The Qualitative Research Methods for Everyone podcast brings author and professor Karen O’Reilly into challenging conversations with students, academics and practitioners around the world. Together, they explore how the toolkit approach - a curated collection of expert skills, knowledge, procedures, tools and information - can help navigate the complex terrain of contemporary qualitative research methods.

Today we are joined by Paul Stevens, Senior Commissioning Editor at Bristol University Press, who has been my strength and guide throughout the commissioning and writing process. Paul is also a PhD student in sociology at University of Bristol, exploring how the academic book is constructed by different actors including researchers, policymakers, publishers and other market intermediaries. 

In this episode, we focus on the first chapter of the book, Designing Qualitative Research. Paul asked me what motivated me to write the book in the first place and my answer was simple: students. We discuss the value of qualitative research for those working in non-academic settings. We then move on to explore the meanings of the term reflexivity, the difference between deductive and inductive and what I mean by iterative induction (which is easier to understand than iterative-inductive, which is the phrase I use more). We then move on to epistemology and ontology, tackling some more of the big words. The book has toolkit boxes that outline a definition for all of these and for everything we cover in future podcasts too. We even end by talking briefly about generative AI and qualitative research (thanks, Paul, for stepping into that minefield).

Special thanks to Bahar Celik Muller, Senior Marketing Executive and Martha Gleeson, Digital Marketing Executive, for their support, advice and expertise.

Find out more about the book: https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/qualitative-research-methods-for-everyone

Intro music: Good Times Are Coming by Bohdan Kuzmin from Pixabay.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.