Qualitative Research

Gokce Hilal Sincer

 Research and research methods
Research methods are split broadly into quantitative and
qualitative methods

Which you choose will depend on:

• your research questions
• your underlying philosophy of research
• your preferences and skills
 Qualitative Research

• Qualitative research is an approach to obtain a lot of in-depth information

from people. The aim is to understand WHY people think and behave the
way they do. Because we spend a lot of time with people to get this
information we usually can only talk with a FEW people.

• Qualitative research is a form of social inquiry that focuses on the way

people interpret and make sense of their experiences and the world in
which they live, and understand the social reality of individuals, groups and
cultures.
 What does it involve?
• Qualitative research involves the use and collection of a variety
of empirical materials (case studies, personal experiences, life
stories, interviews, observations etc.) that describe routine and
problematic moments and meanings in individuals lives.

• In Qualitative Research researchers try to find out what people

think, and how they feel. This kind of information is subjective.
It involves feelings and impressions, rather than numbers’
 Foundations of Qualitative Research

• Qualitative research allows researchers to study topics

that are difficult to quantify

• These methods have recently become more popular

in social science research
 Qualitative approaches

• Any research that doesn’t involve numerical data

• Instead uses words, pictures, photos, videos, audio recordings, field
notes, peoples’ own words etc.
• Tends to start with a broad question rather than a specific
hypothesis
• Develop theory rather than start with one (inductive rather than
deductive)
 Generating new theories or hypotheses

• Qualitative research allows us to first describe a phenomenon or

human experience, from which new theories or hypotheses can
be drawn
• The qualitative approach is inductive
• Qualitative data give us the ability to build new ideas
Inductive
Approach
 Characteristics of qualitative research
The primacy of data The theory comes from the data

Contextualisation Qualitative depends on context, and researchers

must be context sensitive
Immersion in the settings Researchers immerse themselves in the natural
setting of the people whose thoughts and feelings
they wish to explore
The research relationship Based on the position of equality
 What’s wrong with qualitative research?

• It can be very subjective

• It can’t always be repeated
• It can’t always be generalizable
• It can’t always give you definite answers in the way that quantitative
research can
 Choosing a Qualitative Method

The researcher chooses a qualitative methodology based on:

• project’s purpose
• schedule
• budget
• the issue(s) or topic(s) being studied
• types of participants needed
• researcher’s skill, personality, and preferences
 Qualitative research process
1. Select topic and problem
2. Justify significance of study
3. Design study
4. Identify and gain access to subjects
5. Select study subjects and data
6. Analyze data
7. Interpret results
 Qualitative Data
• Qualitative data are any data that are in nonnumerical form
• Examples:
• Interviews
• Observations
• Newspapers, magazines
• Drawings, pictures, photos
• Social media (tweets, etc.)
 Gathering qualitative data

• No need for large sample sizes

• Some issues may arise, such as:
• Respondents providing inaccurate or false information – or saying
what they think the researcher wants to hear
• Ethical issues may be more problematic as the researcher is
usually closer to participants
• Researcher objectivity may be more difficult to achieve
Some qualitative data collection techniques
• Interviewing (different formats)
• Focus Groups
• Direct observations – may also be recorded (video/audio)
• Text (diaries, self-reporting, written accounts of past events/archive
data and company reports

* Participants may volunteer or be sought out

** Methods of collecting data should not interfere in the lives of the
respondents
 Unstructured Interviewing

• An interviewing method that uses no predetermined interview

protocol or survey and where the interview questions emerge
and evolve as the interview proceeds
• Much like a natural conversation
• It may be more difficult to analyze unstructured interview data,
especially when synthesizing across respondents
Depth Interviews
“If you wish to know the road up the
mountain, you must ask the man who
goes back and forth on it.”
 Depth Interviews
• Depth interviews are an unstructured and direct way of obtaining
information.

• Depth interviews are conducted on a one-on-one basis.

• These interviews typically last from 30 minutes to more than an hour.

