Methods Despite or Without Content? Reflections on Teaching Qualitative Research

Abstract

There is no shortage of scholarship focusing on qualitative pedagogy. However, very little has been written about the tension in the classroom between teaching methods and the content instructors use to do so. The relationship between methods and content is critical to the success of any class. In this paper, we discuss the pedagogical choices of two professors and the consequences, both good and ill, of such choices. Each takes a different approach. We examine the follow-through of each choice practically and theoretically. We discuss the dichotomy of “methodologies despite content” vs. “methodologies without content” and the implications of each in teaching qualitative inquiry.

Introduction

Within the field of Qualitative Inquiry, much work has been oriented toward the theoretical perspectives that inform both the practice and definition of inquiry (c.f. Denzin & Giardina, 2015; Denzin & Lincoln, 2017; Flick, 2022). While certainly important, these perspectives often become content to be examined within qualitative research courses and are less frequently made to intersect with those theories and practices that inform pedagogical practice. That is, the theoretical frameworks that inform our research all too often remain external to the teaching of qualitative inquiry in the classroom.

In this paper, we seek to bring together theoretical assumptions of inquiry (what it is, its aims and formations, etc.) with those of teaching practice (how to teach inquiry, towards which effects, etc.). We ground our analyses within the seemingly mundane circumstance of a graduate-level Introduction to Qualitative Inquiry course. On the one hand, Elizabeth Pope (Author 1) has chosen to generate content for the class (that is, giving the class a topic for research), which we refer to as “methodologies despite content.” In this scenario, Elizabeth stresses students learn the tools in the methodological toolbox they must be able to apply despite the topic of a research study. On the other, Aaron Kuntz (Author 2) asks students to select their own areas of inquiry to be examined throughout the class (allowing content to be individualized), which we refer to as “methodologies without content.” Here, Aaron requires students generate their own research topics and begins the course without such content. Though seemingly innocuous, such a choice manifests a series of effects with theoretical and material implications.

As a gloss, predetermining an overarching topic for the class (as Elizabeth does) offers a constant and consistent area of content to which individualized methods might be applied in nuanced ways. Conversely, asking students to generate individualized topics (as Aaron does) perhaps asks that inquiry methods remain constant, though applied to an idiosyncratic array of contexts. In the former scenario, the topic for inquiry remains constant, while in the latter it generates in the particular.

Throughout our paper, we juxtapose these two approaches, considering how they play out in two different graduate courses in Qualitative Inquiry. We utilize such mundane choices as entry points into the consequences of pedagogical practice (for good or for ill). In this way, we align pedagogical choice with theoretical assumption and seek to learn from the friction developed when the one intersects with the other.

A Brief Review of Qualitative Pedagogy in Scholarship

There is an abundance of scholarship on teaching qualitative research in higher education within diverse contexts and a variety of fields. As examples, published works offer teachers of qualitative research advice on best practice (Swaminathan & Mulvihill, 2018; Wagner et al., 2019) often specifically within online learning environments (Bender & Hill, 2016; Phillips et al., 2021), narratives with pedagogical guidance on qualitative inquiry from experienced researchers (Castell et al., 2022; Roulston et al., 2018; Ulmer et al., 2019), and encouragement for instructors to expand their pedagogical thinking outside of the “typical” to encourage diverse ways of thinking in both themselves and their students (Beuving & DeVries, 2020; Guyotte & Kuntz, 2018; Roulston & Bhattacharya, 2018). There also exists robust literature involving the theorizing of qualitative inquiry as a series of practices and processes extending from philosophical assumptions and values (Freeman, 2017; Jackson & Mazzei, 2012; Preissle & deMarrais, 2015). This literature emphasizes an overlapping connection between the “doing” of inquiry and larger-ordered epistemological and ontological claims. Through this paper, we aim to bring such literature into productive dialogue, with a focus on how seemingly mundane pedagogical choices link to (and reveal) larger-ordered philosophical assumptions about knowing and doing with material consequences that extend from (but are not bound to) the classroom.

