Engaging Students in Qualitative Research through Experiential Class Activities

Abstract

Experiential activities help psychology students experience firsthand the richness and depth of meaning of qualitative data. Through these activities students grapple with pragmatic, philosophical, and ethical questions like those facing researchers in the field. These activities concern focus groups, observation, data collection, cultural sensitivity, ethnomethodology, data analysis, and ethics. In a final exercise students develop answers to the common challenges posed by skeptics of qualitative methodology. Instructors can select single exercises for broad psychology courses or use all of them, as we do, in a course dedicated to qualitative research in psychology.