How Things Work - Doha Academy of Tertiary Studies

122 QUaLItatIVe ReSeaRCH
Seven years earlier, a complex neurological case happened to have been
discovered at the hospital in Tereza’s town. They called in the chief surgeon
of Tomas’ hospital in Prague for consultation, but the chief surgeon happened
to be suffering from sciatica, and because he could not move, he sent
Tomas to the provincial hospital in his place.
The town had several hotels, but Tomas happened to be given a room
in the one where Tereza was employed. He happened to have enough free
time before his train left to stop at the hotel restaurant. Tereza happened
to be on duty, and happened to be serving Tomas’ table. It had taken six
chance happenings to push Tomas towards Tereza. . . . so fortuitous a
love, that would not have existed had it not been for the chief surgeon’s
sciatica. . . . (1984, p. 35)
In this vein, I ask you yourself to consider the evidence by which
you, we, all of us, make our decisions—both large and small. However
disguised, they are often fortuitous, personal, and situational. This is
not a claim that we make our decisions capriciously. No, we factor in
matters of great importance, but the weights we assign to different matters
are subject to change, as we are burdened by new responsibility and
enticed by new opportunity.
Many writers— Daniel Stufflebeam (1971) and Lee Cronbach (1974),
for example—have set the main goal of social research as improvement
in decision making. I do not. Decision options often change after we
know the problem better. I prefer to think the main goal is improving
understanding of how things work in their particular settings. That
information may be useful for improving the thing studied, but aiming
the research directly at improvement risks failing to examine adequately
the complexity of the way it works.
Evidence of how well the thing is working is important. Sometimes
the evidence should be oriented to outcomes. Often the most important
evidence is the integrity of the ongoing transactions, the process, the way
it is working.
The highest priority evidence of how the program works, be it local
or national, can often best be found by studying the working processes.
Production and efficiency and goal fulfillment and cost- effectiveness are
outcomes that should not be ignored. And what the sponsors and staff
and public want to know should not be ignored. But some of the main
attention of qualitative research should be on how the people in charge
are carrying out their responsibilities. And thus the evidence blueprinted
in the research should include and often emphasize the evidence of per-