Qualitative Methods

Question 1

What is qualitative research?

Answer 1

Qualitative research involves collecting and analyzing non-numerical data (e.g., text, video, or audio) to understand concepts, opinions, or experiences. It can be used to gather in-depth insights into a problem or generate new ideas for research.

Opposite of quantitative research.

Question 2

What are common qualitative research approaches?

Answer 2

Grounded theory: Researchers collect rich data on a topic of interest and develop theories inductively.

Etnography: Researchers immerse themselves in a groups or organizations to understand their culture.

Action research: Researchers and participants collaboratively link theory to practise to drive social change.

Phenomenological research: Researchers investigate a phenomenon or event by describing and interpreting participants’ lived experiences.

Narrative research: Researchers examine how stories are told to understand how participants perceive and make sense of their experiences.

Question 3

What are common steps in data treatment?

Answer 3

1. Prepare and organize data. This may mean transcribing interviews or typing up fieldnotes.
2. Review and explore your data. Examine the data for patterns or repeated ideas that emerge.
3. Develop a data coding system. Based on your initial ideas, establish a set of codes that you can apply to categorize your data.
4. Assign codes to the data. For example, in qualitative survey analysis, this may mean going through responses and tagging them with codes in a spreadsheet.
5. Identify recurring themes. Link codes together into cohesive, overarching themes.