Introduction

This course is designed to introduce you to the principles and methods of qualitative research. At the beginning of this course, we will examine the place of qualitative research in the field of political science as well as the relationship between qualitative and quantitative methodology. Over the course of the semester, we will examine some of the main methods used by qualitative researchers in the social sciences such as participant observation, interviewing, archival research, and historical analysis. Our examination will consist of readings, both theoretical and applied, and hands-on assignments. This will allow us to not only analyze the comparative strengths and weaknesses of each method, but also gain experience using each approach. It is important to keep in mind, however, that research projects often draw on a number of different data sources, both qualitative and quantitative. Indeed, it is a general rule that research questions should drive the approach and data—not the other way around.

This course has several primary objectives. One goal is to familiarize you with the methodological and epistemological debates concerning qualitative research. The second is to give you a number of practical, applied tools during the course of the semester. The third objective is to allow you to practice and implement these tools. The fourth is to read and discuss work by qualitative researchers, especially focusing on the lessons they learned and the challenges they faced. The final goal is to help you understand how to move from project design, to project implementation, to data analysis and reporting.

As this is a graduate level Ph.D. course, attendance is assumed. You are required to do the assigned reading and come to class prepared to discuss the material. Because this course is a seminar, I will endeavor to speak as little as possible. You should be prepared to discuss the assigned works in depth, listen to, and respond to the remarks of your colleagues. Class participation is crucial in graduate courses and will account for a substantial part of your course grade. If you miss classes, generally do not come prepared and/or do not regularly participate, you will fail this part of the course.

A primary difference in this course versus similar courses in other fields is that you will be expected to begin using these methods during the semester. Your first experience using these methods should NOT be at the dissertation stage. Certainly no one would suggest that your first experience doing quantitative methods should be during your dissertation. Therefore, the best way to understand methods, both quantitative and qualitative, is to practice them, refine them, and discuss them.

Course Requirements & Grading

Your final course grade will be based on the following components:

Participation: 30%

Assignments: 30%

Research Paper: 40%

Seminar Participation: 30%

You are required to do the assigned reading and come to class prepared to actively discuss the material. Because this course is a seminar, I will endeavor to speak as little as possible. You should be prepared to discuss the assigned works in depth and respond to the remarks of your colleagues. I recommend coming to class with multiple questions and comments for each seminar. You should aim for 3-5 quality questions/comments each meeting. That said, there is such a thing as too much participation. Be respectful of the other seminar participants and give others a chance to join the conversation. Class participation is crucial in graduate courses and will account for a substantial part of your course grade. If you miss classes, generally do not come prepared and/or do not regularly participate, you will fail this part of the class and severely jeopardize your overall course grade.

Seminar Participation Grading Rubric
Grade	Percent	General Grading Definition
A	90-100	High participation: 3-5 quality questions and/or comments EVERY seminar. Note: regularly exceeding 5 may hurt your grade.
B	80-89	Good participation: 1-2 quality questions and/or comments EVERY seminar.
C	70-79	Average participation: 1-2 quality questions and/or comments every other seminar.
D	60-69	Below average participation: 1-2 quality questions and/or comments every three or four seminars.
F	0-59	Failing participation: Rarely if ever providing quality questions/comments.

Assignments: 30%

There will be a number of assignments throughout the semester that require you to implement and analyze various qualitative methods. Your analyses should be thoughtful, specific, and detailed. Always provide examples when making arguments and always be specific about the course readings and data that you are analyzing. Assignments will be graded and returned to you one to two weeks after they are due. Specific grading criteria are listed below for each assignment. I will average all of your individual assignment grades for your overall assignment score.

Research Paper: 40%

The course will culminate in a research paper. The paper could be an early version of a dissertation chapter or master’s thesis. It could be a “pilot” study for a larger research project. It could also be a single, stand-alone article. The paper should include a discussion of your research question, the motivation and background for that question, a brief literature review, your defense of the research methodology, a section discussing your data and results, and finally a conclusion. You will need to justify your methods using the readings from the course. Similarly, you should anticipate addressing some of the key debates and problems of qualitative research within the paper as well. We will begin this course discussing your ideas and shaping potential research questions. We will then regularly review your progress on the project throughout the semester and assist one another brainstorming on problems and challenges. Therefore, it is wise to make the assignments part of your final research paper. One week before we begin discussing the final papers, you must provide a copy of your paper to each student in the class by posting it on Blackboard. We will discuss each one in the seminar. Be prepared to give a brief presentation your paper (10-15 minutes) and also be prepared to offer feedback on the papers of your colleagues. The papers should be no less than fifteen and no more than twenty-five, double-spaced pages in length (not including your bibliography and any tables and charts you may include).

