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Second Edition
This edition first published 2020
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Edition History
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ISBN 9781119390787 (paperback)
Cover Design: Wiley
Cover Image: © Markus Gann/Getty Images
Exercise Image: © mediaphotos/iStockphoto
Researcher’s Notepad Image: © eternalcreative/iStock/Getty Images Plus
Consider this Image: © asbe/Getty Images
Tips and Tools Image: © Kucher Serhii/Shutterstock
Following, Forgetting, Improvising Image: (a) © miss_pj/iStockphoto; (b) © Asia Images Group/Shutterstock; (c) © Anja Koppitsch/iStockphoto
I dedicate this book to my past students, research participants, mentors, and loved ones, who have taught me that anything worth doing well is worth doing badly in the beginning.
This book is an all‐inclusive treatment that leads readers through a qualitative research project including research design, data collection, analysis, theorizing, writing, and research disengagement. This book introduces relevant issues as they typically emerge in a qualitative research project. For example, consider ethics or the choice to use visuals or arts‐based research. Those new to research must first understand these issues when conceptualizing a project, and then again as they conduct research and analysis, and consider them again when they are creating an ultimate representation and leaving the field. I provide a chronological discussion of relevant issues, which makes this book especially valuable for people to review (and return to) as they journey through a project. My approach contrasts with resources where information about certain theories, methods, or topics are each siloed into their own single chapter. Readers of this book will feel confident to jump into qualitative research straight away.
One of my ongoing aims is to provide clear explanation of qualitative analysis and theorizing in commonsense terms, understandable both to newcomers and to those well versed in qualitative research. Although students have a wealth of available pedagogical resources on methodological philosophies, research design, data collection, and writing, those new to research still struggle with finding appropriate instruction of what to do in between the time they collect data and the time they craft it into a polished representation. This book provides step‐by‐step instruction along with timely examples, backstage stories, visual images, and discussion. It also clarifies how the phronetic iterative approach in this book compares with other popular analysis approaches (e.g. grounded theory). In addition, it describes seven specific types of qualitative analysis and offers a new discussion of claim‐making and theory building.
The book is designed to be accessible to advanced undergraduate students while providing enough detail, references, and illustrations to make it valuable for doctoral students and advanced scholars. Undergraduate students tend to appreciate that I share my own joys and frustrations – marked as they are by twists and turns, celebrations and disappointments – as a method to make the research process poignant, interesting, real, and occasionally humorous. Graduate students have told me that they return to this book repeatedly as they write their theses and dissertations; and faculty have said they keep it on their bookshelves for ongoing reference. And, although this book is designed primarily for an academic audience, practitioners wishing to engage in qualitative research to solve organizational and societal dilemmas will also find good advice within these pages.
This book is appropriate for a variety of disciplines and classes and can be adapted for one‐semester/quarter and to two‐semester/quarter classes. The book is useful for college courses that appear under names such as research methods, qualitative research methods, ethnography, ethnographic methods, critical research methods, interpretive research, grounded approaches to research, naturalistic inquiry, autoethnography, performance studies, narrative research methods, and field methods. Examples and illustrations reach beyond my home field of human communication to numerous other disciplines, such as health, education, management, sociology, social work, justice studies, and ethnic and gender studies.
Based upon feedback from reviewers, colleagues, and students, the second edition provides a larger variety of color images (especially picturing the analysis process) and additional qualitative exercises/activities that can be easily incorporated into class sessions. Throughout the book, additional material connects qualitative research to professional, and not just academic, atmospheres (something that may be especially appreciated by undergraduates). Furthermore, the second edition has much more material related to arts‐based research, virtual and online textual analyses, and post‐qualitative conversations.
In response to requests for greater conceptual clarity, in this edition I separated out theories that are commonly used with qualitative research (e.g. symbolic interactionism, sensemaking, structuration – which are now in Chapter 2) from qualitative methodological territories (e.g. grounded theory, phenomenology, case study – which are now in Chapter 3). Furthermore, in line with the goal that this book’s chronological order match that of a typical research project, I have switched the ordering of Chapters 4 and 5 so that IRB, ethics, and proposal writing comes before exploring the scene. Finally, I have added scores of updated examples and references.
A summary of the chapters, as well as notations about new features in this second edition, are as follows:
Along the way, I include recurring text boxes. Activities and assignments are in boxes labeled “Exercise.” Examples and narratives are called “Consider This.” Practical recommendations are listed in “Tips and Tools.” Finally, data excerpts or experiences are offered in “Researcher’s Notepad.” Some of these boxes are written in the words of other scholars and students – in which they talk about their own experiences or activities that have worked in their own qualitative classrooms. The boxes break up the text and encourage reader engagement.
