Qualitative Research from Start to Finish

417 Pages·2015·6.15 MB·English

by  Robert K. Yin

Qualitative Research
from Start to Finish

Qualitative Research
from Start to Finish
S e c o n d e d i t i o n
Robert K. Yin
THE GUILFORD PRESS
New York London
© 2016 The Guilford Press
A Division of Guilford Publications, Inc.
370 Seventh Avenue, Suite 1200, New York, NY 10001
www.guilford.com
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written
permission from the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Last digit is print number: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Yin, Robert K.
Qualitative research from start to finish / Robert K. Yin.—Second Edition.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4625-1797-8 (pbk.)—ISBN 978-1-4625-2134-0 (hardcover)
1. Qualitative research. 2. Research—Methodology. 3. Social sciences—
Research. I. Title.
H62.Y57 2015
001.4′2—dc23
2014047826
To Karen and Andrew,
for many years of love, devotion, and tolerance,
and for being willing to entertain the possibility that
social science can be a lifelong and stimulating endeavor

Preface
This book presents a comprehensive introduction to qualitative research. Your
interest may reflect a desire to do it, to teach it, or just to learn about it. In any
of these situations, the book can help. The goal is to know how to practice
qualitative research—at a high level.
The book embraces all the major phases of qualitative research, from start-
ing a study to collecting and analyzing data to interpreting findings and draw-
ing conclusions. Each phase is illustrated with a wide array of published studies
(including some of the classics and many of the exciting contemporary ones).
The idea is to explain key concepts and procedures in the context of success-
fully implemented works, showing how previous scholars have mastered the
inevitable challenges.
The combination of a complete and detailed scope (i.e., from “start to fin-
ish”), based on a strong foundation of previously published studies, may not be
readily found elsewhere. You will gain important knowledge about qualitative
research, and you will see for yourself specific examples of how it has come of
age as part of the social science mainstream.
The Book’s Three Themes
The book has three themes: being practical, inductive, and adaptive. These
themes may sound as if they could be related to virtually any endeavor. How-
ever, they are especially well tuned to the nonformulaic nature of qualitative
research.
For example, how to analyze qualitative data continues to be one of the
most challenging tasks in doing qualitative research. As one result, some texts
vii
viii Preface
have paid increasing attention to the mechanics of coding qualitative data—but
this only represents half the job. The more difficult half comes after any coding
has been done, calling for you to know how to look for patterns, to interpret
findings, and to draw conclusions. As a result, Chapters 8 and 9 of this book
(see Reassembling, Interpreting, and Concluding) walk you through these processes
in considerable detail (the practical theme) by showing you how these tasks
were accomplished in successfully published studies (the inductive theme), while
exposing you to a variety of options (the adaptive theme). Let’s look at the three
themes a bit more closely.
A Practical Approach
As its main theme, the book presents qualitative research from a practical per-
spective. Such a view reveals insights into how qualitative research is done at the
ground level. The approach should be especially useful if in fact you are actually
wanting to conduct a qualitative study—whether it is to be self-standing, part
of a larger study, or an academic or training assignment for an undergraduate,
graduate, or continuing education course.
The practical perspective means giving explicit attention to a wide range of
procedures ranging from how to start a new qualitative research study (Chap-
ter 3) to doing fieldwork and collecting data (Chapters 5 and 6) to displaying
and composing the final results of a study (Chapters 10 and 11). Throughout,
the text contains many citations to other methodological works (not just other
qualitative studies), enabling you to delve more deeply into any given proce-
dure. For example, the discussion on collecting qualitative data gives you leads
to other specialized works for doing qualitative interviews, making field obser-
vations, examining documents and artifacts, and the like.
An Inductive Approach
Using an inductive approach, the second theme, the book presents numerous
examples of successfully completed and published qualitative studies. These
studies cover many different academic disciplines and professions, such as soci-
ology, anthropology, psychology, education, public health, social work, com-
munity development, evaluation, business, and international affairs. The exam-
ples typically take the form of either vignettes or shaded inserts, and are strewn
throughout the book. Both provide more insight into individual studies than
the standard citations commonly found elsewhere. Moreover, the materials in
the vignettes and shaded inserts come from widely available journals and books.
Their ready availability enables you to inspect these materials in greater detail,
if you wish.
By providing a concrete understanding of how qualitative research has
been done by different scholars, the numerous examples convey the breadth of
qualitative research. The topics extend over many social and everyday settings,
also covering important substantive strands in qualitative research, such as
Preface ix
studies relating to feminist issues, gender, race and ethnicity, family and work,
and social justice. As a most important characteristic, all the illustrative studies
are completed ones. As such, they should boost your confidence in being able
to finish (and publish) your own qualitative research.
Similarly, two completed studies, and how they were conducted in relation
to the material in Chapters 8, 9, and 12, are presented as Sample Studies 1 and 2
at the end of those chapters. The studies examine two topics intended to appeal
to all readers because everyone has experienced the two environments (K–12
education in one case and postsecondary administration in the other).
An Adaptive Approach
The third theme deliberately presents qualitative research in an adaptive fash-
ion. Rather than conveying such research in a dogmatic, much less ideological
manner, the book repeatedly dissects critical methodological procedures—such
as how to design or analyze qualitative research—and presents the steps in the
form of optional choices. These choices will enable you to customize your own
qualitative study.
For instance, you can create your own design, based on eight choices pre-
sented in Chapter 4. The result can be a qualitative study that will range from
the traditional way of doing qualitative research (i.e., without giving much
attention to formal design) to a more pragmatic approach that takes advantage
of one or more of the current design techniques and tools. Similarly, you have
the choice of starting fieldwork before finalizing your research questions—an
option examined in Chapter 3. You also can decide whether or not to code
your data and whether or not to use computer software to assist in analyzing
your data, as discussed in Chapters 8 and 9. If you have trouble starting a quali-
tative study in the first place, the ideas in Chapter 3 about creating a study bank
also offer insightful options.
What’s Different
about This Second Edition?
On the surface, little may seem changed: The book still has the same 12 chap-
ters, and a brief perusal of the table of contents shows that most of the major
headings and exhibits appear to be the same as before. However, beneath the
surface exist significant changes, in part based on colleagues’ feedback about
the first edition (2011) and their experiences in using it. The goal for this sec-
ond edition was to preserve the book’s original structure (presumably easing
the use of the new edition by adopters of the first edition) but to respond to
the feedback with enhancements—and hopefully make the book more useful.
The most important enhancements are signaled by the several headings
that are either new or different. First, one of the most appealing features of