Situating Qualitative Methods in Psychological Science by Brian Schiff

Author:Brian Schiff
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

Using Qualitative Methods to Develop a Mathematical Model: Adjustment to Graduate School

Arnond Sakworawich became interested in mathematical modeling and the perplexing problem of how one develops a mathematical model of psychological processes. He found historical cases in which such models were developed using pure logic and mathematics, whereas two psychologists who used empirical data where awarded the Nobel Prize (in Economics), Herbart Simon (1977) and Daniel Kahneman (2003). Both psychologists based their models on first and second person descriptions of cognitive processes, problem solving, and wagering, respectively, but neither reported how they derived models from qualitative data. Arnond used recently established qualitative methods to construct an ecologically valid, person-centered, mathematical model that would faithfully reflect students’ adjustment to graduate school (Sakworawich, 2011). He collected 14 narrative descriptions and conducted follow-up interviews with students at various points in their graduate work. Using a creative combination of phenomenological (Giorgi, 2009; Wertz, 2010) and grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) methods of analysis, he developed a conceptualization of the essential psychological structure and categorical variables in adjustment to graduate school. His hierarchical model of motivation, with three levels of abstraction, featured the discrepancy between present unhappiness and future goal satisfaction, including mediating variables and the context of graduate school. He used the grounded theory analytic technique of axial coding to convert mid-level general motivations into variables whose quantitative relations would represent the process of achieving happiness. Constrained and guided by the phenomenological procedure of grasping invariance through imaginative free variation, he created a mathematical equation comprehensively representing adjustment. By modeling adjustment as “happiness” (the reduction of frustration, alienation, and suffering by bringing educational achievement into line with their future goals), this model articulated variables including situational efficacy, social support, and mental toughness in terms of their meaning, value, and purpose for the student. This model specified the ways in which students can employ agency to freely transform unhappiness into happiness by clarifying ambiguities, forming new meanings, reframing interpretations, changing their values and priorities, and altering interpersonal relations and work habits to reduce the discrepancy between their actual and desired state of affairs. The mathematical model was intended for uses in graduate orientation, program evaluation, counseling, faculty-training workshops, and the development of interventions in educational institutions.

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The rise of mixed methods research, as a new scientific standard, requires understanding the goals, limits, uses, and interrelations of qualitative and quantitative methods in psychological science. Qualitative research, independent of quantitative questions and concerns, is a necessary fundament of scientific knowledge. Empirical quantification requires qualitative knowledge as a basis of measurement and in the interpretation of numerical findings. Psychology is overcoming its problematic naiveté about qualitative research methods and methodology by clarifying the distinct yet interrelated goals of qualitative and quantitative knowledge. Detailed examination of psychological studies conducted before the term mixed methods

emerged offer insight into how methods can be integrated. Our understanding of the fundamental importance and autonomy of qualitative methods and knowledge is changing our conception of science and our understanding of research methodology. Researchers, educators,

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