Incompletes

If you feel that you cannot complete the course requirements by the end of the semester, consider taking an incomplete. Here is the language form the graduate catalog concerning this process:

"Incompletes. When special circumstances prevent a student’s completing the requirements of a course, the instructor may, at her or his discretion, direct that the symbol I (indicating temporary incomplete) be entered in the student’s record. When the I is assigned, the instructor will file in the departmental office a statement of the work to be completed and will set a deadline for the student to fulfill this requirement. In no case may the deadline be later than the end of the next term, including the summer session as one term, after the term for which the incomplete had been assigned.

The incomplete must be removed within the following term (including summer session) whether or not the student is enrolled. If an extension in time is required to remove an I, an extension of up to one term may be granted on the recommendation of the instructor and with the approval of the office of the dean of the Graduate School. Only one such extension per course may be granted.

If the student does not submit all required work by the deadline established, the instructor may assign a grade that is consistent with the work completed and the grading standards of the course. If the instructor does not change the incomplete to a regular letter grade within the period allowed for resolution, the incomplete (I) will be converted to a permanent incomplete (IN). An IN is not counted in the computation of the grade point average. The IN symbol may not subsequently be changed to a regular letter grade on the basis of additional work submitted after the deadline for resolution of the temporary incomplete. A student wishing credit in a course for which IN has been recorded must enroll in the course again and receive a grade based upon performance in the course during this enrollment.

Incompletes in courses numbered 599 and 699 (thesis, dissertation, and analogous courses) are exempt from the above regulations. These incompletes must be removed by completing the specific work, and by receiving a grade reflecting this work, in accordance with the “Limitation of Time” indicated for each degree program. A student transferring out of a thesis or dissertation program (or other program requiring course 599 or 699) may, at the discretion of the major department, receive credit for some or all of the work already conducted under course number 599 or 699; otherwise, any transcript entry of I (incomplete) or NR in 599 and 699 will be changed to IN (permanent incomplete).

A student may not graduate with a transcript entry of I (temporary incomplete) on his or her record if the resolution of the incomplete could render the student ineligible for graduation, whether or not the course involved is part of the student’s official program of courses. "

Assignments

Assignment #1: Analyzing Interviewers

To give you an idea of what you can find out in a single interview and what professional interviewing is like in political science, I would like you to listen to and read a sampling of interviews. Please keep in mind that in any research project, you would do a selection of interviews, not just one, and would supplement them with documents, field observation, and any other data you could acquire. Still, these examples will give you a sense of the sparkle and fun of political science interviews. The following are professional interviews, but with different styles, skill levels, and difficulty posed by the situation. Please read each of the interviews assigned on the internet, and answer the relevant questions about them. While you are at each of the websites, you might want to explore them. Certainly give some attention to the purpose of the website, and hence the purpose of the interview. Most of these are only a few pages long. The interviews were chosen to represent a range of topics in political science and variety of interview situations and purposes, as well as a range of styles.

A: Recent interview with former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2005/tr20051216-12175.html

B: June 27, 1995 interview with former U.S. Supreme Court Justice (then retired) Harry A. Blackmun. Read first 20 pages or so of transcript beginning on this day, page 243:

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cocoon/blackmun-public/page.html?page=243&size=640&SERIESID=D09&FOLDERID=D0901

You can also watch the interview here: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cocoon/blackmun-public/series.html?ID=D10

C: November 15, 2001 interview with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1657368.stm

D: Interview with Eddie Thomas, Sr., Mississippi civil rights activist who walked picket line in 1972 boycott:

http://www.usm.edu/crdp/html/transcripts/manuscript-thomas_eddie.shtml

First read or listen to all of these interviews, and prepare a summary comparing the role of the interviewer in each one. Be sure to be specific and provide examples for each answer. Write at least one to two paragraph responses to each question:

1) Aggressiveness: Which interviewer was most aggressive? Which one least aggressive? How were you able to determine aggressiveness? Give examples from the interviews supporting your choices.

