The How & The Why: The Certificate in Qualitative Research Methods

Scholar-vision

Photo via James Vaughn

I recently stumbled upon one of the most ingenious resources available on the internet and want to share it with you. Personally, I don’t think any post is worth more than one that allows the public to access something so marvelous, so productive, so stimulating, and so superbly edifying. Perhaps I’m exaggerating a bit, but truth be told, having an online lecture course by some of the most renowned scholars at your fingertips is quite impressive. While you may not be able to attend their classes, you can certainly sit quietly at your computer, plug in your headphones, and watch lecturers talk about a particular subject or listen to their lectures over iTunes. Is that great or what? And it is all free.

Constant Comparison with Jellybeans

What could be more exciting than watching grounded theory elucidated in stop motion animation? Okay, probably a lot of things, like participant observation acted out in claymation, but we haven’t found that video clip yet.

The methodology may not be obvious at first; however, watching the beans as they apparently categorize themselves is just plain fun. The beans shimmy and shake into groups. Each bean is compared to the other beans and then categorized. Categories are readjusted and new categories emerge and the beans immediately rush to the most fitting spot.