Laying the foundation...

3 hours post-class...

When thinking and discussing foundational aspects of qual, the image of layers always come to mind.

I tend to think about the qualitative research process as a layered process, one that is always already unfolding. Thinking about qualitative work as layered pushes me to think about the process as not being simply about procedures (aka methods). This is perhaps one of the central concerns about making decisions around the uses of technologies in qualitative research. Does the research process drive the decision making process or the tool itself?

 Another thing that is sitting with me is the whole notion of us as researchers being ready to push the technologies to do what you, as the researcher, need. I think this comes back to whether the feature of a tools drive the research or the research drives the decisions around tools.