Question 6: Quality in Qualitative Internet Research

A chapter after my my own heart...

Overview
In this chapter of the book, Nancy Baym takes a swing at one of the hardest issues facing any researcher: "How do I know when my work is 'good', and how do I know that I've presented the work in a useful way?" Her approach is to question the concept of pure standards (which don't exist) and to provide some basic guidelines for developing quality research. The sub-headers within this chapter provide some insight on her suggestions:

- ... Balance Tensions
- Connect to History
- Focus
- Be Practical
- Anticipate Counter-Arguments
- Develop Compelling Explanations

Perhaps the most interesting detail is given in the section labeled "Qualitative Researchers Must Continuously Balance Tensions", where she points to the creation and expansion of dialectic perspectives, where two opposing concepts are pursued, with the conflict leading to interesting and new views on the subject at hand. She quotes Montgomery and Baxter (1998) as having useful examples: "rigor and imagination, fact and value, precision and richness, elegance and applicability, and vivication and verification".

Throughout the remainder of her essay, Baym presents ways to use this approach to hone the ideas that a research may have about the material into useful and interesting - but not trite - presentations. Having the strength of conviction to state "Be Practical" (when skeptics are quick to point out missing pieces of the puzzle) helps the new researcher understand that not everything is possible; but limiting the scope does not mean that research is invalid.

I really appreciated this essay, since it helped me understand how I might be able to approach the research necessary for a thesis without becoming horribly depressed or inadequate. Much needed!

As for the response by Annette Markham - they mainly centered around a dialectic approach being too minimal. While it's true that almost any perspective has more than two sides, I believe that Baym's contraction into simplicity actually is a useful model for stimulating interesting thought on one's subject of research, and can help bust through "Researcher's Block" that can easily paralyze anyone.

Of course, a good researcher wouldn't reduce every subject to a two-sided see-saw, but I think that Baym is most interested in providing her colleagues with tools for actual production.

Some potentially useful links:

Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln - The Discipline and Practice of Qualitative Research; Denzin seems to be one of the most sited individuals on Qualitative Research Practices.

Clive Seale - Quality in Qualitative Research (A pretty tough read, but drops almost every researching buzzword possible available in 1999!)

Barbera Hall - How to Do Ethnographic Research: A Simplified Guide; as it states, a simplified walk-through of the process of creating an Ethnographic paper. A neat view of the process, with good examples throughout. Pretty focused on location ethnography, but a useful overview of good practices.