Qualitative Research and Its

Importance in Daily Life

 Kinds of Qualitative Research,
Characteristics, Uses, Strengths and
Weaknesses

 Qualitative Research is an inquiry process of understanding a social or

human problem based on building a complex holistic picture formed with
words, reporting detailed views of informants and conducted in a natural
setting. –Cresswell (1994)
 Locke, Spirduso and Silverman (1987) emphasize that the intent of
qualitative research is to understand a particular social situation, event, role,
group or interaction.
 Franenkel and Wallen (1990) stress that researchers are interested in
understanding how things occur.
Qualitative research, by its very nature, is essentially a
descriptive analysis and follows the motivation to study,
to arriving at a generalization of what has caused such
behavior, based on observations, interviews or self-
disclosures in written forms like school compositions, or
more popularly, in social network posts, blogs or videos.
 Kinds of Qualitative Research

Marshall and Rossman (1995) describe succinctly varied qualitative research

methods:
 Participant Observation – demands immersion in the natural setting of the research
participant/s. This way, the researcher participant is able to hear, see, and
experience reality as the research participants perform activities and deal with one
another during a period of time.
 Observation – entails the systematic noting or recording of events, behaviors and
artifacts (objects) in the social setting chosen for study. Through this method, the
researcher learns about behaviors and the meanings attached to those behaviors.
The value here is that the researcher is able to discover the recurring patterns of
behavior and relationships.
 In-depth Interviewing- resembles conversations, but with pre-determined response
categories.
Focus Group Interviewing

 involves 7-10, at times 6-8 people, who are unfamiliar with one another and have been
selected because they share certain characteristics that are relevant to the research
inquiry or problem.
 The interviewer creates a permissive environment, ask focused questions, in order to
encourage discussion and the expression of differing opinions and points of view. These
interviews are conducted several times with different individuals so that the researcher
can identify trends