Presentation for the HEA-funded workshop ‘Teaching Research Methods in Business and Management’. Drawing on a mixture of practice and evidence, this one-day event provided an opportunity for those interested in the teaching of research methods in Business and Management – including qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods – to share experiences, insights, and good practice, and to discuss challenges and explore potential solutions. This presentation forms part of a blog post reporting on the event which can be accessed via: http://bit.ly/1fcTwna For further details of HEA Social Sciences work relating to teaching research methods in the Social Sciences please see http://bit.ly/15go0mh

1. Qualitative management research:
the experiences of teachers and
learners
Professor Catherine Cassell
January 2014

2. Presentation Plan
• Background: the literature in this area
• Images of qualitative research
• The research project:
– The learners
– Data collection and analysis
• Findings
– Practising skills through the interview and the analysis
– Challenging mindsets and developing reflection
• Discussion: implications for management teaching
and learning in this area.

3. Background
• There is little attention in the literature to how the
skills of conducting qualitative research are
acquired
• Qualitative research is a diverse field with a range
of complex epistemologies and methodological
approaches (Symon and Cassell, 2012)
• Many qualitative researchers suggest that the skills
are best learned by doing and there are interesting
reflective and reflexive accounts available (e.g. van
Maanen; 2011)

4. The literature: metaphors of
learning qualitative research
• Craftwork (Locke, 2011)
• Quiltmaker or bricoleur (Denzin and
Lincoln, 2005)
• Learning to play a musical instrument
(Humphreys, 2006)

5. How we see qualitative
research
• Messy, ambiguous
• Complex
• Takes a long time to develop the skills to
do it well
• About understanding patterns and
making connections
• Multiple interpretations throughout.

6. Issues for the MBA audience
• Diverse audience
• Often working in a second language
• Do managers see qualitative skills as
useful?
• Philosophical disputes can be daunting
for the newcomer (Harlos et al, 2003)
• Learning shock (Griffiths et al, 2005).

7. The research
• MBA students each completed a 500 word reflective
account of their experience of conducting
qualitative research as part of an assignment for a
research and consultancy module designed to
prepare students for real life consultancy projects
• The assignment involved conducting a research
interview with a client and analysing the data using
an established method of analysis.
• Had previously received just 7 hours tuition in
qualitative methods
• Analysed 172 accounts using template analysis
aided by Nvivo.

8. Write a 500 word reflective account of your
experience of conducting qualitative
research (data collection and analysis). This
could include some reflection on what you
learned from the process of conducting the
assignment and your views about the
potential value and role of qualitative
research in a business and management
context. Please start this account on a new
page and ensure that your pin number is
not on that page.

9. Findings
• Perhaps not surprisingly students
reported learning lot about what was
required to be a qualitative researcher.
Two main sources of learning:
– Practising skills through the interview and
the analysis
– Challenging mindsets and developing
reflection

10. Practising skills: the interview
• The interview was a key source of learning e.g.
finding interviews; developing rapport; asking the
right questions
• The interview itself caused the greatest reported
anxiety, mainly because students expected to have
far more control over the interview than they found
they actually had
• Being a non-native speaker was generally seen as
problematic though an alternative view was put
forward.

11. Practising skills: the analysis
• The analysis was seen as enabling an
understanding of the diversity of
information that could come out of an
interview
• Major concerns emerged from existing
epistemological assumptions
• Such assumptions were influenced by the
students previous backgrounds.

12. Challenging mindsets and
developing reflection
• Students suggested that the exercise had
encouraged them to think in new ways and
facilitated open-mindedness
• This led to a recognition that learning might be
unexpected
• Some students suggested that their learning had
not initially been apparent but the demands of the
reflective brought it to the fore.
• In some cases students reflected back on what they
had done in life before the MBA and critiqued that
in the light of this new knowledge.

13. Implications for teaching and
learning practice
1. Enabling practice
2. Managing the ambiguity of qualitative
research
3. Critiquing pre-existing epistemological
assumptions
4. Ensuring opportunities for reflection.

14. 1. Enabling practice
1. These findings echo previous research
about the importance of practice (e.g.
Cassell et al, 2009; Locke, 2011; Galliers
and Huang, 2012). Practising skills enables
students to experience some of the
unanticipated things that may occur as part
of a qualitative research process.
How can students gain opportunities to
practice their qualitative research skills is
such time-bound courses?

15. 2. Managing the ambiguity of
qualitative research
This group found the lack of control
associated with the interview particularly
problematic. This conception of the
interview neglects the relational element of
the process and sees it as a one sided
encounter to the benefit of the interviewer.
How can we effectively prepare students for
the ambiguities they will face?

16. 3. Critiquing pre-existing epistemological
assumptions
Many difficulties arose here from the
automatic and uncritical application of
positivist concepts and criteria such as
reliability, objectivity, validity and bias
How can we re-assure students that it is
usual for there to be multiple interpretations
through the analysis process?
How can we teach criteriology on the MBA?

17. 4. Ensuring opportunities for reflection
Here the development of reflective skills
was important in that it enabled them to
think about what they had learned from
doing the interview and the analysis. Indeed
this was clearly an important part of the
assignment. Developing opportunities for
reflection is crucial.
How do we develop opportunities for
reflection when limited time is available for
a research methods curriculum?

18. Reflection
• Writing this paper has cast light upon some
of my own teaching processes, in particular
my assumptions regarding MBA students
• I have realised I am somewhat removed
from my original experiences of learning to
do qualitative research. As Humphreys
(2006) points out, as experienced
management educators and qualitative
researchers we sometimes forget what it
feels like to be the novice.