Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques

According to W. Edwards Deming, American companies require nothing less than a transformation of management style and of governmental relations with industry. In Out of the Crisis, originally published in 1982, Deming offers a theory of management based on his famous 14 Points for Management. Management's failure to plan for the future, he claims, brings about loss of market, which brings about loss of jobs. Management must be judged not only by the quarterly dividend, but by innovative plans to stay in business, protect investment, ensure future dividends, and provide more jobs through improved product and service. In simple, direct language, he explains the principles of management transformation and how to apply them.

Out of the Crisis

The general view of descriptive research as a lower level form of inquiry has influenced some researchers conducting qualitative research to claim methods they are really not using and not to claim the method they are using: namely, qualitative description. Qualitative descriptive studies have as their goal a comprehensive summary of events in the everyday terms of those events. Researchers conducting qualitative descriptive studies stay close to their data and to the surface of words and events. Qualitative descriptive designs typically are an eclectic but reasonable combination of sampling, and data collection, analysis, and re-presentation techniques. Qualitative descriptive study is the method of choice when straight descriptions of phenomena are desired.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/1098-240X%28200008%2923%3A4%3C334%3A%3AAID-NUR9%3E3.0.CO%3B2-G

Whatever happened to qualitative description

How to Do Things With Words

The present historical moment may seem a particularly inopportune time to review Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam's latest exploration of civic decline in America. After all, the outpouring of volunteerism, solidarity, patriotism, and self-sacrifice displayed by Americans in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks appears to fly in the face of Putnam's central argument: that \"social capital\" -defined as \"social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them\" (p. 19)'has declined to dangerously low levels in America over the last three decades. However, Putnam is not fazed in the least by the recent effusion of solidarity. Quite the contrary, he sees in it the potential to \"reverse what has been a 30to 40-year steady decline in most measures of connectedness or community.\"' As an example of how the current \"war on terrorism\" could generate a durable civic renewal, Putnam points to the burst in civic practices that occurred during and after World War II, which he says \"permanently marked\" the generation that lived through it and had a \"terrific effect on American public life over the last half-century.\" 3 If Americans can follow this example and channel their current civic

Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community

detailed stories from the interviewee. Yvonna Lincoln and Egon Guba elaborate on the ethical considerations of interviewing, and likewise state that the interviewer/interviewee relationship should be built on mutual respect and equality. Turning Points in Qualitative Research also addresses forms of research presentation, including a discussion of writing techniques and the use of poetry, but largely emphasizing experimental attempts to break away from the written word as the sole product of ethnography. Several authors in the collection discuss the use of ethnodrama, the live performance of personal, oral narratives for both academic and nonacademic audiences. These pieces argue that ethnographic performances are particularly well-suited to the goals of giving voice to and empowering marginalized groups. While the book highlights some of the most important philosophical and epistemological debates among qualitative researchers, the collection also has some weaknesses. The organization of the book is somewhat unbalanced. It contains numerous essays discussing the presentation of qualitative research, including four essays that address ethnodrama specifically. By contrast, few of the pieces focus on the dilemmas that researchers face during the data collection stage of research. Those sources that do discuss data-gathering methods emphasize the use of interviews, but neglect other popular techniques, such as focus groups or media content analysis. In addition, while the collection includes some of the best known statements on qualitative methods, it also includes more obscure essays and poems for reasons that are unclear. Other pieces, because they are brief excerpts from longer texts, require more contextualization to be fully appreciated. These problems stem from the main shortcoming of the book, which is that the editors do not offer enough discussion of the individual pieces to tie them together and illustrate how they influence the field of qualitative methodology as a whole. In the Introduction and the Prefaces to each section, the essays are identified as representing “knots in a handkerchief,” meaning that they are areas of dispute and contention. However, the editors allow the “knot” metaphor to stand in for an analysis and synthesis of these pieces. I hoped Lincoln and Denzin would address what these essays have done to the practice of social research and why they included them in this important collection. As a reader, I expected these issues to be discussed in the final part of the collection, “The Future of Ethnography and Qualitative Research.” Instead, this section consists mainly of poetry and essays on ethnodrama without elaborating on how these experimental forms of presentation might influence those of us who produce more traditional presentations of qualitative research. Of course, individual readers will ultimately consider the implications of these pieces. Some readers, for example, will likely see the shift away from positivism as an improvement, while others will see it as a weakening of the sociological discipline. Having these fine articles in one place allows readers to consider these changes. The book would therefore be an excellent text for a graduate seminar on qualitative methodology where the class could discuss the implications of each of the essays and reflect on how to apply them to current research.

Qualitative Methods and Health Policy Research

ture purport to tell health care professionals how to practice medicine. Because clinical practice guidelines shift the knowledge base in the health care field through standardization, they remain controversial within and outside medicine. In this paper, we evaluate the predictive accuracy offour medical professionalization theories-functionalism, Freidson ' theory of professional dominance, deprofessionalization theory, and the theory of countervailing powersto account for (1) the shift from pathophysiology to epidemiology with guidelines, (2) the creation ofpractice guidelines, and (3) the effects of clinical practice guidelines on the autonomy of health professionals. In light of the mixed predictive record ofprofessionalization theories, we conclude with a need for "evidence-based sociology " and a recalibration of basic premises underlying professionalization theories.

and the Reconfiguration of Medical Knowledge

While genomic medicine is becoming an important part of patient care with an ever‐increasing diagnostic yield, communicating variants of uncertain clinical significance (VUSs) remains a major challenge. We draw on qualitative analysis of semi‐structured interviews conducted in 2020 with 20 Israeli healthcare professionals and stakeholders involved in communicating the results of genome‐wide sequencing to patients. Respondents described four main strategies of communicating VUSs to patients: preparing the patient pre‐test for uncertainty; adapting the level of detail to the patient's needs; upgrading versus downgrading the VUS; and following up on the possible reclassification of VUSs. These strategies were expressed differently by physicians and genetic counselors, varying according to their specialty and perception of the patient's situation. We discuss the strategic management and communication of uncertain genomic test results with patients in the context of meeting patients' expectations and working toward genetic causality through genomic narration and designation.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1002/jgc4.1560

Stefan Timmermans

Papers

Qualitative Methods and Health Policy Research

and the Reconfiguration of Medical Knowledge

Views of Israeli healthcare professionals regarding communication of genetic variants of uncertain significance to patients

The social utility of clinical exome sequencing.

The Fifty-One Percent Rule of Suicide