Ravalier PhD Theis.pdf - Anglia Ruskin Research Online

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The study also uses the qualitative techniques of daily logs, interviews and focus groups. The daily logs have
been used to investigate in some depth the areas within the workplace that are working well, and how aspects of
these areas within the workplace can be transferred to other parts which are not working as well. All employees
within the participating department in the organisation were then offered the opportunity to take part in a semistructured
interview in order to examine in more detail the results of the log phase, as well as providing a less
structured approach than that inherent within the log phase. Finally, focus groups have been conducted in order to
devise feasible workplace interventions which are designed to improve the working experience of those within the
department of the PAO. Indeed, it is this qualitative approach which forms the majority of the Appreciative Inquiry
approach to be critiqued in Section 1b.
1a) Mixed Methods Research
Qualitative and quantitative approaches to research methodology and data analysis differ theoretically,
conceptually and practically, and are frequently seen as based on opposite and opposing philosophies (Webb,
1988). Quantitative (a positivist approach) research involves the reduction of phenomena being studied to
numerical values for analysis (Smith, 2007). Quantitative methodologies have been used by social scientists for
decades in order to study associations between variables, or to attempt to determine ‘cause and effect’, aiming to
test hypotheses via the use of objective measures and predicting and controlling phenomena (Webb, 1988).
By contrast qualitative (interpretivist/constructivist) research did not begin to make a major impact on
psychological research until the 1980s, whereas before this time it had been largely the concern of social sciences