Writing Your Qualitative Methods in a Proposal
Hello Qualitative Mind,
We continue talking about writing qualitative research proposals, and hopefully setting you up for success with your own proposals. One of the areas you need to detail in a qualitative research proposal is methods. Writing your qualitative methods commonly feels like walking the line: you need to provide enough details yet demonstrate you’ll be flexible and responsive to your qualitative data. Moreover, it’s hard not to wonder how much qualitative expertise a reviewer committee will have and, as such, how much you need to explain your sample size and sampling strategy, for example.
While we cannot control who the reviewers will be, we will strive to do the best we can on our side of things. Over the years, I’ve learned a few key things about writing qualitative methods for proposals that helped me to be more comfortable with the task without losing the flexibility and creativity I strive to have as a qualitative researcher. Here are the key elements of a methods section and what they mean to me:
Methodological coherence: I describe qualitative methods, approaches, data collection, and data analysis strategically. Although we are often limited by the number of words we can use and/or available space, we need to offer the reviewer enough details about the research setting, sampling and recruitment strategies, data collection, and data analysis. This is when we need to think about methodological cohesion and assume a savvy qualitative reviewer might adjudicate your project. What does this mean? If you are claiming you will be conducting phenomenological research to explore individuals’ lived experiences, and recruiting approximately 25 individuals for focus groups, you might have just raised your reviewers’ eyebrows (and lost a few points). Your expected sample size is too big and the method of data collection is not congruent with phenomenology. A qualitative reviewer would quickly notice that, and red flag your methods.
Qualitative research can change once a project starts and the researcher needs to be responsive.
However, qualitative research can change once a project starts and the researcher needs to be responsive. So what to do?
Rigor Description: What strategies are planned regardless of unplanned changes? How will you strive for concurrent data collection and analysis? What records will you keep, e.g., a journal with field notes, audio-recorded debriefings? How will you practice reflexivity? What external supports and expertise will you have as you move along with your project? Thinking of these questions, and describing them in a paragraph, can demonstrate to your reviewer that even though you are penciling in certain methods, you will be using strategies that may cause you to revisit your methods, and make changes when needed.
Responsiveness in qualitative research: In my opinion, rigor and responsiveness go together so if you thoughtfully demonstrate the former, you are also thinking about the latter. This tells a reviewer that you know qualitative inquiry well enough the be covering important topics in your methods.
In addition, many funding agencies want researchers to outline what they will do with the results/findings. So at the end of your methods or under an “expected outcomes” subheading, try to discuss what you envision for knowledge translation/mobilization. I think qualitative researchers have almost a natural advantage when it comes to knowledge translation because our work is relational and full of possibilities for creative, meaningful, community-led mobilization. Aim high when thinking where your research results will go, and the impact they might have.
Now you have two posts outlining both the key aspects of writing the literature review and methods for qualitative research proposals. The next one will be about supports for writing and reviewing qualitative research proposals before you click the submit button in whatever platform your university or funding agency uses!
Talk soon,
Maira Quintanilha