2) Difficulty: Which interview was the most difficult to do? What made it difficult? Be specific about how you determined this by giving examples.

3) Accommodating: Which interview prompted the best answers? To answer this, you need to look at the questions and then summarize the content of the answers, and look for a match.

4) Stonewalling: Which interviewer(s) did not get answers to the questions he or she posed? Why not? Be specific about specific interviews and provide specific evidence from the interviews you cite.

5) Interviewer Skill: Which interviewer was the most skill? What makes you think so? How are you judging skilled? Provide specific examples.

6) Follow-Up Questions: Please look for follow-up questions and mark them in your downloaded version of the interview if you can download and print them. How skillful are the follow-ups? What makes a good follow-up question? Provide specific examples.

7) Purpose and Style: To what extent does the purpose of the interview influence the style? How did you determine what the purpose was? Again, provide specific examples.

8) Prior Knowledge: How much knowledge do the interviewers demonstrate? Does knowledge make for better interviews? How can you tell?

9) Obstacles: What obstacles did the interviewers encounter in these interviews and how did they surmount them, or did they fail to surmount them? Provide specific examples.

Assignment #2: Conducting Interviews

Now try your interviewing skills. For this assignment you need to do two interviews on the same subject, preferably with the same person or with two people on the same subject, so you can learn from one interview before doing the next one. The choice of topic and subjects is up to you. However, you may not interview any faculty member in the political science department or division of public administration. KEEP THE INTERVEIWS BRIEF! Formulate questions on the topic, be sure to listen to the answers, follow up with questions of more depth. Consider whether you want to or are able to record the interview. If so, should also take notes at the same time? Write up and analyze your notes/transcript from interview one before deciding what to ask on interview two. Code, analyze, and write up the results in a brief paper, say about 3 pages. While you may briefly comment on your experiences conducting the interviews and doing the analysis, focus on what you learned from the substance of the interviews. Look for themes, categories, and typologies through coding and simple counting techniques. What tables or charts can you construct? Coded interview transcripts/notes must be included with your mini report. I will be looking for greater depth and understanding from interview two, building from interview one.

Assignment #3: Observation

OK, you are ready to start doing some observations and note taking. Find a site where you can observe some activity or interaction, hopefully, but not necessarily related to political science (the skills are the same whether the subject is political or not). You can attend a council meeting or a planning session in DeKalb, a student government meeting on campus, a county board meeting, health board meeting, judicial proceeding, or even observe where you work, particularly if it has something to do with government and politics. Pick a place early, and if you are unsure whether it is appropriate, let me know what it is, so I can be sure that you will see enough to work with. Take notes on as much of what is going on as you can. You can also tape the meeting if that is allowed (usually it is but make sure you check with the appropriate authority in advance). Fill in your notes after the meeting as best you can. Then, analyze your notes through coding and simple counting schemes. Tell me what happened, and what it means, what concepts you can derive from your notes, what themes, what research questions you might want to pursue. Turn in your observation notes, your coding notes, and your analysis. Be sure to use examples from your notes or transcript to prove the points you make in your analysis. Be prepared to discuss your observation experiences in class.

Assignment #4: Reading Texts—Conducting Archival/Documentary Research

For this assignment you need to use an archive of unpublished material or published letters or speeches, and use them as raw data to analyze. How many documents you analyze is up to you. You should code them for concepts and themes, analyze the results, and write up your analysis using excerpts and tables to prove your points. When constructing tables, be sure they are complete with titles at the top and sources used to derive the data at the bottom. Readers should be able to understand your tables without having to read the paper. Turn in your 3-5-page analysis and coding sheets. The difficulties of this kind of work often lay in selectivity biases, so you have to choose your material and themes carefully to be sure you can answer the questions you pose with some rigor. I do a lot of this kind of analysis and am always running into reviewers who are concerned about replication and falsifiability. Could another researcher replicate your study? Is it possible that the same data could lead to the opposite result? Carefully formulate rival hypotheses and show how you can eliminate them or why your conclusions are stronger or more useful than potential rival hypotheses.