• They attempt to uncover underlying motives, prejudices, or attitudes

toward sensitive issues.
 Achieving deeper understanding
of the phenomenon
• Through the use of in-depth interviewing and observation, a researcher
is able to gain a much greater understanding for how people experience
a phenomenon

• While polling and other quantitative approaches are useful for examining
how large numbers of people view a certain issue, only qualitative
methodology can allow us to understand why they view things the way
they do
 Interviewer Responsibilities
• Recommends topics and • Prepares research tools
questions • Supervises transcription
• Controls interview • Helps analyze data
• Plans location and facilities • Draws insights
• Proposes criteria for drawing • Writes report
sample
• Recruits participants
 Unstructured interviews
• Unstructured interviews rely on developing a dialog between interviewer and
participant. Without this dialog and comfort between the two people, the
interview will not result in valuable data.
• Because the researcher is seeking information that the participant may not
be willing to share or may not even recognize consciously, the researcher
must be creative.
• Interviewer skill is necessary to extract more and a greater variety of data.
• Interviewer experience and skill generally result in greater clarity and more
elaborate answers.
Focus Groups
 Focus Groups
• The researcher gathers information about attitudes, opinions, and
preferences of selected groups of participants

• Can be used to generate as many ideas on a topic as possible and

to achieve consensus in a group

• Useful in marketing, survey development

 Characteristics of Focus Groups

Group size 8 – 12

Group composition Homogeneous; respondents prescreened

Physical setting Relaxed, informal atmosphere

Time duration 1 – 3 hours

Recording Use of audiocassettes and videotapes

Layout of Focus
Group room and
observation room
One-way mirror
Viewing room looking into the focus group room through one-way mirror
Procedure for Conducting a Focus Group

Design the Focus Group Environment

Recruit and Select Focus Group Participants

Select a Moderator

Prepare the Discussion Guide

Conduct the Group Interview

Prepare the Focus Group Report

 Participant Observation

• A method where the researcher becomes a participant in the

culture or context being observed
• This method often involves a time commitment
• Months or years
• Researcher must work to establish his or her relationship
with the group being studied
 Direct Observation

• The process of observing a phenomenon to gather information

about it
• This process is different from participant observation:
• The direct observer doesn’t typically try to become a
participant in the context
• The direct observer strives to be as unobtrusive as possible so
as not to bias the observations
 Case Studies

• An intensive study of a specific individual or specific

context

• Data may include observations, clinical notes, medical

history, life history
Worries and Concerns
 What qualitative researchers worry about

• Have I coded my data correctly?

• Have I managed to capture the situation in a realistic manner?
• Have I described the context in sufficient detail?
• Have I managed to see the world through the eyes of my participants?
• Is my approach flexible and able to change?
 The importance of flexibility
• We need to be FLEXIBLE when carrying out qualitative research.
• There are many methods we can use to achieve the same learning
objective.
• Also we can ask different kinds of questions to learn the same
information.
• So, if we find that a method or question we are using isn’t being
understood or isn’t working well, we can change methods or use a
different question.
 Bias
“Bias means having only part of the truth, but using the
information as if it were the whole truth”

• We reduce bias by getting more information.

• We get more information by looking at something in

different ways.
 Example
The Mountain
• Think of a mountain. If you were standing in one place looking at a
mountain and tried to describe it, you would only see one side.

• So your description would be biased. You would need to stand at

different places to be able to see the whole mountain and really
describe all of it.

• But even then the description would be biased because you may prefer
to describe some things and not others.
 The Mountain (continued)

• Therefore we should bring in other people and ask them to

describe the mountain also.

• But even then the description is biased because we are all

looking at the mountain with the same method, our eyes.

• We should use different methods, like using a telescope as

well as our own eyes, to get a more complete description.
 The Mountain (continued)
• But the description is still biased because we are all looking at the
mountain at the same time of year.

• Some months there may be snow on the mountain but not at other
times, so we would want to look at different times of the year.

There is a name for reducing bias by using different ways to study the
same thing. It is called TRIANGULATION. We do this in qualitative studies
by using team members with different experiences and perspectives.
 Trustworthiness
• We sometimes say that we trust a person. With this we mean that his/her
behaviour is predictable in that similar behaviour is expressed at different
occasions and we believe that the person is not lying. A trustworthy
person is someone who tells us the “truth” and does so consistently.

• What is trustworthy research?

• How can we judge what findings are worth believing?
 Four Criteria for assessing trustworthiness
Question asked Qualitative
1. Have we really measured what we set out to measure Credibility

2. How applicable are our result to other subjects and other Transferability
context
3. Would our findings be repeated if our research were Dependability
replicated in the same context with the same subject

4. To what extend are our findings affected by personal Conformability

interest and biases
 Writing skills
• A qualitative researcher needs to be particularly skilful in writing
because unlike quantitative work, which can be interpreted
through tables and summaries, qualitative work carries its
meaning in the entire text.

• Qualitative data/text is highly complex and only carefully crafted

writing can do justice to this.
How do I know if a research paper I’m reading
followed a qualitative approach?
Look at the Abstract!