Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods: A Helpful Guide for Undergraduates and Graduate Students in the Social Sciences

by Allison Hurst

I’ll tell you a secret. I’ve always been fascinated by what people say to each other and what they say to themselves. When I was a little girl, I had an old-fashioned tape recorder, a bulky black device with heavy keys you would press hard on to get a cassette tape working. My father was in the U.S. Army, and he would have poker parties once a week with his Army buddies. On those days, I would slide the tape recorder under the card table and press play just before they sat down to play. Oh, the stories I heard! Things a ten-year-old should probably not hear! I would listen and use my children’s typewriter to recreate the dialogue. I thought I could make stories this way. I never got to the making of the stories, but this turned out to be an incredibly helpful practice for my later career as a qualitative researcher/sociologist. Although I would never record someone without their permission, I have recorded a lot of people, made transcripts of those recordings, and analyzed those stories for knowledge about the world. Now I teach other people how to do those things, too. I hope you find this textbook helpful and that it inspires you to listen to the people around you and observe the world with fresh eyes.

313 pages, ebook

Published March 21, 2023