There are countless possible sources, of primary material including government websites. Here are a few examples:

· The United Nations Document Center: http://www.un.org/documents/

o The United States National Archives: http://www.archives.gov/index.html

· The Manuscript Division of the United States Library of Congress, housed in the James Madison Building in Washington, D.C. has a wealth of collections. I have spent extended periods of time digging through the fragile papers of government officials in folder after folder and box after box. Yet through the miracle of technology, we can now access entire collections on-line! For example, the complete papers of James Madison—approximately 12,000 items captured in some 72,000 digital images—can be accessed at: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/madison_papers/. Other digitized collections can be found here: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/browse/ListSome.php?division=Manuscript+Division

· The National Archives of the United Kingdom: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/

· American political party platforms (1840-2004): http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/platforms.php

· The Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) and Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906): http://ecssba.rutgers.edu/index.html

Assignment #5: Conducting Historical Institutional Analysis

In this assignment you are to identify a political institution or process and conduct a brief historical institutional analysis. Instead of simply recounting the history, or facts, of the institution or process over time, your assignment is to identify the major developments or changes that occurred over time. Try to choose a small, manageable institution or process. An analysis of French foreign policy since the revolution, the U.S. Agriculture Department, or the Cuban Judiciary are all far too broad to tackle for the purposes of this assignment (though they may very well be viable dissertation topics). Instead, think small: French foreign policy toward Germany under Mitterand, U.S. Agriculture Department policy toward small and independent farmers during the Reagan years, and the Cuban Judiciary’s stance toward free speech after the collapse of the Soviet Union. One trick to identifying institutional change is to examine external forces, such as legislative developments. Similarly, internal developments such as rule changes can give rise to larger institutional transformations. Be creative in identifying causal factors. Again, think in terms of representing your analysis in table-form. Length: 3-5pp. We will discuss your analysis in class.

Required Texts

Fenno, Richard F., Watching Politicians: Essays on Participant Observation (Berkeley, CA: Institute of Governmental Studies Press, 1990).

Pierson, Paul, Politics in Time: History, Institutions, and Social Analysis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004).

Rubin, Irene, and Herbert J. Rubin, Qualitative Interviewing: The Art of Hearing Data (Sage, 1995).

Silverman, David, Interpreting Qualitative Data: Methods for Analyzing Talk, Text and Interaction, 2^nd ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2001).

Note: All other required readings for this class can be accessed in one of three ways. Most of the articles are available through the online database JSTOR. Newly released articles can be accessed though Article First, another database to which the library subscribes. All other readings have been placed on library electronic reserve: http://www.niulib.niu.edu/narnia/pols5ward/pols545.htm

Suggested Texts

Berg, Bruce, Qualitative Research for the Social Sciences (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2001).

Cook, Judith A. and Mary M. Fonow, Beyond Methodology: Feminist Scholarship As Lived Research (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1991).

Devault, Marjorie, L., Liberating Method: Feminism and Social Research (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999).

Emerson, Robert M., Rachel I. Fretz, and Linda L. Shaw, Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995).

Gerring, John, Case Study Research: Principles and Practices (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

Gerring, John and David Collier, eds., Concepts and Method: Giovanni Sartori and His Legacy (Oxford, UK: Routledge, forthcoming).

King, Gary, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).

Krueger, Richard A., Analyzing and Reporting Focus Group Results (Sage, 1997).

Kuhn, Thomas, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3^rd ed. (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996).

Morgan, David L., Focus Groups as Qualitative Research, 2^nd ed. (Sage, 1997).

Orren, Karen and Stephen Skowronek, The Search for American Political Development (Cambridge University Press, 2004).

Seidman, Irving, Interviewing As Qualitative Research: A Guide for Researchers in Education and the Social Sciences, 2^nd ed. (Teachers College Press, 1998).

Silverman, David, Doing Qualitative Research: A Practical Handbook (Sage, 1999).

Wolf, Diane L., Feminist Dilemmas in Fieldwork (Westview Press, 1996).

Note: You may also want to consult Qualitative Methods – the newsletter of the Qualitative Methods section of the American Political Science Association.

Course Calendar

Week 1. Aug. 30. No Class. Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association.

Week 2. Sep. 6. Course Introduction.

Introductions, research agendas, and questions. Course Overview.

Week 3. Sep. 13. What is Qualitative Research?

Required:

· Silverman, Interpreting Qualitative Data, Ch.1 Beginning Research, Ch.2 What is Qualitative Research, Ch.8 Credible Qualitative Research, Ch.9 Relevance and Ethics.

· Beck, Nathaniel, “Causal Process ‘Observation’: Oxymoron or Old Wine,” Paper prepared for short-course “SC1: Multi-Method Research,” annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, IL, August 29, 2007.

