Navigating the hazards of orthodoxy: Introducing a graduate course on qualitative methods into the psychology curriculum.

Abstract

Abstract A recent survey of qualitative researchers in Canada by Rennie et al. (2000) found that few academic psychologists engage in qualitative research. This article begins with a description of author's decision to develop a graduate course on qualitative research methods and then goes on to explore resistance and receptivity to qualitative research in three areas: impact of course on students; reactions of faculty to attempts by students to introduce qualitative methods into their work; and curriculum revision process. Based on author's experience of teaching course over several years, strategies are suggested for surviving (and perhaps thriving) in academic environments that are somewhat inhospitable to qualitative approaches. Based on their recent survey of qualitative researchers in Canada, Rennie, Watson, and Monteiro (2000) observe that the majority of arts/science graduate programmes in psychology in this country do not have any qualitative researchers on faculty and ... for those that do, numbers are small (paragraph 8). They summarize their survey's findings as indicating that use of qualitative methods in academic psychology lags behind its uptake in other disciplines with which it was compared. The other disciplines referred to here included educational psychology, education, nursing, and sociology. The qualitative psychologists who responded to Rennie et al.'s survey reported experiences reflecting their relative isolation within academic departments in which dominant methodology remains positivist and quantitative. Common difficulties were lack of faculty members to serve on thesis committees and increased workload resulting from a growing student interest in qualitative methods. According to Rennie et al., although qualitative researchers within psychology may encounter some resistance both inside and outside their home departments, they are least tolerated by departmental colleagues (paragraph 27). Rennie et al. are less sanguine, however, about status of qualitative research within discipline more generally. Their article ends in following way: Nevertheless, situation is such that we do not foresee a pronounced shift in way arts/science Canadian psychology as a whole prefers to do enquiry - certainly not in future. (paragraph 27) Rennie et al.'s survey identifies some broad trends in receptivity and resistance to qualitative research within university psychology departments. Their article includes brief excerpts from survey respondents, but does not provide much detail about everyday experiences of academic psychologists who position their work within a qualitative paradigm. In this article, I focus on my experience of introducing and teaching a graduate course on qualitative methods to illustrate issues that can arise when an attempt is made to incorporate alternative methodological approaches into psychology curriculum. If we are to understand processes involved in receptivity and resistance to qualitative methods within discipline, it seems to me that we need to learn something about how these processes operate at local level, in addition to documenting broad trends. Understanding these local processes would also be a necessary precursor for identifying strategies for surviving (and perhaps thriving) in academic environments that currently are somewhat inhospitable to qualitative approaches. The importance of attending to processes at local level is also identified by feminist psychologist and historian of psychology Jill Morawski in her recent discussion of challenges confronting efforts to diversify psychology in directions that are more welcoming to nonmainstream methods (Morawski, 2001). According to Morawski, these challenges operate at both level of disciplinary culture and what she calls near environment (p. 70), which I take to mean local level. …