LC571 Qualitative Research Methods for Social Scientists

Research Report: Thematic Analysis of Qualitative Data

Student Name: Delina Beraki

ID:

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Epistemology and Ethics.................................................................................................................4
Epistemological Positions................................................................................................................6
Research Design and Ethical Issues................................................................................................6
Findings...........................................................................................................................................8
Discussion......................................................................................................................................10
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................11
Reference.......................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction
Qualitative research explicates the formative analysis and conceptions of social studies and
scenarios that entails the significance of numerical data from quantitative research. Quantitative
research demonstrates the estimation of any activities or aftermath; qualitative methods in
research ascertains the value of the outcomes and activities. This type of sampling produces
qualitative statistics, which the research scientist must assess using rigorous and methodical
transcribing, scripting, and trend and theme analysis procedures. The information collected for
certain research are documented by descriptive study (information without changing
surroundings) to be examined and configured through exploration of different study. To
investigate the information and accuracy of the descriptive study, there are several tools and
software that are pertinent to the tasks and research in social sciences frequently use them.
Qualitative analysis for research is profoundly investigated to encompass the conceptions,
cognizance, interpretation amidst of social processes. Data collected for research may get
immense for researcher to handle, software analysis for the data will assist well, when the
common criticism of its use happens to be the phenomenon of human intermediate. The daily life
activities are detected through analysis where it evolves the perceptions of extensive insight,
chains of behaviours, comprehension among people, interconnections, and interactions. It
comprises supporting scientists in acquiring a better understanding of how sociological elements
including socioeconomic structure, social stability preservation, and various social pressures
affect daily life. This technique also has the advantage of being adaptable and flexible within the
study setting, as well as being cost-effective to apply in several scenarios. Moreover, researchers
need to know the proper use of the data that consists of caution prior to application of them and
evaluation of the findings should not be based on the large number of assumptions.

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Epistemology and Ethics
Descriptive study in research aims to build the systematic description of phenomena or any
situations in social life that will contribute to collecting enormous data. Descriptive study works
as quantitative methods to collect data and have a visual understanding over the statistical
analysis. To describe the demographics of the research, descriptive tool ensures the gain of better
comprehension of intercultural situations that is a whole social engagement. To do the survey,
descriptive study is employed and to examine the immense information from archival
documents, journals, there are several options are assigned. To adopt the descriptive study in
research, the sources of knowledge are important and there are few things are needed to be
employed for the evaluation including websites, research papers and book, direct conversations,
and training courses as well as surveys. The knowledge is required to do any research in
descriptive way where the source of knowledge is a fact to know about. Descriptive study works
as exploratory in natural setting where it provides the data that are used to explain the overall
perspective of the study and development of the theory. To understand the social phenomena, the
epistemology of descriptive research conveys the contents that are useful in getting the social and
cultural atmosphere. For existed things in the social life, exploratory research using descriptive
method helps to figure out the in-depth problem of the research. In the individual area of the
society, this method has got the prominence to gain better understanding. In the qualitative
research method, the most ubiquitous pattern of them is pragmatic, systematic and interpretative.
To understand the core meaning of life and activities, this method looks over the attitude,
emotions, and feelings. It is based on an intellectual interpretation of social reality and the
portrayal of individual human experiences. Studies in training, economics, anthropology,
psychology, and information management is all influenced. Anthropologists try to figure out how
people think about things. It entails the exploration of perception-related ideas and feelings
(Hancock et al., 2009)..

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Figure: Qualitative Research Method

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Epistemological Positions
In the research study, epistemology demonstrates the knowledge sources such as how we know
and what we know about that analyses the theory within findings. Epistemology stands with
three model including objectivism, constructionism and subjectivism that comprises theoretical
perspectives immune to criticism (Flis, 2019). The knowledge acquired for different research
studies states that perspective of epistemological approach enhances the understanding that leads
to having viewpoint on qualitative research. Epistemological position explicates the theory of
knowledge that are stated as the philosophical study of human knowledge. Social
constructionism is a unique way of looking at the world that accentuates individual
characteristics and simultaneously recognizing the fundamental similarities that unite mankind.
This means that, while we are not forced to accept other people's viewpoints, nobody of us has
the option to change or adjust our materialistic viewpoint merely because we wish to. Each
participant's sense of reality is authentic for him or her, yet it is unique to that entity and
uncontrollable. The ability of human being is often gets denied being acknowledged by the
empirical research studies and where, positivism works for all these that are clinically trialled.