Our Inquiry

In what follows, we examine the implications of two pedagogical approaches to teaching Introduction to Qualitative Research courses. Each course is designed differently and informed by different theoretical assumptions (about good/practical teaching of inquiry and what inquiry can/should do). These assumptions align with larger ethical concerns for what students should learn/know, be able to “do” after completing the class, and the pragmatic concerns of teaching such courses within select contexts (of institutions, field, and colleague expectations, for example).

Methodologies Despite Content

Qualitative research courses follow designs specific to the needs of the institution. Elizabeth works at a teaching college located in the Southeastern U.S. At this institution, Elizabeth teaches a single qualitative research course to graduate students pursuing an education doctorate in an entirely online program. Doctoral students taking this class come from two different degree programs in the College of Education, school improvement and professional counseling. Their learning goals are to engage with differences between qualitative and quantitative research, common theoretical perspectives framing qualitative inquiry, a select few qualitative data collection methods (interview, observation, and documents), thematic analysis, and the practice of writing qualitative findings. This fast-paced course is the sole methods course that takes an “in-depth” look at qualitative research before students begin designing their dissertation. Such a comprehensive presentation of qualitative research is not abnormal in programs with less of a research focus. However, compounding the challenges of designing such a robust course is that the course is taught asynchronously, with the only synchronous meetings being voluntary for students to attend. Quite a bit of information is covered in the course, yet much more of what is needed for students to deeply understand the richness and nuance of qualitative research must be left out.

Elizabeth takes the former approach to teaching qualitative inquiry—that of “methods despite content.” This is partly due to the fact that while taking her course, many students have yet to determine a topic or methodology for their dissertations. An additional reason comes from the focus of the programs in which she teaches. Elizabeth teaches in Ed.D. programs training scholar-practitioners. Students are focused on learning the tools and techniques they will need to conduct qualitative research. She must disrupt quantitative ways of thinking about research by introducing new theoretical paradigms and frameworks that must be used to build a foundation of how to think about research before students can focus on fortifying the structure of how to do research. Thus, they must learn to think qualitatively. She encourages students to reframe their understandings of what rigorous and high-quality research is within a qualitative mindset rather than attempting to evaluate or do qualitative research from a quantitative standpoint. Her students often express difficulties with qualitative modes of inquiry early in the course.

Elizabeth facilitates the course through the structure of assignments which form the data set for a mock study designed specifically for the course. She chose the topical content (complete with research questions, data generation methods, and a data analysis method) through which students learn methods. Students examine the experiences of scholar-practitioners in training (Herbert, 2010), as that is what each student is, in a project modeled after the methodology of a duoethnography (Bhattacharya, personal comunication, November 2020; Sawyer & Norris, 2012). Elizabeth's assumption is that this topic is one with which each student can connect and, at the same time, one that encourages students to practice reflexivity as a continual process necessary for all qualitative researchers (Pope & Shelton, 2023). Each student in the course holds the dual role of researcher and participant for another student in the course, which gives them experience with both identities involved in a qualitative research project. She created a comprehensive document for students describing the study in detail. It includes an overview description of the project, an explanation of the methodology and the concept of scholar-practitioner, assignment instructions and rubrics, and examples. Each assignment explained below illustrates how students engage with the practices of qualitative research taught through a pedagogical lens which emphasizes the reflexive impact and theoretical foundation of the task rather than the specific research topic.

Students begin by examining their subjectivities concerning the concept of scholar-practitioner in a virtual, video-recorded subjectivity statement. For many students in Elizabeth’s classes, this is their first experience with reflexive practice in connection with research. Many students in her courses have experience with quantitative research projects (or merely quantitative data) during which they have been trained to “remove” themselves from the research. Interestingly, some students have noted that they have also been taught to “leave themselves at the door” in their professional practice. This assignment teaches students the integral role reflexivity plays in qualitative research, what it means to be the instrument in research, and begins the reflexive process in which they will engage throughout the entire course. Each assignment after this has a reflexive component during which students analyze themselves as scholar-practitioners regarding how they are learning and how they may later utilize course materials and qualitative methods. Elizabeth stresses that qualitative researchers strive to interrogate their role in all stages of their research to determine how the affordances and limitations of their own perspectives and experiences should be accounted for. For many students, this is one of the most difficult assignments in the course.

