Qualitative methods was an important course for me to take. Although I struggled to understand the philosophical concepts presented in the course, the importance of qualitative approaches to research was clear after I completed the final project. Specifically, my goal was to question peoples’ perspectives on what they thought connected the relationship between stereotype threat and achievement. In an attempt to answer this question, I interviewed three people. Although none could provide a concrete answer to this question, another important and more interesting conclusion emerged from my conversations: people feel that stereotypes impact others more so than it would impact themselves. It was clear that people believe that stereotypes is a factor that generally negatively impacts peoples’ behavior, however, none believed that stereotypes impacted themselves personally. Although this seemed quite obvious, this idea goes against that of stigma consciousness. Specifically, if people do not feel as though stereotypes impact them personally, stigma consciousness would not exist. Therefore, the weaknesses of qualitative inquiry were also illuminated in this project where individuals generally want to portray a positive perception of themselves.   

Overall, qualitative methods made me realize how important this method of inquiry is to education and social justice issues. Instead of a one-dimensional, quantitative view of stereotypes, qualitative methods provide a deeper more exploratory examination of the issues. I felt that I needed to be open to other methods of inquiry in order for me to develop the skills needed for me to accurately answer my questions about stereotypes. Therefore, I decided to take the mixed methods course.