Research Design and Ethical Issues

To understand the type of any research, research design helps to perceive the pattern concerning
the category. Based on empirical research data, two types of analysis should be carried out that
are external and internal evaluations (Navalta, 2019). The legitimacy and authenticity of the data
are the primary reasons for conducting an external evaluation. The internal evaluation for data
authenticity is conducted after the data validation and external validation establishes the data's
legitimacy, while internal verification ensures its dependability (L Mitchell, 2010).

At the time of project planning, ethical difficulties must be considered by investigators to ensure
the method and preserve the obscurity of interviewee to implement ethical norms properly. To
address these concerns, most organizations around the world have established one or more
Human Study Ethics Committees (HRECs), which are panels that evaluate research projects for
ethical implications and determine whether additional safeguards are required to protect the
dignity and safety of participants (Kivunja & Kuyini, 2017).

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As a matter of fact, that a wide range of institutions, the Ethics Board has considered its job as
assisting in the protection of both the organization and the researcher from potential legal action
stemming from refusal to recognize significant ethical issues on behalf of participants. The
Ethics Committee is made up of people from many disciplines and is formally independent of
both the university and the government. Members of the Ethics Committee should be objective
and have no potential conflicts of interest in the submissions under consideration. As a
consideration of ethical practices, the board of ethics is evaluated to ensure the objectives that are
held accountable for its decisions (Myers, 2013).

Findings
According to the research study, the concern of research strategies can be undertaken by the
researchers to use in the research of social science and that can be empirically investigated to
obtain the expected objectives. The implementation of model for the research will ensure that the
findings are following the corrective framework. There are several theory or model pertaining to
the research that are established to the concern of social outline and those are positivism or
positivist model, interpretive research paradigm of data collection, critical theory (criticism,
poststructuralism, Marxist theory), and rational model of decision making (Ryan, 2006). These
models ensure scientific researchers to get formulated concept over social universe, how
individuals come to a decision, intuitive experiences of people in society etc. The prediction
from explanatory argument portrays that the contents will be tremendously disclosed by the
investigators while investigating for the research to many more scholars. As a result, the
researcher is unable to classify and study human behaviours entirely on the grounds of external
factors; rather, people's perceptions and assessments of the reality in which they live have an
impact on individual interactions (Bailey et al. 2017).

The main purpose of conducting Qualitative research is to gain accuracy over the perception of
behaviour of individuals and, not to provide unclear conceptions rather the outcomes should be
evaluated. Qualitative approach must figure out the factors that may hinder the stability of
findings of the researcher and execute the solution in the regard of categorized findings. In the
discipline of Human Science, the qualitative approach is applied to conduct research that can
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identify the data which are derived from sociology, philosophy and from other aspects.
According to qualitative research, the organization and substance of the human experiential
domain is more like to natural language than numbers (Nowell et al. 2017). From the published
research, qualitative analysis detects tools for the data gathering that will lead to increase the
accuracy of the findings that are away from the errors. At the process of collecting, assessing,
and reporting the findings of any study, the most important thing is to look up that the
conclusions are sketched by the researcher are not prejudiced due to misconceptions or prior
layouts. In the concern of discovering knowledge, epistemology of findings will help researchers
to frame the problems and ascertain the exact research design (Belotto, 2018). Furthermore, the
investigation technique material has provided several methods for ensuring the consistency of
qualitative findings. As a result, the researcher must investigate and include the factors that may
hinder the investigation. To avoid any errors, researchers must report findings without any
biasness and must build the logical pattern. The research participants must be evaluated by
researchers that whether the participants are worth attending the research survey or not.

Qualitative research method should work on different projects to exhibit many scenarios and skip
finding single matters. According to the qualitative research study of Denzin, legitimacy comes
up with generating ideas rather than reproduction of them. Any interpretative study aims for in-
depth comprehension; the use of several convergent validities rather than a single authenticity
necessitates a commitment to discourse (Denzin, 2010). We recognize that the explanatory field
is far more extensive than we have depicted above, and that it includes diverse perspectives such
as article, expressionism (as opposed to research setting), and literary criticism. Concerns about
the consequences of ‘recording' societies and diverse events in this way have since been raised,
and systems of visual documenting have been established that allow for some interaction
between the investigator and the focus of the research (Fusch, Fusch, & Ness, 2017).. The
appraisal of visual media as a social artifact and literature is also an important component of this
method of assessing societies and cultures. To conduct research at the current time, there are
appreciation of visual data collection and interpretation are increasing vastly. Using these tools,
research works get more authentic and sagacious. The field of anthropology, which has been
using still and motion pictures as a means of preserving natural interaction in perspective for far
lengthier and it credits to evolve the massive portion for accumulation of visual components
(Edwards, 2016).