· Collier, David, Henry E. Brady, and Jason Seawright, “Sources of Leverage in Causal Inference,” Paper prepared for short-course “SC1: Multi-Method Research,” annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, IL, August 29, 2007.

· Northern Illinois University’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) webpage: http://www.grad.niu.edu/orc/irb_homepage.htm

Recommended:

Ø Dahl, Robert, “The Behavioral Approach to Political Science: An Epitaph for a Monument to a Successful Protest,” American Political Science Review 55 (1961): 763-72.

Ø Glaser, Barney G. and Anselm L. Strauss, Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research (Aldine de Gruyter, 1967).

Ø Almond, Gabriel A. and Stephen J. Genco, “Clouds, Clocks, and the Study of Politics,” World Politics 29 (1977): 489-522.

Ø King, Gary, Robert Keohane, and Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994).

Ø Corbin, Juliet M. and Anselm Strauss, Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory, 2^nd ed. (Sage, 1998).

Ø Becker, Howard S., Tricks of the Trade: How to Think About Your Research While You Are Writing It (Chicago: University Press of Chicago, 1998).

Ø “Symposium: Teaching Qualitative Methods,” Qualitative Methods 1 (No.1, Spring 2003):

§ Keohane, Robert, “Disciplinary Schizophrenia: Implications for Graduate Education in Political Science,” 9-12;

§ Munck, Gerardo L., “Teaching Qualitative Methodology: Rationale, State of the Art, and an Agenda,” 12-5;

§ Mahoney, James, “What Courses on Qualitative Methods Should be Offered in Political Science Graduate Programs?” 15-8;

§ Feldman, Martha and Ann Chih Lin, “Teaching Qualitative Methods: The Importance of Understanding Interpretive and Positive Epistemologies,” 18-20;

§ Waldner, David, “Teaching the Metatheoretics of Qualitative Methodology,” 20-2;

§ Saxonhouse, Arlene, “The Liabilities of Amnesia: Why a Course in the ‘History of Political Science’?” 22-4;

§ Kier, Elizabeth, “Designing a Qualitative Methods Syllabus,” 24-6;

§ Barndt, William, “Qualitative Methods Textbooks,” 26-8;

§ Yang, David D., “Qualitative Methods Syllabi,” 28-30.

Ø Collier, David and Henry E. Brady, eds., Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004).

Ø “Special Issue on Causal Complexity and Qualitative Methods,” Political Analysis 14 (No.3, Summer 2006):

§ Goertz, Gary, “Introduction to the Special Issue,” 223-6;

§ Mahoney, James and Gary Goertz, “A Tale of Two Cultures: Contrasting Quantitative and Qualitative Research,” 227- 49;

§ Bennett, Andrew and Colin Elman, “Complex Causal Relations and Case Study Methods: The Example of Path Dependence,” 250-67;

§ Braumoeller, Bear F., “Explaining Variance; Or, Stuck in a Moment We Can’t Get Out Of,” 268-90;

§ Ragin, Chares C., “Set Relations in Social Research: Evaluating Their Consistency and Coverage,” 291-310;

§ Clark, William Roberts, Michael J. Gilligan, and Matt Golder, “A Simple Multivariate Test for Asymmetric Hypotheses,” 311-31.

-- “Symposium on Rethinking Social Inquiry:

§ Rihoux, Benoit, “Two Methodological Worlds Apart? Praises and Critiques from a European Comparativist,” 332-5;

§ Schrodt, Philip A., “Beyond the Linear Frequentist Orthodoxy,” 335-9;

§ Bennett, Andrew, “Stirring the Frequentist Pot with a Dash of Bayes,” 339-44;

§ Shively, W. Phillips, “Case Selection: Insights from Rethinking Social Inquiry,” 344-7;

§ Beck, Nathaniel, “Is Causal-Process Observation an Oxymoron?” 347-52;

§ Brady, Henry E., David Collier, and Jason Seawright, “Toward a Pluralistic Vision of Methodology,” 347-52.

Questions:

o In qualitative research, is it better to use the researcher’s categories or the participant’s categories?

o Can one begin conducting research without a hypothesis?

o It has been argued that “objectivity” in social science research is “an excuse for a power relationship every bit as obscene as the power relationship that leads women to be sexually assaulted, murdered and otherwise treated as mere objects.” Is this correct?