Diaries, Journals. Think-Aloud Method, Photo Elicitation Method and Self Report
Self Report in Research and its Techniques : Critical Incidents, Diaries and Journals, The Think-Aloud Method, Photo Elicitation Interviews.
The
critical incidents technique is a method of gathering information about
people’s behaviors by examining specific incidents relating to the behavior
under investigation (Flanagan, 1954). The technique, as the name suggests,
focuses on a factual incident, which may be defined as an observable and
integral episode of human behavior.
The word critical means that the incident
must have had a discernible impact on some outcome; it must make either a
positive or negative contribution to the accomplishment of some activity of
interest. For example, if we were interested in understanding the use of humor
in clinical practice, we might ask a sample of nurses the following questions:
“Think of the last time you used humor in your interactions with a hospital
patient”.
What led up to the situation? Exactly what did you do? How did the
patient react? Why did you feel it would be all right to use a humorous
approach? What happened next? The technique differs from other self-report
approaches in that it focuses on something specific about which respondents can
be expected to testify as expert witnesses.
Usually, data on 100 or more
critical incidents are collected, but this typically involves interviews with a
much smaller number of people because each participant can often describe
multiple incidents. The critical incident technique has been used in both
individual and focus group interviews.
Diaries
and Journals
Personal
diaries have long been used as a source of data in historical research. It is
also possible to generate new data for a non historical study by asking study
participants to maintain a diary or journal over a specified period. Diaries
can be useful in providing an intimate description of a person’s everyday life.
The diaries may be completely unstructured; for example, individuals who have
undergone an organ transplantation could be asked simply to spend 10 to 15
minutes a day jotting down their thoughts and feelings. Frequently, however,
subjects are requested to make entries into a diary regarding some specific
aspect of their experience, sometimes in a semi structured format.
For example,
studies of the effect of nutrition during pregnancy on fetal outcomes
frequently require subjects to maintain a complete diary of everything they ate
over a 1- to 2-week period. Nurse researchers have used health diaries to
collect information about how people prevent illness, maintain health,
experience morbidity, and treat health problems.
Although diaries are very
useful means of learning about ongoing experiences, one limitation is that they
can be used only by people with adequate literacy skills, although there are examples
of studies in which diary entries were audiotaped rather than written out.
Diaries also depend on a high level of participant cooperation.
The
Think-Aloud Method
The
think-aloud method is a qualitative method that has been used to collect data
about cognitive processes, such as thinking, problem-solving, and
decision-making. This method involves having people use audio-recording devices
to talk about decisions as they are being made or while problems are being
solved, over an extended period (eg, throughout a shift).
The method produces
an inventory of decisions as they occur in a naturalistic context, and allows
researchers to examine sequences of decisions or thoughts, as well as the
context in which they occur (Fonteyn, Kuipers , & Grober , 1993). Think-aloud
procedures have been used in a number of studies of clinical nurses’
decisionmaking. The think-aloud method has been used in both naturalistic and
simulated settings.
Although simulated settings offer the opportunity to
control the context of the thought process (eg, presenting people with a common
problem to be solved), naturalistic settings offer the best opportunity for
understanding clinical processes.
Think-aloud sessions are sometimes followed
up with personal interviews or focus group interviews in which the tape may be
played (or excerpts from the transcript quoted). Participants are then
questioned about aspects of their reasoning and decision-making.
Photo
Elicitation Interviews
Photo
elicitation involves an interview stimulated and guided by photographic images.
This procedure, most often used in ethnographies, has been described as a
method that can break down barriers between researchers and study participants,
and promote a more collaborative discussion (Harper, 1994).
The photographs
typically are ones that researchers or associates have made of the
participants’ world, through which researchers can gain insights into a new
culture. Participants may need to be continually reassured that their
taken-forgranted explanations of the photos are providing new and useful
information.
Photo elicitation can also be used with photos that participants
have in their homes, although in such cases researchers have less time to frame
useful questions, and no opportunity to select the photos that will be the
stimulus for discussion. Researchers have also used the technique of asking
participants to take photographs themselves and interpret them.
Self
Report
Narratives
on the Internet A potentially rich data source for qualitative researchers
involves narrative self-reports available on or through the Internet. Data can
be requested directly from a large audience of Internet users. For example,
researchers can post a web page requesting that people with particular
experiences describe them.
They can also enter into long conversations with
other users in a chat room, or request information through an e-mail listserv
that distributes messages to users participating in a network. In some cases
data that can be analyzed qualitatively are simply “out there,” as when a
researcher enters a chat room or goes to a bulletin board and analyzes the
content of the existing, unsolicited messages.
Using the Internet to access
narrative data has obvious advantages. This approach is economical and allows
researchers to obtain information from geographically dispersed and perhaps
remote Internet users. However, a number of ethical concerns have been raised,
and issues of authenticity need to be considered (Robinson, 2001)