Qualitative Research Trainer, Guide, Consultant
Written on January 23, 2012 at 10:30 pm, by Susan Eliot
If you’re a doctoral candidate struggling to define your qualitative study, a faculty member who needs help implementing the qualitative component of a newly awarded grant, or a large public agency interested in using qualitative methods to design programs or policies, then you must meet Dr. Asher Beckwitt!
Dr. Beckwitt is a qualitative research consultant and the CEO of Asher Consulting, LLC. She created the company in 2005 to empower students, scholars, and professionals to conduct excellent qualitative research. She helps researchers at any stage in the process, from conceptualizing the topic, to using qualitative data analysis software, to writing up the findings. She provides live and recorded online webinars on a variety of qualitative topics as well as a number of customized services. She’s truly a researcher’s research consultant.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Beckwitt recently to see what I could learn from her. Here are excerpts from our conversation:
Eliot: I’m curious about how you developed an expertise for working specifically with students and faculty. How did you get started?
Category Qualitative approach, Qualitative research, Qualitative research proposals | Tags: qualitative research,qualitative research proposal writing,qualitative research workshops
Five Factors Associated With Deep Listening
Written on November 22, 2011 at 1:34 pm, by Susan Eliot
Most parents understand the difference between surface-level and deep listening all too well. Listening for details about what exactly their teenager will be doing, and with whom, are just as important as hearing their teen’s promise to be home no later than midnight. When they can take the time to do it, parents know that deep or advanced listening can have real payoffs. The same is true for qualitative researchers.
Most of the listening we do as we go about our everyday lives does not require a high level of skill. We interpret the words and gestures of coworkers and family members quickly and automatically with little conscious awareness on our part. Most of the time this surface-level listening is all we need to interact effectively.
If, however, we are conducting focus groups or interviews with individuals we have never met and from whom we want to obtain meaningful data, we need more advanced listening skills. Advanced listening is different from ordinary listening in that it involves in-depth processing of the messages we receive. It’s a cognitively demanding activity that requires a mindful, systematic scrutiny of the message and its source.
So what does it take to engage in, or learn to engage in, advanced listening?
Category Focus Groups, Interviews, Listening, Uncategorized | Tags: active listening
Telephone Focus Groups
Written on October 25, 2011 at 6:44 pm, by Susan Eliot
“Scheduling” has to be one of the most common and least loved of all activities in today’s society. Whether it’s setting a business meeting with ten managers or figuring out who will pick your son up from soccer practice, arranging for multiple people to be in the right place at the right time can be a daily headache.
Organizing an in-person focus group is no different. In fact, there may be times when it is nearly impossible to bring participants together in person. But there is another option: telephone focus groups. The same principles used in face-to-face groups, combined with conference call technology, can be just the solution.
As a general rule of thumb, focus groups are best conducted in person. But when that’s not possible, telephone groups are a great alternative for the following situations:
- Geography: Telephone focus groups are ideal when participants are dispersed over a wide geographic area.
- Convenience: People with busy schedules can attend a telephone group at any time of day from the convenience of their offices or homes.
- Inclusion: Telephone groups make it possible for those who are disabled or lack transportation to participate in the conversation.
- Skilled facilitator: A highly skilled focus group facilitator can be enlisted from virtually anywhere when one is not available locally.
- Limited budget: Telephone focus groups are more economical than face-to face groups since costs such as meeting rooms, food, baby-sitter, travel, etc. are not incurred.
Category Focus Groups, Focus group guidelines | Tags: focus groups,need to know about focus groups,Recording focus groups
Great Student Stories: Part Two
Written on September 23, 2011 at 12:01 pm, by Susan Eliot
In my last blog, I described the power of stories to help organizations and programs measure outcomes. To assist the AmeriCorps Student Assistance Program in the Forest Grove school district round out their evaluation plan, I developed a story methodology to capture a missing voice in the program’s evaluation process: the students they serve.
