Rosemary S. Caffarella
Professor, Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
University of Northern Colorado
Greeley
U.S.A.

Date: 26 October 2001
Time: 12.00-13.00

The purpose of this workshop is twofold: to provide an overview of advisement issues that faculty members and students may need to address when initiating research projects within the qualitative paradigm; and to allow time for faculty and students to raise and discuss their own advisement issues and problems. Two major questions provide a guide for these interactions.  These questions are:
1. What issues or problems have you encountered in the advisement process as either a student or faculty member?
2.  What strategies have you used to address these issues and problems?
For the purpose of providing an overview of these advisement issues, the issues are categorized into three major areas: accepting the qualitative paradigm as a legitimate way to conduct research, directing the research process, and conducting the research study.  These advisement issues and problems arise between faculty members and students, and among faculty members.
Discussions about acceptance of the qualitative paradigm as a legitimate way to conduct research is especially problematic when this paradigm has not been a conventional way of completing research in a specific discipline or field.  For example, faculty steeped in a different research tradition, such as the quantitative paradigm, often challenge the validity and usefulness of any findings and conclusions that result from this form of research design and methodology.  These challenges come in numerous ways: the establishment of official university policies and procedures on what research designs and methods are acceptable; faculty discussions and debates on university campuses and at professional meetings about what constitutes acceptable forms of scholarship; and editors and members of editorial boards of professional journals either refusing to accept manuscripts or giving less credence when the research is qualitative in nature.  Although these debates are the most intense at the beginning of the introduction of the qualitative paradigm, often they continue for years, even when this way of conducting research has been accepted by a discipline or field of study.
Directing a qualitative research study also raises numerous communication issues for both faculty and students.  Again, the problems related to these interactions are the most glaring when this form of research is first introduced.  For example, there may be only a few faculty members who are knowledgeable enough to supervise a research study that is conducted using a qualitative design.  Not having an adequate number of faculty members results in some faculty members become so overloaded with students, that there is less time for in-depth interactions with students. Using faculty members who are not fully prepared to direct this form of research leads to student frustrations over the lack of qualified faculty members to provide support as they design and complete studies.  Again, as with the lack of acceptance of the qualitative paradigm, these problems often continue over time, especially when another research paradigm is still dominant within a discipline or field.
Communication issues and problems related to conducting qualitative research also abound, many of them similar to those that surface in directing the research effort.  For example, in conducting the research, not having an adequate number of qualified faculty members to direct this form of research results in both student and faculty frustration, and dissatisfaction over issues of the quality of the actual studies.  Problems also arise when students and faculty members disagree over the way a study should be conducted depending on their philosophical beliefs about the qualitative paradigm.  In addition, faculty and students may be unsure of how to proceed with data gathering and analysis as there has, and continues to be, a lack of agreement or clarity about how specific methods should be implemented.  As with the other two areas, the intensity of these communication problems and issues are greatest when the qualitative paradigm is first introduced, but also can be a continuing problem long after this introduction.