Using the Terms Hypothesis and Variable for Qualitative Work: A Critical Reflection

Key Words: ethnography, field research, method, participant observation, qualitative research.Ralph LaRossa's (2012) thoughtful piece suggested that qualitative researchers' selfawareness (and clear articulation) of their conceptual and empirical goals can help their manuscripts in many ways, including during the review process. If authors self-consciously embrace particular orientations, then it will be easier for reviewers to evaluate the degree to which the manuscript reaches its goals. LaRossa sought to have qualitative family scholars think more systematically about framing qualitative family work. In particular, he drew our attention to three dimensions along which research can vary in its position vis-a-vis existing scholarship: (a) longitude (i.e., its location on the continuum between humanities and sciences), (b) latitude (i.e., the depth of the data), and (c) altitude (i.e., the level of theorizing). LaRossa's goal in developing this framework was to help scholars avoid misunderstandings, which often occur when a journal rejects an otherwise-worthy manuscript for not complying with the reviewers' (largely unstated) assumptions of the appropriate conceptual and empirical standards for doing qualitative work.LaRossa's article can help qualitative researchers clarify the nature of their work and will offer many useful insights to young researchers preparing manuscripts for publication. Because I have been asked to provide a critical comment on LaRossa's article, however, I make two points. First, I am troubled by LaRossa's emphasis on developing a "hypothesis" and using "variables" in qualitative work. This approach seems excessively imitative of quantitative work and, more important, counters what I see as the core dimensions of qualitative work. Most of my discussion focuses on this aspect of LaRossa's article. In addition, I yearned for LaRossa to provide more discussion of the different types of qualitative data collection (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005). Although LaRossa encouraged awareness of the multidimensionality of qualitative work, he could also urge family qualitative scholars to be more self-conscious about their methodological choices. I briefly discuss here differences between qualitative work based on participant observation and qualitative work based exclusively on interviews. Although reasonable people disagree, I am partial to qualitative work using participant observation or relatively small interview-based studies situated in a specific social context. As I explain, I worry that large-scale interview studies often focus on the frequency of responses rather than the meaning of responses, which undermines the utility of qualitative work. In short, I suggest in this article that there can be rigor in qualitative work without embracing the trappings of the ideas of hypothesis, variable, and other terms suited for quantitative work, which, I think, can end up ensnaring the researcher in approaches ill suited to the qualitative research process.DIFFERENT RESEARCH PROCESSES NEED DIFFERENT TERMSAs LaRossa pointed out, there is a continuum of qualitative work where scholars embrace approaches that range from more humanistic (e.g., cultural studies or autoethnography) to more social scientific (e.g., those that seek to be as rigorous and systematic as possible). My own work has self-consciously sought to be systematic and offer comparisons. As a result, I do support the use of qualitative work for conceptual development. But I do not support LaRossa' s privileging of an unproblematized contention that "hypotheses" and "variables" ought to be the basis for qualitative work. I do agree with LaRossa' s position that there is a spectrum of approaches to qualitative work. I also find it useful for researchers to clearly state their assumptions. But I find it difficult that, after explicating the variety of approaches, he privileges a particular approach over other stances, one that involves the grounding of qualitative research in the language of quantitative methods. …