Teaching Qualitative Research for Human Services Students: A Three-Phase Model

Abstract

Qualitative research is an inherent part of the human services profession, since it emphasizes the great and multifaceted complexity characterizing human experience and the sociocultural context in which humans act. In the department of human services at Emek Yezreel College, Israel, we have developed a three-phase model to ensure a relatively intense exposure to and practice in qualitative methodology. While in the first phase students are exposed to the qualitative thinking and writing, they are required in the second phase to take a Qualitative Research Methods course that includes practice. The third and final phase includes conducting a qualitative research seminar. The aim of the present article is to shed light on the dilemmas involved in implementing the three-phase model.

A Study of Babylon University's TEFL Postgraduate Candidates and Teaching Staff's Perspectives on Qualitative and Quantitative Methods: Problems, Challenges and Prospective

“…Qualitative research, as Goussinsky et al ( 2011) stated, shapes one's perspective by showing the complexity of human experience and the social framework in which humans function. For effective qualitative research, students must comprehend and implement the ideas and procedures (Goussinsky et al, 2011). Qualitative approach is crucial in Applied Linguistics and other diverse academic fields.…”

Preliminary Material

“…In fact, a comprehensive synthesis of the extant literature from 1999 to 2013, confirms "there is a lack of a research-based approach to teaching qualitative methods" (Wagner et al, 2019). As a result, qualitative research pedagogy remains varied and idiosyncratic (Belcher & Hirvela, 2005;Goussinsky et al, 2011).…”

A Mixed Research Synthesis of Literature on Teaching Qualitative Research Methods

“…The aim of the present article is to provide a systematic review of the literature on teaching qualitative research methods that is both more current and comprehensive than the previous studies. Goussinsky, Reshef, Yanay-Ventura, and Yassour-Borochowitz (2011) maintained that "teaching qualitative research methods is an extremely complex task" (p. 127), which they attributed to a history of dominance of quantitative methods in research methods pedagogy. (This dominance may also underlie students' conceptions of research; Kawulich, Garner, & Wagner, 2009.) Often learning about qualitative research is a new experience for students, one that they may not initially be comfortable with (Belcher & Hirvela, 2005) because they tend to compare it with their earlier training in quantitative methods (Cooper, Fleischer, & Cotton, 2012).…”

“…Thus, students have to make a paradigm shift, as qualitative methods require a different understanding of the purpose of research. Although Konecki (2009) considered that "[t]he methods and knowledge about teaching of qualitative research [are] developing very rapidly now" (p. 64), some authors maintained that there was as yet insufficient theoretical guidance for teaching qualitative research methods (Goussinsky et al, 2011;Onwuegbuzie et al, 2012). Authors from certain disciplines, such as psychology (Forrester & Koutsopoulou, 2008) and social work (Drisko, 2008), also noted the lack of consensus on the structure and content of the curriculum of qualitative methods courses.…”