In your longer answer, Diana, you seem to be describing what amounts primarily to a phenomenological question: what is it like to be recruited in this way?

Your scoping of the Australian TAFE sector as the locale/context of the study doesn't suggest to me that there is any additional strength in conceptualising it as a case study. Unless, that is, you want to make a comparison between each of the TAFEs as a unit.

The way I read what you've written (and I may be reading it wrongly of course) it still seems to me that you are asking more than one type of question as there are also hints of evaluation: can it be done better? If by 'better' you mean that a more productive employee was recruited, then the 'lived experience' might not be the place to look. It might be the very best place to look if the question includes an enquiry of something like, 'does our approach to interviewing prevent us from assessing good candidates fairly'.

I recall attending A&E with my son when he was a toddler (casualty, or ER in different health systems). If a researcher had asked me whether my problem was solved, I'd have said 'yes, essentially it was - he was ok'. If I was asked whether I had a positive experience, I'd have said 'no'. If I was asked how I experienced my visit to A&E I would have said that I felt stressed because I didn't know how long I'd be there and I was worried about child care for my daughter when she finished nursery (kindergarten), and I didn't know if I could leave the waiting room to get a sandwich or make a call (this was before mobile phones!!!). These enquiries all discover different things about my visit and might have been used to inform different policy issues.

It's quite possible to explore a set of different related questions at the same time of course. But I wonder if your uncertainty about where to go methodologically is because underneath it all you are not always thinking about the same research question.

My sincere apologies if this is missing the mark - it's just how it strikes me.

Hi Diana - the advice you have been given is a possible option - but not the only one at your disposal. Qualitative philosophy can be 'complex enough' without bringing in the added complexity of multiple or mixed methodologies and methods. My personal advice would be to question 'why and/or if you need to add this complexity?' Another way to approach this is - have you considered a phenomenological approach? Phenomenology is often a 'natural' methodology for exploring experiences and usually restricts you to a single method.

You can.

Dear researcher,

I think you can definitely use case Study and narrative Inquiry methodology together because they have different purposes. Let me explain: according to John W. Creswell -who is one of the most widely recognized experts in terms of qualitative inquiry and research design- there are two, basic differences between narrative and case study analysis. In narrative analysis, the researcher interprets the larger meaning of the story when interpreting the data. In case study research, the researcher uses direct interpretation and develops naturalistic generalizations of what was learned. Both require data organization, reading/memoing, describing the data into codes and themes, classifying the data into codes and themes, interpreting the data, and representing, visualizing the data.

Hi Dean,

Thankyou very much for your inputs. I totally agree with you, you hit the nail on the head about having to question myself if I need to increase the complexity any more than it already is. However, I am at cross roads with the response, I feel both ways, hence the confusion. I found response to a similar question quite interesting by Sajid Iqbal:

"

I would like to illustrate this through a much simplified example.

1. How, over the years, a particular person [named] developed into a leader? (Narrative Approach)

2. How individuals develop into leaders? (Phenomenological Approach)

3. How individuals develop into leaders in a particular organisational environment? (Case Study Approach)

4. How individuals develop into leaders in a particular culture? (Ethnographic Approach)

Researchers need to understand that the dichotomy between these qualitative approaches is not strict and that these approaches are mutually inclusive. Consider the following please:

How a particular individual [named], belonging to a particular cultural background, developed into a leader in a particular work environment? The approach adopted here will be a mix of narrative, ethnography, and case-study.

"

I am not sure I am ready to scale the research up to the level of a Phenomenological study at the moment, it could get there eventually but not with the sample I intend to research. Thanks for the suggestion Dean, I appreciate it.

Regards,

Diana

Dear Hafidha,

Thanks for your elaborate and clear response. With a few more similar affirmations, I should be set to write out my method chapter. In terms of the difference between Narrative and Case study, I found the responses in the link below quite informative, just FYI if you need it at some point. Thanks for your assistance.