In that post, I promised to share a story I wrote using the methodology and story framework I developed. So here’s the story. It’s about Carlos (not his real name), a 4th grade student who struggles with math and sitting still. The story is based on true facts and written from the perspective of the AmeriCorps member who worked with Carlos last school year. Each of the 20 AmeriCorps members serving the Forest Grove school district this upcoming year will be composing three stories like this using the methodology I developed.
Background
Carlos is a 4th grade student who joined our after-school club (which focuses on homework and enrichment projects) at the beginning of the year. From the very first after-school meeting, I noticed that Carlos had an extremely difficult time holding his body still for even a few seconds. He was often disruptive during instruction time, and more interested in talking to neighbors than completing either his homework or projects.
Category Nonprofit programs, Program evaluation, Stories, Uncategorized | Tags: hearing data,Nonprofits,Stories
Great Student Stories
Written on September 13, 2011 at 12:40 pm, by Susan Eliot
Stories open up our world—they make us laugh, they make us cry, and sometimes they even give us new insights about others and ourselves. Stories are part of every culture and help us make sense of the world.
As I wrote in a previous post, stories can also help programs and organizations make sense of their worlds. When collected with rigor, information gathered through stories can be used to influence policies, develop programs, and measure effectiveness. Sometimes stories are the best way to gather this information.
I recently turned theory into practice with a method I developed for collecting evaluation stories from elementary and middle school students. My goal was to help the AmeriCorps Partnership for Student Achievement program in the Forest Grove school district find a practical evaluation method for measuring student outcomes.
Best Outcomes Hardest to Capture
Category Qualitative approach, Stories, Uncategorized | Tags: Stories
Making Your Qualitative Data Trustworthy
Written on August 18, 2011 at 9:39 am, by Susan Eliot
From small nonprofits to large corporations, virtually every organization collects both qualitative—what people say and feel about things—data and quantitative—costs, productivity, surveys—data to set policy, measure progress, and effect change. Unfortunately, many CEO’s, program designers, and policy makers put more stock in the quantitative data they gather than the qualitative data. To them, hard numbers are the only true indicators of where things really stand and they wonder how interviews and focus groups could ever produce findings with the same level of trustworthiness, objectivity, and usefulness.
Actually, when designed and executed with as much rigor, qualitative data is just as defensible as quantitative data. It is simply that the methods for making it so are very different. Because qualitative inquiry can look as natural as any informal conversation between inquisitive and interesting people, an outside observer may not understand the underpinnings that structure the conversation and give it credibility. Instead of using a “p value” to convey trustworthiness, qualitative approaches incorporate strategies like saturation, member checks, and information rich sampling to ensure sound and credible findings.
Granted, there are many opportunities to inadvertently interject our biases, opinions, and habits into qualitative processes—the questions we ask, the way we ask the questions, how we select study participants, the way we analyze the data, etc.—but the trick is to convey our awareness of those potential pitfalls and explicitly describe the steps we’ve taken to proactively address them. In this essential aspect, qualitative research is no different than quantitative research.
Listed below are five basic measures that will help you avoid common pitfalls and increase the trustworthiness of your qualitative data. Use these to describe how you designed the study, collected the data, and generated your conclusions, and your findings are much more likely be taken seriously.
Category Data trustworthiness, Focus Groups, Interviews, Qualitative Sampling, Qualitative approach | Tags: focus groups,interviewing,qualitative research
10 Suggestions for Skillful Listening
Written on August 3, 2011 at 8:43 pm, by Susan Eliot
Bill Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, and Alan Greenspan are some of the highest paid public speakers in the United States. Toastmaster clubs groom thousands of aspiring thespians each year. And virtually every college requires at least one speech class to earn a diploma. But, when was the last time you heard of someone receiving an award or earning a degree for good listening? Granted, good speaking skills are critical for success in all aspects of life—but they’re only half of the communication equation.
