Qualitative research for the information professional: A practical handbook

Qualitative Research for the Information Professional: A Practical Handbook. G. E. Gorman and Peter Clayton. London: Facet, 2005. 282 pp. 95. 00. (ISBN: 1-85604-472-6) Published just 7 years after the first edition was released, this second edition of Qualitative Research for the Information Professional: A Practical Handbook lives up to its title; it is indeed practical. Most general texts about qualitative research are long on theory and short on specific instructions (e. g. , Denzin Lincoln Miles Lincoln or Miles invite a dozen participants—and then hope that at least six will turn up not too long after the session was supposed to commence. (p. 156) Although such advice may seem overly obvious to seasoned researchers, it can be very helpful to those who have conducted little or no research involving human subjects. As for the main topics covered, Chapter 1 explains some of the ideas that underpin the qualitative research perspective in simple, concrete terms. It includes a definition of qualitative research, describes its common characteristics, discusses the relationship of qualitative research to information work, and describes some of the differences between qualitative and quantitative research. Happily, the authors give credence to both research perspectives, advocating the use of both to compensate for inherent weaknesses in each. Chapter 2, Evaluating Qualitative Research, shows how traditional quantitative research evaluation criteria must be modified, and some criteria abandoned altogether, when evaluating qualitative work. The unusual presentation of a chapter describing evaluation near the beginning of the text, instead of nearer to the end, works nicely in an introductory text, because it serves to define qualitative research in greater detail and to separate it more clearly from its quantitative sibling. Chapter 3, Qualitative Research Design in Information Organizations, shows that unlike more traditional research approaches, qualitative inquiry is not a linear process. The authors use visual models to depict the circular, iterative qualitative research process, although they admit that research patterns vary from project to project. This chapter also introduces four qualitative research methods profiled in more depth later in the text: observation, interviewing, group discussion, and historical study. The discussion of these methods at this point is somewhat simplistic, as in saying that observation “provides useful insights into unconscious behavior” (p. 40). Observation also reveals conscious behavior, such as social behaviors that people perform as conscious choices to conform to or to flout societal expectations. It is a strange choice to separate group discussion from the broader umbrella of interviewing, considering that the group discussion category here is comprised only of focus groups and the nominal group technique. Although it can be reasonably argued that the nominal group technique falls outside the realm of interviewing, focus groups are generally thought of as one type of group interview (e. g. , Frey & Fontana, 1991), and in fact the terms focus group and group interview are often interchanged (Fontana & Frey, 1998). The next chapter, Case Studies in Information Organizations, introduces the case study as a useful form of action research and shows how a number of qualitative methods (e. g. , participant observation and various types of interviews) can be used to collect data about various aspects of an information organization. However, as the methods themselves have not yet been described in any detail, the placement of this chapter seems premature and might lead to confusion for the novice researcher. Chapters 5 and 6 focus on fieldwork, including topic selection, research problem and research question formulation, literature reviewing, study location and participant selection, and research plan formulation. Again, the placement of these chapters before the detailed discussions of the data collection methods is somewhat awkward—Chapter 6 includes a section entitled Choice of Data Collection Technique, which would mean more to a reader familiar with the techniques discussed than to the inexperienced researcher. The next four chapters finally delve into the four categories of qualitative data collection: observation, interviewing, group discussion techniques, and historical investigation. Of particular interest is the presentation of the nominal group technique (NGT), which is similar to the Delphi method but not limited to use with experts, and can be used with students or other novice user groups. Whereas the first three of these methods chapters (Observation, Interviewing, and Group Discussion Techniques) emphasize practical tips, the Historical Investigation chapter, written by Sidney J. Shep, takes more of a theoretical approach, highlighting the subjective nature of history. Shep defines history as “the representation of the past in the work of historians” (p. 163) and “the past as we know it from the interpretations of historians based on the critical study of the widest possible range of relevant sources” (p. 163). He goes on to discuss identifying and locating sources, assessing sources, interpreting data, and reporting findings. He also discusses in some depth the use of oral history in qualitative research. In a second reading of the data, usually during the detailed data analysis stage described below, you might identify new categories or decide to divide a category into two… Another step would be to write a sentence defining the category and clarifying the context when appropriate. After broad categories have been created in this initial reading you might then group them into like categories. Following these preliminary analytical steps, you begin to understand new ways of understanding the setting being investigated. (p. 209) The degree of clarity of this explanation is a strength of this book, as well as a weakness in many other similar texts. The penultimate chapter, Writing Qualitative Research Reports, draws heavily on Van Maanen's (1988) classic Tales of the Field: On Writing Ethnography. Although the writing styles and formats discussed are the ideals, the authors fail to mention that many qualitative researchers are forced to publish their work in the less-than-ideal traditional style and format of quantitative research reports, in order to place their work in venues that publish predominantly quantitative work. The final chapter presents a fabricated qualitative research report in its entirety. The text concludes with an 18-page annotated bibliography of qualitative research sources, written by Adela Clayton. It is grouped into three themes: Theoretical Contributions, Particular Methodologies and Issues, and Examples of Qualitative Research. Overall, the writing is clear and uncomplicated, and the authors occasionally interject humorous comments to sustain reader interest, for instance: “Telling an information professional how to conduct a literature review would be akin to showing a used car salesman how to wind back an odometer” (p. 72–73), and “We would term this ‘killing two birds with one stone’ if we were not, in fact, bird fanciers (we need not mention our poor aim) ” (p. 243). This work would be particularly useful as a text in a master's-level action research course or as a how-to guide for a working information professional interested in undertaking an action research project.