Thinking Qualitatively: Methods of Mind

This is a very general book about how you can think to be a better researcher so that you can do qualitative studies. I highly recommend this to others. I give it 4 stars because some information in it was too general for me. Then again it is not meant to be a specific road-map.

This “Thinking Qualititively: Methods of Mind” was one of the additional resource required for my PhD class. It was purchased at a reduced price and in good condition😍! A resource which has been used a lot in my class.received quickly.

I love this book. I wish I had stumbled upon it earlier. I bought both the hard copy and the ebook. Highly recommend for anyone doing qualitative studies.

Great book!

This book's approach to qualitative research is mediocre at best. What is far more concerning than Saldana's methodological recommendations, however, is his presentation. Allow me to elaborate.First of all, Saldana frames qualitative research in an overly cognitivist manner. He constantly resorts to the language of "mental patterns," and "ways your mind works," placing a strong emphasis on the idea that learning qualitative research methods requires you to remake your mental works. Even as he cites numerous incidental sources from neuroscience--few if any of which are germane to the points he is making about qualitative research itself--his choice of words and his glib tone take the book in the direction of the pseudo-science of "life-hacking" more than scholarship. One does not need to know "how your brain works" in order to talk, in order to analyze the world around us, and so on; so the priority given to pop-neuroscience language seems to be a distraction at best, and at worst a smokescreen for thinly-developed material.That should be enough to steer you away to another introduction to qualitative inquiry. However, there are a number of other incidental issues which also trouble the book. First, in chapter 1 Saldana presents a highly simplified, deterministic view of how a person's social position influences (or, as he seems to suggest, equates to) their worldview. I am fully aware that there is a relationship between one's positionality and one's voice--this was the substance of one of the first major interventions by feminist scholars, such that the idea is often presumed commonsense in the academy today. Unfortunately, the feminist critique of the so-called "master subject" (Haraway's term) is not so well-known that scholars today can simply dash off a terrible representation of it *in a textbook for new academics,* who may not be exposed to any more rigorous formulation in subsequent coursework. Furthermore, Saldana implies that by openly acknowledging one's positionality one can earn the trust of readers, by showing that the researcher has thought through "all" the ethical considerations regarding representation of others. This makes me want to cry. It is ludicrous to suggest that we can fully and transparently know how our own person affects the way that we write our scholarship. It is equally ludicrous to suggest that by disclosing our positionality our readers will be able to perfectly calibrate and see through our distorted lens to some objective Truth; or that we even *deserve* a reader's trust just because we talk about growing up privileged or homeless or white or brown or whatever. The issue at hand is not how to recover scholarship's lost sense of transparency--but rather to see that all knowledge of the world is tied to subjects who themselves are in the world. I could go on, but it's not necessary--suffice to say, Saldana presents a crude approximation of the feminist critique of knowledge production, a critique which he owes a great debt to, given how subsequent changes in the academy have valorized qualitative research against a hard-lined quantitative approach to social science.The overall tone of the book is fairly casual, even conversational--which in and of itself is not problematic, except that Saldana often lapses into an editorial voice. For example, in chapter 7, he presents *without any citations* a thin summary of "embodied" research and research methodologies that prioritize the body. These he dismisses out of hand (as more an "obsession" or a "fixation" than a "lens," one of his favorite terms), without presenting any evidence that he has engaged with this scholarship at any depth. Since when is the act of writing a textbook the moment to pronounce one's opinions on other scholars, not least on entire subfields of work?Ah, but wait, there's more. Since when is the writing of a textbook an opportunity to air one's misogynistic tendencies? Later in the same chapter, he suggests that one way of "thinking cinematically" is to reflect on what cinematic character you might most identify with. He then cites Hannibal of "Silence of the Lambs"--yes, seriously--and then claims that, for him, Hannibal's most salient personal characteristic is his "high-powered perception," his cool analytical approach, rather than *the fact that he was a serial killer of women.* Where is his editor to tell him that this is inappropriate? Where are his friends who read the manuscript? I can name fifty different leading actor roles from major motion pictures who have high-powered perception who *are not serial killers of women.* This is deeply inappropriate and perhaps unfortunately revealing.I could go on, but I hope at this point I don't need to. PLEASE find a different book to learn qualitative methods from.

This is an ideal book for an Introduction to Qualitative Research for a master's or PhD level course. The connections to brain research and reflective thinking are essential to qualitative work and are often not discussed in qual. research texts. Highly recommend this book for grad students just entering the field as well as to experienced researchers as a touch point for reflective thinking.

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