Remembering the 1960s Qualitative Research Design: Remembering

¶ … Remembering the 1960s

Qualitative Research Design: Remembering the 1960s

…the qualitative researcher often is the instrument, relying on his or her skills to receive information in natural contexts and uncover its meaning by descriptive, exploratory, or explanatory procedures. (Sage Pub, 2012,-Page 345)

Produce & explain a research design.

The 1960s are a truly significant decade in modern world history. During this time, there was a prevalence of open-mindedness, expression, experimentation, cultural flourishing, and cultural struggles. It was a notable decade with respect to a plethora of categories such as politics, economics, foreign policy, international relations, music, film, art, literature, and more. The 1960s are also known as a decade of in depth cultural integration, especially in countries such as the United States of America. Whatever the cause, the 1960s are known as a decade with a prevalence for activism. It was a moment in history when many groups with diverse interests around the world effectively perform grassroots organization as a means to achieve their goals or objectives.

In the 21st century, there is an analogous resurgence for camaraderie and activism. The proliferation of information technologies and the significance of media in nearly every industry shows how, if in comparison to the 2010's, there are new qualities in additions to similarities between the mindset, perspectives, and experiences in the 1960s. It is nearly always valuable to study and learn from history.

The proposed research design serves to remember the 1960s. There is moderate to exceptional potential for such research to be applied and interpreted in several ways, as is indicative of qualitative research. If the research would actually be carried out, I would want to interpret the findings towards connections between the 1960s and the 2010s; perceive clear & direct evidence of the influence of the 1960s in modern lifestyle, perspective, action, etc.; as well as perceive the differences in American culture between now and then. The focal questions for this research are: How can we perceive the influence of the 1960s the evidence in modern life? In which ways are the 1960s most similar to the 2010s? How compatible are the values of the 1960s with the values of the 2010s?

I am interested in the 1960s because it is my favorite moment in modern history for many, many reasons. I would be interested to see a number of the positive manifestations and effects from the 1960s to be repeated in the 21st century, only having learned from the mistakes of that era and integrated the lessons from those mistakes into the 21st century versions of those endeavors.

The paper serves to explain and propose a qualitative research design for remember the 1960s in the 2010s. The paper also acknowledges the viability of a research design that utilizes the qualitative approach as part of a mixed methods and/or experimental research design. In addition to outlining the specific research design, the paper will moreover support the reasoning for the research and support the choice for a qualitative approach to the research design.

The basic structure to the proposed qualitative research design as a means to remember the 1960s consists of design narrative research. There would be elements of general narrative research in combination with elements from a specific form of narrative research, design narrative research. I select these forms of research primarily because this research is a sort of historical project. It very clearly depends on the act of remembering. Narrative research and design research lends themselves quite well as methods for such a research endeavor.

In addition to the stories that appear in people's ordinary conversations, narrative researchers study stories they solicit from others: oral stories obtained through interviews and written stories through requests. The study of stories and the "storying" process is undertaken by various academic disciplines including literary criticism, history, philosophy, organizational theory, and social science. Within social science, stories are studied by anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, and educators. (Polkinghorne, 2007,-Page 1)

Stories, by the definition asserted above, are implicit to the approach and perspective of methodology in qualitative social science research. Stories and qualitative research work well together. Part of the proposed research would certainly include gathering stories from those who were present and active during the 1960s. Narrative research is an established and respected technique in a variety of fields. These qualities add validity to the selection of narrative research as part of the proposed research design. Further support regarding the complementarity of narrative research and qualitative research design can be found in the following:

The most common sources of qualitative data include interviews, observations, and documents (Patton, 2002), none of which can be "crunched" easily by statistical software. The description of people's lived experiences, events, or situations is often described as "thick" (Denzin, 1989), meaning attention is given to rich detail, meaningful social and historical contexts and experiences, and the significance of emotional content in an attempt to open up the word of whoever or whatever is being studied. The goal of qualitative data analysis is to uncover emerging themes, patterns, concepts, insights, and understandings (Patton, 2002). Qualitative studies often use an analytic framework -- a network of linked concepts and classifications -- to understand an underlying process; that is, a sequence of events or constructs and how they relate. (Sage Pub, 2012,-Page 344)

Stories and narrative research have a great deal of overlap with the fundamental materiality of qualitative research design. As this is a hypothetical research project about something that has long since happened, it will rely heavily upon people's lived experiences, events from that time, and indigenous situations of that time. Often the passage of time lends itself to researchers with respect to establishing and defining an accurate, user-friendly framework to derive other significant aspects of the qualitative approach such as patterns, insights, networks of concepts, and realization of underlying processes. Narrative research design additionally serves the research design in providing guidance and structure with respect to other core portions of the design project such as methodology, theoretical framework, data analysis, and others.

There is yet another important and prominent aspect of the 1960s that interests me and motivates the reasoning behind this study. This aspect additionally supports reasoning for the use of narrative research. The aspect I speak of is motivation. In the 1960s, people got organized and were motivated. People in large and small groups, in local movements to international movements, were motivated by their passions and their interests, whatever they were, into action, much of which was moderately to exceptionally effective.

I am interested in comparing the 60s to the current decade because we have a great deal more luxury and technology than present in the 60s, and while there is a great deal of social activism fueled in large part by digital technologies, I perceive a lack of motivation and efficacy in comparison to the overall culture of the 60s. In order to substantiate this hypothesis, observation, perception, experience, and/or feeling I have, I would undertake a research study such as the one proposed. Narrative research, as technique, would work very well with the research questions, hypotheses, and overall drive to perform such a research endeavor.

