A Qualitative Approach to Understanding the Nature of Culture, Coursework Example

Ethnography represents a qualitative approach to understanding the nature of culture and how it impacts individuals and groups in different ways to support their beliefs and patterns of language. In this context, it is important to evaluate how this type of research method is effective in supporting the research question and objective to understand how a culture might respond to a specific problem or concern in one way or another (Polit & Beck, 2012). This method also demonstrates a number of limitations that impact the data analysis portion, such as potential bias and other issues that impact outcomes.

Grounded theory is another concept that requires further analysis and consideration because it may impact how to understand and apply a given theory to a group of people in order to identify specific patterns that may positively impact the results, using flexibility and creativity in this process (Cho & Lee, 2014). This practice is essential because it has an impact on how to understand a given culture or group of people, but it also impacts the manner in which a given theory is applied and how this impacts outcomes for the study (Cho & Lee, 2014).

The concept of a mixed methods approach is used to evaluate both qualitative and quantitative data in the same study, and is used to understand and identify with research questions of greater complexity (Kettles, Creswell, & Zhang, 2011). A method known as triangulation is also used in some contexts to evaluate a given phenomenon, using complementary data in a complex fashion in order to identify criteria that may be used to evaluate the effect of the phenomenon in greater detail (Polit & Beck, 2012). This process is likely to provide a greater understanding of the phenomena and how it impacts the overall direction of the research study and the relevance of the data to the questions that have been identified by the researcher in an effort to make viable decisions regarding the focus of the study (Bekhet & Zauszniewski, 2012).

References

Bekhet, A. K., & Zauszniewski, J. A. (2012). Methodological triangulation: an approach to understanding data. Nurse researcher, 20(2), 40-43.
Cho, J. Y., & Lee, E. H. (2014). Reducing confusion about grounded theory and qualitative content analysis: similarities and differences. The Qualitative Report, 19(32), 1-20

Kettles, A. M., Creswell, J. W., & Zhang, W. (2011). Mixed methods research in mental health nursing. Journal of psychiatric and mental health nursing,18(6), 535-542.

Polit, D. F., & Beck, C. T. (2012). Nursing research: Generating and assessing evidence for nursing practice (9th ed.).Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins