Qualitative researchers can learn from everyday practices of preparing food in the kitchen. Just we might meticulously prepare and organize ingredients before cooking a meal, researchers must thoroughly plan and envision resources needed to ensure the smooth execution of their projects. Drawing parallels between cooking and research, this blog post delves into the importance of preparing, taking time, customizing, learning from experts, practicing, thoughtfully presenting, and appreciating the beauty of the research process. These lessons, remind qualitative researchers of the need for ensuring methodological rigor and fostering deep connections with participants to produce insightful, impactful studies.
Be prepared and well organized
When cooking a dish, it is always a good idea to assemble all of the ingredients before you start, and calculate how much time you need for each phase. The same is true for qualitative researchers. You do not want to start something only to find midway through that you do not have the necessary time and resources to complete a project. If you are preparing multiple dishes at the same time (say, a three- or four-course dinner party for 6), you’ll need to carefully calculate how much time you will need to prepare, and how to ensure that all of the dishes are ready to serve at the planned time. You do not want your guests sitting around waiting for the main dish to bake while the vegetables are languishing on the table.
When planning a qualitative research project, it’s helpful to do an inventory of the resources needed before you begin. How much time, money and person-power will a project need? Creating a projected timeline for each part of a project, along with how long it will take to complete will help to ensure that you are well-prepared. If you want working on multiple projects at the same time, this complicates things further. Some scholars use GANTT charts to keep track of multiple projects. When multiple projects are displayed simultaneously, it can help you calculate how long different projects will take. Be systematic about keeping records and logging how much time it actually takes to complete various steps. It is all too easy to under-calculate the time needed to complete a task. By learning how much time tasks actually take, we can better prepare for future research.
Take time
Some dishes benefit from significant rest time. For example, those who bake sourdough bread will know this is not a quick task. Rather, it might take 1 or 2 days to feed the starter, let the mixed dough stand, and allow for a second rise before baking. Similarly, some approaches to qualitative research cannot, nor should not, be done too quickly. For example, ethnography typically takes a long time to complete. Researchers must spend sufficient time in a field getting to know participants, building trust, and understanding what is going on. Doing this kind of fieldwork too quickly risks failing to understand what transpires over an extended period. Building trust with participants and co-researchers likewise takes time, energy and effort. Finally, when analyzing data and writing up reports from studies, rather than rush to press, it is useful to leave some time to sit with the drafts of findings. Some researchers share drafts with participants to gain feedback before publishing. This will extend the time to complete a project. Although this is not required of all studies, for some studies doing this will make sense. For example, this likely will be a crucial part of participatory studies that involve community members in the design and conduct of the study.
Customize for your audience
Just as you would not serve a dish with peanuts to someone who has a peanut allergy, qualitative researchers need to customize the methods that they use for both the people involved in a project, and the audiences to whom they wish to speak. For example, working with young children would likely be better suited to observational and play-based methods in which researchers converse with children during activities. Similarly, working with people who are ill, or elderly may take additional time and modification to ensure that people are comfortable, treated with respect and have sufficient time to tell their stories. Fortunately, researchers who have worked with particular groups (e.g., children, youth, the bereaved, vulnerable communities etc.) have provided methodological accounts related to recruitment and data generation methods that supported working with specific populations. Further, when using innovative theories and methods, researchers need to be aware of their intended audiences at the completion of their studies. If theories and methods new to a disciplinary audience are being used, reports will need to include greater detail than would otherwise be necessary so readers can follow what the researcher/s did. Authors might think about writing in a pedagogical way.
Learn from the experts
My mother was an expert in the kitchen, and most of what I know about cooking I learned from her. Until her death, she would regularly share recipes. Some of these were cut from magazines, others were cryptic handwritten lists of ingredients. My mother trusted me to understand the actions entailed in how to combine these ingredient lists to produce a pleasing outcome because I had learned what to do while helping her in the kitchen.
