Practical Guide: Qualitative Methods in Health and Educational Research
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Authors : Dr. Amol Dongre and Dr. Pradeep Deshmukh Publisher : notionpress.com Year of Publication : 2021 Edition : First Pages : 175 Price : INR 359 ISBN No. : 978-1-68509-790-5 Qualitative research is a difficult topic to understand for novice researchers. There is always dilemma that which book to refer initially to know the nuances of it. With this respect, I had the pleasure of reading the book “PRACTICAL GUIDE: QUALITATIVE METHODS IN HEALTH AND EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH” by Dr. Amol Dongre and Dr. Pradeep Deshmukh. This book is culmination of authors many years of experience from community-based projects, educational research, and untiring efforts to mainstream qualitative research. This book has been written in the form of practical guide that could be useful not only to budding researchers but also to faculties in medical colleges, nursing colleges, social sciences and universities as a base and reference material to teach undergraduate and postgraduate students and for healthcare and public health researchers to do qualitative research in the field. As stated by authors in the preface Why This Book? It throws light on the qualitative research process, the definitions of the basic terms, paradigms, approaches, methods, basic steps in the analysis, ethical issues, and reporting on the qualitative research. The book has 15 chapters spread over 175 pages. The first chapter explains the concept of worldviews or paradigms as philosophical assumptions. It describes different paradigms like post-positivism, constructivist paradigm, advocacy and participatory paradigm and lastly pragmatism.[1] The 2nd chapter titled What is qualitative research? gives practical and operational definition of qualitative research. It explains differences between qualitative and quantitative research parameter wise.[1] The 3rd chapter titled How does qualitative research begin? describes usefulness of qualitative research in program evaluation, educational research, curriculum development, consensus building. It explains mixed methods research design which are getting popular where at least one quantitative and one qualitative research method is used in a single research design. It enumerates four types of mixed methods research namely exploratory design, explanatory design, embedded design, and triangulation design.[1] The 4th chapter titled Theoretical Approaches to Qualitative Research describes two broad approaches 1) to describe or explore the situation by summarizing findings (descriptive design) and 2) to interpret situations (interpretive design). It explains the three most common approaches to interpretative design, namely ethnography, phenomenology, and grounded theory with example.[1] The 5th chapter titled Participatory Rural Appraisal explains four broad techniques of data collection namely participatory rural appraisal (PRA), interviews (group and one to one), systematic techniques, and observations. It goes on explaining social mapping, seasonal diagram, cobweb diagram, and force field analysis with simple examples so easy to understand even for beginner.[1] Chapter 6 titled Group Techniques explains the most popular data collection technique focus group discussion (FGD) with the situations where to use it, when to avoid it, steps to follow and common sources of threats and errors in focus groups. It also explains the difference between focus group discussion and group interview.[1] Chapter 7 titled One to One Interviews describes unstructured interview and semi-structured interview. It explains in detail an interview guide, steps in the conduct of interview, checklist for process and quality monitoring of interviews, critics, and challenges in interview techniques.[1] Chapter 8 titled Systematic Techniques distinguish between cultural and cognitive domain. It describes systematic techniques—free list and pile sort. It explains analysis of free lists using Smith’s salience score (SSS) with example, strengths and weaknesses of free lists. It delineates pile shot technique, assumptions while using it, steps to conduct it, data entry and analysis using multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) and cluster analysis.[1] Chapter 9 titled Nominal Group Technique and Delphi Technique, elaborates both techniques in detail for consensus building based on constructivist paradigm of knowledge building. It enumerates step by step method to conduct Delphi process. It also explains challenges in conducting nominal group technique and Delphi technique.[1] The 10th chapter titled Observations describes emergence of observations as scientific method of data collection where the researcher decides in advance events to be observed, performs the systematic observations, and ensures the ways to get valid and reliable data. It explains types of observation like direct observation and indirect observation along with Goldman’s (1958) four stances for observations namely complete participant, participant as observer, observer as participant add complete observer.[1] The chapter 11th Sample size, Sampling and Access to Sample explains the conceptual framework for sampling in qualitative research, types of sampling, sample size and how to access sample. It emphasizes the richness of data is more important than the number of interviews conducted. It explains the concept of data saturation where additional data collection will not add any new information as the endpoint for sample size.[1] The chapter 12th Transcription, Field Notes and Internet Data describes transcription as a process of reproducing the spoken words from an audiotape into the written text. Transcription is a creative activity and not just technical reproduction of what has been said. It explains levels of transcription like verbatim transcript and transcript with dialect. It emphasizes the time-consuming nature of transcription and advantages and limitations of transcription process.[1] The chapter 13th titled Data Analysis and Interpretations talks about meaning strategies in qualitative data analysis. The chapter describes content analysis as a systematic coding and categorization approach used for the exploration of textual data to determine trends and patterns of words, their structures, and relationships. It explains the second most important strategy thematic analysis as qualitative descriptive approach for identifying analyzing and reporting themes and patterns. The chapter dwells on different types of codes and coding strategies. It discusses the generalizability and transferability of findings in qualitative research. Later, the uses of software like NVivo, ATLAS.ti and HyperRESEARCH for data analysis are discussed and their limitations mentioned.[1] The 14th chapter titled Ethical Issues in Qualitative Research discusses the different types of consents, the privacy and confidentiality of the participants. It explains some commonly used ethical frameworks like consequentialist approach, principles approach, ethics of care and virtue ethics.[1] The final chapter 15 titled Reporting and Rigor in Qualitative Research deals with the checklists on how to report qualitative research. It discusses verification procedures for establishing trustworthiness in qualitative research using criteria like credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability.[1] The book ends with a list of qualitative research journals, their publications and frequency. The cost of the book is minimal. I would recommend this book for quick understanding the basics of qualitative research. The authors did their best to keep the book simple and easy to understand the concepts with the help of examples.
Author: Mohammad Ghodke
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $80
OpenAlex ID: W4416413240
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