Following this assignment, students examine theory. They create a methodological paradigm, or theoretical framework, based on the work of Lincoln et al. (2018). In this assignment, students choose a paradigm (either positivism, post-positivism, constructivism, critical theory et al., or participatory) that “resonates” with them, then create an audio-recorded slide show presentation reviewing the philosophical orientations of ontology, epistemology, and methodology within. They next reflexively examine how such orientations may influence their approach to research and practice as a scholar-practitioner in training. Students are expected to apply this paradigm to the way they generate data for the subsequent assignments.

In the Peer Interview assignment, students conduct a 30–45 minute semi-structured interview with their assigned participant, a classmate. Elizabeth assigns these participants at the start of the course. She intentionally matches students with peers in different programs so they may uncover connections with and divergences from their participant that span programmatic borders. Thus, students interview a peer and are interviewed by a peer. Before completing the interview, students listen to a historical interview conducted by Arnold Michaelis (found on the UGA Special Collections Library’s website), analyze the interview for “good” and “bad” interview characteristics, and discuss how they may apply what they have learned to design their interview guides (Herron & Roulston, 2021; Roulston & Herron, 2022). Students use this analysis and the orientations expressed in their chosen methodological paradigm to create an interview guide exploring the experiences of scholar-practitioners in training. Students audio-record the interviews, transcribe them, and reflexively analyze the process of completing a qualitative interview. Such a methodological analysis of interviews allows researchers to determine howtheir own behavior, speech, and engagement with participants may play a role in the generated content and outcome of the interview (Roulston, 2016).

As a final course assignment, students focus on data analysis. Specifically, they analyze their data according to the conventions of thematic analysis. Students thematically analyze video data (subjectivity statements), document data (methodological paradigm presentations), and interview data (peer interview transcripts) to answer two research questions: 1) In what ways does the participant’s past experiences shape their current experiences as a scholar-practitioner in training (i.e., a doctoral student)? and 2) Where do the participant and the researcher align and converge in their perspectives about their experiences and academic journeys? They then write a report of their findings. This report includes a reflexive section in which students are expected to discuss what was most striking about learning qualitative methods throughout the semester and how their learning may shape who they are as a scholar-practitioner.

This pedagogical structure does not allow students to determine a topic of focus to which they may apply the methodologies and methods of qualitative research. Rather, Elizabeth provides a framework, teaching the methodology despite the content, and expects students to fill it in, like a homebuyer personalizing a floorplan provided by a builder. While this approach takes some autonomy away from students, it provides support by removing topical ambiguity from the course. For many, but certainly, not all, students in Elizabeth’s classes, the concept of qualitative research is so ambiguous that determining a topic to work on, in addition to learning an intimidating research approach, is overwhelming. Add to this the pressure of determining the “right” topic, which they may use later to directly support their dissertation research, and some students freeze at the beginning of the semester. The pedagogical and theoretical “pros and cons” of such an approach will be discussed later in this paper. We now turn to Aaron and “methodologies without content”.

Methodologies Without Content

Conversely, Aaron works at a research-intensive university in the Southeastern U.S. This university offers two core qualitative research courses as well as a host of special topics and advanced inquiry courses. These courses are all face-to-face and populated by doctoral students from throughout the university. As such, students in his courses come to class with multiple and varied experiences with, and assumptions of, qualitative inquiry. Aaron finds it necessary to disrupt conventional claims about qualitative research and, at the same time, establish select research practices (of interviews, observation, etc.) as grounding experiences for each student. Further, he teaches the Introduction to Qualitative Research course with an eye towards the next classes in the qualitative research course sequence, allowing for a slow and deliberate pacing through each class. When articulating the qualitative curriculum to both students and faculty colleagues alike, he relies on a rhetorical differentiation between practices (of qualitative “skills”) and theories (of philosophical assumptions) that these courses are designed to disrupt.