For novice researchers, reading established scholars’ completed studies and methodological accounts can be a similarly mystifying experience. Further, in spite of norms of practice that require researchers to provide detailed accounts of their practice—some journals with established audiences who are well-rehearsed in specific areas of interests and methodological approaches require a high degree of background understanding of theories, concepts, and methods to understand reports. Take, for example, Glaser and Strauss’s (1965) explanation of how fieldworkers can trust their knowledge as they develop substantive theory:
If there is only one fieldworker involved, it is he himself who knows what he knows about what he has studied and lived through. They are his perceptions, his personal experiences, and his own hard-won analyses. The fieldworker knows that he knows, not only because he’s been there in the field and because of his careful verification of hypotheses, but because “in his bones” he feels the worth of his final analysis. (Glaser & Strauss, 1965, p. 8)
Dated language aside, how do fieldworkers come to a sense of knowing “in their bones”? How are we to understand from this account what Glaser and Strauss actually did to come to develop their theory of status passages developed in their studies in medical settings (Glaser & Strauss, 1968)?
Fortunately, the methodological literature on numerous approaches to qualitative research has significantly increased since Glaser and Strauss contributed methodological descriptions in the 1960s. There is now an immense amount of work that will help novice scholars to learn and understand how to conduct and represent research. As scholars must read, and keep reading. If you are looking for specific theoretical approaches, you will find starters HERE. Then, of course, there is no substitute for practicing alongside another researcher.
Gain expertise by practicing
Just as most home cooks have tried and failed, so do qualitative researchers. For all kinds of reasons, some projects just do not work out. First efforts might not be the best. My first attempt at making strawberry jam was a big fail. Rather than spreadable, it resembled toffee! I had to practice to make a better product.
Similarly, sometimes our first efforts as researchers are imperfect. We learn by doing and encounter obstacles, challenges and failures as we develop skills. This is no reason to quit. Rather, through extended practice, we gain knowledge and expertise and learn how to avoid errors. For example, in the recruitment phase when volunteers are not forthcoming after multiple invitations have been sent, a researcher might spend time thinking about what is going on. Questions to ask could include:
- What is the identity of the researcher in relation to the participant group? Are participants uncomfortable with sharing their experiences with someone who is not known to them?
- How is the research topic understood by participants? Is the topic sensitive?
- Who will read the findings of the study? What are the implications of participation for participants?
- What is the researcher expecting participants to do? How much time will be required of participants? Is this reasonable?
- Is there a gatekeeper who could assist the researcher to recruit participants for the study? If so, how might a researcher work with a gatekeeper to access participants?
As another example, researchers sometimes find that data generated suggests that participants’ concerns are wholly different from their own. This might point to the need for the researcher to prioritize emergent questions over those initially formulated. Whatever occurs in a project, it is useful to think of what transpires as “all data.” By analyzing the challenges, obstacles, and dead-ends, researchers might find that there are other potential research questions that they had not recognized before designing the study, or a need to revise the research design. Above all, through practice, home cooks and qualitative researchers gain expertise.
Presentation is crucial
There are numerous television shows featuring celebrity chefs who critique the work of restaurant owners and aspiring chefs. If you have seen even one episode, you’ll have observed that the presentation of a dish is a crucial part of the work. Chefs go to great lengths to ensure that along with enticing aromas and tastes a dish is visually pleasing. Similarly, when we present our work, we need to ensure that care has been taken in presenting it to others. Questions to ask here include:
- Has the manuscript been carefully edited?
- Is the argument well-informed?
- Are all of the works cited included in the reference list?
- Has the manuscript been formatted accurately according to the style guide required?
Sloppily prepared reports and manuscripts will invite readers to distrust a researcher’s processes. If researchers do not take care in how they present their findings, they are inviting readers to ask if the study has been conducted ethically and systematically.
Appreciate the beauty of the lived experience
I am constantly amazed at the wondrous things in the kitchen: the bubbling of sourdough starter, bread rising in the oven, seeds sprouting in a jar on the kitchen counter, and the marvelous alchemy of acid, oil, and herbs to create a sauce. And in appreciating the beauty and complexity of the every day, I can keep experimenting to see what else is possible within the confines of my kitchen.
Qualitative researchers teach us about the complexities of the human experience using many different theoretical and methodological approaches. What joins qualitative researchers under the Big Tent of Qualitative Inquiry, as Norman Denzin called it (2010), is the effort to understand and change the world around us for the better. May the conduct of your qualitative studies bring you understanding and pleasure, and contribute substantially to your fields of inquiry.
Kathy Roulston
References
Denzin, N. (2010). The qualitative manifesto: A call to arms. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (1965). Discovery of substantive theory: A basic strategy underlying qualitative research. American Behavioral Scientist, 8(6), 5-12. https://doi.org/10.1177/000276426500800602
Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (1968). Time for dying. Aldine Publishing Company
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