Sampling
Virtually any of the purposeful sampling techniques Patton (1990) described may be used in qualitative descriptive studies. Especially useful, though, is maximum variation sampling, which allows researchers to explore the common and QUALITATIVE DESCRIPTION / SANDELOWSKI 337unique manifestations of a target phenomenon across a broad range of phenomenally and/or demographically varied cases (Sandelowski, 1995). Researchers may also choose to sample cases to represent a combination of pre-selected variables (Trost, 1986), or typical or unusual cases of a phenomenon, in order to describe it as
it tends to appear or uncommonly appears. As in any qualitative study, the ultimate goal of purposeful sampling is to obtain cases deemed information-rich for the purposes of study. The obligation of researchers is to defend their sampling strategies as reasonable for their purposes.
Data Collection
Data collection in qualitative descriptive studiesis typically directed toward discovering the who,
what, and where of events or experiences, or their basic nature and shape. Data collection techni-
ques usually include minimally to moderately structured open-ended individual and/or focus group interviews. Focus groups can usefully be viewed as the qualitative counterpart to the quantitative survey, in that they are typically used in qualitative research to obtain a broad range of information about events. Data collec-
tion techniques may also include observations of targeted events and the examination of documents and artifacts.\
Qualitative content analysis is the analysis strategy of choice in qualitative descriptive
studies. Qualitative content analysis is a dynamic form of analysis of verbal and visual data that is
oriented toward summarizing the informationalcontents of that data (Altheide, 1987; Morgan,
1993).
2in contrast to quantitative content analy-sis, in which the researcher systematically appliesa pre-existing set of codes to the data, qualitative content analysis is data-derived: that is, codes also are systematically applied, but they are generated from the data themselves in the courseof the study. Qualitative research is generally characterized by the simultaneous collection and analysis of data whereby both mutually shape
each other. Qualitative content analysis is similarly re¯exive and interactive as researchers
continuously modify their treatment of data to accommodate new data and new insights about those data. Although researchers might also begin the qualitative content analysis process with pre- existing coding systems, these systems are always modi®ed in the course of analysis, or may even be wholly discarded in favor of a new system, to ensure the best ®t to the data. Miller and Crabtree (1992, p. 18) described this approach to analysisas the ``template analysis style.'' Both quantitative and qualitative content
analyses entail counting responses and the numbers of participants in each response cate-
gory, but in qualitative content analysis, counting is a means to an end, not the end itself. Resear-
chers may use a ``quasi-statistical analysis style'' (Miller & Crabtree, 1992, p. 18) by summarizing
their data numerically with descriptive statistics. But the end result of counting is not a quasi-
statistical rendering of the data, but rather a description of the patterns or regularities in thedata that have, in part, been discovered and then con®rmed by counting. Qualitative content analysis moves farther into the domain of interpretation than quantitative content analysis in that there is an effort to understand not only the
manifest (e.g., frequencies and means), but also the latent content of data. Yet qualitative content analysis is the least interpretive of the qualitative manalysis approaches in that there is no mandate tore-present the data in any other terms but their own. For example, Smeltzer (1994) described the concerns of pregnant women with multiple sclerosis by asking them about their concerns and then organizing her ®ndings to catalog these
concerns. Geller and Hotzman (1995) described physicians' perceptions concerning genetic testing by eliciting this information from them infocus groups and then summarizing their percep-tions. In these studies,concerns remained concerns and perceptions remained perceptions.
They did not become, for example, conditions for or consequences of some event in a theory, nor
a ``strategic'' representation of self in a narrative rendering (Riessman, 1990).
In a larger, generic sense, all human analyses of
texts entail the analysis of content. Accordingly,
constant comparison, phenomenological, and the
varieties of statistical analyses are all examples of
content analysis. In the research literature, though,
the term `content analysis' is a technical term
designating speci®c approaches, including quanti-
tative and qualitative content analysis (e.g
The expected outcome of qualitative descriptive
studies is a straight descriptive summary of
2
In a larger, generic sense, all human analyses of
texts entail the analysis of content. Accordingly,
constant comparison, phenomenological, and the
varieties of statistical analyses are all examples of
content analysis. In the research literature, though,
the term `content analysis' is a technical term
designating speci®c approaches, including quanti-
tative and qualitative content analysis (e.g.,
Altheide, 1996).
338 RESEARCH IN NURSING & HEALTHthe informational contents of data organized in a
way that best ®ts the data. For example, Smeltzer
(1994) arranged her summary by time in
pregnancy; that is, she described the pregnancy-
related concerns of women with multiple sclero-
sis as they appeared pre-conceptionally, antena-
tally, intrapartally, and post-delivery. Geller and
Holtzman (1995) arranged their summary in
two major categories re¯ecting the major topics
about which they elicited information:
(a) perceptions of obligations for disclosure,
nondirectiveness, con®dentiality, and the gender
and specialty differences in these perceptions
and (b) perceptions of barriers and incentives
to incorporate genetic testing into primary care
practice, including con®dence, ®nancing, patient
demand, and, again, the gender and specialty
differences in these perceptions. Other ways to
arrange data include: (a) actual or reverse
chronological order of events; (b) most pre-
valent to least prevalent theme; (c) progressive
focusing, whereby researchers choose to
move either from describing the broad context
of an event to particular cases, or from parti-
cular cases to the broad context; (d) a day-,
week,- month-, or year-in-the life approach
of actual person(s); and, (e) the Rashomon
effect, whereby the same event is described
from the perspective of more than one parti-
cipant (Sandelowski, 1998; Wolcott, 1994,
pp. 17±23).
Although such summaries might easily lend
themselves to more penetrating (as opposed to
surface) re-presentations of data, these are not
required for a qualitative descriptive study to be
considered methodologically ``good'' or practi-
cally valuable. For example, the Rashomon
effect approach lends itself to further researcher
interpretations of different participants' versions
of the same event, but the mandate for the
researcher conducting a qualitative descriptive
study is comprehensively and accurately to
detail these versions. Accordingly, such sum-
maries are valuable primarily as end-products
and, secondarily, as entry points for further
study.
There is no mandate to produce anything
other than a descriptive summary of an event,
organized in a way that best contains the data
collected and that will be most relevant to
the audience for whom it was written. But such
summaries may themselves yield the working
concepts, hypotheses, and thematic moments
for future grounded theory or phenomenologic
study, or themselves contain early versions of
them.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the qualitative descriptive study is
the method of choice when straight descriptions
of phenomena are desired. Such study is espe-
cially useful for researchers wanting to know
the who, what, and where of events. Although
foundational to all qualitative research appro-
aches, qualitative descriptive studies comprise a
valuable methodologic approach in and of
themselves. Researchers can unashamedly name
their method as qualitative description. If their
studies were designed with overtones from other
methods, they can describe what these overtones
were, instead of inappropriately naming or
implementing these other methods.
So, whatever happened to qualitative descrip-
tion? The method is alive and well, but needs only
to be re-discovered as a valuable and distinctive
component of qualitative research and recovered
for health sciences research
http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~sillito/cpsc-601.23/readings/sandelowski-2000.pdf
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