When designing and facilitating the initial course on qualitative inquiry, Aaron employs the “methodologies without content” approach: students are asked to identify their own research interests (often what they believe will be the focus of their respective dissertations) and generate a research project in that area. As a result, students often spend time communicating their own content areas to peers even as they question the benefits of select research designs for their own developing area of interest. These discussions often form the basis for how he facilitates class, as he repeatedly points out how the articulation of students’ content area necessarily impacts possibilities for research design. That is, as students actively construct their field of interest for their peers in class, they make possible select research practices that are theoretically tied to their articulations; field-based content and inquiry practice overlap and impact one another, existing in symbiotic relation. This productive example is then set against larger policy discussions as a means to interrogate how incessant field generation privileges select inquiry practices while occluding others. In this way, the actual identification and articulation of a student’s area of research interest becomes part of the very content that informs class discussions of methodology, inquiry practice, and theoretical assumptions.

As a means for facilitating “methodologies without content” courses, Aaron emphasizes three overlapping (and necessarily entangled) areas of focus: theory, scholarly context, and practice. These three elements are interwoven throughout the sequence of courses students encounter as qualitative inquiry courses with an emphasis on the productive implications of “methodological quandaries.” Such quandaries are the ongoing backdrop through which “methodologies without content” take shape and are integrated (and referenced) throughout the graduate course sequence. In this way, students are asked to identify “methodological quandaries” that are implicitly tied to the content areas they actively construct and articulate in class. These quandaries form the basis for developing nuanced inquiry practices aimed at engaging select problems with no identifiable (or predetermined) answer.

To begin, classes engage with the theoretical implications of the limits of knowing and being as a methodological challenge with ethical implications. That is, theoretical practices are considered as generating/inciting thresholds for alternatives to the historical status quo. The threshold, of course, both works to define (i.e., a field) and manifest some outside to current circumstance. In this way, thresholds make use of a limit in order to manifest transgression. The premise of the threshold is meant as a heuristic that affords classroom dialogue (and readings) to consider historical markers in theoretical engagement (such as post/positivism, poststructuralism, etc.), the imprint of which never fully disappears from contemporary considerations of inquiry. Theoretical engagement is thus given historical context, yet in an overlapping and entangled way that eschews a conventional reliance on historical progression for comprehension (the echoes of positivism, for example, are certainly still apparent in our contemporary moment, with very real material—and methodological—consequences). Here, theoretical understandings (epistemological and ontological assumptions) orient methodological possibility and, importantly, those challenges various methods are meant to engage.

This theoretical engagement (set against vexing methodological quandaries) affords an opportunity to consider scholarly context both within the field of inquiry and the espoused area of study for the students themselves. Here, students encounter readings that imply a methodology as a scholarly field with a close tie to theory/philosophy. Thus, it is that the landscape of methodology is confected through various assumptions of expertise, scholarship, and reflexive practice. Further, the work of methodology is brought to bear on students’ articulated content area. In this way, students are encouraged to consider the interesting and productive frictions that are generated when methodological scholarship is entangled with the empirical and conceptual work that informs their own scholarly field. Content, here, is granted a degree of immanent status—generated in the moment when methodological inquiry meets field-based claims of knowing/being; it is not prefigured (or formed) beforehand.

As a means to ground the theoretical and contextual elements of the course, class readings and activities orient from a presumption that “inquiry is generated through a doing.” That is, students are asked to practice the very ideas, concepts, and methods they read and discuss throughout the semester. Importantly, this element of inquiry practice manifests through a student-led generation of content, both in terms of scholarly orientation and methodological claims. Students are thus asked to self-reflectively (and overtly) construct the very fields they claim through examinations of what select methodological practices make possible within particular scholarly contexts. It is here that students actively generate some immanent “content” with which to ground the activities of the class. These developed contents serve as a manifesting touchstone throughout the semester and, when considered in relation to one another, provoke methodological discussions that cut across individualized fields and boundaries. In this way, students generate methodological quandaries that are never outside the field-based contexts that bind the other classes in their respective programs of study. The goal here is not to reinscribe any select field or methodological practice but, instead, to situate inquiry as an event that brings together multiple epistemological and ontological claims that articulate via practice.