Narrative researchers undertake their inquiries to have something to say to their readers about the human condition. Their efforts are not simply for their own private consumption. The knowledge claims they produce are meant to be taken seriously by their readers. This requires that they provide sufficient justification to their readers for the claims they make. Readers should be able to follow the presented evidence and argument enough to make their own judgment as to the relative validity of the claim. (Polkinghorne, 2007,-Page 6)

I would hope that readers would take the study as seriously as the research. One intended result of the study would be to incite reflection and action within the readers as a consequence of reading the study. One of the more admirable traits of the 60s overall is the motivation by a huge variety of party, with an array of agendas and objectives with the organization, commitment, and motivation enough to put their ideas into action. I believe that is an aspect of 2010s culture that is lacking. This would be a potential hypothesis of the research design.

The other substantial aspect to the proposed research is the use of design research within the qualitative approach. Design narratives, while experimental and clearly phenomenological, are scientifically-based while retaining the flexibility, humanity, and interpretive qualities indicative of qualitative research. Design narrative research will prove to be a value tool or technique with respect to a research project with the intention of recollecting the 60s, performing a comparison upon the 60s and the 10s, and applying relevant lessons or results from the 60s into the 10s and beyond.

Qualitative research, in all of its complex designs and methods of data analysis, is guided by the philosophical assumptions of qualitative inquiry: To understand a complex phenomenon, you must consider the multiple "realities" experienced by the participants themselves -- the "insider" perspectives. Natural environments are favored for discovering how participants construct their own meaning of events or situations. The search for an objective reality, favored by quantitative researchers, is abandoned to the assumption that people construct their own personalized worlds. (Sage Pub, 2012,-Page 344)

Narrative research would clearly establish and reinforce the concept of the multiple realities of the 60s experience. Multiple realities further lends itself to fields in the hard sciences such as quantum physics, further underscoring how qualitative research, in the face of criticism related to accuracy or scientific merit, demonstrates applicability and relevance in a larger network of subjects and methods in a wide spectrum of directly related as well as indirectly related subjects.

A scientific standard demands a transparent audit trail from reliable data to conclusions, and a clear articulation of refutable claims. Where subjectivity is inevitable, it should be reported honestly. A design science stance dictates a functional (pragmatic) focus linked to a value dimension, attention to context and representation, and an awareness of the complexity of human situations. Narrative form entails a clear context description, a protagonist, a plot -- a temporally and semantically linked sequence of events -- and an implied moral. Combining these three delineates the requirements for design narratives as a scientific instrument. A design narrative is defined by a single problem to be solved or task to be accomplished. (Moy, 2011,-Page 60)

Narrative research also provides insider perspectives. Design research helps make concrete the context within which the data was current as well as the context within which the research is to be considered in the present. In this way, the research design is both scientific and social. There is the technical, almost quantitative aspect of design narrative research, as well as the very transparent human, emotion, social aspect of design narrative research. This is yet another reason for the selection of this technique as part of the proposed research design. These two methods, narrative research & design research, working in tandem are the proposed strategy for remembering the 60s. Moy explains exactly how and why this method should be included in the research design:

The main argument in favour of design narratives is that they provide a "thick description" of the design experiment, allowing critics to assess the validity of the researchers' claims, and trace them back to evidence. At the same time, design narratives provide sufficient contextual information for those who wish to conduct a similar experiment in proximal settings, be they fellow researchers or practitioners wishing to apply the research findings. Design narratives are accounts of critical events from a personal, phenomenological perspective. They focus on design in the sense of problem solving, describing a problem in the chosen domain, the actions taken to resolve it and their unfolding effects. They provide an account of the history and evolution of a design over time, including the research context, the tools and activities designed, and the results of users' interactions with these. (Moy, 2011,-Page 58)

Design narratives are a critical piece to establishing and defining the context of the data and of the study. Design narratives openly address and make the study available to issues of validity, reliability, credibility, and ethics. While this make be a difficult or challenging aspect for the researcher to face, using this approach as part of the research design would only serve to locate the faults and weakness in the research design. It serves as a kind of filter for areas where the study needs improvement as the research is undertaken -- it is an methodological algorithm that identifies and filters weakness in the research and the design as the research is happening, a kind of auto-correct as part of the research process.

Whatever conclusions made as a result of this study, I would want them to be firmly grounded, so that I have confidence to speak with relative authority. Integrating design narratives as part of the research design would provide some of that security and confidence in the analysis, conclusions, and potential for further study. Qualitative research is an approach that works well with a combination or as part of a combination of research approaches. Therefore, while the individual pieces of the research design lend themselves well to qualitative research, their combination is additionally compatible with the qualitative approach:

Qualitative research methods are not "routinized," meaning there are many different ways to think about qualitative research and the creative approaches that can be used. Good qualitative research contributes to science via a logical chain of reasoning, multiple sources of converging evidence to support an explanation, and ruling out rival hypotheses with convincing arguments and solid data. (Sage Pub, 2012,-Page 345-346)

I expect that, naturally, a great deal of the responsibility for the proposed project would be the researcher, me. Assistance from any parties would certainly be appreciated and be contributions to the project. Some of this responsibility with respect to this particular research design would be extensive writing on the part of the researcher. There is the design, proposal, the tools or content by which data will be observed, collected, and assessed. Moreover, this project would necessitate a key aspect to qualitative research: journaling.

Qualitative researchers often keep journals that describe their approaches to data analysis. Being able to retrace your thinking may contribute to the emergence of new ideas, an interpretive path not yet taken, or possibly connections between an early (discarded) idea and a newer developing theme that explains previously noted inconsistencies. A recording of ideas and decisions also enables another person to evaluate the conclusions reached based on its logical consistency. (Sage Pub, 2012,-Page 350)