Qualitative research
| ✰ Qualitative approach to research is concerned with subjective assessment of attitudes, opinions and behaviour. |
| ✰ Qualitative research is basically inductive in nature and has a very different structure. The researcher starts with a tentative idea or question and these questions become more specific with progress in research. |
| ✰ Thus, in qualitative research, one starts with observation and ends with a theoretical position or stance. Thus, it is inductive in nature, i.e., the research moves from specific to theory. |
| ✰ It follows post positivism approach of research. |
| ✰ It’s concern with process rather than simply with outcomes. |
| ✰ Also called flexible research/ unstructured research. |
| ✰ In qualitative research, less role of review of literature. |
| ✰ Since, it uses non-probability sampling technique to collect sample data, it has less sample size. |
| ✰ Research is conducted on natural settings. |
| ✰ It is used for exploration and initial understanding development. |
The important methods and approaches used in qualitative research have been discussed below.
1. Ethnography
2. Phenomenology
3. In-depth interview
4. Focus group
5. Narrative research
6. Case study research
7. Grounded theory
1. Ethnography:
| ✰ The ethnography is one of the major types of qualitative research methods used in social sciences, especially in anthropology. It is the process of studying and describing a culture (a culture is the shared attitudes, values, norms, practises, language and material things of a group of people). |
2. Phenomenology:
| ✰ It is a form of qualitative research in which the researcher attempts to understand how individuals experience a phenomenon. What was the phenomenon and how people experienced it. |
| ✰ It is the study of a particular phenomenon through interviews of people who have experienced it to find out the similarities between their experiences. |
| ✰ For example, interviewing 10 infected corona people and asking them to describe their experiences. Net exam |
3. In-depth interview:
| ✰ It is a personal interview that is carried out with one respondent at a time. Though it is systematically planned, it may have unstructured elements as well. |
| ✰ The researcher prepares questions in advance to make sure that only the most important questions are asked to the participant. |
| ✰ If the researcher is well experienced asking the right questions can help him/her collect meaningful data. |
| ✰ The interview can last anywhere between twenty minutes to half an hour. |
4. Focus group:
| ✰ A focus group usually includes 6–10 participants who are usually subject matter experts. |
| ✰ A moderator, usually an experienced person, is assigned to a focus group to facilitate the discussion. The role of a moderator is to probe the participants by asking the correct research questions so as to collect research related information. |
| ✰ This method is very useful when it comes to market research on new products and testing new concepts. |
5. Narrative research:
| ✰ This method focuses on spoken or written words or visual representations by people. |
| ✰ This model is helpful in understanding the ways in which people represent them and their experiences to a wider audience. |
| ✰ It is a kind of cohesive story telling method. |
| ✰ All kinds of biography and autography comes under Narrative research. |
6. Case study research:
| ✰ Case studies are in-depth examinations of people or groups of people. |
| ✰ Case studies are time consuming and may be quite costly. |
| ✰ Case study method is used in the areas like education sector, social sciences, management, philosophical and psychological and similar. |
| ✰ This research method has evolved over the years as one of the most valuable qualitative research methods. |
| ✰ This method involves a deep digging into the developments and collects data. |
7. Grounded theory:
| ✰ It is a qualitative approach to generate and develop a theory from data that the researcher collects. |
| ✰ It develops a theory from ground base(zero) |
| ✰ It is involved in the collection, interpretation, and analysis of data. The grounded theory model uses the analysed data to develop different theories regarding the topic of research. |
| ✰ Role play, simulation and diary methods are also used in qualitative research. |
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