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Can_anyone_provide_a_difference_between_narrative_and_case_study

Hi Hein,

Thanks for your response and clarificng my doubt. It would be nice, if you can give me some reasons behind your response to understand the logic you have in mind to arrive at this response.

Thanks again for taking time to respond.

Cheers,

Diana

Dear Diana,

I believe you can combine case study with the methods you describe because I think the concept of 'case' only specifies the boundaries of your unit of analysis and doesn't pre-suppose how you will go about analysing your data.

That said, I'm struck in your question that you express an interest in "people's lived experience with them recollecting their joy's and griefs of getting/not getting a job", yet your research question appears to concern organisational level outcomes, with perhaps more obviously generalisable conclusions. I don't immediately see the connection between how people feel about their experience (which is certainly a legitimate area of interest in itself) and how effective the organisational strategy is compared, say, to other organisations.

I wonder if you are entirely clear where your main interest lies within your research topic. If not, then I think that clarifying/confirming your research question could be a useful first stop towards making your decision about methods and strategy easier.

Hope that helps.

Hi Diana,

Narrative research focuses more on the individuals rather than their experiences – this type of research looks at something from the perspective of a “special” individual. For narrative design one individual (in most cases) or two individuals (rarely) will be more than enough. In narrative research, we need to name the individual(s).

For the kind of questions you are researching please look into the possibility of using phenomenology as your research design.

Dear Peter and Sajid,

Thanks for your suggestion. After much discussion with experienced researchers, I fully agree with you and share the same thought - "I think the concept of 'case' only specifies the boundaries of your unit of analysis and doesn't pre-suppose how you will go about analysing your data."

Drawing a parallel from your comment to custom fit my research, I could say: "The methodological approach adopted for this research will be Narrative Inquiry with thematic analysis as it involves collecting the life experience stories from participants in the context of their association with the hiring process as an interviewer or an applicant. In order to make this study more vigorous the case study research method with cross-case analysis will also be used in addition to narrative inquiry. This qualitative analysis will be a description of both the story and themes that emerge from it while focusing on the TAFE sector in Australia as a case study."

Regarding 'how effective the organisational strategy compared, say, to other organisations', this is not a comparative case study. All the TAFEs collectively are considered as a case. The multiple participants all belong to the TAFE sector o retain a homogenous sample set. Having 7 TAFE in the study is to strengthen the themes that emerge from the findings. Are multiple voice's saying the same/different thing?

As for 'the connection between how people feel about their experience and how effective the organisational strategy is': the research itself is a pursuit of an exploration to understand a process from the perspective of the hired and the hiring manager. "Understanding employment hiring decisions in the interview process: a case study in Australia on the potential to improve the objective decision elements in hiring decisions". Every research question after getting the input on the feeling of the person, tries to probe on the areas of improvement. Hopefully the themes that emerge from the analysis will have a contribution towards enhancing the hiring decision in the interview process.

Regarding the use of Phenomenology - I really find myself leaning towards that more now. Except the only think holding me back at the moment from adopting that is I am not seeking to study the psychological phenomenon that interviewer/interviewee undergo. Instead, I would like to understand from their experience if their interview hiring decision was made based on subjective or objective elements and how they feel about it and what would they like to improve about it. The outcome of the collective response hopefully echoes a message that contributes to the literature of selection and recruitment from a different geography - Australian TAFE grounds.

Please share your thoughts.

In your longer answer, Diana, you seem to be describing what amounts primarily to a phenomenological question: what is it like to be recruited in this way?

Your scoping of the Australian TAFE sector as the locale/context of the study doesn't suggest to me that there is any additional strength in conceptualising it as a case study. Unless, that is, you want to make a comparison between each of the TAFEs as a unit.

The way I read what you've written (and I may be reading it wrongly of course) it still seems to me that you are asking more than one type of question as there are also hints of evaluation: can it be done better? If by 'better' you mean that a more productive employee was recruited, then the 'lived experience' might not be the place to look. It might be the very best place to look if the question includes an enquiry of something like, 'does our approach to interviewing prevent us from assessing good candidates fairly'.

