Moseya Ntsandeni, Mashegoane Solomon, Govender Saraswathie, Makhubela Malose
Department of Psychology, Faculty of Humanities, University of Limpopo, Polokwane, South Africa.
Department of Psychology, Faculty of Humanities, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Health SA. 2020 Apr 2;25:1163. doi: 10.4102/hsag.v25i0.1163. eCollection 2020.
Despite the availability of Q methodology as a qualitative research alternative that seemingly circumvents the limits of standard qualitative methods across various fields, a recent review of qualitative research literature in leading health-related South African journals indicated that Q methodology is hardly a method of choice in South Africa.
This article demonstrates the application of Q methodology, a qualitative research option, in psychological research. The methodology is suitably designed to investigate and clarify diverse subjective experiences, attitudes, opinions and/or beliefs held by a group of people on a given topic.
A study on the subjective understandings and perceptions of epilepsy is used to illustrate how Q methodology works. In this particular study, a diverse group of participants, comprising students, traditional healers, doctors, nurses, pastors, high school teachers, laypeople domiciled in rural and urban areas, and speakers of two of the dominant African dialects in the area, was used.
Analysis produced three distinctive factors that are appositely named the scientific, the moderated traditionalist and the community-oriented stances. Each factor, constituted on the basis of close resemblance and statistical association between the rank orderings, represents an identifiable understanding of epilepsy by an exclusive grouping of participants.
Concluding remarks about Q methodology are provided.
尽管Q方法作为一种定性研究方法可供使用，它似乎能规避标准定性方法在各个领域的局限性，但最近对南非主要健康相关期刊上的定性研究文献进行的综述表明，Q方法在南非几乎不是一种首选方法。
本文展示了定性研究方法Q方法在心理学研究中的应用。该方法经过适当设计，用于调查和阐明一群人对给定主题所持的各种主观体验、态度、意见和/或信念。
一项关于癫痫的主观理解和认知的研究被用来阐明Q方法是如何运作的。在这项具体研究中，使用了一个多样化的参与者群体，包括学生、传统治疗师、医生、护士、牧师、高中教师、居住在农村和城市地区的普通民众，以及该地区两种主要非洲方言的使用者。
分析产生了三个独特的因素，恰当地命名为科学、温和传统主义者和社区导向立场。每个因素都是基于排序之间的密切相似性和统计关联构成的，代表了一组特定参与者对癫痫的可识别理解。
给出了关于Q方法的总结性评论。
