Lecture 9: Collecting and analysing Qualitative Data

Question 1

What are the advantages of focus groups?

Answer 1

• Relatively easy (not in a B2B context)
• Speed
• Comments from participants trigger responses from others
• Participants may feel more motivated to express their views without feeling they are being ‘interviewed’
• Produce rich data
• Good forum for generating ideas as opposed to simply examining them

Question 2

What are the disadvantages of focus groups?

Answer 2

• Can be expensive
• Results are not representative to the population hence you can not generalize
• Large groups make interaction difficult
• Small groups are dominated by a few ‘Alpha’s’
• Embarrassment - Difficult to carry out when the issue is private or sensitive
• Possible conflict / Reactions to other respondents
• Reactions to the moderator

Question 3

What are the agreed steps to conduct a focus group from the literature?

Answer 3

• Focus group has between 6-8 participants
• Requires a skilled moderator & assistant moderator
• Lasts between 1 and 2 hours
• Has a discussion guide to keep both the moderator and participants on track
• • Held in a quiet area where there will be no interruptions.
• Collect data via recording (audio & visual)

Question 4

What are some qualitative research methods?

Answer 4

• In-depth interviews
• Focus Groups
• Case Studies
• Observation approaches
• experimental research
• projective techniques

Question 5

What is the shared strength and weakness of qualitative research?

Answer 5

The human element of qualitative inquiry is both its strength and weakness

• Its Strength is fully using human insight and experience
• Its Weakness is being dependent on the researcher’s skill, training, intellect, discipline, and creativity

Question 6

What are the 4 areas of Qualitative research

Answer 6

• Exploratory research
• New Product Development (NPD)
• Tactical Studies
• Creative Development

Question 7

What is the definition of exploratory research

Answer 7

Look at the broader environment (both at the macro- and the micro-level) and understand emerging trends

– Existing markets because … things change!
– New markets because … business change!

Question 8

Describe what NPD encompasses.

Answer 8

New products:

– New to the world (major innovations)
– New to the company
– Redesigned and improved

Question 9

Describe how Qual research helps Major innoavtions.

Answer 9

Qual research can help spot trends or find gaps that a new technology can fill (or do so better than an existing technology)

Question 10

Describe how Qual research helps New Product development for the company

Answer 10

: Qual research will help to understand consumer behaviour, consumers’ perceived value from competitors’ products and guide the development of the company’s product

Question 11

Describe how Qual research helps redesigning and improving with regards to NPD

Answer 11

Help understand the problems customers have with the company’s product and guide the direction to solve them.

Question 12

Describe the Creative Development area of qual research

Answer 12

Assisting in development of messages and execution of advertising and promotional activities

Question 13

Explain Tactical Qualitative studies

Answer 13

• Pack design alternatives
• Press advertising – alternative headlines
• Casting –
• Product formulation
• Positioning alternatives
• Package dispensing alternative
• Executional options – do consumers notice changes in pack design, logo, voice-over etc.

Question 14

What are the results when Qual research is best used?

Answer 14

• Increase in understanding & gives meaning
• Expands knowledge
• Clarifies the real issue
• Generates hypotheses for quantitative investigation
• Identifies a range of behaviours
• Explores/explains consumer motivations/attitudes/behaviour
• Identifies potential distinct behavioural groups

Question 15

What are some activities of focus groups

Answer 15

– Producing lists (Bernard, 1995)
– Ranking in order of most/least liked (Bernard, 1995)
– Choose among alternatives (Krueger & Casey, 2000)
– Brand association / word generation (Bulmer, 1998)
– Brand mapping / positioning (Wilson, 2012).

Question 16

How can moderators find success with Focus Groups

Answer 16

• Kindness with firmness
• Permissiveness
• Involvement
• Incomplete understanding
• Encouragement
• Flexibility
• Sensitivity

Question 17

Define an in-depth interview

Answer 17

• Interviews that are conducted face to face
• In which the subject matter of the interview is
  explored in detail using an interview guide

Question 18

In-Depth interviews are?

Answer 18

• Used to develop a deeper understanding of
  consumer attitudes and the reasons behind specific
  behaviours.
• Achieved through responding to an individual’s
  comments with extensive probing.
• Flexible but also evolutionary in nature.

Question 19

When should you use in-depth interviews?

