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Qualitative Methods in Relationship Research

The term qualitative methods refers to a variety of open-ended and unstructured ways of collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data. Qualitative methods are used in relationship research when scholars want to gain an in-depth understanding of how participants perceive, make meaning of, and reflect on their own lived experiences. Qualitative methods are flexible and emergent. The researcher enters the data-collection process with some degree of focus. However, as unanticipated ideas and events occur in the field or during an interview, the emergent process gives permission to follow a new lead or create a new research objective. Some of the most common methods used to generate rich descriptions and deep insights include in-depth interviews, participant observation, case study, ethnography, participatory action research, document analysis, narrative analysis, discourse analysis, autoethnography, grounded theory, reflexivity, and focus groups. This entry identifies some of the unique assumptions, practices, and contributions of qualitative methods for relationship research.

Assumptions and Features of Qualitative Methods

Qualitative methods share certain features in common despite the wide variety across disciplines the multiple kinds of qualitative methods include (a) triangulation, where several types of qualitative methods are employed to generate a storyline with multiple points of view; (b) thick description, where the researcher pays attention to every vivid detail and delves into a particular social world to richly describe relationship processes within broader cultural contexts; and (c) emergent theorizing, where a theoretical explanation of patterns in the data emerges from the process of gathering and making sense of the data.

The researcher is the primary instrument of qualitative data collection and interpretation because the researcher, to varying degrees, actively participates in and observes individual, couple, and family experiences in natural settings. Examples of naturally occurring settings include how private behaviors occur in public spaces, such as (a) conducting a participant observation study in a shopping mall to analyze how parents respond to a crying child; and (b) videotaping family dinnertime conversation to understand how beliefs about generational and gender privilege are demonstrated in verbal and nonverbal communication. Another primary mode of qualitative inquiry involves in-depth interviewing. Qualitative researchers ask open-ended interview questions such as “Tell me about a time when—” or “In what ways do you perceive—” when they want to understand how participants make sense of their lives. An example is an interview study in which a researcher asks newly divorced men how they feel about their ex-wives when they were married and now that they are divorced. An in-depth interview, in which the researcher and the participant experience face-to-face interaction, can reveal more insight than a closed-ended survey, in which the response choices are predetermined and the participant is not engaged with the researcher.

Variability in Qualitative Traditions

There are many opinions about what is considered the best type of qualitative research practice. A key factor that contributes to this variability is the historical tradition of qualitative practice in particular academic disciplines. Sociologists and anthropologists have a long tradition of employing ethnographic strategies in which a social group is studied within their naturalistic setting. Ethnographers join the participants' world and try to understand their perspective from the inside out. An insider perspective is grounded in symbolic interactionist theory, which posits that meaning is co-constructed and shaped through social interaction. The goal of an interactionist account is to construct a compelling storyline. Inter-actionism and constructionism are theoretical frameworks used to guide researchers in the search for critical insights and new explanations about what has been seen as merely common sense or as yet invisible. When constructionist paradigms are used to guide research, typically only qualitative methods are employed.

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