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Discussion
People's perspectives, perceptions, and meaningful systems fascinate research participants from
their own perspective. Quantitative investigations and empirical procedures should not be
included in qualitative research. The roots of descriptive study are sociocultural and
anthropological philosophy, as well as information psychology. A "thorough grasp of the
unique" is the focus of the grounded theory. The goal of qualitative research is to produce new
ideas and techniques by methodically documenting and interpreting subjects or experiences from
the person or group being study’s perspective. The strategy chosen is determined by the
questions asked (Mohajan, 2018).

Figure: Factors that influence social research

Source: (Edwards, J. 2016)
Scientific methodology and tools correspond to social science study that enhances the procedures
of authenticity, reliability of facts, and veracity in the research perspective. Scientific rigor in
social science research requires objectivity, fairness, and experimentally verified proof.
Empiricism encompasses data observation, collecting, examination, and explanation. Social
research is the investigation of human existence, behaviour, social groups, and organizations by
social scientists from various disciplines (Haig, 2018). Among all disciplines of researchers,
philosopher, anthropologists, sociologists, behavioural expertise, economics, linguistics, law,
cultural study, psychological study, and social work are explicitly involved. These professions

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have their own objectives, language, techniques, and methodologies for understanding social
problems.

Every cluster of social phenomena, every stage of human existence, and every step of historical
and contemporary evolution are investigated by social scientists (Constant & Roberts, 2017).
When it comes to inventing, analysing, or contemplating theories and concepts that researchers
employ to describe how the system works, social research is theoretical. Contextual science is
defined as research that focuses on many aspects of experiences - the mechanisms of events that
we encounter in our daily lives. Data gathering and analysis are used to form an interpretative
committee in a social research study (Chen, 2018). Its mission is to investigate, characterize, and
communicate data. The purpose of social researchers is to test a theory to arrive at a scientific
conclusion or to explain a social phenomenon. The investigation method is based on the
constructivist notion that reality is made up of unambiguous objects that can be seen. Anything
that has been witnessed is referred to as a statement. The "qualitative" element of the paradigm is
based on the use of descriptive and inferential analysis to measure variables and assess their
associations. Separation from the events under observation is preferred for objectivity.
Quantitative analysis and statistical relevance receive the most attention. The term "pragmatist"
refers to a person who believes in scientific techniques. The importance of consciousness is
considered in an interpretative framework, which defines the reality of creation. The
phenomenological approach might be difficult to grasp, especially for individuals who just have
a basic understanding of metaphysics. Regardless of the fact that it would be a rigorous,
intriguing activity, the researcher's final study output can be quite rewarding (Hayes, 2013).

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Conclusion
Most of the contemporary social research is either uncertain or heavily reliant on chance. To
predict the outcomes, social research is assessed concerning the qualitative and quantitative both
parts taking the direct observation and data analysis within. Conducting survey for further
research work, it helps to determine the results of situations that are under exploration of certain
topic. The most appropriate descriptive way of social research is to adopt correlational approach.
From the mentioned explanation of research methodology for thematic analysis, the purpose of
social research is to eradicate the problems while improving the environment and handle them.
The objective is to express the possible correlations that can modify the projected benefits.
Sociological research progressed as social scientists learned to adapt and develop suitable
approaches for analysing social processes (Malterud, 2012).

Under human science of study, it covers the social study as well as philosophical attributes that
are employed by the social researchers in the course of their works. The performance is held on
the perspective of scientific evaluation and mechanism speculation can get reflected by
quantitative method that leads to causing causal effects or results. It's also reductive in the sense
that ideas are reduced to small, separate groupings of ideas in order to investigate issues such as
assumptions and research goals. The "experimental" element of this paradigm alludes to the
investigation's goals, which are characterized as "characterizing, forecasting, manipulating, and
interpreting observable events as revealed by experience and investigations (Goldblatt, 2011)."

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