The Pedagogical and Theoretical Juxtaposition

Each approach offered above has pedagogical implications for teaching qualitative research with its own strengths and weaknesses for both students and the authors of this paper alike. They hold several similarities, such as the focus on students learning through doing, the goal of disrupting previous assumptions of qualitaitve inquiry, and the centralization of reflexive practice throughout the courses. At their core, each approach seeks to provide students with the foundational principles of qualitative research necessary for novice scholars within institutional settings. As methodologists and professors, we strive to challenge post/positivist claims on the rigor, validity, and veracity of qualitative research methods. Thus, it is that no classroom approach ever exists in isolation and must necessarily be considered on simultaneously local and more macro levels (both individual courses and collective fields).

At first glance, readers of this essay may notice a difference in the writing style of each author in describing their pedagogical approach. While not necessarily intentional, the focus of the writing represents the different focus of the two approaches. While each author holds the pedagogical values discussed above at the core of their framework, each has a different approach. Elizabeth works in programs training scholar-practitioners who should leave with knowledge of how to apply qualitative methods in practice in their respective professional settings. Thus, her orientation to teaching qualitative research has the goal of equipping practitioners with this practical knowledge of application in various contexts, including those in which nuanced methodological approaches and theoretical orientations may not be necessary or appreciated. Thus, her writing is structured in a manner oriented to account for less of a focus on theory and more of a focus on practical application. Conversely, Aaron teaches in a program designed to address the needs of doctoral students from a host of multiple and varied disciplines. Each discipline has its own assumptions about inquiry motivated by different ethical understandings of why and how we research. Thus, he seeks to develop methodological coursework that utilizes such differences as the very content of the course itself. Productive dissensus is foregrounded in this course over and above reductive framings of synthesis. Aaron leads with philosophical engagements of inquiry—a perspective that might also be seen in a writing style that privileges conceptual articulations over and above technical claims.

Our aim here is not to synthesizeesented. Rather, we encourage readers to scrutinize and reflect upon each as we have done to consider the doors they open and the consequences they hold. For instance, Elizabeth’s approach may take topical agency away from the learner. While some students appreciate that she scaffolds content in such a way, others feel constrained and limited. While learning qualitative methods may be a stark contrast to the orientation toward research with which her students are familiar, they both respond to the challenge of learning a new research approach differently. Elizabeth’s pedagogical techniques attempt to open mindsets to the value and possibilities of qualitative research that students may not have considered. The course requires that students engage reflexively with their learning to assess the potential benefits and challenges of applying these methods to their professional practice outside of the coursework. Students often find that qualitative methods have unanticipated practical applications in their professional worlds. While some students may merely leave the course recognizing that qualitative methods have more value than they originally thought, others may leave feeling as if they will be able flourish in applying qualitative methods after the course is over.

Aaron’s approach to teaching may well leave students feeling ungrounded or otherwise lost in a seemingly complicated relation between theory and application. While such an ambiguous space may well prove productive in the long run, in the immediate it might provoke a degree of anxiety and impatience among students not accustomed to dwelling in ill-defined and open-ended inquiry spaces (this is often articulated in the exasperated question of, “what, exactly, am I supposed to do in qualitative research?”). And yet, over time, such students may well find that engaging methods through concept-work is a productive means for generating inquiry projects that sustain even as they challenge. Such students find use in this approach as it challenges them to eschew technocratic considerations of method in favor of differently scholarly work that is not predetermined or even procedural. As such, these students often comment that they come to view their areas of study as more dynamic, complicated, and, well, interesting than previously understood.

Additionally, it remains important to recognize that each pedagogical approach is, of course, constrained and supported by the macro-environment of the university and individual program. Elizabeth’s program is primarily focused on the practical application of research methods within the students' respective professional fields. While the students complete a research study for their dissertation work, the curriculum does not include extensive research training. Thus, the qualitative research course that she teaches is the only qualitative research course the students in these programs will take. Elizabeth’s students must be able to take what they learn in one course and apply that knowledge to complete dissertation studies, any research they may want to conduct in the future, and improve scholarly practice. She has very little time to teach qualitative research methods, and thus must front load application over theory. Aaron’s course is the first in a series of qualitative research methods courses training students pursuing a Ph.D. in a variety of disciplines. The difference in curricular focus means that he is able to scaffold coursework more deliberately and according to a different temporal scale than that afforded Elizabeth. While students often begin with a sense of what their dissertation might entail, Aaron actively works to disrupt such assumptions with the hope of slowing down the rush towards full definition. Further, students in his courses are expected to exhibit a degree of “methodological dexterity” as they seek to engage their methodological understandings within multiple contexts that require an attunement to nuance and subtlety.

