Sorority Rituals - Reflections On Rites of ... - Mari Ann Callais

CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY
This study was designed to provide an understanding of the impact of sorority ritual on
the behavior and values of contemporary sorority women. This qualitative study has been
conducted through in-depth individual and focus group interviews. This chapter of the
dissertation will provide the reasoning behind my choice to conduct a qualitative study as well as
a discussion of the types of qualitative methods that were used for this study. The research design
and data collection methods as well as population and sample description have been included.
Design
Qualitative design was chosen in order to collect data through “human instrument, the
researcher, rather than through some inanimate inventory, questionnaire, or computer” (Merriam,
1998, p. 7). Patton (as cited in Merriam, 1998) defines qualitative research:
Qualitative research is an effort to understand situations in their uniqueness as part of a
particular context and the interactions there. This understanding is an end in itself, so that
it is not attempting to predict what may happen in the future necessarily, but to
understand the nature of the setting – what it means for participants to be in that setting,
what their lives are like, what’s going on for them, what their meanings are, what the
world looks like in that particular setting – the analysis to be able to communicate that
faithfully to others who are interested in that setting…The analysis strives for depth of
understanding (p. 6).
I have selected the qualitative design method to give me the opportunity to gather data
that is rich in content and to actually be able to observe the reactions and emotions that the
sorority women exhibit as they discuss ritual. According to Merriam (1998), interviewing is
necessary when we cannot observe behavior and the feelings and emotions towards something.
Ritual ceremonies are typically not something I could have observed; therefore, ethnography was
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