Description

Webinar: Whats and Hows? The domain ontology model representation of the contemporary field of qualitative research practices

The nature of qualitative research practices is multiparadigmaticity which creates coexistence of several different methodologies. So it is difficult to draw a consistent and coherent image of the field of qualitative research. This paper tackles the problem of a “curse of abundance” in the present-day field of qualitative research practices. The goal is to analytically recognize the dominant ways by which qualitative research designs and those practices are conceptualized and represented in methodological language of scholarly articles, to organize current knowledge about these practices, and to articulate this erudition in a legible system of representation. The methodology is based upon the discovery of knowledge in text databases (textual corporas) approach, the systematization this knowledge by pointing out connections and relations formed between paradigms, methodological trends, and the methods and techniques for conducting qualitative research and data analysis as made manifest in the language used by published researchers. The analytical aim of this study is to create a model of the knowledge representation of research designs and practices by building domain ontology of contemporary field of qualitative research. The corpus analysis is grounded in traditional CAQDAS and mixed content analysis with combination of dictionary based approach, natural language processing and text mining procedures. This investigation links know-how drawn from the fields of sociology, data mining, social science computing, corpus linguistics by employing the information technology concept of domain ontology. This article is also a methodological reflection on the CAQDAS development process that is moving through Content Analysis towards the usage of Knowledge Discovery in Textual Databases and Text Mining procedures in qualitative data analysis.