ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors identify some of the choices that researchers face and discuss the implications of making a selection from among them. They also present a conceptual model for thinking through the interrelation of the essential choices, as well as describe how this model works to create a set of lenses through which a researcher may view data. A student planning a dissertation study identified himself as a critical theorist. He decided to investigate a cultural group to try to understand their perceptions of their experiences. For decades in the most social science fields, qualitative research was considered synonymous with either ethnographic research or grounded theory, or it was considered to be a single monolithic approach. Phenomenology requires researchers to interpret how several individuals experience an occurrence, event or concept; it is concerned with the structures of consciousness.
