Qualitative Techniques in Political Science, Accepting Unstructured Techniques for Knowledge Building

Abstract

Statistically sound data has in the past been required to establish social science research findings. Dissatisfaction with quantitative technique became substantial; however, and qualitative methods became increasingly acceptable for excellent social science. This paper discusses qualitative data. Before qualitative research can succeed, the data and techniques for analyzing this data must be accepted. Interpretive and constructionist skills are required to successfully analyze qualitative data. How to teach interpretivism and constructionism is discussed. When completed successfully, qualitative research has the ability to reorganize cognitive beliefs about the phenomenon being researched. Cognitive transformation is explained as occurring to some extent when qualitative research succeeds.

A data set comprised of episodes of Christian and Oliver's Story excerpted from the German soap opera Verboten Liebe is discussed as exemplary qualitative data. This data is in the form of 440 digital video files. This data exemplifies globalism in qualitative data now available. These files were all downloaded from YouTube. This data is explained as excellent for narrative analysis. A contrast is made between quantitative Internet access data and the Christian and Oliver qualitative data. The Christian and Oliver data is discussed in contrasted to social action research data. This data is evaluated to have considerable ability to produce research that can accomplish cognitive transformation.

Analysis of this qualitative data is explain as useful in encouraging interpretive skills in others. Two figures presented in this paper are time line narratives using images to trace the character development of Christian Mann and Ollie Sabel. The paper presents six sample hypotheses and asks the reader to connect the Christian and Oliver data set with these hypotheses. This exercise is discussed as useful assisting people learn how to accomplish interpretive analysis

Keywords: qualitative, quantitative, data, interpretivism, Internet, television, cognitive, narrative, social action research, knowledge building, globalism