Answer 19

• When the situation under discussion holds the
  potential to be embarrassing, to be stressful or
  confidential
• Where a detailed analysis of a complex situation
  needs to be undertaken
• Where peer pressure may cause some respondents
  to act atypically (lie to avoid disgrace)
• Where the interviewer needs to gain a progressive
  set of images of a decision process
• In novel, complex situations where the prime
  intention is to explore rather than measure

Question 20

What are the different types of in-depth
interviews & Choice

Answer 20

• Direct questioning:
• Indirect questioning:
• Structured Guide:
• Unstructured Guide:

Question 21

Advantages of In-depth Interviews?

Answer 21

• Great depth & richness of data
• Can ascribe directly responses
  to an individual
• Ability to develop close
  rapport/trust improving the
  validity and reliability of the
  data
• Lack of overt peer pressure to
  conform to social norms etc.
  Allows for the expression of
  non-conformity without
  sanctions

Question 22

Disadvantages of In-depth interviews?

Answer 22

• Costly in terms of time/money
  and in terms of analysis
• Needs skilled interviewers (hard
  to find)
• Can only work with a small
  sample; therefore ability to
  generalise limited
• Because of subjectivity, difficult
  to compare results of one
  interviewer with those of others
• Subjectivity: The interviewer IS
  the data generator; Data
  variation among interviewees
  may well be the outcome of
  using different interviewers in
  the same project

Question 23

Critiques of Qualitative Research?

Answer 23

• Sample size is too small - breadth versus depth
• Cannot generalise your findings
• Research may be subjective, influencing data
  collected and what emerges from the analysis.
• Data can be dependent on the skills of the
  interviewer
• Research does not produce true & measurable
  facts

Question 24

How to avoid criticism when using Qualitative Research?

Answer 24

• The data collection methods should be systematic, transparent
  and well justified.
• You may choose to go for a really large sample! (e.g. a tastetesting may involve hundreds of participants)
• Provide explicit accounts of steps taken to ensure accuracy
• Triangulation across sources or methods
• Make sure you are consistent in data collection across informants

Question 25

What are some characteristics of Case study research

Answer 25

• Small samples: single or
  multiple cases (‘instances’)
• Non-random sample
• Focus on the case
  (organisation, person, event,
  etc.) as the unit of analysis
• Codes or themes not variables
• Context – naturalistic inquiry
• Tends to confront theory

Question 26

How does (Piekkari, Plakoyiannaki and Welch, 2010, Yin,
1984) define Case Study research?

Answer 26

Case study research investigates a
phenomenon in its real-life context,
relating it to theory and seeking to
understand what the empirical
phenomenon is a case of in
theoretical terms

Question 27

What are the 2 stages of analysis on qualitative data

Answer 27

• Organisation of the data: Trying to make sense!
• Interpretation of the data

Question 28

Methods of qualitative data analysis

Answer 28

– Content analysis

– Tabular method of analysis

Question 29

Six steps of content analysis from Braun and Clarke are?

Answer 29

1. Data familiarisation;
2. Initial codes generalisation
3. Searching for themes;
4. Reviewing themes;
5. Defining and naming themes;
6. Produce the report to outline your findings

Question 30

Characteristics of step1: Data familiarisation?

Answer 30

– Take no action. Just read the transcript and
try to put them into perspective; reflect
critically!

Question 31

Characteristics of step 3: Searching for themes?

Answer 31

– You can do this either manually or with
appropriate software

• Use a highlighter to manually identify
  commonalities across the transcripts from different
  interviews to allow for themes to emerge

– Using computer software (e.g. ENVIVO):

Question 32

Characteristics of step 4: Reviewing themes

Answer 32

Ask yourself:
* Are all themes valid?
* Are all themes important?

– Use your expertise but ALSO the objective
viewpoint of one or two independent (from the
project) experienced analysts.

– Your objective is simple: Produce a valid and
reliable set of themes that explain the
phenomenon you are investigating

Question 33

Characteristics of step 5:

Answer 33

– The definition and the naming of the ”themes” will
guide the researcher in understanding and giving
meaning to the findings.

– This is, again, another reason why independent
analysts must see the data!

Question 34

A successful marketer is what?

Answer 34

Competent in both
qualitative and quantitative methods of data
generation and analysis.

Question 35

What is qualitative research?

Answer 35

“Research that is undertaken using an unstructured
research approach with a small number of carefully
selected individuals to produce non-quantifiable
insights into behaviour, motivations and attitudes”
Wilson (2012)

Question 36

The qualitative method investigates….?

Answer 36

the why and how of decision
making, not just what, where, when.