PSY 405
www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/qualmethsyl.html
There is no psychology; there is only biography and autobiography. -- Thomas Szasz
PSY 405
www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/qualmethsyl.html
There is no psychology; there is only biography and autobiography. -- Thomas Szasz
This course is intended to provide the student with the basic skills needed to do qualitative research. Qualitative research is research that focuses on understanding, rather than predicting or controlling, phenomena. It is usually contrasted with traditional experimental and statistical research and is felt by many to be more appropriate to the study of human life. Included will be discussion of and practice in basic phenomenological description, structural analysis, research interviewing, and the repertory grid.
Text: Boeree’s Qualitative Methods Workbook and a collection of readings.
Grades: Grades will be based on attendance, participation, and comprehension as evidenced by numerous short project papers.
Office: 323 Wright Hall
Office phone: 532-1109
E-mail: cgboeree@ark.ship.edu
Course outline
Chapter numbers refer to Workbook; Titles in italics refer to readings.
Be sure to read the chapters -- you will find them necessary for understanding the class projects. But do not do the exercises -- we will be doing them in class!
The write ups should be typed, minimally one single-spaced page in length. No APA format is required -- please write as you speak!
Bring in at least one comment or question on each reading, written and ready to hand in!
1. Class: Cranberry juice description.
Homework: Read ch. 1, 2, and 3.
2. Class: Anger workshop.
Homework: Write up anger description.
Read ch. 4, 5 and Fear of the Dark.
3. Class: Friendship description.
Homework: Write up friendship description.
Read ch. 6, 7, and 8.
4. Class: Tic-tac-toe
Homework: Read ch. 9 and Semantic Cuisine.
5. Class: Kinship
6. Memorial Day -- off
7. Class: The ethnographic interview.
Homework: Read ch. 10, Anstoos's One Commercial,
and
Teamwork.
8. Class: Wallace and Gromit exercise.
Homework: Write up Wallace and Gromit.
Read ch. 11, 12, and Children's Commercials.
9. Class: Participant observation.
Homework: Read ch. 13 and Thinking.
10. Class: Mirror writing.
Homework: Read ch. 14 , The Immigrant Experience,
and Morley's Private Theater.
11. Class: Interviewing a classmate.
Homework: Write up your interview. Read
ch. 15, 16 and Gypsies.
12. Class: A discussion of biases.
Homework: Read Ch. 17, Senior Residents,
and Arthritis.
13. Class: Focus Groups.
Homework: Ch. 18 and 19.
14. Class: Projective techniques.
Homework: Ch. 20 and Love's Bond.
15. Conclusions. Qualitative methods in the real world.
Anyone who wants to know the human psyche will learn next to nothing from experimental psychology. He would be better advised to abandon exact science, put away his scholar's gown, bid farewell to his study, and wander with human heart throught the world. There in the horrors of prisons, lunatic asylums and hospitals, in drab suburban pubs, in brothels and gambling-hells, in the salons of the elegant, the Stock Exchanges, socialist meetings, churches, revivalist gatherings and ecstatic sects, through love and hate, through the experience of passion in every form in his own body, he would reap richer stores of knowledge than text-books a foot thick could give him, and he will know how to doctor the sick with a real knowledge of the human soul. -- Carl Jung