In this 20‑minute YouTube presentation Dr. Steve Tippins, a veteran dissertation committee member, walks dissertation students through the essential steps for selecting and defending a qualitative research design. He begins by distinguishing three foundational concepts—research approach (qualitative vs. quantitative/mixed), research method (non‑experimental for qualitative work), and specific qualitative designs (case study, phenomenology, grounded theory, narrative, ethnography, field research). Tippins then outlines each major design, describing its focus (lived experience, bounded system, theory generation, story‑telling, culture, observed behavior) and provides concrete examples of when each is appropriate. He stresses that the chosen design must align with the problem statement, purpose, and research questions, and that clear articulation of this alignment helps committees approve the study. The talk also covers practical data‑collection techniques (interviews, focus groups, observations, document analysis), the role of triangulation (often two methods suffice), and tips for defending the design, including mastering terminology (e.g., pronouncing “phenomenology”). Finally, he invites viewers to join a free dissertation help group for further support. The presentation blends instructional, conversational, and slightly humorous tones while maintaining a supportive, confident stance toward helping students succeed.
Chapters
Qualitative research design. What's the best path for you? So let's walk through the three steps that I think are important to have your committee get on board and stay with you during the research process. I'm Dr. Steve Tippins. I've sat on over 300 dissertation committees. I've helped hundreds of people reach the end of their dissertation journey, and I'm here to help you do the same thing. I've seen people in the past come up with interesting ideas only to have them sent back by their committee because they weren't allowed aligned. Let's start looking at the three steps that are going to help you determine the appropriate design and help you finish. First, what does qualitative research design really mean? Your design isn't just a label. It's that blueprint that's going to show you how to get to the end. In a qualitative approach, we're looking for things like understanding perceptions or lived experiences. And we want to do that in depth with that. Your qualitative design is the specific strategy that you'll use for how you will do that. That includes who you're going to study, how you're going to collect the data, and how you make sense of it. So it's not uncommon for students to mix up their approach, which is qualitative, their method non experimental, and then the ultimate design, which could be case study, phenomenology, etc. And just one hint, if you're going to do a phenomenological, make sure before you ever get to a defense that you can actually pronounce the word. I once worked on a committee with someone who was coming to their defense and they could not pronounce the word. And I said, no, we're not getting to your defense. And we spent five minutes working on helping this individual to be able to pronounce phenomenology and phenomenological. Once you get it, you're stuck with it. So make sure you've practiced that. So let's start with getting the basic terms straight. So one, let's clarify the approach, the method and the design. If you get these confused, your committee is not going to know that you understand what you're doing. Okay, research approach, typically think of this as quantitative or qualitative or mixed methods. Doing a little bit of both. In this video, we're talking about qualitative, where we're looking for meaning from words, experiences and depth over numbers. So what's research method for a qualitative study? It's almost always non experimental. You're not manipulating numbers or people into certain classes to be able to do analysis on changes of certain things. Think of it as you're describing, you're exploring, you're understanding, and ultimately research design. Which of the qualitative methods are you going to be using in your research design? Examples are case studies, phenomenological approaches, grounded theory, narrative ethnography, field research. And that's just the beginning list, but these are probably the most popular. So qualitative is the approach, non experimental is the method. Case study, phenomenology, narrative. That's your research design. So once we have this clear, the next step is, okay, which one do I choose? The simple answer is you choose the one that's most appropriate for the questions you're asking. So of the six that I've laid out, let's talk a little bit about each one. And let's start with your favorite tongue twister, phenomenology. When you think of phenomenology, think of lived experience. You're looking at the lived experience of participants. When do you want to use it? Well, if you're asking people, hey, what was it like to go through certain experience? Then you're looking for their lived experience examples. What are the lived experience of first responders for going through a traumatic event? What are the lived experience of parents whose children have changed schools? So you know, we're getting deep into their personal lived experience. Next, a very popular approach is a case study or multiple case study. All variations on the case study idea. Think of it as an in depth look at a bounded system. Hey, I want to look at the people who are involved in this one company. What are their perceptions? That's a case. Or a