Longitudinal Qualitative Research: Analyzing Change through Time. Johnny Saldaña. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2003. 216 pp.

CAROLYN R. FRANK

California State University, Los Angeles

In Longitudinal Qualitative Research: Analyzing Change Through Time, Johnny Saldaña provides an in-depth discussion of "time" and "change" as they relate to longitudinal qualitative studies. Drawing on his own inquiries in theater and educational research, he illustrates how to approach long-term studies and what questions can be asked. The author suggests that this book be used as a supplement to introductory texts in qualitative inquiry. However, its value for me was that it could serve as a handbook for researchers conducting long-term fieldwork studies. For instance, they could perhaps revisit the chapters in the book as their fieldwork progresses.

What makes this book so remarkable is Saldaña's use of examples generated from 20 years of experience as a professor of theater. He points out, "I was surprised how many terms and concepts in the qualitative literature paralleled my own discipline of theatre (e.g., actor, character, role, setting, stage, dramaturgical analysis, ritual, script, vignette, scene, plot, social drama, interaction, conflict, and performance)" (p. x). The author also shows the effectiveness of long-term studies in which researchers assemble in chronological order all passages that are coded in the same way. He illustrates this point with a child in his Theatre Response Study who recalled stories from kindergarten through sixth grade. This young participant evolved from a child who simply recounts a story into someone who uses inference, perception, and personal response when reading and responding to literature.

This book begins with some basic underlying investigations into how time and change are defined and the ways in which they are important in longitudinal qualitative studies. Time can be fluid, a "physically contextual construct," "a cultural construct," or gendered in the sense that it can be "an instrument of power and control." Besides considering time as a concept to be studied, Saldaña views time as data, a part of the inquiry that can be used to inform the research. He states,

Closely linked to time is the concept of change, and its influences on development. The author examines alternate definitions of change but, as with time, sees it as contextual and as a piece of the study that influences the outcome of the research. For Saldaña, the study and the magnitude of change is the essence of the research (e.g., the people being studied, the researchers conducting the study, the location of the study, the curriculum and politics of the district, or the technological methods used to collect the data). He finds that "we should be flexible and allow a definition of change to emerge as a study proceeds and its data are analyzed. Ironically yet fittingly, we should permit ourselves to change our meaning of change as a study progresses" (p. 10). With this concept of change in mind, the author helps researchers search for the meanings of change in their own particular studies.

By analyzing change through time, Saldaña brings these two concepts together and offers guidelines on data analysis processes. By illustrating his own particular struggles with research, Saldaña provides examples of strategies and approaches for other researchers to use in their own work. The obstacles Saldaña faced in his research included: continuous attunement and sensitivity to many possible types of changes, determining whether and in what ways these multiple types of changes interrelate with each other, analyzing how and/or why these changes occur, and pulling everything together for a coherent report.

After presenting his perspectives on change and time, Saldaña takes us on a journey of the "nuts and bolts" of carrying out a long-term study. Through many examples of how researchers collect, manage, analyze, and report theories and findings, Saldaña manages to always keep "change" as the thread weaving its way throughout the book. Using Wolcott's three levels of research--description, analysis, and interpretation of qualitative data--he offers 16 questions to help with analysis, such as: What is different from one pool of data through the next? When do changes occur through time? The questions he presents are intended to discover, define, and describe changes across time.

Saldaña is to be commended for his carefully planned and highly readable text. Given the qualitative nature of the book and his description of "In Vivo Through-Line" (p. 152), which includes accounts in the participants' own language, it seems there is more that he could have said about how language itself can be a factor to consider in long-term studies (see Heath 1983). Despite this, the book is excellent in giving researchers of longitudinal qualitative studies different approaches and various kinds of questions to address when the passage of time affects the research and creates change. In fact, many of the ideas presented in this book are also helpful for short-term qualitative studies. I believe that all qualitative researchers, but especially scientists looking at long-term studies, will find this book informative and interesting to read.

References Cited

©2004 American Anthropological Association. This review is cited in the June 2004 issue (35:2) of Anthropology & Education Quarterly. It is indexed in the December 2004 issue (35:4).