A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of - Etheses - Queen Margaret ...

Why not case study research?
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Case study research is a qualitative approach in which the investigator explores a
bounded system (a case) or multiple bounded systems (cases) over time, through
detailed, in-depth data collection involving multiple sources of information... and
reports a case description and case-based themes (Creswell, 2007:73).
My principal reason for rejecting a case study approach was that this suggested a top-down,
objectifying and controlling approach. The idea of turning disabled people into „cases‟ also
had too many associations with medical and social work practice for me to feel comfortable
with. While I am aware that other bounded systems may have been identified as cases to be
studied, for instance I could have explored the reactions, feelings and thoughts of disabled
people towards a particular practice, event or series of representations, I felt that this
approach would probably be more appropriate for a descriptive rather than an exploratory
study.
Why not phenomenological research?
Phenomenologists focus on describing what all participants have in common as they
experience a phenomenon... The basic purpose of phenomenology is to reduce
individual experiences with a phenomenon to a description of the universal
essence... This description consists of „what‟ they experienced and „how‟ they
experienced it (Creswell, 2007:58).
Of the five qualitative approaches suggested by Creswell, a phenomenological approach
appeared to offer most in terms both of answering my research question and allowing me to
clarify the affirmative model. The phenomena under consideration would have been „being
disabled‟ and the description would have related to participants‟ accounts of their own
understanding of this experience. Questions that suggested themselves included: what is it
like to be disabled? What is the nature of the lived experience of being disabled? What does
it mean to have an identity as disabled? How is it possible to identify positively as disabled?
From the universal essence would have emerged the clarified affirmative model.
The problem I stumbled over, however, related to the need emphasised by Clark Moustakas
for phenomenological enquirers, in order to fully describe how participants view the
phenomenon in question, to „bracket out‟ their own experiences: