Qualitative Research On Women's Football From 1969 To Today

Methodology

This research will use qualitative data as opposed to quantitative data, as quantitative research is based on numerical data and ‘data gathering techniques’ (Taylor, Bogdan, & DeVault, 2016:7). Qualitative data allows for researchers to ‘preserve chronological flow, see precisely which events led to [which] consequences, and derive fruitful explanations’ (Miles and Huberman, 1994:1) making this type of research the most beneficial as this research study’s the impact of recent events that have occurred in of women’s football within the time period from 1969 to today, meaning it is imperative for the data collected to be sequential. The research also asks ‘how’ the events that have occurred have impacted the game that is women’s

In this research, the ‘old’ (secondary) data used will be in the form of books and journal articles. After collecting this data, a hypothesis was established as a result of analysing the current research available was missing, and consequently acknowledging that they period of time between 1969 and now did not have explanations of events that have occurred and subsequently the consequences or impact of these events on women’s football, therefore, making the method of research deductive. Deductive reasoning consists of answering the research question in a cycle starting by ‘first thinking of a theory, then creating a hypothesis and finally collecting research ‘formulated on the basis of existing theory literature [to be] then tested empirically,’ to prove or disprove the hypothesis (Denzin and Lincoln, 2000:288). This approach contradicts one of the major principles of qualitative research, Verstehen, therefore, the research will also use inductive reasoning which is the same cycle as deductive reasoning but in reverse order. This approach represents the most common view of the relationship between theory and research and results gathered from this approach are developed through logical reasoning (Bryman and Bell, 2015). Subsequently, the research will move fluidly through

Primary research is ‘the operationalization of theoretical constructs, the research design’ the data collection strategy can then be ‘tailored to [allow] the research question’ (Hox & Boeije, 2005) allowing for the fluidity of the inductive and deductive research cycle to be utilised. This will not only will this allow for the reasons behind the changes in women’s football to be brought to the forefront, but will also enable the research to explore ‘why’ these changes have occurred and how they impacted the women’s version of the game in this ‘malestream culture’ with regards to the social context (Talbot, 2002;280). A method of primary research that will be used throughout the research will be oral sources of data. Since the time being researched contains the past, ‘historians have to collect the impressions and recollections’ from surviving documents or literature published at the time being studied. The oral sources consist of public records, which are documents that can include, letters, minutes, interviews and diaries, ‘such materials can give an exhilarating sense of touching the ‘real’ past’ (Tosh, 2016: 254). Analysing oral sources can ‘allow the voice of ordinary people to be heard alongside the careful marshalling of social facts in the written record’ (Tosh, 2016 :266), this will be done