multiple case would be across many companies. You're basically looking to dive deep in a specific case, a context, a setting. Now let's move to grounded theory from here. You're developing a theory grounded in the participants data or answers they've given you to your interview questions. You're trying to describe a process or develop a model. You're not just trying to describe experiences here. Narrative research focuses on the stories that people tell. And ultimately in many narrative studies, we're looking at the meaning that people come up with describe from their experiences in life. Ethnography focuses on culture and shared experiences of a group. You want to use this when you're looking to understand how a group lives, how they behave and how they make meaning in a real world setting. And field research focuses on observing behaviors in a real world setting. You use this when you really want to see what people do, not just what they say they do in an interview. So you want to ask yourself, am I studying a case, a culture, a shared experience, a process or stories? And the answer to these questions is going to help you determine what's the appropriate design for you to use. Once you've done this, the next thing you need to be able to do is to describe and defend the design that you've chosen. Just a little hint, if your committee understands your design, they're going to be more likely to approve what you're doing. We've talked about some major qualitative designs. There may be more esoteric ones, but if nobody on your committee's ever heard of one, it may be a battle to try to get them to come along. If you can find an approach or a design that they're familiar with, that's going to help you answer your question, that may help you move forward more quickly. And of course, alignment is important in this process. Your problem or your problem statement is what's missing, what's unknown. Your purpose is what you're trying to understand. By doing this research, your research questions get to perceptions, experiences, meaning lived experiences. The design you choose should naturally fit these steps of alignment. So for an example, the purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study using interviews is to explore the lived experiences of a certain population who have shared a certain phenomenon. And you can insert your population in your phenomenon and you've got a fairly strong purpose statement. So you could say to explore the lived experiences of elementary school teachers who had had their mathematics curriculum changed. You want to be very clear about your data collection and how you're going to collect data. Common techniques for collecting data include interviews, focus groups, observations and notes, or document analysis. Many committees and schools require or are looking for what they call triangulation. Now sometimes this is a misnomer because tri means three. So that would mean you'd be needing three different approaches to collecting your data. But a number of schools I've seen have been happy with two. So you might have interviews and a focus group or document analysis and interviews. And that gives your committee comfort in the fact that your conclusions are going to be coming from different perspectives. You want to make sure you explain the time and scope of your research. Typically, a qualitative study is a one time interview. There are approaches. Action research is one we haven't talked about, where many times you have interviews at a beginning, middle and even end of a process. But more often than not, we're talking about a one time interview, and that includes if you're doing member checking, that's sending things back to them just to find out if what you recorded for them or got written down for them is actually what they think they told you. On occasion there can be longitudinal studies, but it's much more complex and more rare in this approach. And when you're doing case study, you're going to definitely clarify, am I doing a single case or. Or multiple case or multiple sites? So let's bring everything back together in a short recap of what we talked about here. A qualitative approach means you're looking for depth, meaning, experiences. Your design is how are you going to go about getting there. Case study, phenomenology, narrative field research, ethnography, or grounded theory are some of the approaches we've talked about here. And as always, we want to be thinking about alignment. Your problem, your purpose statement, and your research questions all have to be heading in the same direction and using the same terminology. And ultimately, even though this is a long and complex process, you're going to have to be able to state it and explain it simply to your committee. By being able to understand and state things simply, they get comfortable with the fact that you actually know what you're doing. So don't just start with something like, oh, I'm going to do phenomenology or I'm going to do a case study. Start with the actual problem, start with what you're looking for. Then the approach, the design reveals itself because it's going to allow you to answer the questions you're asking. If you're struggling with your qualitative research design. If you have questions about how to approach your qualitative research design, join our Free Dissertation Help group. You'll get our five Step Dissertation Acceptance Framework, real support from veteran dissertation committee chairs, live calls, and free Q and A sessions. Just click the link below to join. I'm looking forward to seeing you there.