While Elizabeth teaches methods despite content and Aaron teaches methods without content, we both strive to attend to the local needs of our students in the classroom and the needs of the field when training novice researchers. Institutions of higher education may have pedagogical settings which challenge qualitative approaches through post/positivist claims on rigor, validity, and veracity. Both undergraduate and graduate education is under scrutiny from political leaders and students alike. This scrutiny has an eye for practical application of learning, often with a need for a direct connection between courses and students moving into established professional settings. Both approaches discussed in this paper attempt to attend to this approach. While we maintain the value of teaching methods in a way that uplifts theoretical knowledge as foundational to conducting rigorous qualitative research, how to apply that in our teaching is necessarily different due to our institutional contexts.

Conclusion

Part of our work as methodologists, it would seem, is to reflexively consider the many ways in which our assumptions—pedagogical and practiced, alike—assume a series of values that otherwise remain enacted without thought. Neither of us seek to establish methodology as a sequencing of predetermined parts into some predictive whole. Instead, we intend to interrogate our classroom practices and curricular design with an eye towards what they make possible and their potential effects on students and professors alike. We thus recognize a need to maintain research methodology as a scholarly field that requires incessant self-critique and new imaginings of what might be done in the inquiry classroom.

The point of establishing our examples is not to suggest that one is more useful or efficient than the other. Rather, we establish these approaches in order to track the theoretical and practical implications of such mundane decisions within the inquiry classroom. Working “without” or even “despite” content generates a pedagogical milieu that warrants analysis. Thus, throughout our paper we link such approaches with select methodological literature (for the texts read throughout each class – see Online Appendix), inquiry practices (those projects students are asked to complete throughout the semester), and actual classroom activities/discussions (what students “do” during class time).

In this way, we establish relational linkages wherein pedagogy informs teaching practice, even as theoretical assumptions about inquiry inform pedagogy. There is a productive spiral here as the one informs the other, with select implications for both the teaching and doing of inquiry. By teaching “without” or “despite” content, we are able to focus on core principles of qualitative research. At the same time, we are able to disrupt long-standing assumptions of what qualitative inquiry is and is not, encouraging students to critically reflect on both the methodological implications of both how to research and what to research. Finally, students are required to apply ethical protocols for qualitative research within the relatively “low-stakes” structure of an introductory course.

Both of us have found that disrupting assumptions of research and “how to research” with such pedagogical structure can be difficult for students. However, in both the case of “despite” and “without” content, students are able to engage with methodological inquiry generatively and authentically. As instructors, we require that students interrogate their own methodological learning through reflection and field-based inquiry. In turn, by structuring the courses the way wehave, we practice reflection and inquiry into what it means to teach qualitative inquiry, both theoretically and practically.

Though much work has been done to develop nuanced explications of the theories that inform our inquiry work (c.f. Cannella et al., 2015; Koro-Ljungberg, 2015), less has been done to consider how such theories inform teaching practice. Here, we aim to intersect theories about inquiry and teaching in productive ways. We utilize a mundane example of pedagogical choice in order to ground our investigation into a material context of teaching an Introduction to Qualitative Inquiry course within select contexts. We do so in the hopes of generating a type of pedagogical pragmatism (why we do what we do on the ground) and theoretical engagement (how our actions are linked to theoretical assumptions).

Supplemental Material

Supplemental Material - Methods Despite or Without Content? Reflections on Teaching Qualitative Research

Supplemental Material for Methods Despite or Without Content? Reflections on Teaching Qualitative Research by Elizabeth M Pope, and Aaron M Kuntz in International Review of Qualitative Research.