Welcome to the Qualitative Research Blog!

My name is Dr. Cristie McClendon and welcome to the Qualitative Corner of the Research Blog. I have taught and been an administrator at the elementary, middle and high school levels. Additionally, I have served in a variety of capacities at the university level. I have been with GCU since 2008 and have taught online in the College of Education as well as in the College of Doctoral Studies.

As part of the qualitative research blog, I will be sharing information on qualitative research, items of interest to your research in general and other topics based on your feedback!  I thought I would share some of my favorite qualitative research books with you in this first blog. Please check them out and also share some of your ideas as to what you would like to hear more about.

The first resource you should already be familiar with. It is a text that you will have in your research courses, Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches by Creswell, published in 2009. This is a great foundational book that covers all research methods, but Creswell does a great job of presenting information in a way that we can all understand and relate to.

Another great book is Qualitative Research and Case Study Applications in Education by Sharan Merriam (1997). I have really enjoyed reading this book (several times) as it is easy to follow and has some great examples. You may be familiar with Dr. Merriam's work on adult learning theory. I like her work as it includes many real world applications to show us what qualitative research looks like in practice.

I am currently reading Qualitative Data: An Introduction to Coding and Analysis by Auerbach and Silverstein (2003). This is really an interesting book about a grounded theory study on the role of the father in child development. It emerged as an interest of the authors who noted a gap in the research, in that most studies on child development have assumed that the mother is the most important figure in the raising of a child and that the role of the father is to support the mother. However, due to changes in roles and family structures, the researchers thought that they needed to further delve into how fathers contribute to raising children. Along the way, we learn about how the researchers have engaged in qualitative study and data analysis themselves, as they learn more about dads.

Over the next month, I will continue to offer further topics related to qualitative research and your journey as doctoral learners. Respond to the blog and let me know what you are interested in hearing about!

Dr. McClendon