SWO 654 Qualitative Research Methods
The course addresses underlying philosophical principles of qualitative inquiry, the development of answerable questions in qualitative inquiry, the link between theory and method in qualitative inquiry, issues of researcher power and researcher reflexivity, ethics, and subjectivity, and the fundamental concepts and vocabularies of qualitative research. The course will be conducted as a seminar, with ample time for in-class discussion of work-in-progress. During the semester, students will engage intensively in close reading and analytic dissection of specific examples of qualitative research to understand the strengths, weaknesses, uses, and characteristics of different qualitative approaches. Assignments will culminate in a qualitative research proposal to be submitted to the Simmons IRB for study approval. Students taking the companion qualitative data analysis class will use this approved IRB study proposal to collect data suitable for analysis in that course.