Because I listen for a living, I get many opportunities to hone my skill. But, until recently, most of what I knew I learned through trial and error. Then I discovered the International Listening Association (ILA), an agency whose mission is to “promote the study, development, and teaching of listening and the practice of effective listening skills and techniques.” It opened a whole new level of learning for me.
The ILA publishes the International Journal of Listening, and their website contains a variety of resources from listening assessments to bibliographies, books, and interesting listening facts. For example, did you know that the average person talks at a rate of about 125 – 175 words per minute, while we listen at a rate of up to 450 words per minute?
But one of my favorite ILA resources, a welcome gift I received for joining the organization, is a gem of a book called Right Listening by Mark Brady, PhD. Right Listening is chock full of insights and recommendations on becoming a better listener.
Category Interviews, Listening, Oral Histories, Stories | Tags: active listening,hearing data,Listening,oral history
Focus Group Webinar
Written on July 27, 2011 at 6:59 pm, by Susan Eliot
Focus groups are an excellent strategy for collecting in-depth, meaningful information. But, as many of us know, it takes a certain level of expertise to conduct focus groups with the rigor needed to produce robust, useful, credible information.
On Tuesday, August 23, at 2:00pm Eastern Time (U.S.), I will present a 90 minute webinar called “The Fundamentals of Conducting Focus Groups.”
In the webinar I will discuss when to use a focus group, how to design good questions, how to recruit and screen participants, how many participants and groups are needed, what to look for in a facilitator, what type of incentives to provide, how to analyze findings, and how to structure the report. Participants will also receive samples of a question guide, recruitment flyer, participant tracking form, scheduling matrix, consent form, data analysis sheet, and focus group reports. A 15-page do-it-yourself guide to conducting focus groups is also included.
This course is designed for those with minimum knowledge about conducting focus groups. Please pass this information on to anyone who you feel may benefit from the course.
The webinar is sponsored by GrantStation, an online funding resource for organizations seeking grants throughout the world. The cost is $89 per person or $150 per group. Read more
Category Focus Groups, Program evaluation, Uncategorized | Tags: focus groups,need to know about focus groups,Recording focus groups,survey or focus group
Using Excel for Qualitative Data Analysis
Written on July 19, 2011 at 12:48 pm, by Susan Eliot
Other researchers tell me I should patent my method for analyzing qualitative data. It’s simple to set up, easy to use, and allows one to manage a moderate amount of data (up to 10 focus groups) in one file. With a basic working knowledge of Excel, you can do it too.
I’ve been using an Excel spreadsheet to organize focus group and interview data for analysis for several years. It’s a nice compromise between the manual “cut-and-paste” method and commercial software like Atlas or NUD*IST.
To be clear, no system—Atlas, NUD*IST, or Excel—can analyze the data for you, no matter how expensive or sophisticated it is. It takes a human brain to do that. But, unless you’re conducting a large, multiple investigator research study that produces a ton of data, Excel does a fine job of organizing nonnumerical data for analysis.
Last fall I presented a 90-minute training on using Excel to organize qualitative data for analysis at the Oregon Professional Evaluators Network annual conference. This blog includes the highlights of that presentation and links to my PowerPoint slides and handout.
Category Qualitative Analysis, Qualitative research, Uncategorized | Tags: analyzing qualitative data,Coding,qualitative research proposal writing
Qualitative Advice for a PhD Student
Written on June 20, 2011 at 2:47 pm, by Susan Eliot
One of the best things about writing this blog is the people I hear from.
Last month I received an inquiry from Manana Alhasen Ahmed Mohamed regarding the qualitative methods he was planning to use for his dissertation. Manana is a PhD student from Libya who is currently enrolled at Newcastle University in the UK. Once he gets his degree he plans to go back to his country to “teach at the university and hopefully work as a researcher for the educational ministry.”
Manana and I exchanged several emails over the course of a few weeks. I asked him if he would allow me to share our correspondence and he agreed.
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