I recall attending A&E with my son when he was a toddler (casualty, or ER in different health systems). If a researcher had asked me whether my problem was solved, I'd have said 'yes, essentially it was - he was ok'. If I was asked whether I had a positive experience, I'd have said 'no'. If I was asked how I experienced my visit to A&E I would have said that I felt stressed because I didn't know how long I'd be there and I was worried about child care for my daughter when she finished nursery (kindergarten), and I didn't know if I could leave the waiting room to get a sandwich or make a call (this was before mobile phones!!!). These enquiries all discover different things about my visit and might have been used to inform different policy issues.

It's quite possible to explore a set of different related questions at the same time of course. But I wonder if your uncertainty about where to go methodologically is because underneath it all you are not always thinking about the same research question.

My sincere apologies if this is missing the mark - it's just how it strikes me.

Diana - I come back to my original response and agree with Peter and Sajid.

I too keep coming back to phenomenology. You suggest this yourself - but you doubt it's philosophical basis. At the end of the day, your ontological/epistemological process for any qualitative approach that you use - will be philosophically-orientated.

Dear Peter and Dean,

Thanks for the time you have taken to give me more clarity. Peter I really liked the way you presented the importance of asking the correct questions from your own experience. I feel that could essentially be where I need to make the change. I am trying to study the potential of having a standardised decision making model in the hiring process (something similar to the APGAR score in the medical field). But that is too much for me to achieve at the moment, therefore, I wanted to first establish the need for such a model, which is the pursuit I am after in my current research. Once the need is established in one sector, I could recommend a replication in the other sectors as well.

Given that my heart/desire lies in understanding the organisation's hiring process and studying how to make it better by interviewing the employees for their experience and outcome, I am not finding the perfect fit with phenomenology as the way to do it. But as suggested by you, I may have to reword my questions to ensure that I get the response from the dimension I seek. Please let me know where you think I may possibly be going wrong. If you have any suggestion to re-structure the questions better, I would love to hear it please.

Thanks again for your time and effort.

Diana Rozario

Hi Diana - without fine detail - it's tricky to 'guess' the best response. If you wanted to to develop the standardised decision-making model - then the obvious approach would be quantitative. From a qualitative perspective, if phenomenology doesn't fit, then have you considered Grounded Theory as a basis for a new 'theoretical model'?

Another question to ask is 'are you an independent researcher - or being supervised'?

Hi Dean,

You are correct. That was how my research had started - a quantitative method with grounded theory. But after doing some literature review, I realised that a qualitative research would be good to start with as it will create a basis for the need for such a model. I am being supervised, and these were some points hat we discussed in length after we met up last week after the Christmas holidays and have decided on the following:

Overall pilosophical approach: Social constructionism

Method: Case Study (TAFE organisations, and how they manage recruitment etc)

Analysis: Narrative analysis (what are the stories people tell about recruitment, etc. This could also involve analysing common and divergent themes across narratives).

Thanks,

Diana

Hi Diana,

just a quick clarification about 'questions'. Previously, when talking about the 'research question', I meant the primary thing you want to discover through your research. I haven't been referring to interview questions at any point.

In your post yesterday you've asked for some pretty specific advice. A forum like this is great for getting different or wider perspectives. But decisions about your research strategy should be made with your supervisor who will have a much greater insight into what you are trying to do and why.

Good luck with the study. Do think about posting an update as it progresses as the adds to the knowledge base.

Peter.

Hi Diana, being in the throws of a phenomenological analysis myself, its quite a journey. It seems to me that because you are examining lived experiences you will indeed be talking phenomenology.You may consider narrative analysis and others based on the type of interviews and depth. I notice that you have a small sample so do design interviews that give you that richness. But you should be very clear on the method of analysis because whilst similar could be very different.Good luck.

Thanks Dora.