncomplicated and direct relationship between what is observable (data) and what is really going on (reality). For example, if a naïve realist studies how people feel about taking an HIV test, they would interview individuals and accept their stories. The term ‘naïve’ sounds bad, but naïve realism does have a significant value to the field! She suggests calling this approach ‘direct realism’. A critical realist approach differs from a naïve approach in that it does not assume that data reflects the reality directly. Instead, the data needs to be interpreted before one can understand it. For instance, if one tries to find out why people smoke cigarettes, it is not enough to just simply ask them. It is important to dig deeper, for example to look at forces that drive smoking (peer pressure, social learning, addiction). This means that the participants are not aware of what drives their behaviour, but the researcher can identify it.

Phenomenological approach

In a phenomenological approach the goal is to produce knowledge about the subjective experience of the research participants. A phenomenological researcher tries to capture something that exists in the real world (the participants’ feelings, thoughts, and perceptions), but does not make any claims about what causes these concepts. It is more concerned with the quality of the experience (so: what is it like to experience something). It is not about discovering what causes social and psychological events. It also does not matter whether a participant describes something in an objective way (this and that happened), instead it is about how the participant experienced it. Researchers in this approach could study what individuals experience when they are going through a divorce. When a participant states that he or she “feels rejected by the whole world”, this constitutes phenomenological knowledge, irrespective of whether it is true or not. The role of a researcher within this context resembles a person-centered counsellor who listens empathically, with an attitude of unconditional, positive regard and without criticizing the participant. These researchers thus assume that there is more than one ‘world’, because similar events can be experienced in a variety of ways. Phenomenological approaches range from descriptive to interpretative. Descriptive phenomenology is concerned with capturing experience ‘precisely as it is’. Thus, a researcher does not edit the data or attribute different meanings to it. Interpretative phenomenology stays as close to the data as possible, but it also tries to understand the meaning of an account (a story) and reflects upon it within its wider (social, cultural, psychological) contexts.

Social constructionist approach

Researchers can also be interested in how people talk about the world and their experiences. This means that the researcher is interested with social construction of ‘knowledge’ itself and with how people construct versions of reality with language. The goal is thus to understand the process by which knowledge is constructed. Social constructionists often study ‘discourses’, for example they might analyze the language used in policy documents to find out how ‘antisocial behaviour’ is constructed in these documents. This approach is also often described as ‘relativist’, but not all researchers in this approach would describe themselves as relativists. There are also radical or less radical strands of social constructionism. The radical version is about the way in which speakers in specific social contexts use discourse to achieve an objective. It is not about the experience of the participant. The discourse that a participant uses is assumed to be driven by their goals. Researchers in this approach often use tape-recordings, for example of first therapy sessions. In sum, the point of social constructionist research is to identify localized, context-specific discursive productions (describing the self as ‘weak’, ‘strong’, ‘normal’, ‘deserving’), and tries to find out what the goal of these productions is. Then, the radical constructionist is only interested in the reality constructed for specific purposes (the first therapy session). More moderate social constructionists are more interested in making connections between the discursive construction of a reality and a wider context. For example, they could first try to identify the discursive strategies of clients in psychotherapy and then take a closer look at ‘therapy culture’, for example by watching TV shows about it. The researcher can try to explore how the dominant discourses about psychotherapy (on TV) drive people and with what consequences.

Methodological pluralism

It is also possible to combine different qualitative methodologies, which is called ‘methodological pluralism’. For example, a researcher tries to study what happens when someone is diagnosed with a terminal illness. First, he or she could collect first-person accounts and conduct a thematic analysis with the goal of better understanding what happens. This is called a realist approach, which assumes that the accounts of the patients reflect what actually happened to them. Then, to find out what it is like for an individual to receive a terminal diagnosis and what it means to them, he or she adopts a phenomenological stance. This means that he or she may generate a set of themes which capture a range of different subjective meanings. Then, the researcher may find out that many accounts include terms as ‘responsibility’ and might try to study that further. Then he or she adopts a social constructionist approach and can look to find discursive data. Findings can be presented in two ways: one can attempt to integrate the results from the various cycles, presenting a narrative. Alternatively, they can present the different readings next to each other, without trying to make a coherent narrative. To pursue a pluralistic approach, one needs to understand the epistemological basis of all qualitative methods.

How can one use the right approach?

In sum, every qualitative research is informed by a research question, which is based on assumptions about the world and people. These assumptions are called ‘ontological’. Every research question also makes assumptions about knowledge (what and how), which are called ‘epistemological assumptions’. There are three approaches to knowledge generation (realist, phenomenological, and social constructionist, and a combination, a pluralistic approach).

To find the right approach, you first need to formulate a research question. This question needs to be specific enough and it needs to identify what the researcher wants to find out. Then, after identifying a research question, the researcher needs to identify their epistemological orientation and think about the advantages and disadvantages of this. Then, think about methods of data collection and analysis.