Furthermore, I intermittently include sections called “Following, Forgetting, and Improvising.” Practicing any interpretive art requires tagging back and forth between rules and improvisational practice. I suggest ways in which researchers might fruitfully play with qualitative best practices, or in some cases forget them altogether. Like in all dialectics, the paradox of “following, then forgetting” qualitative best practices is not something that can be solved or resolved. There’s no easy way out; but there are better ways of navigating than others. This book can serve as a guide.
Finally, an accompanying website with teaching manual materials is available with the book. Materials include:
These materials will help those who are new to teaching qualitative research methods to be up and running in no time. For experienced instructors, they serve as a supplement and launching pad for new pedagogical options.
I am fortunate to have worked with a host of good mentors and colleagues. You’ll see me repeat some of their advice verbatim; and, where I do not, remnants and iterations of their wisdom are indelibly stamped upon these pages. I am indebted to my mentors at University of Colorado‐Boulder who, years ago, planted the seeds of the iterative phronetic approach to qualitative research represented in this book. These people include Bryan Taylor, Stanley Deetz, Karen Tracy, Margaret Eisenhart, Bob Craig, Brenda Allen, George Cheney, Sally Planalp, and Phil Tompkins. Colleagues in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University have also contributed to the development of this book. Bud Goodall was a huge supporter of the first edition, and his intellectual fingerprints remain in the second edition. I also feel thankful for the support from departmental colleagues including Elissa Adame, Jess Alberts, Dan Brouwer, Belle Edson, Amira De La Garza, Heewon Kim, Linda Lederman, Jennifer Linde, and Alaina Zanin.
Many colleagues contributed their wisdom, advice, and activities via text‐boxes and the good scholarship cited within. These include members of my Facebook family, to whom I would often pose questions or ask for resources. There are too many to name here, but the people who lent their ear and insight to me multiple times included (in no particular order): Devika Chawla, Bob Krizek, Dawn Braithwaite, Andrew Hermann, Maggie Carbone, Lorraine Kisselburgh, Lynn Harter, Dennis Mumby, Carolyn Ellis, Patricia Geist‐Martin, Debbie Dougherty, Emily Cripe, Shawna Malvini Redden, Maggie Quinlan, Sophia Town, Sarah Jones, Shiv Ganesh, Matthew Donovan, Miriam Sobre, Timothy Huffman, Natalie Nelson Marsh, Kate Harris, Art Bochner, Rikki Tremblay, Rahul Mitra, Larry Frey, Chris Poulos, Kendra Rivera, Jon Camp, Shirley Drew, Ted Zorn, Joann Keyton, Elizabeth Richard, Dayna Kloeber, Bernadette Calafell, Kurt Lindemann, Erin Willer, Jie‐Young Kong, and Alex Lyon.
Two groups of people are worthy of special thanks. First, I feel much appreciation for Mitch Allen, Kakali Bhattacharya, Norman Denzin, Sally Campbell Galman, and Johnny Saldaña. These brilliant qualitative gurus have helped me to become a stronger, more thoughtful qualitative researcher and helped make this a better book. Additionally, Emily Beach, Jessica Kamrath, and Robert Razzante have been instrumental in editing, reference checking, and developing teacher manual materials (building upon the significant work by Jennifer Scarduzio and Elizabeth Eger in the first edition). Thanks to all of you for your consistent advice, quick feedback, encouragement, inspiration, and support.
Additionally, I feel indebted to Wiley‐Blackwell team, especially Humbert Haze, Todd Green, and Elizabeth Wingett (who have sustained the support provided by Elizabeth Swayze who convinced me years ago that I could write this book to begin with). They along with their colleagues have provided support, patience, promotion, and expert copy‐editing of the project. This book is a team effort and I am eternally grateful for their help with it.
Finally, I feel appreciative of my family (Boyd, Malinda, Van, Julia, Zander and Lydia) and fur babies (Menasha and Lily) who provided encouragement, patience, and reasons to take a break. Most especially, thank you to Brad for being my cheerleader, for believing in me, and for providing much laughter, even as I spent way too many hours writing in the casita. These people made the whole book‐writing process not nearly as lonely as it would have been otherwise – which is important for a qualitative researcher who likes to spend time in the field playing with others, and not just at the keyboard tapping away. May their joy and hope infuse these pages and motivate others as much as they motivated me.